4 ms·

Without the board, employees would not be allowed to exercise their right to negotiate together without actually losing their job, which I'd say is fairly uncon

by judge2020 3y ago

Without the board, employees would not be allowed to exercise their right to negotiate together without actually losing their job, which I'd say is fairly unconstitutional.

godzillabrennus 3y ago
America already feels like a corporation not a country to a large part of the working class. Further undermining the safeguards for labor will have a huge impact on the labor movement. The pendulum will swing mighty hard the other direction in response. This is a dumb move by corporate America.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Will cause reasonable people do unreasonable things. Sometimes I wonder how lacking the aggregate critical thinking is of the folks at these orgs having these back room conversations, or that they’ve never opened a history textbook. I suppose the result of their positions, disconnection from median reality, and perception of risk. "I put a dog in a corner, why did it viciously attack me!?"
  - Draiken 3y ago
    It's very hard because I don't see how we would ever actually trigger any sort of revolution anymore. I personally live way too comfortably to justify to myself the possibility of being arrested, hurt or even killed for anything I believe in. I hate myself for that, but the logical part of my brain simply won't let me do it. Even when I was making much less, I still had this same mentality. For better or worse, the line that must be crossed for millions to actually get together and do something about it is much, much lower in this day and age. If there's one thing that is clear to me, is that when many of the rights we have today, that were fought and conquered with blood, people had much worse conditions of living. People were already in terrible situations, so taking personal risk in order to fight for something better was not so far fetched. Another aspect is that we now live much more individualized lives. We no longer have the communities we had before, nor the similar shared communities. Only individuals that actively seek like-minded people and causes to fight for, end up together. The vast majority lives in their own bubble. P.S: dang, if you read this, can you tell me if I can even comment on anything with any "ideological" overlap anymore. I don't wanna break any site rules but it's really hard for me to know where you draw the line for this stuff. I just enjoy discussing these matters and I'm not trying to create flame wars or anything like that.
- moshegramovsky 3y ago
  You're absolutely right. And yet some people are still surprised by the political climate in America that is being created as a result. I keep saying that someone (I don't care who) needs to do something about housing, healthcare, and wages before there's even bigger trouble. Dumb move by Amazon. First time after hearing criticism of them for over 20 years that I actually felt like I was wrong about them.
  - delfinom 3y ago
    Amazon has been on the late stage capitalism warpath for awhile now. They even have internal reports that they are going to exhaust the labor pool due to their hiring and firing practices at warehouses within a few years. The latest news from the Amazon delivery side? They are looking to reduce the minimum hiring age from 21 to 18. That just screams trying to scrape the barrel of the nearly exhausted labor pool and they don't give a single fuck why they are in the predictament they are facing.
- spaceribs 3y ago
  They're feeling the squeeze for sure, Millennials don't feel invested in the market (because we have no investments due to multiple fleecings across the last 15 years), and Gen Z is radicalized beyond belief against capitalism. The mood is that Boomers are only going to be "in charge" for so long, and when that tape runs out, things stop being so predictable. I bet they'll ratchet up as much of these alienating policies as possible just to ensure the overton window buffers out progressive action before they don't have the means to anymore. A cheap but effective tactic for them to take.
  - moate 3y ago
    The future sure does look more and more radical, going to be interesting to see what flavor wins out (reds or browns).
  - squigz 3y ago
    > Gen Z is radicalized beyond belief against capitalism. This is a strangely heated way of describing it.
    - spaceribs 3y ago
