You could hypothetically say that socialism is a form of capitalism but with the workers collectively acting as the owners but the standard usage is asymmetrical power so it's not helpful to mix the terms.
You could say that, hypothetically, but it would make no sense, at that point.
Right. There are much more useful ways to build a Venn diagram of "capital is not owned by the government" that would encapsulate both Socialism and Capitalism and I guess also stateless systems.
we do have a term for systems where the state owns the capital: State Capitalist
State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial (i.e. for-profit) economic activity and where the means of production are organized and managed as state-owned enterprises (including the processes of capital accumulation, centralized management and wage labor), or where there is otherwise a dominance of corporatized government agencies (agencies organized along business-management practices) or of public companies such as publicly listed corporations in which the state has controlling shares.[1] Marxist literature defines state capitalism as a social system combining capitalism with ownership or control by a state. By this definition, a state capitalist country is one where the government controls the economy and essentially acts like a single huge corporation, extracting surplus value from the workforce in order to invest it in further production.[2] This designation applies regardless of the political aims of the state, even if the state is nominally socialist.[3] Many scholars agree that the economy of the Soviet Union and of the Eastern Bloc countries modeled after it, including Maoist China, were state capitalist systems, and that the current economy of China also constitutes a form of state capitalism.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]
State capitalism is used by various authors in reference to a private capitalist economy controlled by a state, i.e. a private economy that is subject to economic planning and interventionism. It has also been used to describe the controlled economies of the Great Powers during World War I.[10] Alternatively, state capitalism may refer to an economic system where the means of production are privately owned, but the state has considerable control over the allocation of credit and investment.[11] This was the case of Western European countries during the post-war consensus and of France during the period of dirigisme after World War II.[12] Other examples include Hungary under Viktor Orbán, Russia under Vladimir Putin, Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew[13][14][15][16] and Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as well as military dictatorships during the Cold War and fascist regimes such as Nazi Germany.[17][18][19][20]
The current game of No True Socialist is not really on topic here.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
The current game of No True Socialist is not really on topic here.
It's not a 'game.' If the topic is going to proceed forward, people need to stop trying to muddy the academically understood definition of socialism and the movements thereof. It ironically is not something up for debate (what words / phrases mean), but a contingent of posters on this forum are trying to do it anyway (I'd guess why but we've all gotten in trouble for that sort of thing in other threads before). So you're half-right that it isn't on topic, but it's kind of nonsense that you're taking a side by framing it with the rhetoric used by those people.
This isn't an impartial-to-debate mod stance, this is you flexing your mod status to make one side of the "debate" the "correct" one. I call bullshit.
CEOs can't be socialists unless they come from the Social region of France were duly elected by a democratic workers' council and have a limited amount of power and a corporation-wide agreement on salary.
Workers at 26 skilled nursing facilities around the state had threatened to strike Friday morning over pay and other issues, but now the agreement brokered by Lamont will bring substantial raises, boosting the hourly wages of most nursing home workers to a minimum of $20 and also adding money for insurance, pensions and wellness programs.
Turns out that strike threat worked, labor got the goods. There’s another strike notice for June 7th but it looks like the SEIU1199 NE strike that caused so much consternation is off.
So this is a bit tangential, but all this socialism talk reminded me of something I've always wondered with the big publicly traded companies, why dont the industry specific unions just make a concerted effort to buy majority stakes in them over time.
Like the UAW has half a million or so working members and about the same retired.
Fords entire market cap is about 40b(and is kinda at a bit of a high right now, it was half that a couple years back) GM is about twice that, ditto, FCA is only 16b.
Like it's obviously not a 1 year or even 10 year plan kind of thing, but UAW has been around for almost a century. And their pension fund is still huge if not what it once was. Just a few shares per member each year, add in dividend reinvestment, etc and these companies could be mostly be union owned at this point.
So this is a bit tangential, but all this socialism talk reminded me of something I've always wondered with the big publicly traded companies, why dont the industry specific unions just make a concerted effort to buy majority stakes in them over time.
