It isn’t an unstated purpose; its perfectly overt; and perfectly necessary since the alternative is to surrender unlimited power over our lives to capitalists.
The difficulty arises in part because a fairly large amount of the labour market have been conned into the belief (or manipulated into the position) that staying out of the union is beneficial. In my company, for instance, the pay increases achieved by the union apply to all employees within the scope of the bargaining unit, irrespective of whether they are union members or not. This encourages individuals to freeload, as in the short term, they gain the upside without the monthly dues payment. However, the fewer members the union has, the weaker its bargaining position, as the potential for and effectiveness of industrial action will be less, etc.
Not really, and that’s part of the problem; they do their level best to portray themselves as synonymous with public safety or with educating children. People who are familiar with unions know that it’s not the case, but not that many people give much thought to how unions really function.
And a lot of people overselling unions aren’t actually in one. I wouldn’t say I “hate” them, but let’s just say I’m… wary.
Seriously, I’m more scared of cops than gangmembers. Gangmembers leave me alone if I’m just driving along, and I can avoid areas of town where they’re active. Cops have the run of the whole country, and never seem to go to jail when they senselessly kill people. They pretty often get all kinds of extra benefits for it.
Looks similar to one of the scenes from the 2014 Keene Pumpkin Festival. Unfortunately don’t know where the videos are now, but I remember watching at the time and by night time they were rolling through firing tear gas to clear whole blocks. The question at the time was whether they were going to deploy this: Paper Treiger: Image IIRC, they didn’t, but they were shooting tear gas off of vehicles rolling behind a shield wall.
Legal defense is collective bargaining against lawyers/the legal system, lobbying is collective bargaining against government, administering pension funds is collective bargaining against finance/banks, investigating wrongdoing is a stretch, but could hypothetically be against a system of corrupt or hostile investigators. It gets difficult to draw a line between what is or isn’t collective bargaining, so the focus should be more on collective abuse of power.
They’re out there, and they’re increasing. The reports of civil asset forfeiture being used to seize people’s homes, cars, and money might be more frightening to the average old white person than hearing that someone of a different race was murdered. Or the reports of no-knock SWAT raids on people for buying gardening supplies. Or violent raids on the wrong house gone wrong. But whatever the root, there’s plenty for everyone to fear.
I don’t know that I’ve ever met an actual gang member, but I have had a cop put his hand on his gun while threatening me. Small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, but it sure made an impression at the time. Adrenaline is a helluva drug!
