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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/59378754
The calls for a nationwide (US) shutdown this Friday (Jan 30) are growing louder
this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2026
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Because most places in the USA have atrocious worker protection laws. Even if you're in a name brand, corporate job with thousands of people on board with unionizing, they can close your office or fire everyone with no repercussions.
Just look at Blizzard, Google, Starbucks, etc... They take a chainsaw to any union talk and have never been bothered with consequences. If you're employed by a tiny, family owned business you have even less leverage. Your personal relationship to the owner is much more important to achieving your goals than paperwork solidarity with the 2 other employees.
but i mean... the entire reason unions work is because of a mandate from the masses. if they close an office the only reasonable counter-action is for every other office to unionise too.
If only. You're overestimating the level of solidarity and political development of American workers and underestimating the effectiveness of strike-breaking tactics. If every location did it, they can't shut them all down, but if only one other location does it, they can, and the threat of that makes it all the more difficult to organize.
You have to understand the history of how unions were dismantled.
Stage 1 was the New Deal era, when the government was cooperative and played nice - just so long as you kick out any Reds. And what's a "Red?" A "Red" is someone who has a broader political consciousness, who sees common cause with workers of other industries, who will support striking in solidarity or cooperating with a general strike. But, so long as the union is just about narrowly advancing the interests of their specific members, that's fine. Better than fine, actually. You can get some real carrots to go this route, not just sticks.
Stage 2 was the Reagan era. At this point, because the unions have no solidarity with each other, because they kicked out all the "Reds," they are now more or less powerless to act as a collective group, as a conscious political entity. Furthermore, there's now divisions between workers. The unions are more about protecting the senior employees than about helping everyone, and people see it. Now that they've kicked out the "Reds," the government starts labelling them all as "Reds," or they deploy all sorts of other propaganda about how they're corrupt or lazy or whatever. Union protections get rolled back (along with social programs), the carrots start to disappear, now it's just sticks, and the organization to resist doesn't exist anymore.
Stage 3 is where we're at now. Unions have been almost entirely dissolved. People have all sorts of brainworms about them, and when workers start to organize they get fired, the company makes everyone attend meetings with anti-union propaganda, protections are more or less non-existent. The handful that do exist are narrowly self-interested. People are not only divided but atomized. Unions have become lost, broken, and scattered to the wind.
So it's not that simple. It is not an easy task to undo all the effort that the rich and powerful have done to keep us from organizing.
nobody is keeping people from organising. sanctioned organising, yes. but that right was only granted due to unsanctioned organising in the first place.
I'm trying to explain our conditions to you but you're just choosing to be stubborn and refusing to listen.
no i'm reading everything you're saying but it seems to me like it's one of those "it doesn't work in the us because x" arguments. yes you've been oppressed, yes the laws have been written against you, yes the odds are bad. do it anyway.
OK have a nice day. Obviously no point in talking to you.