i keep seeing soooo many ppl saying the canada post workers are selfish for striking right around christmas time and that they shouldve waited until january or whatever like omfg that is the point are you stupid!!!
When workers strike this is fault of the employer. The employer could choose to meet their demands and end the strike. Striking workers are reminding their employer and the public how important and valuable they are. The employer is being selfish for not giving workers what they need during the season when they most demonstrate how valuable they are. If the precious holiday mail is delayed that’s on the employer not the workers- the employer is choosing to force a strike, they could make a different choice, the striking workers are only responding to what they are forced to do to get their needs met. If you want the strike to end, pressure the employer, not the workers.
Warehouse workers for one of the two lead grocery chains were on strike in Australia recently, and everyone was having a freakout about whether or not there would be any groceries on the shelves of that store for Christmas.
Now this was just one grocery chains affected. The other lead grocery chain was completely unaffected by the strikes, as were all smaller/independent/etc grocery stores. Meaning people were still perfectly able to get their groceries elsewhere. But the threat of limited stock over the Christmas period had the grocery chain SWEATING.
They lost something like 50 million bucks in a few days because of the strikes, and they kept trying to push the “if the workers don’t capitulate then you, shopper, won’t be able to buy your Christmas ham!!!!” But i don’t know anyone who was like “Yeah those damn workers, threatening my Christmas.” Everyone I know was saying “There’s an easy solution to this. Woolworths should just pay their staff and agree to their safety demands.”
Some stores even had messages of support from customers appearing on the empty shelves:
Anyway despite the best efforts of the media, general public sentiment remained on the side of the striking workers, and today, news broke that Woolworths has reached a deal with their workers. The threat of having no stock over Christmas gave the workers the extra impact that they needed to drag Woolworths back to the negotiation table.
The people striking in the lead-up/over Christmas are not your enemy.
The corporations who hold Christmas hostage as they refuse to give their employees safe working conditions absolutely a liable wage are your enemy.
Remember that.
Just as a cherry on this one, the Woolworths strike was successful even though Woolworths went to Fair Work and got them to declare the picketing unlawful and prevent the union from stopping scabs getting into the warehouses.
…so private citizens picketed instead.
Woolies withstood maybe three days of this before giving in, presumably because they can’t ask Fair Work to unilaterally criminalize people standing on public land.
