It is fascinating because the act of acting individually in modern society is punished by the group, whether you have reasons to do so. My conclusion is that we have to cooperate, because others would see us as "selfish", "traitor", "a black sheep", etc. — javi2541997

That's what all societies expect. Obey the law - yes, even the petty traffic rules. Serve in the armed forces if there is war. Send your children to school. Pay your taxes. Pay your debts.
It's what every collective expects. If you join a golf club, you pay your fees, wear the right shoes, keep honest score, stay on the cart track, keep quite when others are hitting.
No collective can function without so-operation and giving up some individual freedom. If you want to be a loner, go it alone, but if you want the benefits of a society, pay your dues and mind the rules. When you take a job in a union shop and accept the wages and benefits that union has previously won through collective action, you commit to collective action.

If a walkout [UAW - United Auto Workers, US] occurs, workers would receive about $500 a week —far short of what they earn while they're working. As a result, millions of dollars in wages would be removed from the economy.

[CUPE - Canadian Union of Public Employees] Members receive strike pay at a rate of $15 per hour, with a maximum of 20 hours per week of strike duties.

[according to German Labour Law] During industrial action, trade union members normally receive strike assistance, which is paid by the trade union and of which the amount is 2/3 of the gross income. Other employees who are directly affected by the strike receive social security payments from the State.

In NorwayThe compensation usually amounts to somewhere around 70 percent of your gross salary, but as it's tax-free, people are typically paid roughly the same as their regular net salary.

That's what members pay union dues for. Just as employees pay into a pension plan, unemployment and health insurance plans.

So it is not a question of bad intent , but a different system of intelligible within which the other believes themselves to be as justified from a moral perspective as you feel. — Joshs

Sure, if that makes you feel good about exploitation and harm....

The capability of experiencing others’ feelings is no
more straightforward than experiencing their thinking, since it relies on culturally embedded interpretation. — Joshs

Not in my experience. From body language and facial expression, I can only guess what someone may be thinking (dogs are easier to read than people), but I have no doubt what they're feeling. Our sensations are very much more similar than our thoughts, simply because the human brain is built up of evolutionary layers: the more primitive the brain function, the more life-forms have that function in common. Sensations of heat, cold, pain and hunger are on the most primitive level. The mirror neurons in the cerebrum of more developed brains don't require an interpreter: when we see an expression or gesture, we can feel that expression or gesture or posture - and often imitate it unconsciously. I know how the other feels, not because anyone told me, but because that's how I would feel in their place.

For instance, in the modern era , the notion that other species have feelings , emotions and cognitions was not accepted widely until recently. — Joshs

Denied, you mean. No soul = no feeling; it's okay to treat them like objects created for our use. Yes, objectification of other species and other people has certainly been widespread in human civilizations. It's an entirely self-serving and artificial position: even while vivisection was generally accepted, people had relationships with their pets and working animals, much as we do now. Nor would a bullfight or dog-fight be any fun to watch if the combatants were automata - it is precisely the awareness of the pain, rage and fear that makes these sadistic entertainments pleasurable to some humans. It is the absolute certainty of fear and pain that makes torture a tactic of choice for achieving certain ends.
It's not unawareness that makes us behave cruelly, it's cruelty. That is the cultural component: whether the cruel, domineering impulses are fostered in children or the kind, empathic ones.

But what about insects? Do they have feelings? Or plants? Our schemes of intelligibility are constantly changing. — Joshs

Ever disturb a wasp nest? Wanna try it?
Insects have quite rudimentary brains, but they do have pain receptors and basic emotions.

Charles Darwin once wrote in his book The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals that insects “express anger, terror, jealousy and love.” That was in 1872. Now, nearly 150 years later, researchers have discovered more evidence that Darwin might have been onto something. Bumblebees seem to have a “positive emotionlike state,” according to a study published this week in Science. In other words, they may experience something akin to happiness. To some, the idea is still controversial, however. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/i-ll-bee-there-for-you-do-insects-feel-emotions/

Plants don't have individual brains, but they are linked by a sensory network

Mycelium are incredibly tiny “threads” of the greater fungal organism that wrap around or bore into tree roots. Taken together, myecelium composes what’s called a “mycorrhizal network,” which connects individual plants together to transfer water, nitrogen, carbon and other minerals. German forester Peter Wohlleben dubbed this network the “woodwide web,” as it is through the mycelium that trees “communicate.”https://www.nationalforests.org/blog/underground-mycorrhizal-network

So, that question is still pending.

