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Republicans vs Democrats (i.imgur.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/memes@lemmygrad.ml
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[+] -31 points 3 years ago (5 children)

My point is that strikes are predicated on the bet that the striking workers have a higher pain tolerance than the capitalists and their investors for the pain caused by a strike.

If UAW workers strike, GM makes fewer cars, people buy from competitors, and the capitalist suffers. If Kellogg's workers strike, the same thing happens: capitalist suffers, competitors benefit.

Rail strikes spread that pain to everyone. It's not the rail workers' fault, but a strike would've led to millions of layoffs, a likely recession, and severe food and medicine insecurity. The wealthy would be perfectly happy with this outcome, while millions of Americans suddenly have no income with high inflation. There is some line where the needs of those millions outweigh the needs of the thousands of rail workers. I don't know where that line is, but it exists, and I'm glad I'm not the one who has to decide where it is.

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  • [–] 33 points 3 years ago

    It’s not the rail workers’ fault, but a strike would’ve led to millions of layoffs, a likely recession, and severe food and medicine insecurity.

    The stick to beat the billionaires with, trick and? If anything, this would've mobilized a MASS of people who otherwise never would've had skin in the game. Quite possibly the greatest movement of labor this century would have ever seen-- until the Honorary Pinkerton scrawled his Hancock to ratfuck the strike. You hide "fuck 'em, they should slave rather than get their needs as laborers met" behind fake concern for "the millions"; get fucked.

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  • [–] 33 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    So a small group of workers should suffer because the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?

    Those rail workers weren't striking for higher pay, they wanted the basic human dignity of having paid time off and paid sick days.

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  • [–] 30 points 3 years ago

    That’s the point. They should have the right to remind the capitalists how essential they are and how much pain they could cause, so that the capitalists would be forced to provide basic things like paid medical leave.

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  • [–] 19 points 3 years ago

    It’s not the rail workers’ fault, but a strike would’ve led to millions of layoffs, a likely recession, and severe food and medicine insecurity.

    Even if that was true, dems (and you) just said that it's ok for haute bourgeoisie to hold entire society hostage instead of doing something with this. Obligatory reminder that nothing of sorts would happen if the workers basic demands were fulfilled, but it seems that again the entire US political establishment coming from the stance of no compromise with the workers.

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  • [–] 16 points 3 years ago

    It's a class war. All workers are implicated. All capitalists are implicated. It's not neat. It's messy. That doesn't mean the organised workers should wait for the unorganised workers to catch up before doing anything. They would have to wait forever. Those other workers should organise with the rail workers to fix things, not complain that the rail workers are having an effective strike.

    The line is between the workers and the capitalists. It's not within the working class.

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