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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023

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Sympathy strikes are when a Union goes on strike because of issues between a separate body of workers and their employer. For example in Denmark McDonald's refused to abide by hotel and restaurant sector wide labor agreements that were technically voluntary. So in 1988 the Danish labor movement declared a series of sympathy strikes against McDonald's

Dockworkers refused to unload containers that had McDonalds equipment in them. Printers refused to supply printed materials to the stores, such as menus and cups. Construction workers refused to build McDonalds stores and even stopped construction on a store that was already in progress but not yet complete. The typographers union refused to place McDonalds advertisements in publications, which eliminated the company’s print advertisement presence. Truckers refused to deliver food and beer to McDonalds. Food and beverage workers that worked at facilities that prepared food for the stores refused to work on McDonalds products.

McDonald's caved and agreed to the sector wide standards and today McDonald's workers in Denmark make $22/hr.

More relevant to Finland is that in 2019 there were sympathy strikes in support of postal workers that spread throughout the transportation sector and led to flights being cancelled. I'll leave it to our resident Suomiposter to get into the details of that one but you can see how sympathy strikes can be incredibly powerful tools for unions. However they can be unpopular with the general public who don't like missing flights because the postal service is fighting over how to classify package handlers.