When Southern slave owners claimed their slaves were happy, was this merely a rationalization to protect their way of life, — Joshs

Of course. They had no problem mating with these 'savages' , or, as in Jefferson's case, keeping a mistress with false promises (a common enough ploy among people of the same 'high' cultural standard). And if they actually believed the cover-story, why would they expect the standard intimidation tactics to keep the slaves compliant? Why would they make it illegal to teach a slave to read? According to that logic, they should have assumed the Africans were incapable of being educated - just as women were banned from university. (See how ignorant they are? How could they be allowed to vote and drive cars?) Why, after abolition, did they feel it necessary to enact miscegenation and segregation laws?
Hypocrisy is also a very human trait that can be fostered or discouraged in early childhood.

When certain gendered categories are labeled pathological or immoral, is this a failure to see the other’s suffering, or a failure to interpret the significance of the suffering as constituting an injustice? — Joshs

It's a rejection, suppression or outright persecution of any minority (their suffering doesn't signify) that threatens a carefully built and maintained structure of power. Part of what holds up the power-structure is an imposed belief-system, such as organized religion, tradition and nationalism.

What matters to us, what we care about, whose suffering we empathize with, is dependent in the first place on what is intelligible to us from our vantage as nodes within a larger relational matrix. — Joshs

How about the matrix of all life? I can as well understand the suffering of a fly in a spider's web or the distress of a swallow whose nest is threatened as the fear of an unknown human prisoner in a Turkish prison. Sop, in fact, can humans generally - or there would be no art or literature, and certainly no animated motion pictures featuring mice in trousers. As living entities, having descended through all of evolution from the first plankton, we are capable of experiencing the feelings and of all sensate creatures. This is evident in the mythology of pre-civilized peoples the world over: they did consider themselves kin to all species. Even though they accepted the fact of predation and that they themselves were predators, they did not objectify their prey or their human enemies.

A feral cat probably doesn't know the distress of a mouse: he is simply playing with his food, whether it's dead or alive. Pets, however, under the auspices of a caring human, show a far greater range of sensitivity to the feelings of other species in the same household: witness the solicitude of dogs toward their feline companions. Whether we care, whether we express sympathy, whether we consider the suffering of another being good or bad, depends partly on our innate proclivities and partly on how we have been taught to regard the world.

Also young women with squeaky voices speaking very fast on the telephone. Nearly everyone speaks fast now; you get the feeling they want to get their lines uttered before the microphone is snatched away. I guess a lot of my annoyances are auditory, even though my hearing is still normal, because the world has become so very noisy, even while I've been sequestered away in my quiet country home for three years.

Supermarket music. (most contemporary music)
Soundtracks so loud you can't hear the dialogue.
Bait-and-switch advertising.
Unopenable packages.
Tailgaters.
Bad spelling on signs.
Inconvenient, poorly designed DVD cases.
People who stand in doorways.

I don’t believe there is such a thing a ‘bad seed’, — Joshs

Nor do I. I was responding to someone who apparently does.

Some concepts of good and bad may be subjective; most concepts of good and bad may be cultural, but the most basic test of good and bad is whether something causes harm, suffering and destruction or benefit, wellness and improvement.

What you see as a good action I may see as a bad action. — Agree-to-Disagree

In some contexts, that is true. When we imagine possible, probable and desired outcomes to an action, we may have opposing ideas of which is the right action. But this does not transcribe accurately to human character. Good persons may take some actions that result in harm and bad persons may take some actions that inadvertently benefit someone, but the aggregate of their actions will show a strong tendency to one side or the other.
But that doesn't mean they began life as good and bad people; it only shows that they somehow ended up acting in these ways.
If you are seeing actions that benefit someone without harming someone else as 'bad', you should probably re-examine your basic principles before you become a bad person.

