While America so represents a lot of different things to its citizens, one of those things that we see represented, is that America is a nation of laws and lawyers. No doubt, laws and lawyers serve their essential purposes in the everyday life of Americans, and of which, if the law was equally applied to everyone, that would be of fair benefit to the nation, in whole. Regrettably, the law as applied has far less to do with meting out justice and seems instead to often be tilted in the favor of those that have money and influence. To wit, those of the laboring class, are almost always in a situation in which their power and influence is poorly positioned to effect change, when they so choose to stand up against the management of a given corporation. That is to say, many of those that labor, are fearful of doing anything that would serve to jeopardize their job, which puts them in a very poor position, to improve their own lot.
Nevertheless, when we look at the laws within America, the right for those that labor, to initiate a strike, is clearly written into law. So too, the right for companies to lay off employees, or to move their facility or to close their business, with little or even with no notice, is written into law, as well. These then, are the laws as written, but the salient problem of these laws has a lot to do with how they are interpreted and enforced. For instance, for those laborers that are joining together so as to strike, one of their principle weapons is the fact that the disruption of the normal course of business, is typically something that makes a material difference in the profitability and sustainability of that company, which thus makes it a very powerful weapon to wield, in order to effect change. Yet, many a strike so initiated, will be found in a court of law, or mediation, to be illegal in some aspect of it, which ranges from “misconduct” of the strikers, to an injunction so implemented to end the strike. On the other hand, we have many a company that will effectively, if they do not get concessions from their employees, or tax abatements from governmental tax authorities, simply abandon their plant, and thus close that plant, only to reopen it at another location, elsewhere, including overseas – in which, the government, in many a case, simply sees such an action by that company as the normal course of events that free enterprise so permits.
So then, we have in effect, laws that deal with strikes and closures, in which those that are of the laboring class that strike, are not afforded all of their rights by law, because the judicial decision makers as well as ruling governance typically favor the corporate class, and because of this favoritism, makes it more problematic for those contemplating a strike, to successfully strike, in the first place. Yet, if we were to take an honest look at corporate closures, layoffs, and the deliberate moving of jobs to overseas workers, we would discover that if we merely changed the prism of our viewpoint that we would see that corporate closures are, in reality, akin to an actual corporate strike against its own workers, in which the corporation refuses to stay open for business, and therein lies the rub and the hypocrisy, so of.