Costco workers in Norfolk have unionised and Costco are seething.
But that doesn’t mean that the creation of the union has to be viewed as hostility between labor and business.
Of course it does. The IWW isn’t a yellow union. It understands that this is a class war, not a class “collaboration.” The capitalists certainly think it’s a class war.
My question would be “what’s the win condition”?
A business that tangibly treats labor better is better than one that does not.
A union lessens the power imbalance, but it’s still better to start from a place where cooperation is possible.
So if the relationship must be hostile, what’s the win condition?
The win condition is the workers owning the means of production. In the meantime, it’s a struggle to take as much of our labor’s value from our employers as possible, because we’re entitled to all of it.
Sure, and that’s great. I’m in favor of that. But how does viewing cooperation as collaboration in a class war further those objectives?
“Fuck you for trying to be better” isn’t a viable strategy for the midterm goal of “more fairness”.
Why would an employer ever employ someone if there is no net gain to the employer? You are not entitled to all the value of your labor unless you are self employed and that sounds like a lot more difficult than showing up to work for 40 hours of work that’s been organized by someone else.
Hell, labor and business is already a hostile relationship even without a union, which is why unions exist. Any boss that doesn’t act as if it’s class war is a chump who won’t be able to get funding from traditional institutions (banks, shareholders, etc).
