How Much Are You Worth?

[airlineorphan]

"Organize" is a means. Whats the end?

While ends and means are never really separate things, each always impacting and altering the other, here goes:

Organize for safety
Organize for a living wage (and to define a living wage--it's not that hard to do unless you are trying to dodge paying a living wage)
Organize for self-defense (of ourselves and of workers elsewhere as well)
Organize to increase solidarity and community in the workplace
Organize for justice and dignity
Organize because together we are greater than the sum of our parts.

Like it or not, there are two sides of a conflict here. We can stick our heads in the sand and pretend it isn't so or we can take the red pill and see the real world, where we have to choose to be slaves, refugees or defend ourselves.

There are two sides. One side has the enormous social power that comes with wealth, has the threat of liquidation and (more) mass layoffs as a weapon can deploy, and a couple of major political parties that will back it up (rabidly or under the guise of responsibility, respectively).

On the other side, we have only our ability to organize collectively to level that playing field.

I wouldn't call it a religion. Just a common sense response to the fact that there is strength in numbers. If you're a worker and you don't organize with other workers, you will have to accept whatever is given to you. If you organize you have the opportunity to pool your resources and can effect the balance of the conflict that already exists.

Oh, and by the way, corporate "leaders" have recognized the value of organizing as well: They have their clubs and PACS and think tanks and industry associations. They have recognized that there is a conflict. That's why they've been waging a pretty one-sided class war for the last 25 years in the US.

Throughout history people who recognize the conflicts and advocate organizing resistance have been denounced as troublemakers. They are not. They do not create the trouble that comes our way. They are simply the ones willing to take responsibility (and not be victims) to do something about it when that trouble comes their way.

An injury to one is an injury to all.
-Airlineorpha

 

[mweiss]

Organize for safety

OK. Hold them to the law. Good.

Organize for a living wage (and to define a living wage--it's not that hard to do unless you are trying to dodge paying a living wage)

Oh, really? I bet if you got nineteen of your coworkers in the same room, we'd get a grand total of twenty different defintions of a living wage.

Organize for self-defense (of ourselves and of workers elsewhere as well)

Against...?

Organize to increase solidarity and community in the workplace

Solidarity...now there's a loaded word. If I understand what you're saying, it's that you have a collective enemy. Let me guess, is it that nefarious "management" again?
As for community in the workplace, my last two jobs had an immense sense of community...without any unions. How much more could you build?

Organize for justice and dignity

Very squishy terms, those. Especially since "justice" is slippery all by itself. I know of many who would claim that it would be justice for all non-union employees at the airlines to receive no pay. Justice is best defined by a party without a vested interest in the outcome.

And "dignity" is another great one. Yelling "scab" at your fellow employees is certainly quite dignified, isn't it?

Organize because together we are greater than the sum of our parts.

Fair enough.

Throughout history people who recognize the conflicts and advocate organizing resistance have been denounced as troublemakers.

Yes, they have, but you hold the belief that they are denounced as troublemakers because they organized. They are denounced as troublemakers for what the organized group does.

orphan, do you see how you and PITbull are both airline union members (I don't know if you are both FAs, though), and yet you have widely differing opinions? That eventually becomes organization in name only.

 

[airlineorphan]

orphan, do you see how you and PITbull are both airline union members (I don't know if you are both FAs, though), and yet you have widely differing opinions? That eventually becomes organization in name only.

No time to comment on all of what you've written, but on this last point, you miss the fact that the diversity of opinions and perspectives PITbull and I and others bring together is a key part of what makes an organized group of workers more than the sum of its parts.

None of us have the whole picture by ourselves and bring together a rich variety of ideas of how to deal with a situation.

Internal dynamism in an organization is a source of strength, particularly a union, which should function more like a social movement than a business. Any organization with only one viewpoint becomes stale and schlerotic.

QUOTE
Organize for a living wage (and to define a living wage--it's not that hard to do unless you are trying to dodge paying a living wage)

Oh, really? I bet if you got nineteen of your coworkers in the same room, we'd get a grand total of twenty different defintions of a living wage.

Sure, I have 3 or 4 different ideas all by myself of what I'm going to wear in the morning.but I make a choice. Would you also argue against a minimum wage because you couldn't get everyone to agree on what a minimum wage should be? Too bad the debate isn't about what the maximum wage should be. By your model, I can't see how any standard could ever be set for anything.

More later, gotta go, but for now, maybe you'll identify with this: Organize for greater bargaining power in any negotiations (formal or informal).

-Airlineorphan