It boggles the mind that workers would give up the right to strike as part of their work agreement. Strikes are like the main tool workers have to defend themselves and their working conditions!
I'm sure there must be a rational explanation, but from the outside it looks incredibly short-sighted. Is this common? Why would unions agree to that sort of concession?
Its a normal part of a decay into a dystopian cooperate hellhole? Sign here and here if you want to eat today. There is inter-generational debtslavery on large parts of this planet, it just migrated west-wards from there.
Next step: A communist party forms and a disenfranchised generation joins it.
What's the point of a company entering a contract with a union if the union refuses to abide by the terms they agreed to? The company agreed to higher rates, better benefits, etc and gets nothing in return.
It's a bad sign for anyone who might consider joining as well- all the benefits you think you get by joining a union or any sort of collective go out the window the moment it becomes inconvenient for the collective to back you.
Next step: you're still disenfranchised, but you've traded the farmer for the pigs.
At least the neighbouring farmers will work hard, quit drinking and be nicer to their animals, for a little while till they find out the pigs pose no real threat.
It doesn’t look like that’s what happened though. The issue is that they are under and active contract and no vote to strike was taken.
Contracts have terms, saying “we wont strike for 3 years if you do x” is a perfectly reasonable thing to do and has been part of contract negotiations forever. AND based on the phrasing it sounds like they still could strike, they just need to vote first.
Those involved might have thought that not volunteering to work overtime isn't a strike, and so wouldn't realize that one was required. Clearly this company believes this to be incorrect but [there] must have been some room for misunderstanding.
I do wonder what the overtime take up rate must have been before this. If it was less than 100%, then was it made apparent that this was illegal, or were employees left thinking that it wasn't mandatory and were on strike without realizing it.
Perhaps, it was deemed acceptable for not all employees to take the overtime available. In which case, who decides which employee must work and who need not? If just one takes up the overtime, would it still be a strike?
> “we wont strike for 3 years if you do x” is a perfectly reasonable thing
Without legal protection, "you don't strike for 50 years if we hire you" will be standard legalese in any employment contract. It's the nature of a competitive market place vs a labor market where workers have no individual bargaining power: companies that abuse their workers will be most competitive, and pretty soon they are the only employers left in the market.
This is of course not true for very creative long tail employees, software etc., but it could be argued that such professionals are not representative of the deep labor market; they have such high human capital that are acting as mini-capitalists, during contract negotiation they can force the employer's hand to a degree that no scaffolder or birklayer could ever hope to, so they have no practical need for the power to strike.
Normally these ageeements are time limited to say 1-3 years and then needs to be renegotiated, this is when union requires some certain salary increases over the next agreement period and for that promise to not strike given that the employer hold up the agreement. Should the not come to a agreement during the negotiations, strikes are an option.
Your employer writes the contract and they write it specifically to remove as many rights from you as possible.
Thats the definition of employment you sacrifice your freedom for money so you can buy food and a roof over your head.
In the UK if a contract infringes on your rights then the contract as a whole is void but most employers will still write up illegal contracts to pressure their employees. Most employees don't know what their rights are and if they do they don't know that legally they can't sign away their rights so the contract doesn't matter, but even if the employee knew all their rights its cheaper and easier to get a new job than fight it in court.
In other countries like the US you can sign away your rights apparently Canada is the same, this is metal to me that some one could legal sign them selves into slavery in the USA and Canada and no one has a problem with that?
Because it's something of (potentially great) value to the employer, which can be traded for something of value to the employees.
If the contract is time-limited, then you retain the leverage at the time of negotiating the next contract (though not between: that's the trade-off).
I understand they're also quite normal in some, more consensual, Northern European situations when the relationship between union and employer is sufficiently consensual that the union can be confident a strike is unlikely to be needed in order to address grievances.
It‘s a fundamental part of any Tarifvertrag (collective bargaining contract) in Germany - as long as the contract is in force, strikes that aim to change the contract are illegal. The legal term is Friedenspflicht https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedenspflicht. Some contracts even specify that the Friedenspflicht extends beyond the contract until a first attempt at negotiations, possibly including mediation has failed.
As it is in Norway. The system is set up to be collectivist, and indeed it was largely due to the labour unions and labour parties that it became like this. I suppose Canada has something similar.
