Costco workers in Norfolk have unionised and Costco are seething.
this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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My question would be "what's the win condition"?
A business that tangibly treats labor better is better than one that does not.
A union lessens the power imbalance, but it's still better to start from a place where cooperation is possible.
So if the relationship must be hostile, what's the win condition?
The win condition is the workers owning the means of production. In the meantime, it’s a struggle to take as much of our labor’s value from our employers as possible, because we’re entitled to all of it.
Sure, and that's great. I'm in favor of that. But how does viewing cooperation as collaboration in a class war further those objectives?
"Fuck you for trying to be better" isn't a viable strategy for the midterm goal of "more fairness".
If you’re in favor with what I’ve said, then we’re probably not in much disagreement. We’re probably misunderstanding each other on a point not worth quibbling over.
It's the viewing it as intrinsically hostile, and the (seeming) delight at the perception of "hurt" to the business almost over the benefits it brings to labor.
I don't view organization as an intrinsically hostile act. It can be defensive or hostile depending on the business, and often is, but it needn't be if the business doesn't make it so.
Even in a situation with collective ownership, you still have a voluntary organization of that collective.
That organization isn't hostile.
This is a corporation we are talking about, and that sort of organization is intrinsically hostile to labor.
The capitalist-wage slave relationship structurally is an antagonistic one. A worker cooperative isn’t structurally antagonistic, nor is a democratic socialist state. Whether a form of organizing is hostile depends on the structure/power dynamics of its relationships.
For tactical reasons, we don’t always act belligerently toward our employers, but the relationship is still always a belligerent one, structurally.
Why would an employer ever employ someone if there is no net gain to the employer? You are not entitled to all the value of your labor unless you are self employed and that sounds like a lot more difficult than showing up to work for 40 hours of work that's been organized by someone else.
That's exactly the problem: workers are not getting the value of their labor.
It doesn’t sound like you’re a syndicalist, it sounds like you’re either a capitalist or a worker with Stockholm Syndrome.
I am both a unionist and a capitalist. I have spent 10 years of my career as an involved IBEW member; going to unit meetings, voting, and salting companies. I have spent the last three years as a business owner. I like to think of myself as an ethical capitalist. My employees get paid union wages, which is higher than most companies in my area. The only reason I haven't unionized my company yet is because it doesn't fiscally work as a small, young company. The burden of the cost of labor would destroy my company. I would not be able to compete in any tangible way with my competitors. To give you an idea: the burden per hour of a journeyman electricians union renumeration package is close to $70/hr. In order to support that burden as well as other overhead: building, vans, tools, insurance, bonds, software, phones, office supplies, I would have to bill well over $120/hr. Now the question is: as a business owner, why would I be taking any risk in employing someone if there is no net gain for all the work done in the background as well as getting stiffed on invoices? The other question is: is everyone cut out to be their own employer? What about the people that only have the ability to show up to work and not organize new clients and new work, what do they do? I'm all for living wages, good working conditions, fair treatment, and and and, but what's the benefit to me as an employer for providing these things to an employee?
I’ve also been on both sides of the line, having been an employee, but also having started a couple of tech startups using my own capital and having dipped my toe in angel investing. I even used to be a landlord (I got better).
The questions you’re asking are basically, how can capitalism function if the workers take all the profits? And the answer is that it obviously can’t.
We don’t want capitalism to function, we want to end it. We want to abolish private ownership of the means of production. We’re socialists.