Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/03/26/we-dont-go-with-builders-who-d.html
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Well, except this is a case where the people who are going to get hit by this are the workers, not the people running the companies.
[ETA] Note, I don’t mean to defend these companies nor do I think they should work to build the wall, but I do think it matters to think about all the consequences and who bears them.
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They use the same argument against every boycott ever. This doesn’t change the amount of cement that gets poured, it only changes who pours it.
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In this case, the investments for the pension fund is part of this. I’d say that directly will impact the people who work for the company, in a very direct way, the California state contracts less so (as they can likely pick up the slack elsewhere).
It would be a terrible business decision to contract to build that wall anyway. It will be a huge white elephant, never get finished, and the contractors will be blamed in the end. I’d divest any company that took the contract regardless of what the California pension funds choose to do.
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The irony is that the free market cheerleaders who like to tell you that you have choices about where to spend and invest your money will call this an unfair attack on businesses.
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Just so long as it’s white the GOPists will love it.
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And if it doesn’t get finished, what do you think the odds are they get paid? Our chief executive does have a reputation for not ponying up.
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Are they going to divest from any banks that help finance the construction? That’s where the real power is at, nobody is going to build that wall with cash up front (although given Grump’s history of stiffing contractors, that would be the only sane way anyone would do it).
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Perhaps Trump’s wall is intended to keep us in?
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Yet they have no problem at all promoting investments in regimes that commit actual human rights abuses.
http://cachinatrade.org/
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2016/country-chapters/china-and-tibet
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2016/country-chapters/vietnam
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I get the impression that a general feeling of being trapped has been building since last November, so…
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Well, given the escalation of the prison-industrial complex in the United States, that does seem to be a logical conclusion.
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Or keep us distracted.
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Maybe I’m missing something, but the way I read this is that the pension funds for the workers would be required to divest from the companies… I don’t see how that hurts the workers, except by depriving them of the opportunity of profiting with the company, but those funds can be reinvested elsewhere. But the state of CA isn’t dictating that the workers of the company can’t have pensions or lose their funds. The companies they work for can go out of business or lose business, but as @Boundegar said, that’s how boycotts work. So what detail am I not seeing?
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Okay. Fair enough, then. I just dont’ understand how this stuff works, I suppose.
I’m expressing how I understood the story, and asking what I’m missing from my understanding. No subtext.
If there were a way for me personally to give the finger to Wall contractors, I’d be up for that. And I have no problem with legislators threatening to do this for PR purposes. But I don’t think I’d want it to actually happen. For one thing, it has a bill-of-attainder flavor that I’m hesitant to get behind just because this particular target may deserve it. And I’d much rather see individuals and pension funds making this kind of decision for themselves, which would be a lot harder to dismiss as the actions of a handful of baby-eating comsymp California Democrats.
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