This kind of system implies that people are members of the group more than they are individuals, as least for some purposes. The union is allowed to make agreements on their behalf, the same way as a state may make laws on behalf of citizens. Often, this provides strength in numbers, but it may also limit bargaining power (and other freedoms) for individuals.
Now, if some group other than the offial union representatives start organizing workers independently of the union, that threatens the entire model. Not only does this cause and upredictable situation for the employer, but it undermines the power of the Union itself (and in particular the bosses).
This means that it's in the Union's interest if the agreements they have with the employer is legaly binding. A Union may even end up on the employers side in a conflict like this, to help identify ring leaders, bring forth secret messages that was passed to the users, etc.
Now for you Americans (US version), that lean left, but still don't get this: There are primarily two types of economic systems that have been introduced by "the left" as alternatives to capitalism.
One is the one described above, which is a sort of corporatism. This is the moderate version, where there is some room for individual freedom, but where some freedom is given up to unions, employers and the government (in exchange for security). This is the system that was introduced by Social Democrats in the mid 20th century, and you still find remains of it in traditional heavy industries, government employees, etc in Europe, though not to the same extent as in 1970.
The last one is full socialism, where the government generally takes over ALL control.
I expect that it’s fairly normal: If the union is actively striking, or threatening to strike, an agreement that doesn’t guarantee a return to work won’t be acceptable to management.
Once the agreement expires and it’s time to hammer out a new one, the whole range of labor and management bargaining tactics are in play again, including strikes and lock-outs.
I don't know anyone who is well paid who goes on strike. I personally would gladly trade away any ability to strike for more money (which, in effect, I do).
If striking looks like an effective path it means you are part of a system that is keeping you poor. The correct response is not to sit there fighting the system. We've seen how this game plays out, there are centuries of incidents to look back on. The system will win, and great efforts by the strikers will get, at best, a few crumbs while economic realities remain the reality.
Instead of playing a game they will lose, workers should adopt better strategies. Eg, grouping together and investing in capital, like what the winners of the game do. Trading away their ability to strike might be an accidental win on their part if it forces them to adopt economic strategies that work.
The "winners of the game" get a nice bailout from US taxpayers when they lose, so it's not particularly impressive. Striking is what got you a 5 day work week and an end to child labor. You may not appreciate the blood that was spilt for your cushy white collar desk job, but from there to tell people that collective bargaining is a waste and something only the poors do? Egregious.
If only these large organised groups of citizens had some way to influence the political process?
This is kind of the theme I'm getting at today. If they're organising and then spending all their efforts fighting their employer while the winning strategy is control of the legislature then... one might observe they've really screwed up their strategy?
If there is one thing poor people have, it is lots of votes. The reason they don't get much value for them is they keep employing silly strategies (like striking). This is literally why these strategies get so much airplay despite it being obvious they don't get things done, they're divide-and-conqueror distractions because otherwise the effort might end up going in to meaningful politics or something.
The organising part of the story is good, but after organising the next step needs to be going for useful outcomes that make people better off. Striking just does damage to everyone.
While I tend to agree that for individual optimization, fighting the system tends to be suboptimal, leaving and finding another system tends to be more optimal. The issue is that if everyone does this, over time, all systems will erode against labor rights and there will ultimately be no system to flee to. At some point people have to eat the cost and stand their ground to fight a given system, otherwise you will lose in the long run. We need people who stand up and fight.
If you try and connect those two sentences with a well laid out argument you might find it less clear than you think. There is a high correlation between people doing well and people who don't spend any time going on strike.
Possibly in a world where the only difference between the US and EU was whether people went on strike that would be a workable position, but there are other differences. Quite a lot of them.
There is a vast academic literature on the topic if you are truly interested. Here is just one such study [0].
The argument is in any case very simple. In countries where unions were historically powerful, especially in the post-war period, workers have collectively extracted several concessions, such as higher pay, better working hours and paid leave.
In the United States itself, it is a demonstrable fact that unionized workers earn, on average, much better than nonunion ones, among other benefits [1].
Is that study even relevant? It just observes that Europeans work less than Americans. The question is hours vs pay.
There are people on HN who can easily work 0 hours a week and thrash the earnings of the Europeans and Americans combined because they own capital. You're looking for these people to find a marginal tactical advantage by throwing away efforts to secure a meaningful strategic one. That is foolish.
