• very_well_lost@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    It’s a felony for federal workers to strike. Kinda makes you wonder why federal employees even have unions, but that’s the capitalist hellscape we live in…

    • Arghblarg@lemmy.ca
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      1 hour ago

      I am outside the US so I didn’t know this. So… Unions, whose biggest and perhaps only effective weapon against exploitation, the strike, cannot, by law, call for a strike. And it’s a federal offense for federal workers to do so?

      Wow. Just Wow. Why even have a union?

      • callouscomic@lemmy.zip
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        1 hour ago

        I know people involved in some of these unions. They still fight for federal workers and are successful at times in assisting them with so many other things. They negotiate contracts and seek more fair workplace practices, they represent workers in disputes, they scrutinize HR and administrative practices, and they bring lawsuits in federal courts.

        Yes, they don’t have the teeth of large strikes, but it’s still helping them in the sense of banding together and pooling resources.

        Note that I think it being illegal to strike is fundamentally un-constitutional and un-American. But hey, not much of the U.S. is how we feel it should be.

    • StinkyFingerItchyBum@lemmy.ca
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      3 hours ago

      “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

      Felony, in a lawless land? Break your chains.