Getting fired for industrial and other political actions is a real possibility, and union and other organizers should frankly discuss it, presenting people with available data, but if workers can't overcome that very real fear, they can't even protect their own lives and limbs. Getting killed, disabled, and injured at work -- or getting your loved ones' lives as well as your lives shortened because of low wages, no benefits, toxic working conditions, and so on -- is worse than getting fired. While jobs come and go (the median job tenure of US workers in January 2004 was four years ["Employee Tenure in 2004," <http://www.bls.gov/news.release/tenure.nr0.htm>, 21 Sept. 2004]), you have only one life to live.
Union and other organizers should never exaggerate the possibility of getting fired for industrial and other political actions -- striking fear more than facts warrant is the boss's job.
As a matter of fact, almost all US workers are let go today not because of industrial and other political actions but because of dearth of them: "Of those long-tenured workers displaced during the January 2001 through December 2003 period, 43 percent lost or left their jobs due to plant or company closings or moves, 29 percent reported that their position or shift was abolished, and 28 percent cited insufficient work as the reason for being displaced. (See table 2.) The proportion reporting insufficient work was up slightly from the prior survey, and the share citing plant or company closings or moves was down" ("Worker Displacement, 2001-03," <http://www.bls.gov/news.release/disp.nr0.htm>, 30 Jul. 2004).
A left-wing sociologist might study reemployment rates of workers who are fired for union organizing and other political reasons and workers who are displaced without any union and other political activities on their part ("In January 2004, reemployment rates for workers ages 20 to 24 and those in the central-age group (ages 25 to 54) were 65 and 69 percent, respectively. By comparison, reemployment rates were lower for older workers ages 55 to 64 (56 percent) and 65 years and older (24 percent)" ["Worker Displacement, 2001-03," <http://www.bls.gov/news.release/disp.nr0.htm>, 30 Jul. 2004]). My hypothesis is that, excepting periods of serious Red purges, those who have enough moxie to get fired for union organizing and the like are more likely to find other jobs sooner than those who are meek and mild and do nothing until bosses fire them. -- 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/>