And UPS still shafts their employees even with one of the more proactive unions in the country.
I hesitate on details because I don't want anything I ever say or write harming workers that tell me things, but suffice to say that UPS does all the normal evil corpo shit you'd expect anywhere else and the employees (to my naïve surprise) basically just allow it despite being in a service sector that 100% could bring the entire country to its knees with a fingersnap from union leaders.
Like not to shit on anyone, but if Starbucks goes on strike people will go to McDonald's or make their own coffee sugar slurries at home. If UPS goes on strike, corporations rely on UPS first of all, and they can't just shift all their stuff to FedEx who couldn't handle that load anyway. Nor could the USPS. Lifesaving medications, meds for chronic conditions, machine parts, all kinds of crazy shit gets touched by UPS. It's not that hard to see they hold a powerful position. Their workers do. And it seems that their management is extremely aware of this power and extremely draconian in enforcement of every tiny little thing they ding people for in what I view as basically like a suppression of any "willful" behavior from workers. It seems like management is told to be purposely hostile towards anything the union has negotiated and push lines at every moment. Or maybe managers are just doing what managers, cucks that they often are, do. Doesn't matter that much in the end.
An example is employees being "definitely not told" to not report injuries. Passive aggressive language like "well, if you report that injury, we'll have to take you off the schedule for a few days... also we really can't have any more injuries right now. Are you sure it's hurt?" Something to that effect (told to me directly from a unionized driver). When I asked the obvious (to me) follow up like "wtf? Did you get your union steward or someone from the union and inform them?" The answer was basically "no. Management tries to get you to just agree to stuff and management complains if you say you want some form of union rep present when you talk to them about anything."
Which to my understanding is explicitly illegal. Unionized workers have a legal right to have someone from the union present whenever they're dealing with management especially for shit like that. I'm not a lawyer, etc. so I just said like that's fucked up first off. And second you should definitely talk to a union representative about management's behavior towards injured employees.
But I hesitate to advise much beyond that because not everyone is me, obviously. I can't tell them that if my fingernail got fucked up at work and the manager wanted to be all prissy about his stats that perhaps I'd be considering how to rip his fingernail out with needle nose pliers. Considering only, of course.
There's more technical stuff like UPS ramrodding in this new "AI" driven bullshit they use to tell package delivery drivers where to go next, estimated times, blah blah. All the drivers seem to universally dislike it and say they can get better delivery times with the old system or just using their own knowledge of the routes. A lot of them have been running the same routes for years and years and now this AI bullshit plus management forcing it on them with threats of GPS tracking as evidence they aren't obedient is causing some amount of internal strain. They also apparently just removed a "maps" feature from the little devices that direct the drivers. Before it was like a google maps-style thing with a bunch of pins of locations for delivery or pickup. There was also a non-map plain list with directions like "turn here, drive this distance" whatever. Now they've removed the map with pins. Apparently drivers are just using actual Google maps or whatever because turns out that's sort of a required feature... being able to see beyond the blinders that they wish to place on drivers to force them into compliance. And for what? If every single driver fully obeyed the little AI thing will it even improve delivery times, save fuel, etc.? I dunno. But imo a truly strong union would take that shit and punt it over the moon and tell management there will be no more GPS tracking of employees either. Oh, don't like that? They'd cave as soon as the "ssss" part of strike was on the union's lips.
Anyway, apparently we need to work on fully radicalizing class conscious UPS drivers, get FedEx unionized, and show cucked Americans a glimpse of power they could hold if they just reach out and take it back.
...management complains if you say you want some form of union rep present when you talk to them about anything.
That's an automatic, "a union rep will be present for every conversation even if it's just to piss you off" type of situation for me. Put those shithead managers in their place and show them who really has the power. I think you can safely advocate for them talking to their union in any case, granted, I hope it's an actual labor union, not a business union, or chances are they won't do anything. I'd expect Teamsters to do good by them.
