I was careful to explain my reasoning in my post, but maybe it wasn't stated clearly enough.

Consider a company for which programmers are fungible, and 5 programmers are required to keep the company running at full efficiency. If one programmer quits in protest over union-busting activity, all it takes is one other equivalent programmer on the labor market to agree to take the job. The existence of 1,000 other pro-union programmers in the labor market are completely irrelevant, as long as the company knows they can find one union-neutral programmer. Morever, the union-neutral programmer is equivalent to an anti-union programmer from the perspective of the employer.

It's "with us or against us" because of the nature of the labor market, not because of any desire to be toxic or exclusionary or whatever. This is literally the whole reason that picket lines exist. You're either a scab or you're not; that's definitional, not rhetorical.

> You're either a scab or you're not; that's definitional, not rhetorical.

No, I'm an unaffiliated potential worker. Scab is a derogatory term. It's not surprising unions are losing support with that attitude.

You're thinking you have a right to the job and that by not supporting you I'm taking it away. You don't though and from my point of view a union is a threat of violence (try crossing a picket line) and is one tiny step away from domestic terrorism. You're demanding to take a job that could be mine but you're not willing to negotiate to win it. Turning a free-market opportunity for me into a political struggle where I'd need to win my way into the 1000 through your support. No thanks.

Every little thing Unionists do is about punishment and control, you can't even not downvote someone's honest opinion. Imagine if your job was controlled by such politics and you had to kowtow to the right opinions just to keep it.

We don't have to imagine. This very article is about employees who were illegally fired for not kowtowing to the right opinions. These politics do control your job, whether you want them to or not.

No, because I don't lie about peeing in a bottle at my job and make trouble.

But if there was a union there'd be a never ending parade of shit I'd have to watch out for. Like having to pretend that we have to piss in bottles rather than using the washroom or else having my stuff vandalized and maybe being beaten in the parking lot. Unions use lies and violence to get their way, been there, had enough of that.

What was reasonable in the early 1900s against literal Pinkertons with guns, because of acid leaching into the mine in a company town a hundred miles from anywhere, is now ridiculous and you should try turning down work you don't like instead of making up these stories.

Isn't it a bit of a stretch to build the definition of what a union is by using anecdotes as building blocks? One could argue the same for pretty much any other organized group (companies, governments, ...) yet we don't define their function by individual actions.

In summary: People don't usually form unions to beat others in parking lots, you know.

Right, they don't form unions to beat people. But pretty much every union involves implicit threats of being beaten in the parking lot. Certainly having your stuff stolen from your locker and broken or left in the toilet. As long as there are picket lines people will hit those trying to cross them. Talk to a unionist and see, they're very free with these stories.

It's not the goal but when you've convinced yourself you're fighting the good fight I guess you take the gloves off.

For the record, Amazon has admitted the peeing in bottles story was true: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/04/amazon-admits-it...

No, and this is more union deception. You're trying to conflate employees doing warehouse work (where they have bathrooms) with contract drivers who choose to pee in bottles. Everyone knows the warehouse pee story is made up or you'd stop grasping at straws.

Why, oh why, must socialists lie?

You just didn't specify warehouse workers. But anyway, there are corroborating accounts of that too: https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17243026/amazon-warehouse...

Warehouse workers are the ones trying to unionize so all stories about drivers are irrelevant. You know this. I shouldn't have to specify.

Re your source, 1) The verge is currently lying about the warehouse/driver distinction so their credibility is very low, 2) the claims were anonymous or second-hand, and 3) they aren't saying there weren't bathrooms - but that people were trying to improve their speed.

Literally nothing that supports the need for a union. Nobody claims to have a medical reason that they needed to use the toilet and having been forbidden, or even had pay docked. That would be illegal under OSHA guidelines and they'd have just reported it as such at the time. Courts are extremely friendly to these suits from workers but apparently they never actually happened.

> “From their point of view, we don’t have the right to be ill,”

Nope. Illegal. If that happened there'd have been a lawsuit.

> “I had a fit at work and was taken to the hospital. The next day, someone rung me and asked why I was not in work. I explained to them, but it was still marked, ‘no call, no show,’”

Um yeah, you didn't call or show. That you (may have) had a valid reason to leave yesterday doesn't translate into not having to let them know if you're coming in today. Not a valid complaint.

