WASHINGTON, Sept 15 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday said “no one wants a strike” but that car companies have enjoyed record profits in recent years without sharing them fairly with workers, hours after the United Auto Workers began strikes at Detroit’s three biggest automakers.
So, he signed a bill that passed with a veto-proof majority that gave the unions everything they wanted except for paid sick days and then kept fighting for paid sick days until they got those too; what exactly is the problem?
Taking away a union’s power to automously decide to strike. Any deal offering to meet all union demands today in exchange for forgoing their right to leverage later is a long-term trap. Having the right to strike maintains some power balance between laborer and capitalist, however small.
Removing the right to take collective action from laborers puts them right back subject to the whims of what the employer chooses to or not give them in the future, which is what necessitated unions and collective action to begin with.
The act of striking when demands aren’t met is essential to union’s long term survival. A display of labor power to the wealthy interests that choose to forget.
Just ask teachers in states where striking is illegal how that whole deal is going for them.
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Neat.
All politics is performative. That is its nature. Look at Jimmy Carter. Last President who saw America through 4 full years of peacetime under his administration. About as plain and authentic, no bs person as you can be, and America hated him for not bullshitting them and replaced him with a corny actor to lie to them and talk about the sunrise and fuck shit up with a smile.