We are multiple generations now with no experience with strikes, and I see a lot of confused, well meaning people who want to help but don’t know strike etiquette.
1. Never cross a picket line of striking workers.
2. Never purchase or take free goods from a company who’s workers are striking
3. Honk to support strikers if you drive by a picket line.
4. Join strikers on the picket line even if it’s not your strike, but follow their directions and defer to them while there.
5. Say “that’s great, the strike is working, the company should negotiate with their workers” whenever someone complains about profits lost, inconveniences or other worker-phobic rhetoric. Always turn it back on the company, who has all the power and money.
This is not to be contrary, but from a genuine desire to understand… why not take free stuff? The company isn’t making money from it.
For example, McDonald’s is giving out free cheeseburgers on the day scheduled for a strike. Why not go in en masse, demand your free cheeseburger, and overwhelm them with orders that they can’t fulfill quickly. Loudly complain that they should have been prepared for the demand created for such a promotion and ask why more people aren’t on shift right now.
Again, I accept that there may be a flaw in my logic, but can’t see it myself? Help me out?
Companies, especially large multinationals, often give out free products to maintain a stronghold on market shares. When workers strike, their power lies in showing their employer that they can’t operate without them, and that they will lose money and customers if their business doesn’t reach people. When McDonald’s doesn’t give you a free hamburger, they think you will go to Burger King during the strike, get used to it and maybe never come back. Multinationals can afford to move their vast amounts of capital from region to region very easily, and will give away free products to try to limit their loss of customers during a strike. By not taking those products, you helping the workers leverage their only source of power, which they will use to negotiate fair wages, cost of living adjustments, breaks, overtime wage structures, holidays, extended benefits and an equitable grievance structure.
When you don’t engage at all with the company, you are helping these workers have time with their families, pay their rent, have healthcare, and set wage standards across industries. Even better, the less you engage the faster the company will cave, the faster the strike will be over and workers will be back at their jobs pulling a paycheque.
No such thing as a free meal
Don’t be a scab, never cross the picket line.
Published
The-Lounge 