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Comment by hapless | Hacker News Reader

This is one of the reasons that people don't cross picket lines.

Good people won't cross them out of principle. The unprincipled among us may encounter other obstacles. It is very likely this driver got his just deserts.

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This is like McDonald's workers going on strike and attacking a Wendy's employee for going into work.

You're saying that you're ok with someone being subjected to violence because he just did his job as he does every day, but other people who did similar but different jobs happened to think that he should have stayed home that day. I doubt you'd think the same if a competitor of yours went on strike and attacked you for going into work.

Saying that the driver here got his "just desserts" is a truly disgusting and reprehensible attitude that is not fit for a civilized society. When a larger group of people can organize and use violence to subject smaller groups to their will, you no longer live in a free society.

In this case, the airport is their work site.

If a Wendy's employee attempted to cross a McD's picket line to work at the McDs, things would not go very well.

An airport is public infrastructure largely paid for by tax money collected from the citizenry. A McDs is a private business owned and operated privately.

Even if the analogy were valid, if McDs employees on strike committed violence against someone crossing their picket line, it would be both illegal and immoral. Defending violence as somehow being ok because some group is on strike and gets angry at those who aren't is abhorrent.

The airport exists at and is allowed operated at the will of the government and citizens of France of which the cab drivers are merely a small part. No single union could ever claim the exclusive rights to transportation to and from the airport it as their worksite. That's an absurd analogy.

The taxi union is actually used to having a monopoly on travel to the airport[1][2]. So they actually have been able to claim that exclusive right, as absurd as it seems, for a long time.

[1] http://www.connexionfrance.com/paris-taxis-keep-monopoly-cha...

[2] http://thenextweb.com/eu/2011/05/07/disruption-in-france/#!r...

> Good people won't cross them out of principle.

Can you explain why? I fully respect workers' right to unionize and strike, but there's no reason I should be bound by their strike.

It's an us-vs-them thing. The idea being you are on the same team as other workers, whether or not you are part of their strike.

Do you understand how strikes work? It is gasp a form of DISRUPTION. Solidarity with the strikes by not crossing the line improves their chances of success.

What happens when you don't agree with the strike?

Then you can take your chances trying to cross.

Why should I care about improving their chances of success?

If you are a worker you should because improvements eventually expand to non-striking workers in the same field and other fields and because they would do the same for you if you needed support.

If you are a capitalist, you wouldn't.

It's a big assumption that improvements eventually expand to others. Yes, some have in the past, but that doesn't mean they all do, or all will.

There's also a massive unstated assumption that there is an improvement at all.

Surely if I happen to disagree with one or both of these assumptions, I can cross a picket line without being a "bad person"?

If you cross a picket line, you have publicly cast your lot with a particular class. Whether you are a bad person is in the eye of the beholder.

You previously said that good people would avoid crossing a picket line out of principle. Now you seem to be saying that the reason to avoid crossing a picket line is because stupid people with a mob mentality might get the wrong message.

I, personally, would consider you a bad person for crossing a picket line. You, or some other person, might feel differently. Whether you accept my assumptions, or the picketers' assumptions, doesn't determine how you will be judged by others.

Why would you consider me to be a bad person for crossing a picket line in general?

In general you are siding with capital. Assuming it isn't a police strike.

What benefits will spread to me via existing taxi drivers violently maintaining an inefficient and predatory monopoly?

This isn't about a 40-hour workweek.

Do you want people to tell you why they care, or why you should care?

You may be philosophically against all of the labor rights that have been gained through strikes (which are all labor rights), and in that case, you shouldn't care. In fact, in that case you should go out of your way to break strikes like homophobes went out of their way to eat at Chick-Fil-A.

I'm not philosophically against the labor rights that have been gained through strikes, not at all.

But I honestly don't see why that should be related. Just because strikes have been a great tool to achieve important rights doesn't mean every individual strike is that way. If a strike is pointless, stupid, or actively campaigning for something I disagree with, why should I respect it?

Every answer I've received so far has been some variant on, "strikes were used to obtain things you now enjoy, so you should respect all strikes." This makes no sense. It's like saying we should respect the NSA because its predecessors helped defeat the Nazis by cracking Enigma.

