kokorodoko wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2023 2:15 pmIf you don't mind (Gramsci), what are some more specific ways in which you think attention is spent on what you consider distracting things, in such a way that it gives undue importance to relatively unimportant things, or shifts attention away from where it is needed?
In the meantime, here's a story that might interest you (and others):
Right now, in Sweden (where I live), a month-long strike is raging against Tesla. Employees at Tesla workshops have been trying to unionize since 2018. Tesla have, in regular fashion, refused. In this ongoing strike, the recurrent message from Tesla is that they do not intend to sign any agreement whatever, and that orders from above forbids them to do so.
At the center of the strike is the factory workers' union IF Metall, but the effort has successively spread to other sectors. Dock workers and truck drivers are blocking imports, electricians are shutting down service stations, and so on.
Tesla have been responding to each step with counter-tactics like rerouting import lines, and reports say some workshops still operate as usual. So far it is not clear that the strike has had significant economic effect. Neither is Sweden an important location for Tesla globally. One suggested plausible outcome of this strike is that Tesla will simply pack up and leave, which would not cause much disturbance either for Tesla itself or for the Swedish labour market. The main importance - which is an importance - is symbolic.
Some background:
Labour relations are normally handled between unions and employers, with relatively little involvement from the state. The vast majority of workers are employed under a collective agreement, specifying wages and hours according to agreed standards, and prohibiting workers from striking unless to uphold the agreement. The telos of nearly every labour struggle is a collective agreement. Since the
settlement of 1938, this is the spiritual ideal of the Swedish labour market - locally known as the "Swedish Model", of which a lot can be said.
So the aim of this struggle, too, is a collective agreement. And there's where it stops, which is a problem. From the perspective of the union leadership, it appears this conflict is nothing more than the familiar, albeit on a large scale. In their outward communication, IF Metall are ridiculously conciliatory, rendering the conflict as one between business partners, making appeals to good legal order and national interest, with the standpoint of the workers very subdued. The union, by all appearances, do not recognize the special character of Tesla, or the fact that this conflict has significance beyond these national borders, and therefore the framing is consistently parochial - the aim is to preserve "our model", one which we supposedly can continue to take comfort in.
The symbolic importance of this conflict, then, is that if Tesla wins this, it's a signal that (1) even extensive, combined efforts of organized labour cannot sway a committed capitalist, and that (2) the "model" is if not worthless, severely dimished in value. I'm not closely familiar with the normal patterns of labour struggles and the behaviour of employers, but I'm not used to seeing this kind of ruthlessness from an employer on the Swedish labour market. If it is true that the economic importance here is relatively slight, then Tesla too are aiming for the political and symbolic victory.
Another possibility is that Tesla would do like Amazon and run its operations here through a subcontractor which signs an agreement with the union. But if the union continue to have their eyes confined to the domestic sphere, this too looks like a false security.