I'm telling you, I've read a lot of literature on the subject. There is no way I'm going to go on strike, it is ineffective and I'll end up worse off. Almost literally none of the people who are going to out-earn me are doing it by striking, and if anyone manages it that is one crazy fluke! It is a strategy for people who are already losing economically and may as well flail on the way down in case it helps. If people have time to organise they should organise to achieve good & sustainable results. Everyone could be a winner here.
If you reduce the question to the narrow field of your own professional life, then of course you can make any claim whatsoever. Furthermore, I disagree strongly with your principles. We need to help people who are already losing economically, not the opposite. Doing otherwise leads to a broken society in which I have no desire to live in, even if I could personally earn 2x or 3x more there. I'm very glad the guy who picks up my trash has a union and leads a decent life, with access to education, healthcare and reasonable working hours.
> We need to help people who are already losing economically, not the opposite.
We could try helping them by pointing out effective strategies and encouraging the ineffective to adopt them?
You can't help someone who is adopting a failing strategy. If you push them ahead, their strategy will pull them behind. Someone who adopts an effective strategy in todays world is basically guaranteed to do well economically. Someone who adopts striking as a strategy is probably flipping a coin as to if they can even hold their wages steady. They've been trying for centuries, it doesn't work. If it worked there'd be evidence of it by now. Saving money and investing, angling to control capital works. The gap between the two strategies is overwhelming.
Anyone who encourages striking as a strategy is undermining the welfare of the poor. It is a destructive strategy that wastes time with huge opportunity costs.
> I don't know anyone who is well paid who goes on strike.
No, of course not. People usually strike for better pay or conditions. If you're well paid then you already have better pay, and are probably in demand enough that you will get good conditions or are in a position to negotiate. It doesn't really make sense for e.g. software engineers in the current economy to consider strike action.
Workers don't want to strike in general. It's stressful and costly. It's not usually their preferred negotiating strategy; it has to be less worse than the alternative.
> great efforts by the strikers will get, at best, a few crumbs
It's easy to sneer at "a few crumbs" if you're in a state of privileged wealth. Sometimes small differences in pay can mean going from not being able to pay rent to having some disposable income. And, often, it's not "a few crumbs".
> Eg, grouping together and investing in capital
What did you have in mind? How does investing in capital help you with not being paid well enough to invest?
> People usually strike for better pay or conditions.
I'm not following. What is your argument for why this is an effective strategy but employees only use it when they feel bad?
It is more likely people always use the most effective strategies they have available to them. I want better pay and conditions right now, I don't care how good they are when I'm negotiating. I'm not trying to spare my employers feelings here, I quite like money. If striking works as a bargaining tool, we'd see it working for people who are economically effective too. My peers are more than capable of organising to strike if we thought that might get us an edge. I'm pretty cynical, I could make it happen.
> It's easy to sneer at "a few crumbs" if you're in a state of privileged wealth. Sometimes small differences in pay can mean going from not being able to pay rent to having some disposable income. And, often, it's not "a few crumbs".
I'm just saying, I'm not avoiding their tactics because I'm snobby. I'm avoiding them because I like money and the strategy may well lock in generational not-having-much-money. The proof is in the pudding for this one, people who plan on striking aren't the people who do well economically.
> What did you have in mind? How does investing in capital help you with not being paid well enough to invest?
If there are enough people for a strike that doesn't get laughed at, there are enough people to start investing in a better future rather than fighting and getting nowhere. Especially if they put their minds to making the future better rather than how to make life difficult for the employers.
> I'm not following. What is your argument for why this is an effective strategy but employees only use it when they feel bad?
Because striking comes with significant downsides. Cost, risk, and stress.
It's costly because you lose days of pay. It's risky because there's no guarantee you'll get a good outcome and there are often reprisals from the employer. It's stressful because of the uncertainty, and because most people don't like conflict.
Public perception is also important. People who are inconvenienced by a strike are more likely to blame an employer who has not been fair with workers. Well-paid employees would get much less sympathy.
> people who plan on striking aren't the people who do well economically
You have the causation backwards. People who don't do well economically are the ones for which the idea of striking becomes more attractive (or less unattractive).
> there are enough people to start investing in a better future
I was asking for specifics. How do they do this?
> Especially if they put their minds to making the future better rather than how to make life difficult for the employers.
You seem to have an idealist view here that's at odds with your statement of "I'm not trying to spare my employers feelings here" and "I'm pretty cynical".
> I was asking for specifics. How do they do this?