Sure, even I don't support every strike. Like when police go on strike to demand better weapons.

But police aren't workers... So, yea.

Because that’s strike-breaking. Because you don’t need many strike-breakers to break a strike. I don’t think it should be illegal (barring corruption, of course), but I do think it should be scorned.

You have an interesting view on the situation.

I'm relatively certain that I have different views than you on the usefulness and appropriateness of unions in the modern world, but I appreciate your counter-position on the thread here.

And, scorn is certainly merited from strikers toward strike-breakers. Scorn from non-strikers toward strike-breakers is for the individual to decide based on their opinion of the strike and the union striking, obviously.

That's not an answer. "Why X?" "Because X."

For me it's more about a respect for the struggle we went through a hundred or so years ago, to get through to what's really a more civilized time.

The early days of unionization, and the conditions that led up to them, were horrific. Forced labor, private and gov't armies shooting workers, beatings, below-living wages. Workers fighting back proportionally: strikes, destruction of corporate property, retaliation against scabs... The civilized workplace we have today -- 40 hour weeks, paid overtime, OSHA, banning of child labor, living wages -- was paid for with blood.

> For me it's more about a respect for the struggle we went through a hundred or so years ago, to get through to what's really a more civilized time.

Wow, you must be the oldest person on hacker news!

For your consideration.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herrin_massacre

So tell me - what was your role in these events? You said that you went through these struggles, so I'm curious what you contributed?

Supporting violence is the quickest and easiest way to lose people like me who are otherwise be supportive of the right to organize. There is no excuse for this behavior, and calling the victims of unprovoked violence "unprincipled" is absolutely irredeemable.

So, because he drives for Uber instead of a traditional taxi company he deserves to have his car destroyed and to get beaten up? How do you figure?

This isn't a bunch of striking coal miners who are protesting hazardous working conditions. This is an established incumbent who is trying to bend the regulations to stamp out an innovative service that is beating them out by offering a better customer experience.

When you opt out shelling out the mandated by 240k € for the medallion, plus whatever it takes to pass the taxi driver exam, before you can even started to work, you can offer a lot better service...

Anyone thinking Uber plays fair in this instance is deluded... Which doesn't mean the system doesn't need urgent reform...

Isn't the point of having an expensive medallion and driver exams that you have vetted drivers who can then offer superior service? If it's not accomplishing that and we're getting better service from the drivers who have found a loophole around, then what is the point of having that in the first place? Maybe just to create an artificially limited supply and line the pockets of the gatekeepers?

There is likely no point anymore, pretty much everyone agrees about that. But how do you transition to a new system in a fair manner?

It would be painfully expensive for the government, but I wonder if the best solution might just be to take the fair market value of the medallions at some recent point in time and then use that value to buy out all the existing owners.

In NYC, medallions go for about a million bucks these days, and there are over 13,000. So this plan would cost the city $13 billion, or about 1/3rd of the city government's yearly budget. That's a huge amount of money, but not completely out of the question.

Turn each legacy medallion into a license and an interest-bearing municipal bond. Then start auctioning a limited number of new medallions each year with the understanding that the medallion system ends completely in, say, 20 or 30 years.

The auctions will still raise a nontrivial amount of money, especially in the first few years, which can be used to help fund bond payments and/or repurchase some of the bonds outright.

Not that I'm involved with Uber or speak for them in any way, but I think they'd be just as happy to have taxis in their app as black cars. I know they do where I live though not all the taxi companies participate. What's stopping the French cabs from taking dispatches from UberTaxi and offering a lower price than the black car service?

Make a medallion required for 30 days out of this month, 29 days out of next month, 28 days out of the next month, etc, until in 30 months, medallions are not required at all.

Can't a good person disagree with the strikers in a particular case? Why does walking around holding a sign mean that your cause is just? Is it wrong to help escort patients through the pickets in front of abortion clinics?

I am pretty sure you can both be principled and think that their strike is stupid. Or by principled do you mean "shares a specific set of principles that I also share"?

>The unprincipled among us may encounter other obstacles.

Too ashamed of the violence you promote to be explicit about it huh? People like you belong in prison.

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