> But despite having legally compliant break times, workers noted they had to walk quite a distance from their main work area to the break area, which greatly diminished how much time they had left to rest.

If you're required to take your break in a designated area then the time to travel there is not part of your break. If some manager got this wrong and stuck to it, it's a reason for a complaint and a maybe a lawsuit which the employee would profitably win. Maybe this happened, but all companies can make mistakes and the fix is easy.

It's not that they can't just want to unionize. That would be fine. Pointless, but fine. What's not is the lies. Their case for abuse clearly has no merit.

Parent's point was that by working for a company without supporting a union, you are giving that company leverage against the union.

That is where the neutrality is lost.

I reject your absolutist ideology. If it's a forced choice of with your or against you, then you've asked for against.

Edit: With them or they'll do anything from downvote you to set your car on fire. This is why people don't believe you, or support you.

Look at the modern intellectual arguing the equivalent of Wickard v Filburn. Anti-union would be going out of my way to lobby my government to forbid unions. Neutral is just not supporting you because I can't tell if you have a valid case or not. As for being a coward, that's the modern unionist screaming slurs at other workers and beating them up in the parking lot.

The sad truth is that original unionists, who fought for safety in mines, etc, are being conflated with marxists who are really anti worker.

I would posit that you aren't rejecting any ideology, you are being presented with the fact even inaction is a political choice, and that seems to upset you. That's okay, there are a lot of facts about reality that upset me, too!

Unfortunately facts don't care about our feelings, and no amount of sulking about it will change the fact that so called union neutrality is an anti-union position. Not only is it anti-union, but kind of a cowardly anti-unionism, at that. It's wanting to be both anti-union, while also wanting to accept none of the social consequences that come with that position.

What you are describing is bullying, plain and simple. Similar to the other commenter I’ve seen unions use the same tactics as well.

Your 'everything is connected, inaction is action' argument is only compelling if you can provide a counter-example. A place where your rule breaks down. A rule without exceptions, in a complex domain, is just wrong.

Yes, we all breathe the same air. But at what point is you not fighting my battles with me reasonable disinterest - neutrality - rather than an active choice to hinder me? Clearly if you don't know me, and if you don't know the facts, etc...

I obviously reject it sooner than you, but if you don't reject it at some point then it's ideology and I reject that out of hand.

A union gains leverage by monopolizing the sale of labor to a company; a company gains leverage when they can buy labor elsewhere. If you don’t support the union, you are necessarily chipping away at their monopoly. There’s no action whereby your choice doesn’t change the balance of power between the two.

Did you try to catch a serial killer today? If not you helped kill their victim.

Now either explain the limit to that logic or turn yourself in to the police.

The limit to the logic is that it only applies where you are forced to choose between zero sum options.

Yeah, like deciding between spending your limited time on here or hunting a serial killer. Zero sum, son.

You don't seem to have realized that you aren't the first group to use these arguments and tactics, or how badly they fail. Sadly only after exacting great societal consequences though.

Here's the point you are missing:

Neutrality can only be achieved by refusing to support both the union and the company.

If you are working for the company without joining the union, then you are supporting the company's anti-union efforts.

Remember, no one is forced to join a company just like no one is forced to join a union.

> Not increasing its power is not undermining it.

This might be true if you were describing a situation with three parties: a company, a union, and you - affiliated with neither. But as almost all unionization takes place after people have already entered an employee/employer relationship, the neutrality has been lost; you are, by default, on the side of the employer if you are not a part of the union, and having employees not in a union does weaken the bargaining position of the union since it's relative representation that matters.

> Stop changing definitions to suit your political goals.

Don't forget to call the kettle black, while you're at it.

If you're working for a partnership I agree, but if you support businesses being organised as limited liability corporations but not corresponding organisation of labour, that's not neutrality.

"Violence", you say? What violence is that? Is it taking place in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Korea, or maybe somewhere else, where we don't yet admit we have troops fighting?

Oh, sorry, you were talking about people having heart attacks while climbing the steps of the capital building. Never mind, carry on. Americans complaining about violence is like plants complaining about oxygen.

https://thegrayzone.com/2019/01/15/us-military-160-countries...