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The armbands are silly, but they represent something very insidious. Collective action works because while the bosses have power and resources, there are more of us than there are of them: in a union, workers can band together and make collective demands. When the law stops treating strikers as members of their union, and starts relentlessly individuating them—with demands for personal details, or written proof that they're even in a union at all—the heroic struggle of labor for fairer treatment becomes instead a bunch of jerks in armbands blocking off a perfectly good road.It's no secret that the Tories hate the unions, but this isn't just an attack on organized labor: instead, they're starting to act as if it simply didn't exist. In its place, there are just some weirdos in stupid costumes, carrying signs and parading up and down as if that could fix anything, while the rest of us hardworking folk go about our usual toil, quietly and diligently and utterly alone.Follow Sam on TwitterRead on VICE News: Leaving My Friend Rasool Behind and Why He Must Be Freed from Turkish Prison