That is one of those little things that tend to support the need to have someone at least a little sympathetic in control of state power.
Steve
----- Original Message ----- From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>; <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 8:37 AM Subject: [lbo-talk] Work-to-Rule for All Workers
> Nathan Newman nathanne at nathannewman.org, Tue May 17 04:59:25 PDT 2005,
> "Work to Rule only for Unions":
>>In private non-union workplaces, the rules would be changed.
>
> Not all of the rules can be changed by employers' whim alone, as some of
> them are federal and state laws. There are myriad government regulations
> concerning occupational health and safety
> <http://www.osha.gov/index.html>, wages and hours
> <http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/>, environment
> <http://www.epa.gov/epahome/workplac.htm>, and other subjects, whose
> enforcement workers must take into their own collective hands. Sometimes,
> workers' very lives depend on their capacity to enforce laws at the
> shop-floor level:
> <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/workplace/>.
>
>>The only protection for defiance is collective defiance and the
>>willingness to strike when fellow workers are fired. And that takes
>>organizing and outside support to be successful in almost all cases.
>
> No one said otherwise.
>
> Nathan wrote:
>>Working in a non-union workplace in the United States means "at will"
>>employment, which means your boss can fire you because he doesn't like
>>your choice of shoes that morning or for no reason at all. There are no
>>"subversive" forms of public resistance. You resist in any way, you can
>>be fired.
>
> You don't resist in any way, and you can be fired, too. That's what "at
> will" employment means. You don't resist at all, and you can be even
> killed at a dangerous workplace.
> --
> Yoshie
>
> * Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
> * Monthly Review: <http://monthlyreview.org/>
> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/>
> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
> * Calendars of Events in Columbus:
> <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>,
> <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/>
> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>
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>
>
>