      It's a strangely heated topic for them, far more than the previous two generations. I'm generalizing of course, this is just based on my own personal experiences with Gen Z, there's a lot of variability within any generation. That said, the identified causes of suffering have shifted inexorably.
- jmward01 3y ago
  The problem with the idea that 'the pendulum will eventually swing back' is that it isn't true. History's graveyard has way more countries in it than are currently in existence. Every one of those dead countries/societies saw the pendulum 'swing back' every time except the last one.
- m_0x 3y ago
  > America already feels like a corporation not a country There is a concerning percentage of US citizens that actively wants this. "He will run America like one of his business"
happiness_idx 3y ago
"rights" are purely metaphysical super natural constructs they're only enforced via might. Enjoy your corporate overlord fiefdoms
- wredue 3y ago
  Funny how few people understand that “rights” are not fundamental. What good is a “right” that nobody observes you actually have? Rights are granted by the legal observation of said right. If your right boils down to words without observability, it’s not a right.
  - vundercind 3y ago
    They’re a convenient term for “freedom we care about a lot”. They’re good as a propaganda (neutral sense) tool. Folks getting hung up on “well that’s a right and this other thing can’t be because technically…” are definitely missing the last 200ish years of thought in that area, though. As are the ones who think rights are actually better-protected than other freedoms (aside from the PR boost of the name! And maybe “popular” rights are better-enshrined in law, but that’s not inherent in their being a right—we could so-protect anything) There’s no set list that’s definitely correct and they also don’t “exist” in any meaningful sense if they can’t be exercised (any more than Tinkerbell exists). It’s just a nice label. Which isn’t nothing! But they’re not “real” in the sense some people suppose they are, even philosophically. I think a lot of this confusion stems from focus in US schools on the political philosophy state-of-the-art c. 1776 as an underpinning of a kind of US Civil Religion. Most of that stuff’s kinda crap. Go read the famously influential Second Treatise, it’s actually a pretty easy read and not that long. It’s plainly (to a modern reader) not strong.
    - wakawaka28 3y ago
      This all seems like an awfully pretentious way to say "I disagree with the founding fathers of the US. They lived a long time ago so they are obviously wrong, ammirite?" No, you're not right. Human nature hasn't changed in thousands of years, much less hundreds. While we might have better technology than they did, we're still just a bunch of monkeys trying to get along.
Strang 3y ago
The right to assembly is a restriction on the government, not private enterprise.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- gh02t 3y ago
  The Supreme Court has already upheld that the right for employees to organize is a fundamental one and that Congress can enforce it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLRB_v._Jones_%26_Laughlin_Steel_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLRB_v._Jones_%26_Laughlin_Ste.... > ...the statute goes no further than to safeguard the right of employees to self-organization and to select representatives of their own choosing for collective bargaining or other mutual protection without restraint or coercion by their employer. > That is a fundamental right. Employees have as clear a right to organize and select their representatives for lawful purposes as the respondent has to organize its business and select its own officers and agents. Discrimination and coercion to prevent the free exercise of the right of employees to self-organization and representation is a proper subject for condemnation by competent legislative authority. It's the mechanism of enforcement that seems to be in question here, but IANAL.
akerl_ 3y ago
I don’t really have a strong opinion one way or the other about the labor board, but presumably that can’t be the justification for why we need a labor board. Most things that are criminally or civilly punishable don’t have specific government entity that enforces them. There’s no free speech board.
- moate 3y ago
  It was a compromise to help move away from the old way of dealing with labor disputes, which involved murders on both sides. The local cops were almost always in the pockets of the wealthy (which has of course changed in the intervening century of course) so congress helped set an independent federal agency to regulate disputes. Go read about the events surrounding the Wagner act’s passage, it should help you pick a side.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