That’s probably why she has been doing it so long. Because the people around her are more interested in ‘modifying her behavior’ than understanding her point of view. — Joshs

That doesn't sound like close observation of a "bad seed"; it sounds like a child in the wrong environment.

she revels in "playing tricks" on others: manipulation, compulsive lies, and dramas to get her "wins" no matter how small that is. — L'éléphant

She has been doing this from infancy, in spite of all attempts by her caregivers and teachers to modify the behaviour?

Few might call a PGA golf tournament an example of undisciplined emotionalism — Nils Loc

I've never seen the audience weep at a golf match. Soccer fans are more demonstrative, and yes, that form of tribalism is certainly part of that nostalgia for belonging. To a considerable extent sport-fans' displays are also amplified by the media, just as political rallies, and public mourning rituals are. (The media exploitation of genuine grief is not part of that phenomenon, but does set up a model for the fake displays.)

but it is arguably as absurd if not more so than a pop up memorial. — Nils Loc

Degree of absurdity doesn't figure in my assessment; I'm looking for motivation.

I am sorry I do not know what you mean. — Athena

So am I! Profoundly.

Boo hoo hoo, those ugly white people took me from my alcoholic mother and cared for me and put me in a White school where I was treat treated like one of them because they hatefully won't let me have the culture of alcoholism, rape, stealing, and self-pity. — Athena

a...hem...That view is hugely conducive to

a culture that resolves more problems than it creates — Athena

And that's why they [Americans, as per your earlier post] value their individual freedom over any collective benefit. — Vera Mont

That is nuts! :rage: I am unsure of what you mean to communicate — Athena

See US gun lobby/ gun laws/ mass shootings. See Munroe Doctrine. See the unending wrangle over health insurance. The argument against doing what's good for most people is: "Freeeedomm!!!!"

that problem squarely on Christianity and believing in a god that can violate the laws of nature and be controlled by human behaviors such as reacting to human rights and wrongs. — Athena

And the US is a christian country, formed and constituted and ruled in the Abrahamic tradition of might makes right. Plato did not sign the Declaration of Independence.

(I give money periodically to help feed the poor's children, but there are times when I look at some people and think "Oh, PLEASE don't reproduce -- you can't take care of yourself, let alone others!") — BC

But that decision - or event, because they don't always intend to reproduce - is also greatly influenced by society. How they're trained to think of their body and its functions, how much they're taught about reproduction, how strongly they're warned against thwarting God's Will, how much information and access they have to birth control, what the roles, rights and prerogatives society assigns to sexes and classes.

I would find it hard to believe for the simple reason as it could be argued then that people should be imprisoned or stripped of rights from birth because they are fundamentally bad. — Benj96

Why imprison them, if they're only going to re-offend anyway? Why not kill them as soon as the evil gene is detected?

By elevate I simply mean to privilege - people venerate and privilege the things they consider to be authentic and eschew that which they consider to be mass-marketed pap. — Tom Storm

Yes, I get it. Just struck me as ironic.

This is an era which elevates the subjective and the 'authentic' and feelings and nature in quite similar ways. — Tom Storm

OK. 'Elevate' strikes me as odd in juxtaposition to fake authenticity, but I think I see what you mean.

Agree, and this is one of the key characteristics of Romanticism. — Tom Storm

Then why can't we express it in the quality of art and literature those other Romantics? How come our version is so tawdry and vulgar?

Actually I think this kind of emotionalism is really an attempt to share in something like the community and interdependence of a tribe. Loss of nature and harmony with the elements probably does play a part, just as it prompted the Romantic movement, but there is also a human loss. I think we feel the void where genuine connection should be and try to fill it from a pool of ersatz fellow-feeling, just as we try to fill the void left by life-satisfaction from an ocean of consumerism.

