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[McTraveller]

Sooo... anyone know how I can (somewhat safely) open a savings account in Argentina?  Their interest rates are now 70%...

Although supposedly their inflation is also 70% a year.... 

Seems the currency has devalued by about 35% this year, so even taking that into account, should still come out like an effective 35% interest rate...

[Loud Whispers]

Maybe buy some Argentinian bonds if you feel like they're capable of repaying the bond

[McTraveller]

Lots of high-profile strikes occurring or looming in the US (teachers, nurses, potentially rail workers) prompting this question: do strikes really hurt "management" or do they end up hurting customers?

I can't see teachers strikes hurting schools (in fact 2nd party information has it that schools save tons of money in the short term if a strike occurs), but they massively hurt students.

Nurses striking - doubt it will hurt CEO pay or massive health industry income, but it puts patients at risk.

Freight workers striking - again, I doubt it will cause CEOs pain, but it will mean even more shortages of goods on peoples' shelves.

Is there a better alternative to strikes that will protect both workers and consumers?

[JoshuaFH]

Is there a better alternative to strikes that will protect both workers and consumers?

The alternative, I imagine, would be for the government to intercede on the workers' behalf and forcibly implement their demands. The Capitalist Class simply has a great deal more fat to survive long droughts with, and can out-survive anyone in the Working Class. I'd imagine the more real threat comes from the other members of the Capitalist Class, sensing weakness and smelling blood, moving in to displace them in the market, effectively kicking the weakling out of the country club of rich assholes, from which they can never return.

[McTraveller]

In a macro sense, sure… but how to make it work in a micro sense? I mean, you can’t declare to give workers a raise that doesn’t have revenue to support it. Best you can do is reallocate revenue, yes?

[MorleyDev]

From a capitalistic sense, if the business cannot both be profitable and afford to pay its employees a reasonable wage, does it deserve to exist? And if it still needs to exist, then does that not therefore mean government involvement, either via subsidization or state ownership, is required?

[EuchreJack]

Lots of high-profile strikes occurring or looming in the US (teachers, nurses, potentially rail workers) prompting this question: do strikes really hurt "management" or do they end up hurting customers?

I can't see teachers strikes hurting schools (in fact 2nd party information has it that schools save tons of money in the short term if a strike occurs), but they massively hurt students.

Nurses striking - doubt it will hurt CEO pay or massive health industry income, but it puts patients at risk.

Freight workers striking - again, I doubt it will cause CEOs pain, but it will mean even more shortages of goods on peoples' shelves.

Is there a better alternative to strikes that will protect both workers and consumers?

No

At some point, the Strike is the only option. Thankfully, the Threat of the Strike is sometimes sufficient, but that only works if a Strike is possible.

Funny thing: Most Nurses/Teachers are government/government-adjacent employees.  So two out of three are actually the Government being cheap, not the private sector as much.

[Vector]

Is there a better alternative to strikes that will protect both workers and consumers?

The alternative, I imagine, would be for the government to intercede on the workers' behalf and forcibly implement their demands. The Capitalist Class simply has a great deal more fat to survive long droughts with, and can out-survive anyone in the Working Class. I'd imagine the more real threat comes from the other members of the Capitalist Class, sensing weakness and smelling blood, moving in to displace them in the market, effectively kicking the weakling out of the country club of rich assholes, from which they can never return.

This, but also:

Of course schools save a ton of money in the short term if a strike occurs. School shuts and they don't pay their striking workers. It's just that in the long term, if they want to keep having a school, they need to pay people to work at it. The point is not necessarily to hit them in their wallets, it's to make their business stop functioning.

The point of striking is to force the organization to shut down by depriving it of labor. It's like the part of a job interview when you say: "I'd love to work here, but I would need more money." It's just that they're saying: "look, I've been working here for 10 years and I want to keep working here, but guys, you gotta pay us more. Seriously. We've been telling you."

The last thing is: I'm not sure you realize this, but organizing a union or a strike is a fuckton of work. Also, sometimes bad shit happens to you.

People don't strike when asking nicely works. Striking is usually only LEGAL when it's demonstrable that the company has been negotiating in bad faith, and then organizing the strike -- "hey time to deliberately deprive yourself of income" -- is hard. But when it works, it gets results. That's why people bother to do it.

[EuchreJack]

Is there a better alternative to strikes that will protect both workers and consumers?

The alternative, I imagine, would be for the government to intercede on the workers' behalf and forcibly implement their demands. The Capitalist Class simply has a great deal more fat to survive long droughts with, and can out-survive anyone in the Working Class. I'd imagine the more real threat comes from the other members of the Capitalist Class, sensing weakness and smelling blood, moving in to displace them in the market, effectively kicking the weakling out of the country club of rich assholes, from which they can never return.

This, but also:

Of course schools save a ton of money in the short term if a strike occurs. School shuts and they don't pay their striking workers. It's just that in the long term, if they want to keep having a school, they need to pay people to work at it. The point is not necessarily to hit them in their wallets, it's to make their business stop functioning.

The point of striking is to force the organization to shut down by depriving it of labor. It's like the part of a job interview when you say: "I'd love to work here, but I would need more money." It's just that they're saying: "look, I've been working here for 10 years and I want to keep working here, but guys, you gotta pay us more. Seriously. We've been telling you."

The last thing is: I'm not sure you realize this, but organizing a union or a strike is a fuckton of work. Also, sometimes bad shit happens to you.