bluGill 3y ago
I don't see anything in the constitution about that. If nothing else, the NLRB forces people who otherwise like their job to join a union they may not like, which seems equally unconstitutional.
- Osmose 3y ago
  The point of a union is that if you don't like it you can advocate to it for changes with less of a power imbalance than if it was the company that you didn't like. The union can't fire you like the company can. To paraphrase a common argument about why we don't need unions, if you don't like the union, why not just find another job?
  - ARandomerDude 3y ago
    > I don't see anything in the constitution about that. > The point of a union is… Those comments are unrelated. You can like an idea but that doesn’t mean it’s constitutional, which is why amendments exist. Conversely, you can very much dislike an idea that may be in the Constitution. “Good idea” and “legal” are distinct categories.
    - Osmose 3y ago
      Rightness and legality are intertwined in a world where laws are slower than public opinion and people can voluntarily choose to do more than only what the law allows for. But a more direct criticism of the legal aspect would be: getting a job is voluntary from a legal perspective, how does that make joining the associated union a compelled action? The union is part of the job. Besides, union security agreements already _are_ heavily regulated in the US.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    > less of a power imbalance than if it was the company that you didn't like. Not really. Sure you in theory vote for union leaders, but in practice it ends up being just as bad as any other politics and so you don't really have any more ability to change things. > The union can't fire you like the company can. What is the difference between being fired and being told we don't have any work for you? Labors often do lose their job - they may still be in the union and thus early in line if there is another job, but they don't have control of when jobs come up.
roamerz 3y ago
>which I'd say is fairly unconstitutional. Genuinely curious, what part of the Constitution protects their right to negotiate?
- bluish29 3y ago
  The NLRA was passed in 1935 which is the law that have the following: > Section 7: Employees have the right to self-organize, form, join, or assist labor unions, bargain collectively with employers through representatives of their own choosing, and engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining. > Section 8(a)(1): Employers cannot interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of their rights under Section 7. Shortly after that, it was challenged [1]. In short, The Supreme Court upheld the act in a 5-4 decision, acknowledging Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce, even indirectly through labor regulations. This was not the only case. The supreme court weighted on many aspects of the act [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLRB_v._Jones_%26_Laughlin_Steel_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLRB_v._Jones_%26_Laughlin_Ste... [2] https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/unions-have-right-of-access-for-nlra-employees-after-scotus-ruling-18 https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/unions-have...
  - roamerz 3y ago
    Thank you. The first link did not work. I think the correct one is: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLRB_v._Jones_%26_Laughlin_Steel_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLRB_v._Jones_%26_Laughlin_Ste....
    - bluish29 3y ago
      Thanks, fixed.
- kemayo 3y ago
  The National Labor Relations Act creates a right to collective bargaining for private sector employees. It's not a fundamental constitutional right, but it is a right. I've seen arguments about it being impossible for the state to restrict union activities under the 1st amendment because of freedom of association, and trying to shoehorn it into the 14th under a due process theory (can't deprive liberty without process). These are both restrictions on state activity, i.e. saying that the state can't outlaw unions, rather than saying that a private sector company couldn't just immediately fire anyone who joins a union.
ryan93 3y ago
You are saying that people are entitled to block others from taking a job they wont do?