Above the gods and humanity is logos. — Athena

If you say so... But logos doesn't catch the bombs before they hit Baghdad! Or redirect American investment from oil to clean drinking water. Or inform Americans that their freedom to do whatever they want, whenever and wherever they want will eventually fail through lack of correct understanding. And that's why they value their individual freedom over any collective benefit.

That is a very interesting term. Is that mob rule? — Athena

No, not at all! It's an ersatz sharing through media exposure and public display, to fill the void left by the lack of genuine connection with other people, which we crave, but have lost through suspicion and fear. I was talking about the overblown grief at the sites of tragedies.
The mob you're talking about was actually a poorly organized army. It was mustard, called up and deliberately and goaded into a specific action, after having been stoked, over generations, with resentment at fictional grievances and imaginary threats. That "rage" of the no-longer-privileged has been carefully nurtured by a succession of political and religious manipulators, continuously since 1865.

I found the public grief over the empty Princess Diana absurd. — Tom Storm

Yes, they did really invested in that fairy tale, didn't they? An ordinary, and not very bright girl became a huge international icon just by contracting a bad marriage. But they genuinely did buy into it! They really seemed to think they owned a piece of her. It's not so much the tributes I wondered at as the cleanup. That crew seemed just as genuinely reverential of the garbage as they had been about the princess image.
I suspect romanticism is too generous an assessment of our times (I'm thinking of the art and literature of the late 18th century); I call it maudlin commercial sentimentality. People seem to have rejected reason, perspective, any sense of proportion in favour of raw, undisciplined emotionalism.

On the other hand, I will be honest. I see trade unions as political lobbies. — javi2541997

They become ones when they have lots of political power, yes. But so I guess happens to any group that has a say in public matters. — ssu

Like jillionnaires with political hacks spilling out of every pocket?

Well, the US is like the Western Europe except everybody speaks English and have nearly the same customs, culture and preferences. — ssu

Have you actually been in the US? Or watched American movies? Or listened to NBC?

It hasn't changed that much, except to grow larger and become better at divide and conquer. — Moliere

It will. The whole metaphorical cardboard structure is coming down.

But I'm afraid I have to say one should think in terms of bosses and workers, when looking at political economy. Or at least the bourgeoisie, if not the lieutenants of capital. As a socialist surely you agree here? Automation can give us good things if used well, but to be used well the workers need to have a say in political economy? — Moliere

Yeees... only... Well, let's say both the political and economic landscape of the future are as yet unmapped. But I think that speculation belongs elsewhere.

Most sites of typical mourning that I've encountered are not that big and if they are big it relates to the notoriety of the deceased, — Nils Loc

or the notoriety of the incident: mass shootings with many casualties, terror attacks, egregious police violence, twenty-car pile-ups - that kind of thing. Yes, I believe the media very much play up to these expressions of collective emotion; dwell on the memorials with tender long close-ups, zero in on the tear-streaked faces... cinematic demonstrations of a solidarity people don't actually share. They put down their offerings, stand in the crowd and sway along with some mournful music, then wipe their eyes and go their separate ways, never again inquiring after the orphan left behind, or what they can do to prevent the next tragedy.

It might have to get worse before people want to make it better, though. Most workers are not fighters. They just want the best for them and their family, and fear is an effective motivator. — Moliere

So is hope - I hope! From 1800 to 1980, it was a rocky, stop-and-start, blood-spattered upward path. Since 1980, it has quite reversed incline, at least on the western slope. But was never going to be a rematch or a repossession of lost ground: it's an all new challenge, every decade.
I think it's time to ditch all the old forms. Think not in terms of bosses and lackeys, but independence. Automation could give us that, if we used it well.

When people talk about the dimness of labor — Moliere

I was talking about the dimness of outlook for labour. Even the supposedly leftist political parties have gone all middle-class - the entire working class has been disappeared in the fog of rhetoric. But increasing and accelerating automation does pretty much forecast the physical disappearance of the blue collar jobs, as well as many pink, grey, green and white ones, not to mention all those pajamas at their telephones and computers.

What worked then is what would work now, if people decided to stop living in their little family-bubble.