People don't strike when asking nicely works. Striking is usually only LEGAL when it's demonstrable that the company has been negotiating in bad faith, and then organizing the strike -- "hey time to deliberately deprive yourself of income" -- is hard. But when it works, it gets results. That's why people bother to do it.

I'd like to reiterate the following: "some 10,000 armed coal miners confronted 3,000 lawmen and strikebreakers (called the Logan Defenders)[5] who were backed by coal mine operators during the miners' attempt to unionize the southwestern West Virginia coalfields when tensions rose between workers and mine management."
...as someone from a state where our governor wants to disarm everyone, to the point of outlawing the possession of firearms during a civil protest.  This extends to the protesters. You can clearly see the intent is to allow police to slaughter protesters.

[MorleyDev]

Pretty sure other countries without widespread public ownership of firearms still have unions and striking going on without mass slaughter of strikers by police officers. 1900s USA company towns were in many ways closer to slave labour camps rather than an employer/employee relationship.

Plus if the only thing protecting the public from police officers is the possibility of the public fighting back, you're already living in a horribly dystopian powder key and not an example of a modern stable society.

[McTraveller]

I think my questions include:

A) What's the (economic) rationale behind striking instead of quitting and starting your own organization?

B) What do you do when the "management" is different than the "customer" - especially relevant for things like public teachers, law enforcement, etc.  These are "businesses" that society doesn't really want "to be put out of business", yes?

[MrRoboto75]

Consider it could actually be cheaper to negotiate to strikers demands instead of lost time and money to find, hire, and train a brand new workforce.

[Vector]

A) What's the (economic) rationale behind striking instead of quitting and starting your own organization?

I'm a teaching assistant with a university and a member of a union that is a chapter of the UAW. I do not personally have the capacity to start an R1 university. Pooling all the wealth of the 17k other TAs is not likely to yield funds, land, and personnel that could start an R1 university. Indeed, the university where I currently work was founded via land grant, meaning the US government told the native people living there to scoot elsewhere and then built a college on it. So first we would have to start an army, then we would have to find some land to steal, and then we would have to start a university.

The kind of people who work at foundries seldom have the capital to start foundries, or hospitals, or schools, or auto plants, and often these industries are legally protected through e.g. certification processes. That's why management is called the "owning class" and their employees are called the "working class."

Extra credit: How many of these common institutions operate their businesses on 99-year land grants from the Catholic Church, and how did they get the land in the first place?

Bonus points: Vector's cousin is fucking terrible at passing tests and taking orders and wants to be in charge of something instead of working at a foundry like her dad, or sweating away in a university like Vector. She convinces her partner to buy a shitty piece of scrublands in the desert for 10k without any facilities on it, and decides that she's going to start a school for emotionally damaged high schoolers.

a. If you were also related to Vector's cousin, how many hours of free physical labor would you be willing to put in building a school on that land?

b. How much would you insure it for given that it's also going to be a commune for the homeless and Vector's cousin is really blasé about things like background checks?

c. How much would you have to pay Vector to be the math teacher on this commune given facts a. and b., Vector's clean background check and years of teaching experience (not held by cousin), and that Vector's cousin needs someone else to teach fractions?

d. By comparison, is striking easier or harder than forcibly pulling Vector's cousin's head out of her ass. Round to the nearest fifth

B) What do you do when the "management" is different than the "customer" - especially relevant for things like public teachers, law enforcement, etc.  These are "businesses" that society doesn't really want "to be put out of business", yes?

Well, for example, in Oakland, California when the teachers went on strike, more than 95% of the students also walked out of school even though this meant that many of them didn't get fed. When customers are different from management, your goal is to get the customers to join the picket line in order to make the strike big, disruptive, and most importantly fast.

PS: The cops can sell some of their military hardware or civil forfeitures if they need a payraise, thanks!

(Whoops, they already do that)

[anewaname]

Striking is a revolt against economic and social slavery. Economic and social slavery are the result of "local politics".

So, your state is going to receive federal funding for new schools... Who chooses who receives the project work? Who chooses the location of the school with regard to the communities it will serve. Who chooses the supply lines of food and tools that the students will consume? Who chooses what businesses will be allowed nearby?

By the time the local politicians are done in the backrooms, it may seem like they are not profiting greatly, but they have established years worth of income for themselves and their associates, and the education the community receives is secondary.

What Vector said about, "That's why management is called the "owning class" and their employees are called the "working class."", that is the truth of it. If Vector's cousin's endeavor in the desert became successful or challenged the "local political body"s profit or credibility in some way, a representative of that local political body would come along looking to interact... and the interaction would be something like "you should send some of this profit through us or we'll make your activity illegal".

[McTraveller]

This has veered out of economics I think into politics - which suggests that perhaps the main reason for strikes isn't purely economic, but strongly political - due to things mentioned like regulatory capture, certification requirements, etc.

I think there's also a sociological part - consider I know someone who started a school (not a university, just an elementary school) so I know it doesn't take that much capital.  I also know that the people who built foundries didn't use their own money - they leveraged the heck out of it. So if 1000 foundry workers got together, they sure could build a foundry, because they could make a good pitch to a capital firm: "we have the most important part of a foundry - an available experienced workforce."

Ultimately, given that I don't know the actual financial details of all the organizations against which strikes are being conducted, I should probably just stay quiet.