Billy Bragg - Never Cross A Picket Line - Starbucks Workers United - Buffalo, NY on 10/12/22

[@johndicksonkaraoke2554]

Solidarity Forever ✊

[@yorkshiremgtow1773]

'never cross a picket line' isn't a piece of advice. It's an order, from people who have no right to order you around.

[@johndicksonkaraoke2554]

@@yorkshiremgtow1773you cross the picket 🪧 during a legal strike your a scab.

[@hannesmayer3716]

It's an ethical prinicple. Like the Golden Rule, or "Don't let people starve", or "Don't burn down buildings for no reason".

[@yorkshiremgtow1773]

@@hannesmayer3716 it's not an ethical principle- not entirely. Let's say you work for a government department. You realise that your department is pointless, like some of them are. They go on strike for even more money. You realise that the increase in wages will need to be met by making other workers poorer. In this case, it would be more ethical to cross the picket line and go into work.

[@hannesmayer3716]

Yeah, and you can certainly construct examples in which the Golden Rule is wrong, or letting someone starve is the only viable option.

[@TheBLGL]

How do these workers not know this song? Look away, look away down south to San Diego, you must never cross a picket line… technically this is an illegal strike, never cross a picket line. Well, technically workers have no rights, you must never cross a picket line.

[@yorkshiremgtow1773]

Why must you 'never cross a picket line'? What if you disagree with the strike?

[@Hatim.13]

​@@yorkshiremgtow1773Then you lack solidarity and class consciousness, you hurt the effectiveness of the strike to make management sit and negotiate, you provide a relief to them, making you a scab...The corporate propaganda during the last 70 years destroyed all sense of solidarity between the workers, workers now act like temporarily embarassed millionaires, they relate more to Oligarch billionaires than to their fellow working class brothers...The fight was never left vs right but top and bottom! Wake up! Our forefathers literally fought and died for the rights we take for granted now, if you can't even respect picket lines, then you need to look in the mirror and learn more about class struggle and labor history! None of the rights we have were given to us by the good hearts of companies, but by sacrifice of fellow workers!