In a thread about the WGA strike (edit: and in a related thread about the SAG-AFTRA strike), there’s a lot of disagreement over what unions can and should do. The problem is that a lot of the objections to WGA and SAG-AFTRA actions are, as far as I can tell, based either on ignorance of how labor unions work, or a bone-deep objection to the idea of effective organized labor. But figuring out why exactly people are objecting–ignorance, or antipathy to labor–was getting us pretty far away from the topic. So I thought that a new thread might be good.
Here are some positions that I’ll set out, to get the discussion started.
Except under exceptional circumstances, violence is not a legitimate tactic for maintaining a strike. Unionized garbage collectors who beat up freelance garbage collectors are bad people. This should be obvious, but I’m putting it here to forestall odious analogies. (“Exceptional circumstances” would generally involve violence instigated by the business owners, in which case defensive violence is sometimes legitimate–but I’m not especially interested in a long back-and-forth about violence and would prefer that to be in a different thread).
Closed shops arrived at through contract negotiations are valid exercises of worker power. Everyone has freedom of association. People who join a union are free to work where they want. They’re free to say, “I’ll only work at a business that only hires union people.” Businesses are free to hire who they want. They can choose to hire union members or not. Non-union members are free to work for any business that agrees to hire them. If a union and a business come together and agree on exclusivity, that’s well within their freedom of association. Preventing such an agreement is an infringement on the freedom of both union and business.
Cross-union solidarity is a valid exercise of worker power. When a union strikes, it withdraws its labor. But a union knows this may not suffice to bring the business to the table; so they may agree with another union to honor one another’s strikes. Workers at each union agree to honor picket lines. This is a freely-arrived-at agreement between the unions, and any effort to prevent union solidarity is an impingement on the liberty of members of both unions.
Strikes should be a pain in the ass. The point of a strike is to make things untenable for the companies, to put pressure on the companies to settle. This inconveniences consumers as well. As long as the inconvenience isn’t dangerous, that’s legitimate: unhappy consumers may put pressure on management to go ahead and settle. If a strike results in an almost-complete show being cancelled, and it’s a very popular and well-regarded show, that’s a good thing from the striker’s perspective: it causes maximum inconvenience to management and puts maximum pressure on them to negotiate. A labor action that’s polite and convenient is also called a “failed labor action.”
Public sector unions are a valid exercise of worker power. Voters choose their representatives in government, and those representatives or their appointees negotiate with workers. Public workers choose to work those jobs and choose whether to join the union. If a public sector union makes an agreement with the peoples’ representatives to undertake certain working conditions–including to have a closed shop–that’s legitimate. If the people don’t like that agreement, the people should vote for different representatives.
Not all union actions are good. Just because something’s a valid exercise of worker power doesn’t mean that it’s being exercised for a good cause. I’m in a teacher’s union, recently resigned from leadership because I was freaking exhausted (seriously, it gives me so much more sympathy for people that say they want to spend more time with their family), and we agitated for better pay, to try to gain parity with workers in other similar districts in our state. That was legitimate. If we’d been agitating instead for the right to work remotely at any time for any reason, that would have been a valid exercise of power for a really bad cause, because it would’ve hurt children. Defending the validity of certain labor actions is different from defending the worthiness of certain labor goals, and the two should not be confused.
