US Government Shutdown

[Red_Banner]

Why are these Federal workers that are expected to work without pay showing up for work?


They should go on strike and maybe unionize if they haven't already joined a union.

[Red Sun]

Why aren't these Federal workers that are expected to work without pay showing up for work?

Do you mean why are they showing up for work?

It's a good question. My guess would be that they've been bombarded by the idea that they have to keep working "so that the nation can keep functioning", etc., and they don't really feel like they can go on strike. Not to mention, the shutdown has only been going for 10 days, and getting people to get organized like that can take time.

[Red_Banner]

The thing is also they are afraid that another Reagan might fire them.

But the thing is Reagan had a labour pool to replace the air traffic controllers and that was only one small protion of the government protesting.
His labour pool was those who learned air traffic control in the military.

Not all government jobs have this labour pool, nor can you simply jump in every job because you have some sort of degree.

It isn't easy to put scabs in when you lack people with previous experience to even train new people.

[Red Sun]

I totally agree that it seems like a good idea for them to go on strike at this point. I'm just not surprised that they haven't actually gotten organized and done it, especially in this time when labor in the US is so weak.

[HumanRightsGuy]

This is a real sticking point.

Private industry has pretty much been mechanized, or "offshored" to foreign countries, or contracted out to prison inmates, or whatever. Government employee unions are, therefor, powerful to an extent that begs the question as to whether or not US Federal, State, and municipal government employees are becoming a privileged caste within the American working class in the manner of Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier's Haiti, which pretty much erected a totalitarian system to enforce the pre-existing set-up of the state as an institutionalized predator upon the common people.

He even managed to use Black nationalist resentment against the largely mixed-race government caste to wield the Black majority as a power against themselves, in favor of the mixed-race government caste. (It's complicated, I know, but he managed it.)

That seems, to me, to be the direction in which the US is headed at this time, with government employees as a privileged caste, owing loyalty to the corporate-controlled state rather than to the people, ready to carry out any demand of the corporate-controlled state to act against the people in order to preserve their own privileges.

[Red_Banner]

This is a real sticking point.

Private industry has pretty much been mechanized, or "offshored" to foreign countries, or contracted out to prison inmates, or whatever. Government employee unions are, therefor, powerful to an extent that begs the question as to whether or not US Federal, State, and municipal government employees are becoming a privileged caste within the American working class in the manner of Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier's Haiti, which pretty much erected a totalitarian system to enforce the pre-existing set-up of the state as an institutionalized predator upon the common people.

He even managed to use Black nationalist resentment against the largely mixed-race government caste to wield the Black majority as a power against themselves, in favor of the mixed-race government caste. (It's complicated, I know, but he managed it.)

That seems, to me, to be the direction in which the US is headed at this time, with government employees as a privileged caste, owing loyalty to the corporate-controlled state rather than to the people, ready to carry out any demand of the corporate-controlled state to act against the people in order to preserve their own privileges.

Like in my area, the existing public school teachers unions want every teacher to be part of their union and not let other unions be involved.

And these teachers often protest for pay and benefits for themselves that the general public doesn't have.

They only care about themselves.

They don't want to bring up the rest of society with them.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Why are these Federal workers that are expected to work without pay showing up for work?


They should go on strike and maybe unionize if they haven't already joined a union.


And these teachers often protest for pay and benefits for themselves that the general public doesn't have.

They only care about themselves.

They don't want to bring up the rest of society with them.

I am experiencing cognitive dissonance here. Help me out. You are arguing that one group of white collar government employees should unionize while castigating another group of unionized white collar employees for successfully negotiating a better deal for themselves? That's how unions work after all.

You don't think that public service wages have any impact on the prevailing wage in a region? Why do you think the reactionaries want to so badly to bust public sector unions?

[Red_Banner]

I am experiencing cognitive dissonance here. Help me out. You are arguing that one group of white collar government employees should unionize while castigating another group of unionized white collar employees for successfully negotiating a better deal for themselves? That's how unions work after all.

You don't think that public service wages have any impact on the prevailing wage in a region? Why do you think the reactionaries want to so badly to bust public sector unions?


I'm not saying they shouldn't have a better deal, but they should show more solidarity with those in the private sector.

They are becomming out of touch and another class.

And a single union having a monopoly on a school isn't exactly a good thing.

[Lensky]

The class interest of government employees is to serve the state, they cannot form worker councils or communes because they literally do not produce a commodity that is then sold, although they are abused; they are not exploited - bureaucrats can not exist independent of the hand that feeds them.

This is part of the reason why the military and the police are so difficult to radicalize, Engels said that in around 2 - 3 years even a soldier with a working class background will be completely loyal to the ruling class.

