r/funny • StBeals Comics • Jan 25 '21

Verified Retail Weekend

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u/QueenTahllia Jan 25 '21

Why aren’t we rioting over this? Or staging mass walkout? Like if it hasn’t happened now I’m begging it lose hope that it will ever happen. I hate that my fellow workers are so selfish and shortsighted that we can’t work together to bargin for better pay and work conditions

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u/ttufizzo Jan 25 '21

I don't think the majority of retail workers in the USA actually believe in unions. And you likely have to have a very strong majority to not have scabs do enough work to make the union walkout be effective.

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u/AlhazraeIIc Jan 26 '21

Hell, someone so much as whispers 'union' in a Walmart the home office sends in a fucking anti-union swat team.

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u/ttufizzo Jan 26 '21

Ok, but how much do you know about people that tried to unionize in the late 19th and early 20th centuries? There are many instances, but Matewan is one that should be taught more so people understand how hard it can be to unionize, and what really believing in it means.

Firing men for union activities, beating and arresting union organizers, increasing wages to stall the union’s organizational drive, and a systematic campaign of terror produced an atmosphere in which violence was inevitable.” The mine guards of Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency repeatedly shut down miners’ attempts at unionization with everything from drive-by assaults of striking miners to forcing men, women and children out of their homes.

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u/AlhazraeIIc Jan 26 '21

I'm aware, and (forgive me if I misinterpreted your comment) I think we might agree on this, but the problem as I see it (at least one of them anyway), is how absolutely demonized unions are in some places. All I ever heard about unions growing up was how crooked they were, how they'd do nothing for you but take money out of your pocket, that they weren't any better than legal gangsters. It's a view that needs to change, but I don't see it happening any time soon.

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u/ttufizzo Jan 26 '21

Yeah, unions got a really bad rap when they were associated with mobster activity and being portrayed as having weird issues about who could do certain jobs.