Someday we'll find it, https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/the-fir

Two important examples: — javi2541997

I was looking for something more up-to-date. But, yes, I knew about those. Hardly enough to justify a blanket statement regarding the present:

There are a lot of evidences which prove that trade unions act as a mafia group. — javi2541997

The co-workers are just colleagues in an industrial activity and we only share time and space. — javi2541997

Oh they're a lot more than that! They're fellow rowers in the same galley; all of your fates are linked by united action or wrecked by division and infighting. If the wife had had a decent union, she might now have a severance package that could see the family through an illness and a strike. The union can revive a failing business, except sometimes by buying out the incompetent owners, but it can force a profitable one to treat its workers more fairly.

— Alkis Piskas

Management works for the interests of their company. — Alkis Piskas

Which means shareholders, waiting for their quarterly dividend and looking for the value of their stock to rise.

As with the blue-collar workers --I can't differentiate them as "employees", because managment personnel is among them too — Alkis Piskas

The paymaster sure can!

The ratio of CEO-to-typical-worker pay soared to 399-to-1 under EPI’s realized measure of CEO pay, the highest ratio on record, up from 366-to-1 in 2020 and a massive increase from 59-to-1 in 1989.

I believe this is quite a biased view, — Alkis Piskas

Indeed! And I come by that bias through factual information, alongside friends-and-relativers hearsay.

The Abandonment of Small Cities in the Rust Belt
Oct. 10, 2019
Things began to change for these communities in the 1980s, when American corporations began to outsource production and re-engineer their organizations to adapt to globalization.

Millions of Americans struggle to get by on low wages, often without any benefits such as paid sick leave, a pension, or even health insurance. Their difficult lives are made immeasurably harder when they do the work they have been hired to do, but their employers refuse to pay, pay for some hours but not others, or fail to pay overtime premiums when employees’ hours exceed 40 in a week.

As it also happens, one big company contracted a friend of mine some years ago. Two months later, his agent reported that they still had not received $#1. My friend packed up and left; the agency was eventually able to beat his fee and their percentage out of the company. It sometimes happens that they never pay up.

Why U.S. Law Makes It Easy for Donald Trump To Stiff Contractors

Being an organizer is a stressful, thankless job where everyone blames you for everything and most of what you do is run around putting out fires for less than the members you service make — Moliere

No sh...er... kidding!
Anyway, I voted "correctly" before questioning.

Further questioning: I know something about the history of trade union movements and labour parties. The present is pretty dim, especially in the US, but other countries, too, where a succession of governments have been systematically kneecapping unions.

But what of their future? Given the state of automation and collar-bleaching... I wonder. Teachers, librarians, nurses, yes. Who else is, or can be organized into, a progressive political force?

The example I used the strike was for equal pay for women. They didn't win in the first strike, but they got some victories, and then some odd 15 years later the original demand was met with a longer strike. — Moliere

That's a rational cause, worth persevering in. I've been in unions at various points in their life-cycle, including an attempt to form a brand new one. That was defeated, and two years later, the same workers opted to join one of big, powerful unions, in which they would be an insignificant cog. Not a great outcome, but a rational choice that resulted in better pay for my ex-colleagues. By then, I was working elsewhere as a member of one of the big, powerful unions - which served us very well, as it happens, and deserved our support.

The OP example was questionable, so I questioned it. Is that not why we're here?

There are a lot of evidences which prove that trade unions act as a mafia group. — javi2541997

Please share. I'm aware of some infiltration of some unions by organized crime (also by law-enforcement agencies and political agitators) but not of a union leadership itself initiating criminal activity. I'm also aware of some pretty underhanded moves by conservative governments to undermine trade unions.

If you want to make an individualistic move, they quickly will call you scab. — javi2541997

The only individualistic move that's called scabbing is continuing to work during a strike. Sometimes scabs are bussed in - hired from outside the union - to break a strike. Sometimes police or mercenaries are employed to break a strike.
But there is no point in forcing workers back into a closed mine.

