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Socialists who have lived in different countries: what differences did you notice in their labour movement? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 months ago by comfy@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Every place has its different environment, whether it be the level of organisation, reputation of socialism, dominant values of society, history and experiences, conflicts and crises. Because of these dynamics, I'd expect to see stark differences in what the movement looks like around the world. An obvious example familiar to most here is seeing the widespread and militant union mobilisations in France's retirement age protests.

Which countries do you have experience in, and how are their labour movements different?

The title is intentionally vague by saying 'labour movement', so you're welcome to talk about workplace attitudes, unions, socialist organisations, legislation and more.

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[–] turkalino@lemmy.yachts 1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I don’t mean tech companies, or the broad designation of “tech workers”, I’m specifically talking about software developers (and maybe QA). For example, a salesperson is not going to understand why engineers hate open office spaces and how it makes it extremely difficult for us to focus on our work.

[–] chobeat@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Union organizing should be done across departments. Anyway software developers are doing a lot of organizing and unionizing, exactly because they have more secure positions. AWU, Kickstarter, NYT, Grindr, and many others are almost entirely office workers, many of which are software developers. Software developers are tech workers: drawing lines doesn't help anybody and historically has always been to the detriment of the workers movement. Software developers start organizing when they stop being software developers and become tech workers.

Also FYI: I've been a software developer for a decade and I mostly organize software developers that, if anything, are overrepresented in "tech workers" spaces, to the point where we have to put rules like "don't talk about git, it scares the workers" to prevent the spaces to become cliquey.

[–] turkalino@lemmy.yachts 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for the perspective. I’m US born and raised, educated in public schools, so the only education I got about unions was the bad stuff. The only unions I know of in my area are electricians and plumbers, so I assumed it was a vocation-specific thing. Also lol @ your last sentence, I can totally imagine

[–] chobeat@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago

Join Tech Workers Coalition then. https://techworkerscoalition.org/

[–] Sethayy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

'More equal then the rest' eh?

Good luck with that, truly an american attitude

[–] turkalino@lemmy.yachts 1 points 2 months ago

Not even remotely what I said. I was referring to how different positions deal with different issues and it seemed strange to me to lump them together just because they fall under the broad designation of “tech worker”. But, someone already corrected my ignorance in a way that was much more constructive and helpful than “FUCKIN AMERICANS AMIRITE GUIS??????”