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Originally posted by TheWalkingFox
Originally posted by FlyingJadeDragon
1) Labor unions are an ever- diminishing presence on the American landscape and aren't really much of threat to anyone (outside of certain pockets of the world such as France) now due to globalization and automation.
The only people that Labor Unions have ever been a threat to are the corporatists who wish to exploit their workers. This is why Rand Paul and so many other corporate fascists are working so hard to kill the ones that are left. This is why your squishy and fragile brain is constantly bombarded with anti-union propaganda. You really think the people telling you how evil and terrible unions are, are looking out for you? 'Cause these are the same people who have been trying to tell you that there are terrorist cells of scary scary Arabmuslimiranianjihadistfanatic911dirtybombairlinersTERRORISTS!!! living under your bed for the last decade in an effort to keep your underwear brown and keep you pliant and acquiescing.
2) Structural unemployment is here to stay and will likely continue to get worse. Technology will continue to improve,become cheaper and displace more people from the workforce as time passes on. The current crisis is only speeding up the process as companies scramble to stay competitive by replacing people with technology where possible to maintain their bottom lines. The only reason most people still have a job is because they haven't gotten around to automating it-yet.
Technology does have an impact. Gratuitous deregulation has led to total globalization, which has had an even greater impact. Your job went down the drain because you voted for stooges who mailed the job off to the Banana Republics.
3) Work is a 'right'? Only in our current distorted value system could work be considered a 'right'. Last I checked,the basic premise behind rights was that they were granted to you and it was up to you whether or not to exercise them without penalty. How is work a right if the result of my choosing not to exercise it results in hardship or death from not being able to have money?
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that participation in the money-as-debt,cyclical consumption system is mandatory in order for a person to live some semblance of a 'normal' life (no matter how ultimately pointless or detrimental to society or the environment said job may actually be).
"Right to work" is a misnomer. The "right to work" does not actually apply to you as the employee. It applies to the employer, and would be better-termed as "right to cheap and uninvested labor." A state with a right-to-work actually strips you, the employee, of any ability to bargain with your employer. It strips you of any ability to appeal a termination. It strips you of any ability to complain or appeal if your wages or hours are cut, or your workload increased. If you sign on with the understanding you have a benefits package or - glory be! - retirement options - your employer can, under right to work laws, choose to not deliver, and there's nothing you can do about it, because you have no bargaining power, and have made the "choice" to live in a state where you actually have no right to employment at all.