This "managers getting pissy" situation is where you bring a vote to the union so the next contract requires a union rep present for every conversation between managers and workers unless the worker explicitly waves that right. Management does not get a say because they crossed a line they shouldn't have. They do not get to be pissy about it or there are consequences.
Zero tolerance for getting between workers and union reps. Zero tolerance for union busting activities. Give those fuckers an inch and they will pull the whole rug from under your feet.
Anyway, apparently we need to work on fully radicalizing class conscious UPS drivers, get FedEx unionized, and show cucked Americans a glimpse of power they could hold if they just reach out and take it back.
I think it's tougher to show people this unless they are actively part of a union organized and operated by the workers they represent. When they have this connection, they can directly see how powerful they are through their collective actions and this understanding carries over into other parts of life.
When you are part of a union that doesn't have a direct connection to the workers and when you don't participate in your union (sometimes because it's a PoS business union), it tends to leave you disconnected from the process (and results) of organizing. It leaves you feeling powerless, much like with voting in liberal democracies, where you know your vote doesn't really matter and those who are supposed to be advocating for you don't care about you.
I don't tell people what to do because in my experience, well, no one likes that. I wouldn't anyway. I try to sort of just lead them to water or "hey, that might be illegal... just saying!"
As far as the last part, I was thinking while writing about a conversation Brace and Liz had with a guy whose name I forget and too lazy to look for... anyway, the guy was talking about this tradition of radicals, young working people, who would purposely embed themselves in these organizations or corporations, do the jobs, suck it up, be a worker there for 20 years or whatever all with the explicit ideologically driven desire to see the place unionized. They knew that the best way to convince workers of their power and the benefits of unionization was to be a worker alongside them first, fight with them against management, win a union contract, and then stand up and enforce that contract.
That kind of shit brings a tear to my eye legitimately. It should be inspiring to others too, no matter where you might live. If no one else is pushing for a union, maybe you should. If your union sucks ass, maybe you should be the union rep.
I know from personal experience that coworkers will mock you for trying, management will try to fuck you hard, you won't have many workplace friends, but if you stick to it you'll find over time people know you're trustworthy, they know you're brave (or really stupid at least), and a day will come when something happens that pushes a person who normally is afraid to ask management for anything and they'll come to you for help and say "I saw how you dealt with them, and well, I need..." whatever. Of course it's not about personal aggrandizement and such, but we believe in this stuff not just because of logical reasons, but because we also want to see and feel the benefits for ourselves too one day if we can.
I think for any young people who are despairing in the current moment, for valid and obvious reasons, this is a worthwhile thing to do in life. It's also very achievable, has been done before, and could open the pathway towards first unionizing as many workplaces as possible, hopefully building up union power in entire sectors, and then once people are becoming more class conscious... start pumping in the socialism. It's how it was done before, and I don't see any reason to not do it again. Unions aren't inherently political organs, but the organization and the class struggle experienced by active union members lends itself to an easy transition from apolitical actor to full fledged socialist pretty easily.
the guy was talking about this tradition of radicals, young working people, who would purposely embed themselves in these organizations or corporations, do the jobs, suck it up, be a worker there for 20 years or whatever all with the explicit ideologically driven desire to see the place unionized.
I’ve worked manual labor as my first few jobs, and if I have to work there for 20 years, I would do certain things that are only unique to American society.
I largely agree with the sentiment, but as the saying goes "someone's gotta do it." And someone is doing it. I was just tossing it out there an active pathway to change for people to consider. Like if you wanna see union power grow and class consciousness spread, you can actually do something about it. It's honestly one of the last vectors of change available to westerners at this point, as sad as that is. We aren't voting in socialism. It seems like we aren't even voting in some liberalized socdem shit (France straight up ignoring the will of the people. Happens all over the place). As industry (probably) is forced to return to the first world, if people unionize these critical sectors and start pushing them towards greater awareness of what the US does, their roles as workers in the world, etc. that is how you get a class conscious, radicalized, organized movement that has power behind it in the form of unionized workers and no longer must beg for scraps from the government but can make demands.
