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I’m really tired of this genre of viral internet post that’s like “DONT CROSS THE PICKET LINE! don’t order from Widget Burger Co on Tuesday because there’s a BIG STRIKE” and then you go to look at widget burger co on Tuesday and there’s nobody picketing and everyone is at work like normal. it totally devalues the idea of what a labor movement even is and makes you look gullible as hell for joining in. and this is self crit bc ive done it before

a real strike is something that shuts down or otherwise impacts production. a ‘virtual strike’ aims to moralize consumption via boycott, while leaving production unaffected

the Amazon union in Alabama with an open election retweeted this thread explicitly saying the internet activists calling for organization-free boycotts of Amazon are hurting their effort. but get your internet points 👍

I understand that people want a militant labor movement in this country badly and wish they could just order one online but it doesn’t work like that

@kate What is this election thing? Electing representatives within the union? And a certain faction is trying to gain influence?

@kate i've always been confused by the attitude of like
"we're boycotting you. here's the date when we come back"

i guess ostensibly it's a warning shot to show you COULD keep going. but if the target is something on the scale of amazon, it's like

you also need to convince them that they haven't made it impossible to meaningfully compete.
i feel like the current perception on the side of huge companies is like "they're getting it out of their system so they can buy without guilt again"

@heatherhorns @kate yeh totally. It's a illusion. Strikes are about power and not weird grandstanding on a small scale. Amazon bosses don't give a shit at the profit from a few thousand people not buying stuff through them for a week.

@kate I'm starting to wonder if this sort of messaging might actually be a deliberate anti-union tactic organized by the company in question (or anti-union contractors they've hired).

If they can get something that looks like "the unionization effort is causing disruptions!" that's more ammo they have against the union organizers.

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