Like the UAW has half a million or so working members and about the same retired.
Fords entire market cap is about 40b(and is kinda at a bit of a high right now, it was half that a couple years back) GM is about twice that, ditto, FCA is only 16b.
Like it's obviously not a 1 year or even 10 year plan kind of thing, but UAW has been around for almost a century. And their pension fund is still huge if not what it once was. Just a few shares per member each year, add in dividend reinvestment, etc and these companies could be mostly be union owned at this point.
I would guess because a mix of:
- Running unions is expensive work so either you’re cutting into funds to run the union or forcing your members to have to increase their dues
- The moment capital realizes what’s happening things like stock by backs and hte like will get even worse to prevent labor from ever approaching, let alone achieving, a majority stake in the company. In short, you cannot short circuit capitalism in such a manner because Capital, while short sighted and often stupid, understands how to preserve itself against labor.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
So this is a bit tangential, but all this socialism talk reminded me of something I've always wondered with the big publicly traded companies, why dont the industry specific unions just make a concerted effort to buy majority stakes in them over time.
Like the UAW has half a million or so working members and about the same retired.
Fords entire market cap is about 40b(and is kinda at a bit of a high right now, it was half that a couple years back) GM is about twice that, ditto, FCA is only 16b.
Like it's obviously not a 1 year or even 10 year plan kind of thing, but UAW has been around for almost a century. And their pension fund is still huge if not what it once was. Just a few shares per member each year, add in dividend reinvestment, etc and these companies could be mostly be union owned at this point.
The moment capitalists realize what's happening, they will sooner legislate ways to stop it from happening than they will legislate the goals of socialism.
More to the point, this stuff needs to be made law because the method you proposed doesn't actually defeat capitalism / anti-union sentiment.
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
So this is a bit tangential, but all this socialism talk reminded me of something I've always wondered with the big publicly traded companies, why dont the industry specific unions just make a concerted effort to buy majority stakes in them over time.
Like the UAW has half a million or so working members and about the same retired.
Fords entire market cap is about 40b(and is kinda at a bit of a high right now, it was half that a couple years back) GM is about twice that, ditto, FCA is only 16b.
Like it's obviously not a 1 year or even 10 year plan kind of thing, but UAW has been around for almost a century. And their pension fund is still huge if not what it once was. Just a few shares per member each year, add in dividend reinvestment, etc and these companies could be mostly be union owned at this point.
I would guess because a mix of:
- Running unions is expensive work so either you’re cutting into funds to run the union or forcing your members to have to increase their dues
- The moment capital realizes what’s happening things like stock by backs and hte like will get even worse to prevent labor from ever approaching, let alone achieving, a majority stake in the company. In short, you cannot short circuit capitalism in such a manner because Capital, while short sighted and often stupid, understands how to preserve itself against labor.
It would need to be a fast buyout to be successful. My step dad actually works for a company where the workers actually did that the 100 or so employees bought out the company while they were assessing value to go public. Like during the 70s I think.
Now a days it would be tough. Honestly unions need to take a page out of the GOP handbook and work at the city and state level with their money. There is no good reason why California isn’t 60% unionized. Same with Hawaii. There are limited resources and one of the things the left does is go for spending and lobbying at the Federal level at the expense of the local level, but that’s where real change can happen and grow. Democrats have gotten wise and shifted priorities, but other orgs are used to the old way of doing business. Federal spending isn’t getting you anywhere, start with the states and cities.
zepherin on
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
So this is a bit tangential, but all this socialism talk reminded me of something I've always wondered with the big publicly traded companies, why dont the industry specific unions just make a concerted effort to buy majority stakes in them over time.
Like the UAW has half a million or so working members and about the same retired.
Fords entire market cap is about 40b(and is kinda at a bit of a high right now, it was half that a couple years back) GM is about twice that, ditto, FCA is only 16b.