Your group is the whole company you are working in, and mainly the owner and the management. — Alkis Piskas

Managements rarely see it that way; rarely show reciprocal loyalty to the employees. It usually is very much an adversarial situation. Bosses like to portray themselves as "job creators", while, in fact, they give the least remuneration they possible can in return for the most profit they can squeeze out of the workers and very often put workers at unnecessary risk to cut corners.

So, you owe them more than you owe to your colleagues and the syndicate. — Alkis Piskas

You owe them a fair day's work for a fair day's pay - nothing more.

When does scabbing not hurt strikers? — Moliere

It may hurt their feelings - assuming they all trust the leadership as much as you do - but there are occasions when it makes no material difference. They're already hurting themselves.

if you help the boss break the strike then you're putting your family ahead of the other families that are also risking themselves. That's the choice being made. — Moliere

That's the question I asked, at least twice. Exactly what choice is being made - what are they striking for?
They cannot keep a mine open in despite of both the owners' interest and the government regulation. If the mine is going to be closed, none of the miners gain anything at all, except the few who kept working long enough to get a final paycheque.
In the given example, the strike makes no sense; the workers are only preventing an orderly, arbitrated dissolution to the enterprise and jeopardizing or forfeiting their severance pay or compensation settlement. If the leadership called a strike without taking the workers' interest into full consideration, no worker owes them loyalty and any worker who can see it would be a fool to obey without question.

duty to union, outside of union families, is often seen as a naive position. — Moliere

That, too, was one of my questions: Duty to the union, or obedience to the leadership? I have been a staunch trade unionist - even to refusing to cross a picket line as a client, when I had not been informed of the issue in contention. In fact, I voted for the miner in the OP to join the strike....
....until I began to wonder how this strike was supposed to benefit the workers.
I'm also aware that the leadership can be corrupt or short-sighted. I consider myself socialist, but not a blind idealist. As presented in the example, the call to strike seems irrational, and the lack of union support for the strikers is suspect.

I didn't know a dilemma needed to be that realistic.. — javi2541997

If you want someone to make a choice, you need to be clear what they're choosing between.
You haven't even said who or what the employer is.

Of course they [employers] have and a lot [of duty]. Starting with the entrepreneur who pays their income and ending up with the state when taxes are paid. — javi2541997

What's that to do with the worker or the strike?

But there's no choice in the abstract. — Moliere

Exactly! The individual needs a pretty solid basis on which to make so practical a decision. Real life is not a deontological exercise.

If you're a worker then, like it or not, scabbing will hurt strikers.

That's an assumption not always borne out by results. The strikers are not necessarily represented by the union leadership; they may be incorrect in their assessment of the situation; this particular worker may be aware that the strike is futile.
If he makes his decision on nothing more than loyalty to the union, it's just another case of blind obedience, not a moral or ethical one.

I would like to explore the age old argument: Nature verse nurture. With a focus on the propensity towards crime, wrongdoing and malice as well as virtuosity, charity and outstanding citizenship. — Benj96

None of this happens in a social vacuum. Right- and wrong-doing is judged, indeed, defined, by the requirements of a community. Crime is defined by its laws. Charity is dictated by the needs of its membership. Citizenship is both a given and a demanded role of the individual. How that role is elaborated, empowered and delimited by the society is a major component in the individual's ability and willingness to carry it out well.
Society, too, plays an active part in the nurture of the individual who grow up in it. The prosperity, solidarity, values and expectations of the society are transmitted to the young subliminally, as a normal part of their environment. The father may tell a child, over and over, "Always tell the truth." and even punish him for lying, if that child then hears the father call in sick to work and then go golfing, he knows that what he's told is not what's really expected. If the child sees constant warring and fisticuffs on television, it's no use telling him that fighting is not the solve problems. He may be exhorted to work hard in order to succeed, if he sees that the hardest-working people are the least respected, he will understand: he will repeat the covering lies and do whatever is actually required to reach his goals.

We are all born with the entire spectrum of human traits and capabilities - in different proportions. Competent parents and teachers recognize each child's character and respond according to the dictates of their society, in their attempt to guide each child to whatever kind of adulthood the society assigns to him or her. Not all parents and teachers are competent; not all societies are clear or honest about the roles they assign to their citizens; not all children are willing to be molded to their assigned role.

