[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by GGG

Not really

Yes really.

You don’t need things like mandatory membership, or rights not to be fired or any of these things to organize.

I think you really need to take a more in-depth look into how the labour laws work in the states. Right to work states are set up to drain Unions of their resources by forcing Unions to represent employees who do not pay them any dues to cover the cost of that representation. You can’t organize employees if you don’t have enough resources to do so and there is little reason to join a Union if they don’t have enough resources to represent you.

You specifically mentioned the need to organize Walmart but that is all but impossible under the current laws because among other things the company has the ability with what amounts to impunity to deny employees of their “right” to join a Union by closing locations where employees unionize.

I honestly don’t think anyone would agree with you that being protected from termination for joining a Union isn’t necessary to organize in the overwhelming majority of cases. It’s the reason those laws were invented in the first place.

You need a structural advantage in the labour market so that you can’t be replaced so that when you organize mass strikes you can demand these changes be legislated.

How has waiting for that structural advantage to grow organically been going?

What exactly does the structural advantage you’re alluding to look like and how do you propose the US get there without changing legislation?

Labour can force political change, they used to force political change but eventually as standards of living improved it became less worth it to strike so things like when Raegan destroyed the air traffic controllers it didn’t trigger a country wide mass strike.

The Taft-Hartley Act which enabled Raegan to fire all of the air traffic controllers also prevented mass strikes because it enabled employers to fire employees who engaged in support strikes too. While there probably is some truth to your argument that an improved standard of living can lead to complacency within the labour movement, after watching the President fire 13,000 federal employees I think it’s safe to say the fear of being fired was the primary factor in deterring support strikes.