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Allan Chow | 1 years ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 @b541bfe5 @ded2e305 "At the same time, the UAW agreed to $11 billion in labor cuts, twenty-one thousand layoffs, a wage freeze for workers, a tiered wage system for new workers, a no-strike agreement until 2015, and the transfer of retirees’ health care and pension benefit costs from GM to the UAW, in order to save GM $3 billion. The union is still fighting to regain the ground they lost from these concessions."
https://jacobin.com/2023/09/united-auto-workers-uaw-strike-big-three-automakers-stock-buyback-shareholders
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bebb742b | 1 years ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 @9fd7b7b6
@b541bfe5 @ded2e305 
pay close attention.

the obvious moral of this story is "the corporations dont give a shit, give em an inch, they take a mile." not too shocking or surprising to leftists, or even most people. hating corporations is bog standard.

but the less obvious moral of the story is "the union actually gave an inch." why would a union, which after all is supposed to benefit and not harm the workers it supposedly represents, allow for these wage cuts and egregious limitations? because the union is a legalized institution in capitalist society. the union leaders know, more than they admit to their rank and file, that they have to kowtow to corporate and political demands regularly to avoid being seen as too radical.

i am all for the strike and want to see it win. but the workers have to realize that this strike can either belong to their union leader and their boss, or it can belong to all of them. that means that although right now uaw is only telling a handful of locals to strike, while the other workers have to keep going without a contract (https://uaw.org/StandUp/), those workers being told to keep working shouldnt do that at all. they should strike regardless of orders to scab (and this is essentially that, an order to scab!)
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Ned Yeung | 1 years ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 @9fd7b7b6 @ded2e305 American automakers have the best (and best paid) lobbiers in the world. They have literally fashioned the world around us. Not in any of the good ways, only all the horrible ways that have destroyed our society and infrastructure.