Without the board, employees would not be allowed to exercise their right to negotiate together without actually losing their job, which I'd say is fairly unconstitutional.

godzillabrennus 3y ago

America already feels like a corporation not a country to a large part of the working class. Further undermining the safeguards for labor will have a huge impact on the labor movement. The pendulum will swing mighty hard the other direction in response. This is a dumb move by corporate America.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
Will cause reasonable people do unreasonable things. Sometimes I wonder how lacking the aggregate critical thinking is of the folks at these orgs having these back room conversations, or that they’ve never opened a history textbook. I suppose the result of their positions, disconnection from median reality, and perception of risk. "I put a dog in a corner, why did it viciously attack me!?"
- Draiken 3y ago
  It's very hard because I don't see how we would ever actually trigger any sort of revolution anymore. I personally live way too comfortably to justify to myself the possibility of being arrested, hurt or even killed for anything I believe in. I hate myself for that, but the logical part of my brain simply won't let me do it. Even when I was making much less, I still had this same mentality. For better or worse, the line that must be crossed for millions to actually get together and do something about it is much, much lower in this day and age. If there's one thing that is clear to me, is that when many of the rights we have today, that were fought and conquered with blood, people had much worse conditions of living. People were already in terrible situations, so taking personal risk in order to fight for something better was not so far fetched. Another aspect is that we now live much more individualized lives. We no longer have the communities we had before, nor the similar shared communities. Only individuals that actively seek like-minded people and causes to fight for, end up together. The vast majority lives in their own bubble. P.S: dang, if you read this, can you tell me if I can even comment on anything with any "ideological" overlap anymore. I don't wanna break any site rules but it's really hard for me to know where you draw the line for this stuff. I just enjoy discussing these matters and I'm not trying to create flame wars or anything like that.
moshegramovsky 3y ago
You're absolutely right. And yet some people are still surprised by the political climate in America that is being created as a result. I keep saying that someone (I don't care who) needs to do something about housing, healthcare, and wages before there's even bigger trouble. Dumb move by Amazon. First time after hearing criticism of them for over 20 years that I actually felt like I was wrong about them.
- delfinom 3y ago
  Amazon has been on the late stage capitalism warpath for awhile now. They even have internal reports that they are going to exhaust the labor pool due to their hiring and firing practices at warehouses within a few years. The latest news from the Amazon delivery side? They are looking to reduce the minimum hiring age from 21 to 18. That just screams trying to scrape the barrel of the nearly exhausted labor pool and they don't give a single fuck why they are in the predictament they are facing.
spaceribs 3y ago
They're feeling the squeeze for sure, Millennials don't feel invested in the market (because we have no investments due to multiple fleecings across the last 15 years), and Gen Z is radicalized beyond belief against capitalism. The mood is that Boomers are only going to be "in charge" for so long, and when that tape runs out, things stop being so predictable. I bet they'll ratchet up as much of these alienating policies as possible just to ensure the overton window buffers out progressive action before they don't have the means to anymore. A cheap but effective tactic for them to take.
- moate 3y ago
  The future sure does look more and more radical, going to be interesting to see what flavor wins out (reds or browns).
- squigz 3y ago
  > Gen Z is radicalized beyond belief against capitalism. This is a strangely heated way of describing it.
  - spaceribs 3y ago
    It's a strangely heated topic for them, far more than the previous two generations. I'm generalizing of course, this is just based on my own personal experiences with Gen Z, there's a lot of variability within any generation. That said, the identified causes of suffering have shifted inexorably.
jmward01 3y ago
The problem with the idea that 'the pendulum will eventually swing back' is that it isn't true. History's graveyard has way more countries in it than are currently in existence. Every one of those dead countries/societies saw the pendulum 'swing back' every time except the last one.
m_0x 3y ago
> America already feels like a corporation not a country There is a concerning percentage of US citizens that actively wants this. "He will run America like one of his business"

happiness_idx 3y ago

"rights" are purely metaphysical super natural constructs they're only enforced via might. Enjoy your corporate overlord fiefdoms

wredue 3y ago
Funny how few people understand that “rights” are not fundamental. What good is a “right” that nobody observes you actually have? Rights are granted by the legal observation of said right. If your right boils down to words without observability, it’s not a right.
- vundercind 3y ago
  They’re a convenient term for “freedom we care about a lot”. They’re good as a propaganda (neutral sense) tool. Folks getting hung up on “well that’s a right and this other thing can’t be because technically…” are definitely missing the last 200ish years of thought in that area, though. As are the ones who think rights are actually better-protected than other freedoms (aside from the PR boost of the name! And maybe “popular” rights are better-enshrined in law, but that’s not inherent in their being a right—we could so-protect anything) There’s no set list that’s definitely correct and they also don’t “exist” in any meaningful sense if they can’t be exercised (any more than Tinkerbell exists). It’s just a nice label. Which isn’t nothing! But they’re not “real” in the sense some people suppose they are, even philosophically. I think a lot of this confusion stems from focus in US schools on the political philosophy state-of-the-art c. 1776 as an underpinning of a kind of US Civil Religion. Most of that stuff’s kinda crap. Go read the famously influential Second Treatise, it’s actually a pretty easy read and not that long. It’s plainly (to a modern reader) not strong.
  - wakawaka28 3y ago
    This all seems like an awfully pretentious way to say "I disagree with the founding fathers of the US. They lived a long time ago so they are obviously wrong, ammirite?" No, you're not right. Human nature hasn't changed in thousands of years, much less hundreds. While we might have better technology than they did, we're still just a bunch of monkeys trying to get along.