Like it's obviously not a 1 year or even 10 year plan kind of thing, but UAW has been around for almost a century. And their pension fund is still huge if not what it once was. Just a few shares per member each year, add in dividend reinvestment, etc and these companies could be mostly be union owned at this point.
Someone with greater knowledge of federal law and regulations can feel free to correct me on this (with appropriate citations, of course), but I don't believe unions can actually own stock. Being as they're all governed by most of the same rules which oversee non-profits, and shares of for-profit companies being profitable assets, they're prohibited from owning them in such a way that they could exert direct influence over the companies in question. The most direct route they could take in the US would be to direct their retirement funds to buy stocks in said companies, but even that is fraught and riddled with potential conflicts of interest that may not pass federal scrutiny.
Individual workers can absolutely buy voting shares of company stock if they want to, but I'm guessing most of them would rather stash their extra money in the bank and use it for something more practical like a down payment on a house.
EDIT: When I underwent officer training for my union, I was shocked by the amount of things we actually weren't allowed to own or do. We weren't even allowed to process credit card payments for things like quarterly membership stamps and dues up until very recently iirc. Strictly forbidden by the feds.
So this is a bit tangential, but all this socialism talk reminded me of something I've always wondered with the big publicly traded companies, why dont the industry specific unions just make a concerted effort to buy majority stakes in them over time.
Like the UAW has half a million or so working members and about the same retired.
Fords entire market cap is about 40b(and is kinda at a bit of a high right now, it was half that a couple years back) GM is about twice that, ditto, FCA is only 16b.
Like it's obviously not a 1 year or even 10 year plan kind of thing, but UAW has been around for almost a century. And their pension fund is still huge if not what it once was. Just a few shares per member each year, add in dividend reinvestment, etc and these companies could be mostly be union owned at this point.
Someone with greater knowledge of federal law and regulations can feel free to correct me on this (with appropriate citations, of course), but I don't believe unions can actually own stock. Being as they're all governed by most of the same rules which oversee non-profits, and shares of for-profit companies being profitable assets, they're prohibited from owning them in such a way that they could exert direct influence over the companies in question. The most direct route they could take in the US would be to direct their retirement funds to buy stocks in said companies, but even that is fraught and riddled with potential conflicts of interest that may not pass federal scrutiny.
Individual workers can absolutely buy voting shares of company stock if they want to, but I'm guessing most of them would rather stash their extra money in the bank and use it for something more practical like a down payment on a house.
EDIT: When I underwent officer training for my union, I was shocked by the amount of things we actually weren't allowed to own or do. We weren't even allowed to process credit card payments for things like quarterly membership stamps and dues up until very recently iirc. Strictly forbidden by the feds.
None of this really surprises me with how deliberately crippled unions are in this country.
Ayup. Taft-Hartley was a bullet to the gut for us. Been bleeding ever since.
To be fair, unions often ignore the Taft-Hartley restrictions. When I worked elevators. I saw the union organize a wildcat strike against a jobsite. It was ended an hour in because the company capitulated immediately.
zepherin on
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
edited May 2021
Good! Taft-Hartley is, at its core, a wretched piece of legislation meant to hobble organized labor. That it's never been repealed by so-called "progressive" administrations and Congresses tells you everything you need to know about the priorities of the aristocratic elite that runs this country.
And speaking of strikes: Hamilton Nolan of Gawker/Splinter fame wrote a very good piece on No Strike clauses in union contracts. He, like a growing chorus of voices in the organized labor movement, is calling for an end to No Strike clauses as a de facto expectation during bargaining. Emphasis mine:
The practical effect of no-strike clauses is to produce obedient unions whose real power is confined to brief periods during contract bargaining, and no other time. I have had personal experience on both sides of this. I once worked at a company under a union contract that did not have a no-strike clause. When problems arose — and they did — we forced the company to sit down and meaningfully bargain with us to work things out. They knew that if they didn’t, we would walk out. The union was strong, and won meaningful gains we wouldn’t have otherwise had. Then we signed a second contract that included a no-strike clause. After that, the new owners proceeded to treat the union with disdain and commit various outrages with impunity, secure in the knowledge that we would keep working no matter what. By giving up our right to strike, we had sentenced ourselves to forced humiliation that could not be balanced out by any number of social media campaigns or outraged statements by the union.