They could form their own company. doing whatever it is they are striking from doing. They have exactly the skills and roughly enough people. If the industry that they're in requires real up-front investment then they could jump industries.
Or if that is too hard for them, they could all work the day instead of striking and start pooling their resources looking for some economies of scale, find some excess cash and start investing that.
Or they could put their energy into political activism rather than fighting the only person on the planet who is currently willing to give them money.
> They could form their own company. doing whatever it is they are striking from doing. They have exactly the skills and roughly enough people. If the industry that they're in requires real up-front investment then they could jump industries.
I've got a friend who is a railway engineer. His company is slashing their workers' pay and making redundancies that he says will compromise safety. Meanwhile, executive bonuses have increased massively and they have increased dividend payments.
What would your suggestion be? Start their own railway company? How much capital would that take? You say "jump industries" but not everyone can jump industries. It's really not that easy. He's highly skilled. If you just "jump industries", how do you avoid starting again as a junior? What if you are providing for a family?
> start pooling their resources looking for some economies of scale
What are you thinking of? Could you give some examples? I might be interested in investing. I don't know of any investment opportunities that benefit from economies of scale. If there were some, wouldn't they be dominated by the bigger investors already?
> find some excess cash and start investing that.
You need cash first to invest it. What do you if your company is reducing your pay?
> Or they could put their energy into political activism rather than fighting the only person on the planet who is currently willing to give them money.
I'm all for political activism. But that's very long term, and doesn't necessarily benefit you directly. If you need to pay your mortgage now and put food on your table and buy Christmas presents it's not a helpful suggestion. Assuming you don't mean union activism, which can be immediately beneficial.
You are putting a lot of hypotheticals here. I suspect you want me to answer the question of what someone should do if they have literally no alternative apart from striking for whatever reason. And if there are no alternatives then sure, go ahead and strike. Maybe a miracle will happen and the workers will suddenly become well off. But realistically the strikee-s should acknowledge that they've already failed to secure their own prosperity, and the opportunity to correct that failure is something other than going on strike. Maybe they've locked themselves in to a bad outcome, but realistically they should be exploring all available options because any strategy that doesn't involve striking is better. If your best option is going on strike, the situation has already reached the point of no return and the opportunity for a prosperous existence is lost.
There is an easy strategy for success. Invest in capital. Invest in education. That works. It isn't fast, but it should be Plan A. breaking stuff or doing nothing but eating reduces the available resources and makes the community poorer. It should be Plan ZZZZ. I suspect we will find it is unlikely to even secure tactical victories in hard times and companies will fold. I don't need a personalised plan for every unlucky person in the world to point out this relatively obvious fact.
I don't believe most people who end up on strike have actually tested all the options that they could have tried with a coordinated group of people before they try striking. No shame on them really, but most groups just aren't that thorough. But letting them believe maybe they're doing something clever is a disservice; it is a plan to fail.
Going back to the thread root, it makes a huge amount of sense to negotiate away the right to strike if someone is willing to give you money to do that. I too would enjoy being paid to not shoot myself in the foot.
> I've got a friend who is a railway engineer.
I've got nowhere near enough information about the gentleman to speculate. But I can say with confidence that if his best plan is to work less and dedicate his energies to fighting his employer then his future is bleak regardless of the outcome. It isn't a strategy that can make him better off long term. It is going to make him and his company poorer the longer that is his best option for bettering his income.
I am neutral about being the bearer of bad news, but I note that it is not my fault that the news is bad.
> I don't know of any investment opportunities that benefit from economies of scale.
A group of striking workers couldn't get enough capital to benefit if there are. You talk of a fellow trying to support his family, and I note that families have quite different spending profiles depending on the number and age of the children involved. There is going to be some slack in the system if a group of families are willing to work together and try to pool their resources and that is what I'm thinking of.
> You are putting a lot of hypotheticals here. I suspect you want me to answer the question of what someone should do if they have literally no alternative apart from striking for whatever reason.
I'm not giving you hypotheticals. I've given you a concrete example of someone who is striking, and I believe it is in his best interests to do so. He does not have "literally no alternatives", but they all seem worse in some way.
> But I can say with confidence that if his best plan is to work less and dedicate his energies to fighting his employer then his future is bleak regardless of the outcome
It's not his preferred plan. He'd prefer not to have his pay slashed and would prefer to dedicate his energies to doing his best work.
