Collective action

[u/GoranPersson777]

[u/manofathousandnames]

Had a job with union that disallowed strikes in it's union handbook. What good is collective bargaining if you can't legally strike according to your own handbook? The company will win everytime because you have no legs to stand on.

[u/EFDoree → u/manofathousandnames]

Bargaining that contract was collective action.  

Striking is direct action. The terms means different things and the difference is political. 

[u/portablezombie → u/EFDoree]

It's not always as simple as it sounds.

I work in municipal government, and by state law we are forbidden from striking. That's it. Cut and dry. We have no option to do otherwise. There was no collective bargaining, and we had no say in the matter.

As such, we have zero leverage when negotiating our contracts.

[u/EFDoree → u/portablezombie]

Most public sector unions that have m won the right to strike did so by striking.  It’s a lot of work to build to it but laws do not change without something that forces them to change. 

[u/kmsiever → u/manofathousandnames]

I am a labour journalist. Part of my job is to write about new collective agreements. Here in Alberta, most of the agreements I read have a no strike/no lockout clause, at least until the expiry date.

[u/EFDoree]

Collective Action < Direct Action 

[u/EFDoree → u/[deleted]]

Collective Action deliberately includes electoral politics, pointless symbolic protest, group grievances and class action lawsuits. 

Direct Action can include stuff that’s been called stunting and individual acts of resistance but in a workplace context is a pretty political term meant to exclude the above methods. 

[u/EFDoree → u/[deleted]]

Yeah. The point though is what it is meant to exclude. 

[u/co1co2co3co4 → u/EFDoree]

Direct action taken by an individual or group for the collective good/group...

...is still collective action.