These clauses are pervasive; my own union has a great many contracts which contain them. This is deeply unfortunate, and it is something I've been working with our new Business Representative towards eliminating in future rounds of post-pandemic bargaining. It is my firm belief that if employers want to continue to make use of the skilled labor of myself and my comrades, they must earn it with competitive wages and benefits. Our good conduct should be earned, not expected. Fortunately for the royal we, this sentiment is growing among workers in my age cohort. It's even starting to become palatable with elder members of our local, of whom there is a voting majority. Time will tell if we can get No Strike clauses successfully eliminated from even one contract, but the threat of removing them should be enough to scare some of our more difficult employers into greater concessions during successive rounds of bargaining.
Hacksaw on
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
Good! Taft-Hartley is, at its core, a wretched piece of legislation meant to hobble organized labor. That it's never been repealed by so-called "progressive" administrations and Congresses tells you everything you need to know about the priorities of the aristocratic elite that runs this country.
And speaking of strikes: Hamilton Nolan of Gawker/Splinter fame wrote a very good piece on No Strike clauses in union contracts. He, like a growing chorus of voices in the organized labor movement, is calling for an end to No Strike clauses as a de facto expectation during bargaining. Emphasis mine:
The practical effect of no-strike clauses is to produce obedient unions whose real power is confined to brief periods during contract bargaining, and no other time. I have had personal experience on both sides of this. I once worked at a company under a union contract that did not have a no-strike clause. When problems arose — and they did — we forced the company to sit down and meaningfully bargain with us to work things out. They knew that if they didn’t, we would walk out. The union was strong, and won meaningful gains we wouldn’t have otherwise had. Then we signed a second contract that included a no-strike clause. After that, the new owners proceeded to treat the union with disdain and commit various outrages with impunity, secure in the knowledge that we would keep working no matter what. By giving up our right to strike, we had sentenced ourselves to forced humiliation that could not be balanced out by any number of social media campaigns or outraged statements by the union.
These clauses are pervasive; my own union has a great many contracts which contain them. This is deeply unfortunate, and it is something I've been working with our new Business Representative towards eliminating in future rounds of post-pandemic bargaining. It is my firm belief that if employers want to continue to make use of the skilled labor of myself and my comrades, they must earn it with competitive wages and benefits. Our good conduct should be earned, not expected. Fortunately for the royal we, this sentiment is growing among workers in my age cohort. It's even starting to become palatable with elder members of our local, of whom there is a voting majority. Time will tell if we can get No Strike clauses successfully eliminated from even one contract, but the threat of removing them should be enough to scare some of our more difficult employers into greater concessions during successive rounds of bargaining.
It’s weird. On federal jobs. They are all no strike jobs, but there are a lot of protections for workers. More so than normal. And there’s a whole group completely outside the companies control who can hit them with a stick to comply. But outside of that, giving away the ability to strike is giving away the biggest stick.
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
There are more than a few employers within the jurisdiction of my local chapter who are so toxically obstinate and shitty to their workers such that I feel striking is going to be the only remedy for correcting their incredibly heinous behavior. Coming out of this pandemic I hope that sentiment is shared by a larger number of people than it was going in.
I could see having a formal complaint and remedy process in place before a strike could occur. Like a formalized mid contract negotiation about a particular issue. But no striking at all is insane. Every employer is going to rules lawyer push as much as possible to be as shitty as possible and stay technically in the contract.
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
I've never seen a union contract without a complaint and grievance system baked into the language. Much like No Strike clauses, they're considered a bog-standard provision (in my industry, at least).
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
I've never seen a union contract without a complaint and grievance system baked into the language. Much like No Strike clauses, they're considered a bog-standard provision (in my industry, at least).
