NEW: This Supreme Court case could devastate workers’ right to strike.
If wealthy corporations get their way, companies would be able to sue workers for the cost of a strike — like spoiled food, lost revenue, and more.
It would be a massive setback for the working class.
K, we’re not “striking” we’re “quitting” until you rehire us after meeting our demands. I feel like this doesn’t mean much in a country with at-will employment
Also can someone remind the capitalists that we made labor boards and laws on how strikes operate because the alternative is shooting them in front of their wives and children.
I think their end goal is literally to make employees who quit liable for any costs that the business incurs because of their absence.
That doesn’t sound very at-will employment of them
At some point they have to, right? They're going to have to come up with some way that isn't direct slavery but also people can't suddenly quit without legal repercussions. Then when that happens the goal is to tighten the repercussions. Then criminalization.
I think it's only a matter of time before Amazon starts buying housing and revives the company town
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-09-16/amazon-s-new-factory-towns-will-lift-the-working-class
Plentiful new jobs at higher wages in places with cheaper housing sounds like a solution to inequality.
Communist countries are bad because despite there being an elected legislative body, a small group of individuals ends up holding all the power and making all the important decisions...
The perfect analogy is Iran. You can tell normal people that Iran actually does have a democratically elected government, but the clever trick is that it doesn't have power over the unelected old men in robes who actually decide what happens.
The unelected old men in robes.
why stop there? how about if you quit your job you owe for any cost due to you quitting?
SCOTUS is a LIFEtime appointment.
Remember: Lifetime appointments by their very nature mean the agreement is “If you fuck up bad enough we will fucking kill you” otherwise they don’t work.
If there is no longer any reason to jump through the legal hoops necessary to form a union (like legal protections), workers can just unionize and strike informally, to say the least.
Would this militarize workers and cause them to start to disregard and becoming disillusioned with legality?
No. Americans are the most domesticated people on the planet. We literally have the enshrined right to bear arms and people with power feel safe to do this.
With time, yes. Right now? Probably not. But within this decade labor is going to become more militant as the desperation sinks in. Especially with the looming depression around the corner.
I really hope this doesn't come to fruition because if it does...:jesus-christ:
Fine. Then pay us a bonus big enough to settle your lawsuit comfortably or we don't work.
This is also what the UK government is apparently pursuing. The timing is not coincidental.
Once the US implements it, the tories or labour can point to the US and babble about how the UK needs to maintain their competitive advantage or something.
They don't even need to do that. It's a prerequisite of the wholesale privatisation of the NHS and it's takeover by American healthcare providers.
how exactly do you sue all the people you pay to do work for you...for simply not doing work for you? like what, the antimatter equivalent of a class action lawsuit where one corporate entity is able to sue hundreds to thousands of people en masse? You wanna garnish their wages so they'll just...quit? or is this just to be able to sue whatever union represented the striking workers?
In the US, union leaders are frequently held as directly responsible for the actions of their unions. So they'd probably go after union leadership.
the antimatter equivalent of a class action lawsuit where one corporate entity is able to sue hundreds to thousands of people en masse?
sir please step away from the lathe before we all have to send a $5 check to Walmart for being naughty consumers who don't consume enough