Avoid the closure of the colliery. Thus, they would keep their jobs. — javi2541997

How does a strike accomplish that. The demand "Keep us digging coal or we'll stop digging coal!" is nonsense. The strike must have been called in direct response to some action the company was intent on taking in order to keep the mine open. How could a strike prevent the employer going out of business? Nor does keeping a mine open guarantee that all employees continue in their jobs.

I do not consider it as "option" but a duty. — javi2541997

The employers have no duty to anyone, other paying whatever taxes they can't evade.
They do need to respond a situation. As I see it, their options are:
1. To invest in cleaner upgrades and continue operations.
2. Reduce the scope of the operation and lay off part of the workforce.
3. Invest in automation and dispense with miners entirely.
4. Close the mine and move to a state/country with fewer restrictions.
5. Stop mining coal and turn the mine into some other business.

If you were the worker, what would you want? — javi2541997

An honest job with decent pay, working conditions and benefits package. The man in the example doesn't have health insurance or savings, so he must have been in a precarious position before the new legislation came into effect. So, the outcome he is in a position to want - and therefore support - depends on 1. what the union's demands are and 2. whether the company is able and likely to grant them.

It is interesting that you all say this is not a realistic scenario. :lol:
To be honest, I still do not understand why you see it that way... — javi2541997

Because of the way you set it up, with no regard to the government's role, the employer's side of it, or the union's rationale for calling a strike.

Your job involves working at a colliery. The government is about to elaborate a new law reform that the main objective is to reduce pollution and develop an eco-friendly system.

Employment at collieries is at its risk. The leader of the miner's trade union prepares a big strike in your town. — javi2541997

This remains unclear. What is the objective of the strike? What are the employer's options?
If the strike succeeds, what does the worker gain? If it fails, what does the worker lose?

The worker's choice is purported to be between loyalties to union and family, but that is not the case in real life. The choice is between desired outcomes. What does this particular worker want?

Until 10 years ago, roadside floral tributes were virtually unknown in Britain. Now there are parts of the country where you can't go half a mile without seeing them.

Make that 30 years, because this is from a Guardian article of 2005.

It's not a traditional part of either of my cultures. It doesn't seem to have been widespread before the turn of the present century. Does anyone know when the practice began?
The first instance https://www.delawareonline.com/picture-gallery/entertainment/2015/12/08/35-years-ago-john-lennon-shot-fans-mourn-beatle/76978718/ I recall is 1980, outside the Dakota, after John Lennon was killed. He was another icon, whom many people considered a personal loss, even though they had never met him.

If the legislation has any teeth, the mine will soon be closed anyway and everyone who can't find work in a more eco-friendly endeavour will be out of a job. I'm not sure what the union is striking for, or what the scabs hope to gain beyond a few more days' wages and maybe a thumping in the the alley after work.

What the union needs to hold out for is a settlement from the company. Tthey've pulled enough profits to pay the guys in the corner offices

A whopping $35 million. That's what the highest paid mining company CEO earned in 2021, according to data collected by Costmine Intelligence, part of The Northern Miner Group.

, so they can afford to pay the guys who bring up the coal. They can also afford to re-employ* the same people in their next venture.
*with a much better health insurance plan!

Empathy. You see what happened to someone, you understand that you could have been the one, and so you leave something nice because that's what you'd like to be done if it were you. — Moliere

I wouldn't like strangers to leave stuff that will turn into garbage almost instantly, that some other strangers than have to clean up... maybe cursing me the whole time, because I'm not a cult figure. If they wanted to remember me - for whatever inexplicable reason - I can think of more positive ways. If they want to bring flowers, I would prefer they give them to lonely shut-ins or unvisited hospital patients who are still able to appreciate it; if they want to bring stuffed toys, I would prefer they give those to needy children in the Christmas toy drives. If they want to spend money, I would prefer they give it to the Red Cross or something worthwhile. (Not the mylar balloons - there is no excuse for those.)