The grievance system only works if upper and middle management aren’t so adversarial that they are constantly rules lawyering and challenging it. And some places do that. It’s an assault all the time every day, because they are trying to “break” the union.
The favorite tactic by management in healthcare is ignore the grievance until it escalates and then drag the process out as long as possible. Because patient care requires that we do what is necessary for the care of the patient, we go against our own contracts because the law says we can't refuse to care for someone.
13 months later, grievance becomes arbitration maybe and the hospital says, 'oops!' and promises to never do it again.
They're never punished and we suffer in perpetuity.
People testifying that Amazon had keys for the ballot boxes at last month's union vote
There is 0 reason for this unless you intended to stuff the ballot. It just looks so bad they wouldnt do it otherwise.
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
People testifying that Amazon had keys for the ballot boxes at last month's union vote
The box that wasn't supposed to exist, either - weren't they already breaking the law even installing it?
That one is more grey legally last I heard. They pressured the authorities to add boxes. Skeezy and crooked of course, but probably not grounds to throw out the results.
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
Amazon is an evil company that should be forcibly dissolved. In a vat of acid. IMHO it's far past time that trust was busted.
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MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
So this is a bit tangential, but all this socialism talk reminded me of something I've always wondered with the big publicly traded companies, why dont the industry specific unions just make a concerted effort to buy majority stakes in them over time.
Like the UAW has half a million or so working members and about the same retired.
Fords entire market cap is about 40b(and is kinda at a bit of a high right now, it was half that a couple years back) GM is about twice that, ditto, FCA is only 16b.
Like it's obviously not a 1 year or even 10 year plan kind of thing, but UAW has been around for almost a century. And their pension fund is still huge if not what it once was. Just a few shares per member each year, add in dividend reinvestment, etc and these companies could be mostly be union owned at this point.
I would guess because a mix of:
- Running unions is expensive work so either you’re cutting into funds to run the union or forcing your members to have to increase their dues
- The moment capital realizes what’s happening things like stock by backs and hte like will get even worse to prevent labor from ever approaching, let alone achieving, a majority stake in the company. In short, you cannot short circuit capitalism in such a manner because Capital, while short sighted and often stupid, understands how to preserve itself against labor.
It would need to be a fast buyout to be successful. My step dad actually works for a company where the workers actually did that the 100 or so employees bought out the company while they were assessing value to go public. Like during the 70s I think.
Now a days it would be tough. Honestly unions need to take a page out of the GOP handbook and work at the city and state level with their money. There is no good reason why California isn’t 60% unionized. Same with Hawaii. There are limited resources and one of the things the left does is go for spending and lobbying at the Federal level at the expense of the local level, but that’s where real change can happen and grow. Democrats have gotten wise and shifted priorities, but other orgs are used to the old way of doing business. Federal spending isn’t getting you anywhere, start with the states and cities.
State legislatures are even more hilariously gerrymandered than Congress. You're throwing good money after bad there.
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
So this is a bit tangential, but all this socialism talk reminded me of something I've always wondered with the big publicly traded companies, why dont the industry specific unions just make a concerted effort to buy majority stakes in them over time.
Like the UAW has half a million or so working members and about the same retired.
Fords entire market cap is about 40b(and is kinda at a bit of a high right now, it was half that a couple years back) GM is about twice that, ditto, FCA is only 16b.
Like it's obviously not a 1 year or even 10 year plan kind of thing, but UAW has been around for almost a century. And their pension fund is still huge if not what it once was. Just a few shares per member each year, add in dividend reinvestment, etc and these companies could be mostly be union owned at this point.
I would guess because a mix of:
- Running unions is expensive work so either you’re cutting into funds to run the union or forcing your members to have to increase their dues
- The moment capital realizes what’s happening things like stock by backs and hte like will get even worse to prevent labor from ever approaching, let alone achieving, a majority stake in the company. In short, you cannot short circuit capitalism in such a manner because Capital, while short sighted and often stupid, understands how to preserve itself against labor.
