Bottom line, if you're in a Union under contract and your boss tries to fire you for <insert reason here> your Union should be defending you. Period. That's what the damned thing is there for.
It isn't the job of the Union to set health care policy. It's their job to back their members from arbitrary management decisions.
If management wants the workforces vaccinated, they can bargain for that in the next contract. I guarantee you'll get more people lining up for the jab if it means better salary and stronger pensions.
Ok but A. The contract is not up right now (lmao if you think UAW would try to bring it to the table early over literally anything) and B. it’s cannon fodder for the “COVID heroes” (hospital and univ admins) to point to the lunacy of labor. A major part of labor action is winning community support for the workers (see CWA strike in Buffalo or Deere strike in Iowa), which you won’t get when most people including workers support enforcing vaccines, especially in NYC where UAW was doing this and where the pandemic was most deadly.
And this mandate isn’t out of the ordinary - schools and many workplaces require FDA-approved vaccine (e.g. MMR) records for their students and employees. Why are unions only complaining about this now? It’s a blanket worker rights policy misdirected into supporting anti-vaccine fearmongering. Take it further to show like less than 1% followed through with taking leave over vaccination and this is such a niche and secondary issue for unions to be wasting oxygen on right now.
And to the point of the whole post, Wolff demonstrated poor judgment here by defending a company talking point that the strikes are about vacation mandates and not poor salary/benefits and conditions during the pandemic. I see this misinformation all over Twitter (someone said the taxi debt hunger strike was about anti-vaccine???) and elsewhere because people blindly listen to the corporate labor reporters acting as stenographers for the executives. At best he’s not paying attention to what the workers are saying on the picket line and it’s disappointing.
I see what you’re saying but I ultimately disagree with the strategy. Blind goals like this demonstrate the shortcomings of trade unions not favoring workers as a whole just their own - this is about safety and the government making businesses mandate what they should have done themselves. But this is the world we live in we’re not getting communism next week.
And you are correct that the unions are strongly encouraging people to be vaccinated regardless, just fighting this weird battle on vaccines instead of say focusing on their the rhetoric on being pro-workplace safety and having the employer paying hazard pay if you have to come in. Otherwise most companies are not firing workers but putting them on leave, but that’s splitting hairs.
And love him but I would not give that much credit to Wolff. Go to your nearest picket line and they’ll tell you what their strike is about.
Go to your nearest picket line and they’ll tell you what their strike is about.
The closest I am to a strike is the SW Airline Go Brandon guy participating in a sick-in to shut down Southwest for a week.
So I'll openly admit, my perception may be skewed. But all the Chuds in my office and my neighborhood and doing the Uncle Dance on my Facebook feed are bitching about vaccinations. The people I see seriously upset about wages and working conditions aren't striking. They are jumping shit from my current employer and finding work elsewhere.
It's a wedge issue and its working marvelously.
Bottom line, if you're in a Union under contract and your boss tries to fire you for <insert reason here> your Union should be defending you. Period. That's what the damned thing is there for.
It isn't the job of the Union to set health care policy. It's their job to back their members from arbitrary management decisions.
If management wants the workforces vaccinated, they can bargain for that in the next contract. I guarantee you'll get more people lining up for the jab if it means better salary and stronger pensions.
Ok but A. The contract is not up right now (lmao if you think UAW would try to bring it to the table early over literally anything) and B. it’s cannon fodder for the “COVID heroes” (hospital and univ admins) to point to the lunacy of labor. A major part of labor action is winning community support for the workers (see CWA strike in Buffalo or Deere strike in Iowa), which you won’t get when most people including workers support enforcing vaccines, especially in NYC where UAW was doing this and where the pandemic was most deadly.
And this mandate isn’t out of the ordinary - schools and many workplaces require FDA-approved vaccine (e.g. MMR) records for their students and employees. Why are unions only complaining about this now? It’s a blanket worker rights policy misdirected into supporting anti-vaccine fearmongering. Take it further to show like less than 1% followed through with taking leave over vaccination and this is such a niche and secondary issue for unions to be wasting oxygen on right now.
And to the point of the whole post, Wolff demonstrated poor judgment here by defending a company talking point that the strikes are about vacation mandates and not poor salary/benefits and conditions during the pandemic. I see this misinformation all over Twitter (someone said the taxi debt hunger strike was about anti-vaccine???) and elsewhere because people blindly listen to the corporate labor reporters acting as stenographers for the executives. At best he’s not paying attention to what the workers are saying on the picket line and it’s disappointing.
Removed by mod
I see what you’re saying but I ultimately disagree with the strategy. Blind goals like this demonstrate the shortcomings of trade unions not favoring workers as a whole just their own - this is about safety and the government making businesses mandate what they should have done themselves. But this is the world we live in we’re not getting communism next week.
And you are correct that the unions are strongly encouraging people to be vaccinated regardless, just fighting this weird battle on vaccines instead of say focusing on their the rhetoric on being pro-workplace safety and having the employer paying hazard pay if you have to come in. Otherwise most companies are not firing workers but putting them on leave, but that’s splitting hairs.
And love him but I would not give that much credit to Wolff. Go to your nearest picket line and they’ll tell you what their strike is about.
The closest I am to a strike is the SW Airline Go Brandon guy participating in a sick-in to shut down Southwest for a week.
So I'll openly admit, my perception may be skewed. But all the Chuds in my office and my neighborhood and doing the Uncle Dance on my Facebook feed are bitching about vaccinations. The people I see seriously upset about wages and working conditions aren't striking. They are jumping shit from my current employer and finding work elsewhere.
there's some principled advocacy
but that doesn't cover municipal & state mandates... which is its own beast for sure