I can say with some degree of confidence that the outcome of the strike will be that the employer will offer better terms and a compromise will be reached. That is how most strikes end.
Despite your early protestations, I think you're ideologically opposed to the idea of striking. However, most democracies have come to the conclusion that strikes are a useful tool that protects workers' rights and helps offset the asymmetric power balance between employer and employee. No one wants to strike; ideally just the potential for striking deters employers from cutting workers' salaries to the bone in the pursuit of profit.
It isn't a concrete example, there are too many relevant details to put in a HN thread. We can't really discuss his exact circumstances, he isn't on hand to ask what alternatives he & his striking workmates actually considered. And you're asking me to work with the premise that there is literally no alternatives when that is really the fact that is up for debate. If the only option is to destroy wealth then sure, do that. But he isn't going to get wealthy that way.
> It's not his preferred plan. He'd prefer not to have his pay slashed and would prefer to dedicate his energies to doing his best work.
Those are 2 bad plans.
I suppose I'll ask anyway - how many alternatives has he seriously considered? Has he seriously considered any alternatives that might get him a good outcome? What were they? There have to at least be some that he considered before giving up and saying there is no alternative. This presents striking as Plan B.
> Despite your early protestations, I think you're ideologically opposed to the idea of striking.
Yeah. I'm saying that if the best decision is to strike then he's screwed up some decision in the past really badly, that is fundamentally an ideological take. Having a coherent ideology is an important tool for wealth creation. Most of the wealth creation from the industrial revolution onwards has been due to ideological innovations. Capitalism is an ideological position; it just happens to work a lot better than people who think striking is a practical way of securing a lifestyle.
If he is using striking as a tool, he's going to stay poor.
> I don't know anyone who is well paid who goes on strike. I personally would gladly trade away any ability to strike for more money (which, in effect, I do)
The salaries of Stevedores in the US range from $18,280 to $80,389
The salaries of Stevedores in Australia range from AU$110k to AU$129k
Interestingly the Maritime Union of Australia has a reputation for being quite militant and left wing
I doubt you're comparing apples to apples, the difference in ranges is too big. Since 80k US ~= 130k Australia, maybe "Stevedore" in the US statistic is a wider category of worker?
But regardless, that isn't an argument for anything. There is more at play in a salary than whether workers can strike - and you'll find strikes are largely a tool of people who are already losing at the get-well-paid game. Because it is a desperate and largely failing strategy. People in a good position don't strike because it isn't actually effective.
If I thought striking worked, I'd go on strike. I don't. Note that I make a lot more money than the sort of people who go on strike. Not a coincidence. I'm not about to pass up on free money either.
so adjusted for currency alone the lowest paid stevadore in Australia earns almost as much as the highest paid one in the US and five times more than the lowest paid one. to put this into perspective, australian stevedore gets paid as much as a mid-level senior developer in australia.
australian economy very much depends on its ports. if these workers go on strike guess what happens to the rest of the economy. unions in this situation are then in a good position to argue for good rewards for their workers via collective bargaining. i dont think they would get anywhere near as much if salaries were negotiated on an individual basis
> so adjusted for currency alone the lowest paid stevadore in Australia earns almost as much as the highest paid one in the US and five times more than the lowest paid one. to put this into perspective, australian stevedore gets paid as much as a mid-level senior developer in australia.
That isn't raising alarm bells for you that you've made an error in your reasoning? If strikes resulted in a 5x salary bump we'd see a lot of smart high-achievers striking.
It is more likely you are comparing different categories that happen to be labelled the same here. 5x earning bumps for manual labour is more than hardball negotiating can achieve.
i think its a valid example of effective union negotiation in a high income bracket
> if strikes resulted in a 5x salary bump we'd see a lot of smart high-achievers striking
it depends doesn't it? as with everything in life you can always overplay your hand. people might be too scared to strike for various reasons. in some scenarios it might not even be wise to strike. in some scenarios you can even bring down a whole government (see WorkChoices)
No, it doesn't depend. The idea that there is that sort of salary boost waiting for a large number of people if only they'd stop working/argue really hard is not remotely on the table. The system doesn't have that sort of slack in it, people are realistically not even arguing about a 2x salary bump. There is something in this situation that you've misjudged, it doesn't pass the this-might-be-remotely-feasible test.