It would need to be a fast buyout to be successful. My step dad actually works for a company where the workers actually did that the 100 or so employees bought out the company while they were assessing value to go public. Like during the 70s I think.
Now a days it would be tough. Honestly unions need to take a page out of the GOP handbook and work at the city and state level with their money. There is no good reason why California isn’t 60% unionized. Same with Hawaii. There are limited resources and one of the things the left does is go for spending and lobbying at the Federal level at the expense of the local level, but that’s where real change can happen and grow. Democrats have gotten wise and shifted priorities, but other orgs are used to the old way of doing business. Federal spending isn’t getting you anywhere, start with the states and cities.
State legislatures are even more hilariously gerrymandered than Congress. You're throwing good money after bad there.
This isn’t about getting people elected. This is about getting laws passed to help unions get more members.
Anyone knowledgeable about insurance in the USA know how easy/expensive it is to get force majeure for a business?
IANAL but a perfunctory Googling suggests that how easy it's going to be is going to depend on the laws of the state that the contract is under the jurisdiction of, and I'm going to guess that how expensive it would be will depend on how clear-cut the laws of the state are and how determined the other party to the contract are to fight it.
Anyone knowledgeable about insurance in the USA know how easy/expensive it is to get force majeure for a business?
It’s easy to get most of the major insurance companies have it, but for a company that I worked for that did “tip of the spear” contracting work, it was quite expensive. But we built it into the contract that the government paid.
Anyone knowledgeable about insurance in the USA know how easy/expensive it is to get force majeure for a business?
Why would you want that? It seems far easier for an insurance company to exert it on you than you on them. And insurance contracts typically have effective no-fault non payment. Like... if you fail to pay your insurance fee they will happily cancel the insurance.
What are you talking about? Insurance against various types of force majeure is standard in many places around the world. I was curious on what the state of play was in the USA; I assumed there’d be at least a few people on the board working in US insurance or finance. It’s gotta be a front and centre issue for many businesses now, thanks to Covid-19
HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
In local news, Teamsters have authorized a strike of sanitation workers over pay disparities between driver classifications. Looks like a lot of folks living around Seattle could be going without waste and recycling services starting on June 1st!
The company they're striking against, Republic Services, paid its CEO nearly $140,000,000 between 2011 and 2019. Yet somehow they can't find any money in their budget to match pay rates between waste and recycling workers. How strange!
Yard waste, notably. I'm curious what the disparity is; I can see hauling garbage vs recycling being worth a bit of a premium, but yard waste is going to be nearly as nasty to deal with, and the company has almost certainly paying them a lot less than could be justified by that.
Posts
we do have a term for systems where the state owns the capital: State Capitalist
Via wiki
This isn't an impartial-to-debate mod stance, this is you flexing your mod status to make one side of the "debate" the "correct" one. I call bullshit.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Turns out that strike threat worked, labor got the goods. There’s another strike notice for June 7th but it looks like the SEIU1199 NE strike that caused so much consternation is off.
Like the UAW has half a million or so working members and about the same retired.
Fords entire market cap is about 40b(and is kinda at a bit of a high right now, it was half that a couple years back) GM is about twice that, ditto, FCA is only 16b.
Like it's obviously not a 1 year or even 10 year plan kind of thing, but UAW has been around for almost a century. And their pension fund is still huge if not what it once was. Just a few shares per member each year, add in dividend reinvestment, etc and these companies could be mostly be union owned at this point.
I would guess because a mix of:
- Running unions is expensive work so either you’re cutting into funds to run the union or forcing your members to have to increase their dues
- The moment capital realizes what’s happening things like stock by backs and hte like will get even worse to prevent labor from ever approaching, let alone achieving, a majority stake in the company. In short, you cannot short circuit capitalism in such a manner because Capital, while short sighted and often stupid, understands how to preserve itself against labor.
