In this case, workers intentionally waited until they'd filled up all the trucks with concrete to go on strike, so that the concrete would harden in and destroy the trucks. The company was able to clear the trucks to save them, at the cost of all the concrete.
Wonder how the author here would feel about surgeons going on strike scheduled intentionally after beginning open heart surgery on a loved one?
Wonder how the author here would feel about surgeons going on strike scheduled intentionally after beginning open heart surgery on a loved one?
This is a silly comparison. Concrete trucks don’t have beating hearts - they’re just property owned by the business. It’s important to recognize life as distinct.
Physicians take the Hippocratic Oath, and they otherwise generally care about the well-being of their patients. Also, it is illegal to strike at a health care facility without first giving 10-days notice (to plan how to continue care). I’ve talked to residents organizing at Mass General Brigham, and (though they aren’t planning a strike) my vague understanding is that the logistics of striking in health care are targeted more at paperwork rather than holding up care (e.g. provide the care but don’t sign the notes so billing can’t commence).
I recommend reading more about how organizing in health care works - it’s complex, very topical these days, and I think it’ll show you that folks tend to care for one another. Too easy for Silicon Valley edge-case thinkers to reach for ad absurdum armchair arguments like “what if a doctor let their patient die on the operating table because they want more money” - that’s not where their heads are at at all.
It’s also incredibly important that quality of life improves for health care workers. Med students are 3x more likely to die by suicide than the general population.
While it may not be an apples to apples comparison and certainly exaggerates the impact (a human life vs property), it describes the mechanism of the intentional destruction of property in this case pretty well.
Even the NLRB states that a strike may be considered unlawful if it deprives company owners of their property. Timing the strike to intentionally destroy company trucks seems to go far beyond the act of the organized withholding of human labor.
No, I am not confused. One is murder and one is intentional destruction of property. Both results are due to intentional sabotage by the actors involved.
Doctors… don’t murder folks (I mean, yes, this has happened, but not as a strategy of a strike). It’s a nonsense hypothetical created to make striking sound absurd. I’ve already described in general terms how striking in health care works. Walking out to strike mid-open-heart surgery doesn’t happen - it doesn’t benefit the doctor, and they would be liable for their actions (and for violating the 10-day notice, presumably). There are legal differences between property damage and taking a life, so the comparison isn’t particularly useful.
I draw a line at trying to compare property damage and homicide as if they stem from the same “mechanism”. There’s no analogy to be made there. The striking workers didn’t kill anyone, and it’s insidious to float “how would the author feel if a striking doctor planned their action to kill someone” hypotheticals because murder and property damage are not united under some definition of “sabotage”.
Like, what’s the useful takeaway from the comparison? Cement getting left in a truck is like losing a loved one? Really? Striking workers performing something like sabotage is similar to pre-meditated murder? Are these useful comparisons? I don’t think so.
> This is a silly comparison. Concrete trucks don’t have beating hearts - they’re just property owned by the business. It’s important to recognize life as distinct.
Okay, consider this scenario instead: you're getting an addition put on your house. Right after ripping the old roof off, the workers all go on strike, letting your house fill up with rain and snow.
Depends on the nature of the relationship with the workers.
If I’m employing them directly, I doubt there would be reason for a strike - what are they striking against? I don’t have a construction company. They’re either doing the work as contractors, and I’ll pay for it, or they aren’t doing the work, and they don’t get paid. IANAL, but I doubt it’s considered a strike if contractors skip a job or abandon a job midway through. Also, it’s important to foster a good relationship with your contractors and to make sure both parties agree they’re benefiting from the business relationship. That’s just simple good business.
If they are under someone else’s employ, the comparison doesn’t add up - the cement-in-truck didn’t cause substantial damages to the customer. (Maybe delayed schedule? I don’t know the details of the case.) What you are describing harms the customer directly. Talk to folks that are striking, and they will almost unanimously say they don’t want to inconvenience the customer. Rather more often than not they’re seeking to change the terms of their employment to benefit the customer, whether that’s more staffing, more safety, or more manageable hours to provide better service. These are folks working closest to the customer touchpoints, and I’m inclined to trust their knowledge of customer service more than management’s.
> Talk to folks that are striking, and they will almost unanimously say they don’t want to inconvenience the customer.