[Popular Front of Judea]

The class interest of government employees is to serve the state, they cannot form worker councils or communes because they literally do not produce a commodity that is then sold, although they are abused; they are not exploited - bureaucrats can not exist independent of the hand that feeds them.

This is part of the reason why the military and the police are so difficult to radicalize, Engels said that in around 2 - 3 years even a soldier with a working class background will be completely loyal to the ruling class.

So when the agency that hires these employees is privatized and the service they provide is put on the market they are now exploited? If you work for a public school you are not exploited but once your school becomes a charter school you are?

[Lensky]

Of course Judea my analysis is extremely simplified and because of that wrong, I mean to say bureaucrats, tax collectors, and those in repressive state apparatuses. When sectors that actually do create a commodity are integrated into the state (such as in socialist countries, as a result of socialist struggle) than you have the rise of a left-consciousness in those structures.

[Loony Le Fist]

Why are these Federal workers that are expected to work without pay showing up for work?


They should go on strike and maybe unionize if they haven't already joined a union.

It is an absolute tragedy that federal workers haven't had a sit-down strike. I think it is because of the justifiable fear of the repercussions. US law prohibits federal workers from going on strike, even if they are unionized. On the other hand this has such far reaching implications that I think going on strike is the right thing to do. But it would be hard to pull this off since solidarity among people has been shattered in the country.

Public workers are absolutely despised in the US. Expecting citizens to stand behind them would be difficult, considering the propaganda machine that has demonized them. The public has to be convinced that these people are just like them, and need their support. Only when a base of support is built can we expect them to feel confident enough to strike. They must feel the public is behind them. That is the only way they will have the fortitude to withstand the consequences of doing so.

[Loony Le Fist]

And a single union having a monopoly on a school isn't exactly a good thing.

Wouldn't that help to increase solidarity? I suppose you could have separate unions that form alliances as well. But either way, it would seem better to me to have a unified front.

[argeiphontes]

It is an absolute tragedy that federal workers haven't had a sit-down strike. I think it is because of the justifiable fear of the repercussions.

The beauty of capitalism is that the closer the working class is to abject poverty, the less leverage they have to stop working. There is also some reluctance to fill the jails with human bodies and force concessions by overwhelming the system, and that's probably because of lack of broad(er) support. Also, government workers are relatively privileged; there is some lack of solidarity between them and those forced to toil in naked capitalism, though that's fomented by the system itself, as well a human (real or developed) tendency toward negative envy (you can't have it if i don't have it) rather than positive envy (I should have it because others can have it).

Not that I disagree in an abstract way, but there are several dynamics at work here.

There should be one union per workplace, because that parallels the unit of exploitation, a single workplace. It is all the workers at a particular place that are opposed to policy from above. I'm a big fan of the IWW in that way. (Industrial not trade unions + revolutionary character.)

[Jimmie Higgins]

Why are these Federal workers that are expected to work without pay showing up for work?

They should go on strike and maybe unionize if they haven't already joined a union.

From my understanding "essential" federal workers who are working and directly employed by government agencies are supposed to get retroactive pay after the impasse; contracters for the government however do not have to give backpay to their workers and I think they have or will just shut down and send their workers home once the jobs they've already been contracted for end. I also think the legislature is trying to pass a bill to keep paying the "essential" classification of workers.

Also, I might be mistaken here, but I think there have been some passive protests by government workers. However I'd guess that they are just stage-protests for Democrats to say, "look what these crazy Republicans are doing!" just as the Republicans have tried to create protests at National Monuments to say, "Look what these crazy Democrats are doing!". (On that I think it's so absurd that the same people who are like, "it will do the poor good to not get their welfare because of the shut-down" are crying over middle class people not being able to go on a trip to see war memorials).

At any rate, I think on the question of government workers, folks are being too general - there's a big difference between a clerk somewhere or a gardener at a park or whatnot than some administrator or professional (like a doctor or scientist who works for some agency). In local public sector labor issues, the media is always conflating the wages and benifits of regular workers in the public sector with their managers and administrators so that they can average the $200K professionals and beurocrats with the $30-70K union workers and then scream about "entitlements". So like with privite sector jobs, people probably fall into the same sorts of class relationships: wage-worker, professionals, and then top beurocrats etc.

As far as the public workers who are workers being a "caste" in the working class, I don't think that things play out that way. At least with local State workers, wages are seem a little higher than in privite jobs, but I don't think these workers have seen increases so much compared to workers in other parts of the economy suffering greater stagnation and decline. I think this is what the ruling class overall wants to change both to save costs but also to increase the existing "race to the bottom" in labor more generally. Another dynamic of this is that for non-white workers and female workers state and federal low-level jobs have been a source of good paying jobs because anti-discrimination laws were in effect much sooner (late 60s) than in the privite sector. I think a lot of the rehtoric of how these workers are "undeserving" of their wages and benifits comes out of this.