More to the point, this stuff needs to be made law because the method you proposed doesn't actually defeat capitalism / anti-union sentiment.
Now a days it would be tough. Honestly unions need to take a page out of the GOP handbook and work at the city and state level with their money. There is no good reason why California isn’t 60% unionized. Same with Hawaii. There are limited resources and one of the things the left does is go for spending and lobbying at the Federal level at the expense of the local level, but that’s where real change can happen and grow. Democrats have gotten wise and shifted priorities, but other orgs are used to the old way of doing business. Federal spending isn’t getting you anywhere, start with the states and cities.
Someone with greater knowledge of federal law and regulations can feel free to correct me on this (with appropriate citations, of course), but I don't believe unions can actually own stock. Being as they're all governed by most of the same rules which oversee non-profits, and shares of for-profit companies being profitable assets, they're prohibited from owning them in such a way that they could exert direct influence over the companies in question. The most direct route they could take in the US would be to direct their retirement funds to buy stocks in said companies, but even that is fraught and riddled with potential conflicts of interest that may not pass federal scrutiny.
Individual workers can absolutely buy voting shares of company stock if they want to, but I'm guessing most of them would rather stash their extra money in the bank and use it for something more practical like a down payment on a house.
EDIT: When I underwent officer training for my union, I was shocked by the amount of things we actually weren't allowed to own or do. We weren't even allowed to process credit card payments for things like quarterly membership stamps and dues up until very recently iirc. Strictly forbidden by the feds.
None of this really surprises me with how deliberately crippled unions are in this country.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
And speaking of strikes: Hamilton Nolan of Gawker/Splinter fame wrote a very good piece on No Strike clauses in union contracts. He, like a growing chorus of voices in the organized labor movement, is calling for an end to No Strike clauses as a de facto expectation during bargaining. Emphasis mine:
These clauses are pervasive; my own union has a great many contracts which contain them. This is deeply unfortunate, and it is something I've been working with our new Business Representative towards eliminating in future rounds of post-pandemic bargaining. It is my firm belief that if employers want to continue to make use of the skilled labor of myself and my comrades, they must earn it with competitive wages and benefits. Our good conduct should be earned, not expected. Fortunately for the royal we, this sentiment is growing among workers in my age cohort. It's even starting to become palatable with elder members of our local, of whom there is a voting majority. Time will tell if we can get No Strike clauses successfully eliminated from even one contract, but the threat of removing them should be enough to scare some of our more difficult employers into greater concessions during successive rounds of bargaining.
13 months later, grievance becomes arbitration maybe and the hospital says, 'oops!' and promises to never do it again.
They're never punished and we suffer in perpetuity.
People testifying that Amazon had keys for the ballot boxes at last month's union vote
There is 0 reason for this unless you intended to stuff the ballot. It just looks so bad they wouldnt do it otherwise.
The box that wasn't supposed to exist, either - weren't they already breaking the law even installing it?
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
That one is more grey legally last I heard. They pressured the authorities to add boxes. Skeezy and crooked of course, but probably not grounds to throw out the results.
State legislatures are even more hilariously gerrymandered than Congress. You're throwing good money after bad there.
https://www.kxan.com/news/local/5-austin-area-juiceland-locations-close-limit-hours-amid-workers-strike/
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
IANAL but a perfunctory Googling suggests that how easy it's going to be is going to depend on the laws of the state that the contract is under the jurisdiction of, and I'm going to guess that how expensive it would be will depend on how clear-cut the laws of the state are and how determined the other party to the contract are to fight it.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Why would you want that? It seems far easier for an insurance company to exert it on you than you on them. And insurance contracts typically have effective no-fault non payment. Like... if you fail to pay your insurance fee they will happily cancel the insurance.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
Remember: don't cross a labor picket line!
The company they're striking against, Republic Services, paid its CEO nearly $140,000,000 between 2011 and 2019. Yet somehow they can't find any money in their budget to match pay rates between waste and recycling workers. How strange!