I don't know about the rest of the world, but the power to strike in Germany is tied strictly to workplace-related issues. You can strike for more pay, better workplace conditions, more or less equality in the workplace. The legality of political strikes is doubtful, especially if the issue isn't a really big national one: https://www.bpb.de/dialog/netzdebatte/219308/ein-bisschen-ve...

I know that many Unions get involved in political lobbying though. Regardless of how they get their point across, money is taken and spent on influencing power beyond employers. For example I was part of the Musicians Union in the UK, which has a separate political fund, and members are usually self-employed, but it did create a forum for potential collective action, and for attempting to influence the political discourse.

Most of your comment is correct, except:

> The biggest question will be whether or not the AWU gets large enough and chooses to use the power to strike. Basically the one power any union has, that individual members can't employ without simply being fired.

That's not true, strictly speaking. A group of people could theoretically strike together without being members of a formally-recognized union. In practice, it's tough to coordinate that, and they may have a more difficult time actually enforcing those rights without a legal and financial structure of support, but it's not true that people have to be members of a union in order to engage in a strike.

The law unambiguously grants that power to workers acting in concert with each other, whether or not they are doing so with the formal backing of a union.

While the law does grant individual workers the power to strike, the legal protections are weak enough that it's not really practical even if you trust your employer to respect them. Unless you're striking against a specific unfair labor practice, your employer has the right to simply replace you, and reinstate you only when a new job opening is available.

> While the law does grant individual workers the power to strike, the legal protections are weak enough that it's not really practical even if you trust your employer to respect them.

As a counterpoint, tens of thousands of Googlers staged a worldwide walkout two years ago. They were not unionized. They were protected by the same law that protects unionized workers when striking. When Google retaliated against four of those 20,000+ people, the NLRB launched a federal investigation, the same way the NLRB would if they had been unionized.

> Unless you're striking against a specific unfair labor practice, your employer has the right to simply replace you, and reinstate you only when a new job opening is available.

That's not quite true. If it happened exactly as you describe, that would be a pretty clear-cut wrongful termination lawsuit, and the NLRB would come down pretty hard on the employer.

The NLRB guidance (https://www.nlrb.gov/strikes) says that economic strikers "can be replaced by their employer", and are "entitled to be recalled to jobs for which they are qualified when openings in such jobs occur", but are not entitled to immediate reinstatement if the employer has hired bona-fide permanent replacements.

I do agree that informal coordination can do much of the work a union would. You just have to convince the company that it'd be a huge headache to replace everyone, because the actual organization work (which those four investigations you describe were about) is unconditionally protected.

It's worth noting that the vast majority of the Walkout was over Googlers lunch breaks, and most went back to work after lunch was over.

...Everyone who organized the workout was either fired or retaliated against anyways, since you know, Google doesn't care about workers rights or the law.

> ...Everyone who organized the workout was either fired or retaliated against anyways, since you know, Google doesn't care about workers rights or the law.

Whether or not Google does, the courts do. The NLRB determined that two of the four were illegally fired, and there is a hearing scheduled for April 2021.

Indeed. But Google has fired more people for speaking out or organizing on employee issues since then. Which is to say, the NLRB needs to show a lot more teeth if it plans to curb the behavior.

Yes, as a man I really wish they look at pay inequality at Google.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/technology/google-gender-...