Of course even if all this happens it's decades off in the future. But again, who knows.
...people, who would purposely embed themselves in these organizations or corporations, do the jobs, suck it up, be a worker there for 20 years or whatever all with the explicit ideologically driven desire to see the place unionized.
One of the most experienced labor organizers used to do this, but on a shorter time scale. He's retired now, but volunteers constantly to help teach people about their labor rights, how to organize, and then helps those who are in the process through all of the steps needed. I love working with him.
I know from personal experience that coworkers will mock you for trying, management will try to fuck you hard, you won't have many workplace friends...
Damn, that's the total opposite of my experience so far (not the management part). I spent a couple years laying seeds of how organizing could benefit us. I'm in a relatively powerful position in relation to how difficult I am to replace, so I've been confident enough to push management hard to make sure I get a raise each year (last year they tried to give me zero!) Sharing my strategies and helping guide my coworkers through how to get similar results went a long way. The few who went to the trouble saw how effective it was and that's part of how I got them on our organizing committee. I've been there a long time and people are used to seeking my advice in our work, so I'm sure that's helped make them more receptive.
I'm sorry to hear you've caught so much flak for it. You're doing important work that will benefit everyone in your workplace, even if they don't see it yet.
Unions aren't inherently political organs, but the organization and the class struggle experienced by active union members lends itself to an easy transition from apolitical actor to full fledged socialist pretty easily.
Yes! Once they see that they actually do have power when they band together, things start falling into place for people. They begin to wonder: if organizing can have this much impact at work, where else can it be applied?
This "managers getting pissy" situation is where you bring a vote to the union so the next contract requires a union rep present for every conversation between managers and workers unless the worker explicitly waves that right.
I'm wondering if the worker should even be able to waive it. There's room for intimidation tactics there.
Absolutely. Not sure how to balance this, because I can also see a manager abusing the rule by using it as an excuse to dodge a simple, but important conversation because no union rep is available.
Yes! I think FRSO has the right idea on embedding with UPS workers to make them more militant. It also creates a real grass-touching consciousness among the org members. Logistics workers should be able to flex their muscles, as you mention. At the same time, they lack class consciousness. Getting experience trying to organize and educate such people is the best instruction any communist can get, as it will not go well most of the time and you can use it to build patience, discover more effective approaches, and get a better read on where US workers are at, politically.
And UPS still shafts their employees even with one of the more proactive unions in the country.
I hesitate on details because I don't want anything I ever say or write harming workers that tell me things, but suffice to say that UPS does all the normal evil corpo shit you'd expect anywhere else and the employees (to my naïve surprise) basically just allow it despite being in a service sector that 100% could bring the entire country to its knees with a fingersnap from union leaders.
Like not to shit on anyone, but if Starbucks goes on strike people will go to McDonald's or make their own coffee sugar slurries at home. If UPS goes on strike, corporations rely on UPS first of all, and they can't just shift all their stuff to FedEx who couldn't handle that load anyway. Nor could the USPS. Lifesaving medications, meds for chronic conditions, machine parts, all kinds of crazy shit gets touched by UPS. It's not that hard to see they hold a powerful position. Their workers do. And it seems that their management is extremely aware of this power and extremely draconian in enforcement of every tiny little thing they ding people for in what I view as basically like a suppression of any "willful" behavior from workers. It seems like management is told to be purposely hostile towards anything the union has negotiated and push lines at every moment. Or maybe managers are just doing what managers, cucks that they often are, do. Doesn't matter that much in the end.
An example is employees being "definitely not told" to not report injuries. Passive aggressive language like "well, if you report that injury, we'll have to take you off the schedule for a few days... also we really can't have any more injuries right now. Are you sure it's hurt?" Something to that effect (told to me directly from a unionized driver). When I asked the obvious (to me) follow up like "wtf? Did you get your union steward or someone from the union and inform them?" The answer was basically "no. Management tries to get you to just agree to stuff and management complains if you say you want some form of union rep present when you talk to them about anything."
