[lbo-talk] Work-to-Rule for All Workers

Steven Gotzler Steve at Gotzler.org
Tue May 17 06:57:38 PDT 2005


Yes, although there are a large number of rules and regulations that an employer must follow, there is very little hope that any of them will be enforced against an employer.

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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