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Comment by dmreedy | Hacker News Reader

I fail to see the nuance.

I don't really think it's supposed to be "good for anyone". It's not supposed to be comfortable and civilized and concessionary. It's not supposed to preserve the status quo because the position of the striker is that the status quo is bad and un-preservable.

It's supposed to hurt. That's the only lever workers have in these systems.

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Yes, the strike is supposed to hurt the company.

Unfortunately, a rail strike would have put something like an estimated 3 million people out of work immediately, and would have cut off food and water supplies to millions of people. That's why there's a law preventing strikes that extend beyond the industry to have negative effects on the whole nation.

I understand why there is a law in place to make it illegal to strike.

But your logic would suggest to me that what instead would be needed is a law or set of laws preventing the situation from getting so bad that it would come to such a thing.

If it hurts so much for the system to break, then why is it allowed to rot? A strike isn't supposed to hurt "the company", it's supposed to hurt so that people with power are forced to take action to make it stop hurting.

All I'm suggesting is that a class analysis of this situation has a lot more explanatory power than an aesthetic party alignment one. Because if it can never hurt, then it is purely aesthetics.

> aesthetic party alignment one

Ah yes, both sides are to blame because the difference is only aesthetic, despite one voting to give workers what they wanted, being blocked by the other party.

Seriously, Democrats basically went to the table with "you can't strike because that will ruin the economy but we will give you the vast majority of what you want", the labor unions agreed, and then Republicans prevented it. And your takeaway is that the Democrats are equally culpable?

I'll suggest that Democrats are equally culpable. Because if the Republicans couldn't have prevented it, the Democrats would have. These clowns all take turns pretending to care. People are getting sick of it.

This is the laziest heuristic I've seen in a long time.

Sure.

California homelessness crisis.

Well, would have made sense for the rail companies to hurry to the bargaining table quickly then, wouldn't it?

Neither the companies nor the workers have any incentive to care about the effects of the strike on the broader nation. That's exactly why there's a law in place that allows the government to intervene and set terms for both sides.

When it is clear that the interests of the workers and the interests of the company aren't being decided evenly, it is time to repeal those laws. Until Democrats start unilaterally proposing new legislation to repeal those laws they have to share the blame. They contributed to this mess.

An alternative used in people transport is that they just stop charging people or checking tickets. It doesn't disrupt transport, just cash flow to the employers / shareholders.

Maybe if people actually saw how much of their life would stop working if rail workers went on strike, maybe they would more support keeping things working well, with reasonable work life balances and less stress.

>I fail to see the nuance.

Then Reddit is that way. ---->

So if people disagree with another person they go to Reddit?

Everyone weighs the value of information differently and has vastly different information to use in making decisions. Additionally there are various weights applied based on impact to individuals, community, and society as a whole. Pretending you are right, or that I am right, isn't valid. Everyone gets their opinion and everyone believes they are right.

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