Which to my understanding is explicitly illegal. Unionized workers have a legal right to have someone from the union present whenever they're dealing with management especially for shit like that. I'm not a lawyer, etc. so I just said like that's fucked up first off. And second you should definitely talk to a union representative about management's behavior towards injured employees.
But I hesitate to advise much beyond that because not everyone is me, obviously. I can't tell them that if my fingernail got fucked up at work and the manager wanted to be all prissy about his stats that perhaps I'd be considering how to rip his fingernail out with needle nose pliers. Considering only, of course.
There's more technical stuff like UPS ramrodding in this new "AI" driven bullshit they use to tell package delivery drivers where to go next, estimated times, blah blah. All the drivers seem to universally dislike it and say they can get better delivery times with the old system or just using their own knowledge of the routes. A lot of them have been running the same routes for years and years and now this AI bullshit plus management forcing it on them with threats of GPS tracking as evidence they aren't obedient is causing some amount of internal strain. They also apparently just removed a "maps" feature from the little devices that direct the drivers. Before it was like a google maps-style thing with a bunch of pins of locations for delivery or pickup. There was also a non-map plain list with directions like "turn here, drive this distance" whatever. Now they've removed the map with pins. Apparently drivers are just using actual Google maps or whatever because turns out that's sort of a required feature... being able to see beyond the blinders that they wish to place on drivers to force them into compliance. And for what? If every single driver fully obeyed the little AI thing will it even improve delivery times, save fuel, etc.? I dunno. But imo a truly strong union would take that shit and punt it over the moon and tell management there will be no more GPS tracking of employees either. Oh, don't like that? They'd cave as soon as the "ssss" part of strike was on the union's lips.
Anyway, apparently we need to work on fully radicalizing class conscious UPS drivers, get FedEx unionized, and show cucked Americans a glimpse of power they could hold if they just reach out and take it back.
That's an automatic, "a union rep will be present for every conversation even if it's just to piss you off" type of situation for me. Put those shithead managers in their place and show them who really has the power. I think you can safely advocate for them talking to their union in any case, granted, I hope it's an actual labor union, not a business union, or chances are they won't do anything. I'd expect Teamsters to do good by them.
This "managers getting pissy" situation is where you bring a vote to the union so the next contract requires a union rep present for every conversation between managers and workers unless the worker explicitly waves that right. Management does not get a say because they crossed a line they shouldn't have. They do not get to be pissy about it or there are consequences.
Zero tolerance for getting between workers and union reps. Zero tolerance for union busting activities. Give those fuckers an inch and they will pull the whole rug from under your feet.
I think it's tougher to show people this unless they are actively part of a union organized and operated by the workers they represent. When they have this connection, they can directly see how powerful they are through their collective actions and this understanding carries over into other parts of life.
When you are part of a union that doesn't have a direct connection to the workers and when you don't participate in your union (sometimes because it's a PoS business union), it tends to leave you disconnected from the process (and results) of organizing. It leaves you feeling powerless, much like with voting in liberal democracies, where you know your vote doesn't really matter and those who are supposed to be advocating for you don't care about you.
Yeah, fully agree.
I don't tell people what to do because in my experience, well, no one likes that. I wouldn't anyway. I try to sort of just lead them to water or "hey, that might be illegal... just saying!"
As far as the last part, I was thinking while writing about a conversation Brace and Liz had with a guy whose name I forget and too lazy to look for... anyway, the guy was talking about this tradition of radicals, young working people, who would purposely embed themselves in these organizations or corporations, do the jobs, suck it up, be a worker there for 20 years or whatever all with the explicit ideologically driven desire to see the place unionized. They knew that the best way to convince workers of their power and the benefits of unionization was to be a worker alongside them first, fight with them against management, win a union contract, and then stand up and enforce that contract.
