Woke Union Busting?

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Thank you for the in depth reply, I've been trying to get to it and keep getting distracted by other stuff.

I'm going to break this post up into blocs, as there's a lot going on here and trying to respond to everything would quickly get cumbersome.

But, you're not immediately hostile to the pandering? See, I bristle the second I hear it, you might even call it a trigger for me, so I'm always a bit puzzled when others seem to respond positively. I'm trying to suss out if the issue is on my end and I'm the weirdo, or if most people are at least suspicious of it.

I'll give you a good example: back in the 2000s, the Democrats were still scared of the gun issue, Al Gore lost his own state in 2000 over it, and the national party treated it as a political third rail and tried to avoid it as much as possible. That would have been one thing, but Democratic politicians of this era would frequently attempt to claim that they were actually in favor of gun rights, and do these ridiculous press events where they'd show up in camo and blaze orange and tell stories about deer hunting, often comically ineptly. Now, I could accept them having a different opinion than mine, but trying to trick me with the kabuki theater in front of an outdoor emporium was just insulting, like they thought that people like me wouldn't look up their voting records or speeches to their donors and be fooled into thinking they weren't who we knew them to be.
I view major corporations spewing social justice rhetoric to be in the same category, a clumsy attempt at deception that would offend me if it were aimed at me, hence the question.

In as far as Capital and Labour are mutually antagonistic and unions represent Labour, yes. I think you might mean that you don't think this Wokeism thing is part of Labour. If Wokeism is awareness of social inequalities, then I would think Labour has some affinity with it. Certainly the reason I have sympathy with Wokeism is because I have sympathy with socialism and I see the two as being somewhat on the same page.

I feel like at least some amount of pandering is to be expected from politicians. The example you use is a good example of it occurring, but I'm not so sure the pretend to be a redneck who hunts shtick is limited to Democrats, but it's probably even more offensive coming from them vs. a Republican who's unlikely to support laws that might interfere with that hobby and isn't likely to be caught on a hot mic demeaning those voters. In this case the theatre combined with the knowledge they're not even on the side of the people they're pretending to be might multiply how offensive it is.

Obama switched to a more AAVE influenced pattern of speech in front of some audiences, I'd call it pandering but I'm not sure it caused much offence. I don't think Dubya doing the same full-time with his folksy accent offended too many people either, but it was probably intentional pandering.

I guess I expect some amount of it so I tend to reserve being offended for more egregious forms. It's still frustrating even when it's not offensive because the need to pander and keep everything in the Overton window seems to really limit how issues can even be discussed, but that might be a tune from a different opera.

Hmmm....

Here's what I''m wondering: In what sense is "REI Co-op" a "co-op"?

Are they a worker cooperative? If so, wouldn't a union be redundant? After all, a worker co-op is already owned by the workers (or at least the more senior workers)?

Or would the proposed union represent only those workers who are not yet senior enough to be co-owners?

Or is "REI Co-op" a co-op in some sense other than being a worker co-op?

The language used in that notice is very similar to the language used in most Victorian universities and most academic staff when conducting lectures/seminars. It's also entered commentary for sports in Australia (some codes such as rugby have resisted).

Although I don't use it, the intention behind it is positive.

Wow, I'm impressed! You're given me a new level of hope for this site!

Unions in hazardous jobs, like mining, are necessary to keep employees safe, thus ensuring that their families have a member they love and a breadwinner, because the owner of a mine or a steel plant doesn't give two _hits about their workers' lives. But in cushy, government-provided occupations like teaching, unions are a money-sucking deadweight. Teachers in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco used their cities' unions to get away with goofing off at home while still getting full pay, rather than doing what they signed up for: teaching kids. All under the pretext of "duh safety" from The Election Infection.

The weren't "goofing off." Teaching online via Zoom is actually much more difficult than teaching in a classroom.

As a conservative, I'm not buying it! My statement to teachers and their corrupt unions is: "**** [defecate] or get off the pot!"

To answer my own earlier question: REI Co-op is a "consumer cooperative," NOT a worker cooperative, as explained in the Wikiepedia article on REI.

So the workers are NOT owners. Hence there might actually be good reasons for them to unionize.

Do you personally know any teachers?

Reading the PDF, it's not clear to me why you are referring to its language as "hyper-woke." I see a little bit of token "wokeness" here and there, probably because one of the podcasters is REI's "Chief Diversity and Social Impact Officer," who is paid to be alert to marginalized-minority concerns and thus cover the company's ass regarding any possible claims of discrimination. But it's mostly just anti-union propaganda.

Reading the PDF, it's not clear to me why you are referring to its language as "hyper-woke." I see a little bit of token "wokeness" here and there, probably because one of the podcasters is REI's "Chief Diversity and Social Impact Officer," who is paid to be alert to marginalized-minority concerns and thus cover the company's ass regarding any possible accusations of discrimination. But it's mostly just anti-union propaganda.

Well, when I'm presented with a slick anti-union presentation that starts off with pronouns and land acknowledgements, I didn't think it was really necessary to split hairs; I mean maybe they could have worked in some birthing person language and a reference to LatinX people for the full woke bingo, but it already read as a parody as it was.

Yeah, it's my understanding that it started in Oz, but for some reason land acknowledgments caught on in my neck of the US earlier than in others, so it's been amusing watching them spread across the woke landscape. The tribes in my area have names that sound funny to other Americans, such as the Muckleshoot (my favorite cigar bar is on their res), Suquamish, Snoqualmie, and a bunch of others with prominent Q sounds, and as we have a bunch of woke tech companies here, I've seen quite a few social media takes to the effect of "that can't be a real tribe, can it? That has to be made up!" when it's a name I've been hearing my whole life.

Regardless of the intent, I've yet to hear anyone ever offer to give the land back, nor have I ever heard a native person claim to like them in any way, so I chalk them up to yet more guilty white people theater.

Just the ones I had as a child. My elementary generalist teacher in K thru 4, in a private school with an accelerated curriculum, where my parents put me "because I was smart", was a ***** [female dog]. She destroyed my relationship with my parents with her grading policy, by constantly lowering my grades over every perceived mistake imaginable, where a public school teacher would give a **** [poop]. My parents, in turn, demanded perfect grades at all times, to the point where I contemplated suicide when I got a C on a report card.

My later teachers, in 5th grade and higher, were a combination "great", "just OK", and "garbage"; it was a hit or miss. Some put up with me like troopers, and let things slide; others knew how my parents treated me and held it over my head. So honestly, I feel absolutely no sympathy whatsoever for teachers as a demographic. They have cushy, overpaid, government-protected jobs. If they're afraid of a cold virus made in a lab, that's on them.

In before someone says "it's your parents, not your teacher". My teacher could have called Child Protective Service and had me moved into a foster family. But she didn't! Instead, she enjoyed her power over an abused child. That's why I believe all teachers' unions should be busted, and their organizers charged with a crime of enabling financial fraud.

Last edited by Aspie1 on 12 Feb 2022, 9:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

As I suspected. You're not in a position to evaluate how much work teachers (especially the good ones) do outside the classroom, in terms of preparation and grading.

I'm sorry to hear that you had such bad experiences in school. But it does not follow that teachers in general are overpaid.