Strang 3y ago

The right to assembly is a restriction on the government, not private enterprise.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
gh02t 3y ago
The Supreme Court has already upheld that the right for employees to organize is a fundamental one and that Congress can enforce it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLRB_v._Jones_%26_Laughlin_Steel_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLRB_v._Jones_%26_Laughlin_Ste.... > ...the statute goes no further than to safeguard the right of employees to self-organization and to select representatives of their own choosing for collective bargaining or other mutual protection without restraint or coercion by their employer. > That is a fundamental right. Employees have as clear a right to organize and select their representatives for lawful purposes as the respondent has to organize its business and select its own officers and agents. Discrimination and coercion to prevent the free exercise of the right of employees to self-organization and representation is a proper subject for condemnation by competent legislative authority. It's the mechanism of enforcement that seems to be in question here, but IANAL.

akerl_ 3y ago

I don’t really have a strong opinion one way or the other about the labor board, but presumably that can’t be the justification for why we need a labor board. Most things that are criminally or civilly punishable don’t have specific government entity that enforces them. There’s no free speech board.

moate 3y ago
It was a compromise to help move away from the old way of dealing with labor disputes, which involved murders on both sides. The local cops were almost always in the pockets of the wealthy (which has of course changed in the intervening century of course) so congress helped set an independent federal agency to regulate disputes. Go read about the events surrounding the Wagner act’s passage, it should help you pick a side.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

bluGill 3y ago

I don't see anything in the constitution about that. If nothing else, the NLRB forces people who otherwise like their job to join a union they may not like, which seems equally unconstitutional.

Osmose 3y ago
The point of a union is that if you don't like it you can advocate to it for changes with less of a power imbalance than if it was the company that you didn't like. The union can't fire you like the company can. To paraphrase a common argument about why we don't need unions, if you don't like the union, why not just find another job?
- ARandomerDude 3y ago
  > I don't see anything in the constitution about that. > The point of a union is… Those comments are unrelated. You can like an idea but that doesn’t mean it’s constitutional, which is why amendments exist. Conversely, you can very much dislike an idea that may be in the Constitution. “Good idea” and “legal” are distinct categories.
  - Osmose 3y ago
    Rightness and legality are intertwined in a world where laws are slower than public opinion and people can voluntarily choose to do more than only what the law allows for. But a more direct criticism of the legal aspect would be: getting a job is voluntary from a legal perspective, how does that make joining the associated union a compelled action? The union is part of the job. Besides, union security agreements already _are_ heavily regulated in the US.
- bluGill 3y ago
  > less of a power imbalance than if it was the company that you didn't like. Not really. Sure you in theory vote for union leaders, but in practice it ends up being just as bad as any other politics and so you don't really have any more ability to change things. > The union can't fire you like the company can. What is the difference between being fired and being told we don't have any work for you? Labors often do lose their job - they may still be in the union and thus early in line if there is another job, but they don't have control of when jobs come up.

roamerz 3y ago

>which I'd say is fairly unconstitutional. Genuinely curious, what part of the Constitution protects their right to negotiate?

bluish29 3y ago
The NLRA was passed in 1935 which is the law that have the following: > Section 7: Employees have the right to self-organize, form, join, or assist labor unions, bargain collectively with employers through representatives of their own choosing, and engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining. > Section 8(a)(1): Employers cannot interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of their rights under Section 7. Shortly after that, it was challenged [1]. In short, The Supreme Court upheld the act in a 5-4 decision, acknowledging Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce, even indirectly through labor regulations. This was not the only case. The supreme court weighted on many aspects of the act [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLRB_v._Jones_%26_Laughlin_Steel_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLRB_v._Jones_%26_Laughlin_Ste... [2] https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/unions-have-right-of-access-for-nlra-employees-after-scotus-ruling-18 https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/unions-have...
- roamerz 3y ago
  Thank you. The first link did not work. I think the correct one is: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLRB_v._Jones_%26_Laughlin_Steel_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLRB_v._Jones_%26_Laughlin_Ste....
  - bluish29 3y ago
    Thanks, fixed.
kemayo 3y ago
The National Labor Relations Act creates a right to collective bargaining for private sector employees. It's not a fundamental constitutional right, but it is a right. I've seen arguments about it being impossible for the state to restrict union activities under the 1st amendment because of freedom of association, and trying to shoehorn it into the 14th under a due process theory (can't deprive liberty without process). These are both restrictions on state activity, i.e. saying that the state can't outlaw unions, rather than saying that a private sector company couldn't just immediately fire anyone who joins a union.

ryan93 3y ago

You are saying that people are entitled to block others from taking a job they wont do?