That kind of shit brings a tear to my eye legitimately. It should be inspiring to others too, no matter where you might live. If no one else is pushing for a union, maybe you should. If your union sucks ass, maybe you should be the union rep.
I know from personal experience that coworkers will mock you for trying, management will try to fuck you hard, you won't have many workplace friends, but if you stick to it you'll find over time people know you're trustworthy, they know you're brave (or really stupid at least), and a day will come when something happens that pushes a person who normally is afraid to ask management for anything and they'll come to you for help and say "I saw how you dealt with them, and well, I need..." whatever. Of course it's not about personal aggrandizement and such, but we believe in this stuff not just because of logical reasons, but because we also want to see and feel the benefits for ourselves too one day if we can.
I think for any young people who are despairing in the current moment, for valid and obvious reasons, this is a worthwhile thing to do in life. It's also very achievable, has been done before, and could open the pathway towards first unionizing as many workplaces as possible, hopefully building up union power in entire sectors, and then once people are becoming more class conscious... start pumping in the socialism. It's how it was done before, and I don't see any reason to not do it again. Unions aren't inherently political organs, but the organization and the class struggle experienced by active union members lends itself to an easy transition from apolitical actor to full fledged socialist pretty easily.
I’ve worked manual labor as my first few jobs, and if I have to work there for 20 years, I would do certain things that are only unique to American society.
I largely agree with the sentiment, but as the saying goes "someone's gotta do it." And someone is doing it. I was just tossing it out there an active pathway to change for people to consider. Like if you wanna see union power grow and class consciousness spread, you can actually do something about it. It's honestly one of the last vectors of change available to westerners at this point, as sad as that is. We aren't voting in socialism. It seems like we aren't even voting in some liberalized socdem shit (France straight up ignoring the will of the people. Happens all over the place). As industry (probably) is forced to return to the first world, if people unionize these critical sectors and start pushing them towards greater awareness of what the US does, their roles as workers in the world, etc. that is how you get a class conscious, radicalized, organized movement that has power behind it in the form of unionized workers and no longer must beg for scraps from the government but can make demands.
Of course even if all this happens it's decades off in the future. But again, who knows.
One of the most experienced labor organizers used to do this, but on a shorter time scale. He's retired now, but volunteers constantly to help teach people about their labor rights, how to organize, and then helps those who are in the process through all of the steps needed. I love working with him.
Damn, that's the total opposite of my experience so far (not the management part). I spent a couple years laying seeds of how organizing could benefit us. I'm in a relatively powerful position in relation to how difficult I am to replace, so I've been confident enough to push management hard to make sure I get a raise each year (last year they tried to give me zero!) Sharing my strategies and helping guide my coworkers through how to get similar results went a long way. The few who went to the trouble saw how effective it was and that's part of how I got them on our organizing committee. I've been there a long time and people are used to seeking my advice in our work, so I'm sure that's helped make them more receptive.
I'm sorry to hear you've caught so much flak for it. You're doing important work that will benefit everyone in your workplace, even if they don't see it yet.
Yes! Once they see that they actually do have power when they band together, things start falling into place for people. They begin to wonder: if organizing can have this much impact at work, where else can it be applied?
I'm wondering if the worker should even be able to waive it. There's room for intimidation tactics there.
Absolutely. Not sure how to balance this, because I can also see a manager abusing the rule by using it as an excuse to dodge a simple, but important conversation because no union rep is available.
That's the reason I left it open.
Yes! I think FRSO has the right idea on embedding with UPS workers to make them more militant. It also creates a real grass-touching consciousness among the org members. Logistics workers should be able to flex their muscles, as you mention. At the same time, they lack class consciousness. Getting experience trying to organize and educate such people is the best instruction any communist can get, as it will not go well most of the time and you can use it to build patience, discover more effective approaches, and get a better read on where US workers are at, politically.