What the UAW is doing here is fighting for all workers. This sets precedents that ripple across all industries. What formed the UAW back in 1937 took some balls, and so does this.
It’s not communism to fight for dignity and a living wage. We’re practically fighting for some more table scraps, but the rich are acting like we’re threatening social fabric.
Go and get it Shawn, this is exactly what we all need right now. Support the UAW.
Fighting for dignity actually is literally communism. It’s capitalist propaganda that has you convinced otherwise.
You don’t seem to understand that your distinction between the theory of communism, and communism as practiced, are both equally valid and accepted uses of the word. One is a theory, one created reeducation camps and killed millions of their own people. It is not capitalism that convinced me of this.
Your comment is fair, but please allow me to deflect for a moment with a few questions:
The nazis called themselves national socialists, do you believe they were socialists?
The north korean government has called their country a democratic republic, do you believe that?
I’m guessing you answered no to both. If that’s the case, why do you believe the ussr and the ccp when they say they were/are practicing communism?
Additionally, who benefits more than capital if you believe socialism and communism equal authoritarianism?
I mean, I can see a utopian vision of Communism where dignity is forefront, but I’ve also seen where it’s dystopian. Correct me if I’m wrong but the basis is to each according to their need and from each based on their abilities. Dignity isn’t mentioned, but the happiness and contentment of all is the goal so I suppose it’s inferred but not specified.
Either way, it doesn’t have to be viewed with any kind of social opposition. If we keep following the slippery slope of late game capitalism, who’s to say companies don’t just purchase legislation that re-establishes full on slavery? We have a fucked up oligarch system, and moments like this where workers unite is a good thing in any system. Free market my ass, and this is a moment where arguing for semantics is a side-discussion, for now it’s us against the oligarchs.
I think a better way to describe the essence of communism is an end to dominance hierarchies. Authoritarians often use leftist rhetoric to gain power, which is why so many of them have called themselves socialist or communist, while being the exact opposite of the ideals they claim to support.
You are 100% correct, it is us against the oligarchs. That’s also the entire basis of communist theory, btw. Regardless of terms used though, we are on the same side of this fight, and I am glad that we are.
Communism provides a theoretical framework to advocate for those things, but it is not the same as doing those things. I think the distinction is important because it allows you to have a plurality or support
In the last 20 years, we’ve seen the most rapid rise in productivity since the industrial revolution, and just like in the wake of the industrial revolution, there was massive worker exploitation that led to reforms and eventually unionization that ushered in a golden age of labor in America where workers were fairly compensated for the work they provided, so much so that it was easy for a salaryman to support a nuclear family on his single paycheck.
Since then, the business owner class has been working hard to dismantle unions while refusing to pay their fair share of the massive profit windfalls to the bottom rung workers. We are long overdue for sweeping multi-industry unionization effort. Only then will we start seeing something more than just table scraps.
Reminder that some unions have merch you can buy to help support their workers during strikes. This one doesn’t, unfortunately. But always check. I have some damn cool looking tshirts for other labor movements (Rail, Starbucks, Truck haulers, etc).
You can sign their petition here:
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/big-3-ceo-petition-1?source=standwithuspage
I work at the corporate headquarters of a company that provides contract services to industrial plants. Not related to the car industry, but I literally just had a meeting today with some folks from HR to add a way to our central system to track what plants our employees have unionized at. The general tone was “oh crap we have union workers now, how do we not accidentally break the law because we’re quickly seeing more and more of our workforce unionize”