Yes, let's resist fascism with consumerism.
Completely ignoring how one empowers the other...
this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2025
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The post didn't promote consumerism in any way. It said, if you're a tech worker you should unionize and sabotage authoritarian work where you can
my tech department recently unionized, its great
one of the best things about it is enforcing the "other duties as required" and setting a hard limit on what that means, management has to accept it and they hate that shit
management has to accept it
Do they have to accept it by law? I'm realizing I don't really understand how unions work. What is it that actually transfers the power from the company to the workers just by unionizing?
The collective bargaining agreement (CBA) is where the power is, its a legally binding agreement between the Union and the Employer. The unions have lawyers that have crafted the language and there is a lot of back and forth until its agreed upon and then its binding for both parties.
When you get a union job, the position is represented by the union and the employer has agreed to the CBA. So as the union employee, if I feel that I am be asked to do something outside of my job description, I can request the union to audit the work which puts management under the microscope and well they don't usually like that so they will create a cold war and force policy adherence to the letter. In the end everyone is usually more clear about what is acceptable and what is not.
But the real power is that if its not in your job description, you can really say no and they cant do anything about it. The "other duties and responsibilities" should never be more then 8 hours in 2 weeks. If it does, it needs to be included as part of your job description. And the union has a death grip on that description with the CBA.
Thanks a lot! 🙏
oh yeah the first sentence should have included that the country that the agreement is in, recognizes it and binds both parties to it. So its a 3 party agreement in a sense, with the 3rd party being the courts of the country with laws recognizing the agreement.
The CBA will have a part in it about about strikes. I have been in a few unions that agreed in the CBA that we would not walk out strike, but we would do things like everyone wearing the same shirt or during lunch hour, gathering in the street in front of the workplace. It has a good optic and imo most of the time, the people directly in charge of you don't want to make waves with the union. its a good balance of power that is beneficial to everyone
Laws obv vary by country, but in the US, a corporation is legally required to recognize and bargain with a union if over 30% of their employees choose to unionize.
Thanks! 🙏
but in the US, a corporation is legally required to
For now, until Trump decides to make unions illegal
I was just thinking the exact same thing. Let's hope not, but considering he's licking Elon's toes I'm imagining it wouldn't be an impossibility. You would think it would be political suicide to do so, though. 😅
Solid post from Drew, agree with everything there.
He mentions doing your best to join in your local communities with like minded folk. Here's a good guide on how and where those folk might be to join up with.
And if you follow his advice to unionize, I highly recommend the IWW). They'll help you form a grassroots union that's directly controlled by you and your coworkers. And they'll help you no matter what kind of job you have! Beefing it up is one of the best things we can do to resist.
I've been saying this for such a long time, the tech industry needs unions. It also needs crowd sourced legal assistance as well because it isn't going to be easy. They'll fire of course at first despite being illegal, then they'll want migrants that they can threaten with deportation if they don't comply. Even if Trump goes away, unions will be necessary to keep corporations accountable.
Although I don't support sabotage for the time being & strongly oppose it in almost every way. It isn't just risky, but I feel many times it ends up legitimizing the groups you're trying to protect others from. I feel it would make matters substantially worse before the potential of making things better, but at that point you may have just invited the next generation of fascism to use your actions to justify theirs.
It also needs crowd sourced legal assistance
Basically any union in Germany has access to an army of lawyers, your dues double as legal insurance covering anything related to work and welfare.
Yes, but even before you get to that point. Like I said they'll fight dirty at first, so having assistance to even be able to get to that point requires community efforts.
How about a tech cooperative ?
Both are excellent :)
I don't support sabotage for the time being
What a wild goddamn thing to say when US citizen children with cancer are being rounded up and deported to countries they’ve never lived in. Please, share. Where have you drawn the line?
I didn't say not to draw a line. I just said I was opposed to sabbatoge for the time being. There are lots of other things you can do right now to work towards restoring diplomacy.
Great, so I’m asking you. Where is your line, beyond which sabotage is suddenly morally justified?
When the courts have shown multiple times that they no longer care about the constitution. Right now we have the Supreme Court ruling against the Trump admin's illegal deportations. Unfortunately it takes time for the process to play out. I am optimistic that the courts will for now maintain the checks & balances. The courts are the strongest protection against Trump's authoritarian attempts.
You’ve crossed over into parody.
Maybe you should study some law to understand how the courts work. He can't even impeach federal judges. It takes 2/3 majority just like it does for President.
It isn't just risky, but I feel many times it ends up legitimizing the groups you're trying to protect others from.
Fascists don't need you to justify their fascism.
I tend to agree, but not entirely.
The point I was making here is you start sabotaging & can end up harming people that may have been allies. As they say, the road to hell is often paved with good intentions.
Second, the more you start demanding people do what you want else you'll sabotage, attack them, etc... Your ideas really aren't that much different than those of fascists either.
The point I was making here is you start sabotaging & can end up harming people that may have been allies
How? The call to sabotage was against fascist programs, like surveillance, illegal arrests, etc. How would sabotaging those hurt people who could have been allies?
Second, the more you start demanding people do what you want else you'll sabotage, attack them, etc
That is nowhere near what is happening here. We have a system of laws that is being broken. Nobody was calling for sabotage when those laws were followed. But people who use less aggressive methods to combat fascism, i.e. writing op-eds, speaking publicly against administration policies, leading protests, have started facing punishments. They are preventing the normal exercise of civilian power, so we have to escalate to sabotage or similar actions. That doesn't make us like fascists because we are not the ones defying and breaking existing social norms and laws. This is a ridiculous argument.
The suggestion of sabbatoge was against large corporations that employ tens of thousands of people if not more. You can make arguments that good people should never accept jobs at these large companies that end up working against our interests, but sabbatoging a company's ability to function will almost certainly end impacting a lot of employees as well, which I'd guess many of them aren't even that different than us & in some cases even less privileged. You do you. If you think that your resistance is pure & that if given the ring of power that you or your group will throw it into the lake of fire, then commit to that. I personally have seen too many instances where the resistance, especially if coming from Democrats, is just another form of fascism.
No one was talking about sabotage
Maybe go actually read the blog post before you make it so obvious that you didn't.