While they might say that, actions speak louder than words, and I as a customer have been inconvenienced a lot by strikes, e.g., when my car sat in the shop for over 2 months because it needed a part that ran out of stock and a UAW strike delayed any more of from getting made.
I know there is a rather large culture difference, but here in Norway the unions announce the start time of the strike some time before the actual walkout, instead of "you're striking right now".
If the employees here (and in the OP) did the same, they could start the strike by the end of one workday, so that no food/cement would be wasted as it it was never prepared.
Is this not possible in the US? Or is this a case of increasing one-uppance as the relationship between companies and employees is _that bad_?
> Is this not possible in the US? Or is this a case of increasing one-uppance as the relationship between companies and employees is _that bad_?
The latter. America is a low trust, high conflict society. You can argue about “who shot first” but labor relations in America has often escalated to violence by both sides.
The scenario you describe in paragraph 2 is not out of the ordinary, but the tension you describe in paragraph 3 is certainly not out of the ordinary either
Yes, it’s allegedly intentional. That’s all it takes to initiate a lawsuit. The Supreme Court’s ruling was only that the lawsuit could proceed, not that the employer won. They still have to prove the allegations.
I think the case of medical workers would be considered a bit differently, and deservedly so. Despite that, I think the Supreme Court's ruling on this case was essentially correct for this specific situation, although I think it's worrying to think about how this precedent set could be abused for different cases in the future.
In the Supreme Court’s equation, cement trucks are more important than loved ones because losing cement has an economic impact but some old retiree undergoing heart surgery was just a non-productive liability anyway.
But, if you're providing healthcare to an old person to the tune of $50,000+ multiple times in a few short years, you could call them a GDP booster, no?
What a terrible analogy. This strike didn't hurt anyone, it cost the employer money, which is exactly what they're supposed to do! A strike that doesn't cost money isn't a strike, and a union that can't strike is a social club.
The idea that strikes are intended to cost the company does not lend itself that workers can do anything that damages the company. Are workers allowed to blow up the trucks using TNT (as long as no one gets hurt)? Can they steal all the gasoline in the trucks and sell it on the secondary market? No.
Strikes are intended to lose the company money in a very specific way - by a lack of labor. They are not intended to lose the company money by intentional destruction of property (nor should they be intended to do that)
You sound like you're arguing with me, but all of the rules you described seem to suggest that what the strikers did in this case was legal. They didn't blow up anything or steal anything, they quit working at an inconvenient time.
Also, I think you're imagining a set of gentlemanly Marquis of Queensbury rules around strikes that don't exist. This isn't an elaborate ritual like the filibuster; labor dispute precedents are written in blood.
If you intentionally fill up a truck with material that destroys it and then leave it, that is property destruction. That is equivalent to blowing something up (the concrete expands and blows up the truck) in that it is property damage.
Another example to help you understand:
If I came into my office in the morning with a highly flammable liquid and put them where the sun shines in the afternoon, and then intentionally left for "striking" - the ensuing office fire would be property damage on my part.
It's an extreme example. There is a difference between just not doing the work and intentionally causing harm: That's the difference between surgeon that refuses to schedule operations and one that intentionally delays the strike to walk out mid operation to maximize the harm. I used an extreme example because nothing I saw in vice's position on how the cause should have been decided appeared to exclude it.
But absolutely I agree that destroying millions of dollars in equipment and supplies is not equivalent to killing people, but the examples share an underlying principle of sabotage.
There is difference of losing money because employer can't sell something for duration or some sort of expected stoppage happens. And pure waste of material and possibly equipment.
Imagine if software developers took a service down for maintenance and then just decided to strike at that moment. Or maybe unloaded some servers from truck and then left them outside in rain.
If the company never stopped filling trucks, the workers could never go on strike. The company was well aware they were not willing to meet their workers demands. They shouldn't get to filibuster a strike.
> If the company never stopped filling trucks, the workers could never go on strike.
The same workers filling the trucks are the ones going on a strike. They can strike before starting filling exactly as well as after it.
Honestly, a ruling that doing sabotage during a strike consists on sabotage is completely mundane and expected. I don't think it would even appear on this site if the title was honest.
Wonder how the author here would feel about surgeons going on strike scheduled intentionally after beginning open heart surgery on a loved one?