I've seen sites where the employee truck drivers were allegedly all paid $150k plus. The stat was misleading because there was also a large number of contractors paid in the $50-100k range who weren't official employees. The Australian figure is probably picking up some effect like that.
There are much bigger than 2x opportunities for people who switch strategies. The Chinese have more than 10x-ed in my life time.
But they didn't do it by work less and fighting more, they did it by working very hard and maintaining peace at outrageous cost. People who've used industrial action as a tactic haven't managed anywhere near the same gains.
I'm not sure if describe collective action as "a game they will lose." Labor laws and the 40 hour work week didn't just get handed down by well meaning capitalists. They happened because of decades of intense coordinated action, largely by unions.
"Not playing the game" sounds a lot like a strike to me. Isn't "Grouping together and investing their capital" exactly what unions do?
A lot of folk going on strike don't have the option to go elsewhere or find another job (which is probably the exact reason that a corporation feels they can underpay them).
I agree that well paid workers don't strike, so i guess this corp should pony up some more money?
In France the right to strike is in the Constitution, so you can't waive it with a contract.
But I'm a bit baffled that not going to overtime is qualified as a strike, they are doing their normal hours, they are not locking the jobsite, and the management has the opportunity to hire more people or call a temp agency, which I guess a vote for a strike would prevent. I'm not very familiar with the anglo striking procedures, here it's an individual choice, it's the other side of being a constitutional right.
In germany, the right to strike is in the constitution (GG, Art 9, (3) https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gg/art_9.html) and still, while a collective bargaining agreement is in place, strikes that aim at changing any aspect of that agreement are illegal - and the union/workers may be liable for damages. (Striking for aspects that are not part of the agreement in place would be legal). Collective bargaining agreements here are usually time limited or have termination clauses. I would be surprised if this was fundamentally different in France.
"the right to strike is practiced within the legal framework that regulates it"
would be a good translation of the article of the French Constitution. I didn't say anything goes.
You said „you can‘t waive it in a contract“, but that‘s also not the case here. The right is waived by entering a collective bargaining agreement, which could be treated differently. There are rights in the German labor law that can‘t be waived by a mere contract, but can be waived in a collective bargaining agreement. And while I‘m not versed in Canadian law, the article indicates that the point of contention here is that this has been ruled as a strike that is illegal because a collective bargaining agreement is in place and for the duration of that agreement, strikes are not permitted.
As to why this is considered a strike, the article is a bit hazy. The contract seems to say that overtime is mandatory unless there’s sufficient volunteers. The union seems to have asked the employees to not work overtime - and that could be considered a strike. They‘re not performing their work duties as contractually required, which is sort of the definition of a strike. Setting aside the question of whether such a requirement to perform overtime work is legal or not, I can imagine some similar ruling in germany. Overtime can be contractually required here (within boundaries), and collectively calling for rejecting overtime could be considered a collective action. Details obviously matter, so blanket statements here are impossible.
>In France the right to strike is in the Constitution, so you can't waive it with a contract.
I'm not an expert in French law but that's definitely not how it works in common law. Free speech might be protected by the constitution, but you can still enter into contracts that limit that right (NDA or non-disparagement) and the courts will uphold it.
> Is this common? Why would unions agree to that sort of concession?
Yes, it is quite common. In any contract, both sides give something of value to the other. When a union contracts with an employer, the employer makes concessions like improved working conditions and increased wages. What does the union provide to the employer?
Typically, the answer is that the union provides agreement not to strike as long as the employer upholds their end of the contract.
Reading between the lines I am guessing that normally finding people to volunteer for overtime is easy; in some cases the workers are offered it by seniority first, as many blue collar workers see time and a half and holiday pay as very desirable. Hence the contractual concession. But in a heatwave it becomes a different story and now workers are noping out because it isn't worth it. And neither side may have seen this as a a possibility.
They did not give up the right to strike entirely at all. And agreements like this are not uncommon for what are deemed essential services.
> It boggles the mind that workers would give up the right to strike as part of their work agreement
What other option do they have, besides seeking employment elsewhere? (which may not even be an option, if enough companies across the industry have identical clauses in their contracts)
You can't just cross out a line from an employment contract these days. Everything seems to be served via services like DocuSign, which discourages negotiation by presenting the contract as a fait accompli.
I'm sure there must be a rational explanation, but from the outside it looks incredibly short-sighted. Is this common? Why would unions agree to that sort of concession?