Honestly, we need a revisit off the whole holiday thing. Ironically, many employers being super eager to be bigots to non-Christians in the US is likely costing them a ton of business opportunities. Sure there are some holidays where because of cultural traditions, you probably have to write them off as a time where the business is closed. That said, if they were so fucking inflexible and eager to fuck over non-Christians. They'd probably find that they could work something out where the business is open more days in the year because if you give your Muslim, Hindi, Buddhist, atheist and other non-Christian employers and hell you're non-super religious Christians some flexibility on holiday leave. Well, you'd find that if those people could take time to celebrate their religious holidays or have an equal amount of time off for 'religious holidays' if they religious or super into religion. Then suddenly, they might be quite willing to work days that the office used to be closed.
Like, if you accommodate people. Suddenly, it becomes possible to say have the office open or building open on Easter Sunday because it's just another fucking Sunday as far as the non-Christians are concerned. Kind of the same deal with Sunday in general for many places. There are plenty of people that would have no issue working that day, provided they are allowed two days off for the week regardless of what days they work.
Of course, I suspect it'll get the same resistance as work from home because for many shitty employers and managers, their big thing outside of profits, is having control. Accommodating non-Christians would mean that they'd have to cede power and concede that not everyone is like them.
I can see this turning into "Holidays become vacation time" and businesses staying open during holidays, while work focused employees take less and less vacation each year. And employers deny vacation on the holidays because everyone wants off then.
The "fix" here is for the federal government to pull back holidays from religious celebrations (e.g. Easter/Good Friday) and make them instead non-religious holidays. We take off Labor Day because it's a US holiday, we could do the same on other days. Most holidays are already non-religious.
Honestly, we need a revisit off the whole holiday thing. Ironically, many employers being super eager to be bigots to non-Christians in the US is likely costing them a ton of business opportunities. Sure there are some holidays where because of cultural traditions, you probably have to write them off as a time where the business is closed. That said, if they were so fucking inflexible and eager to fuck over non-Christians. They'd probably find that they could work something out where the business is open more days in the year because if you give your Muslim, Hindi, Buddhist, atheist and other non-Christian employers and hell you're non-super religious Christians some flexibility on holiday leave. Well, you'd find that if those people could take time to celebrate their religious holidays or have an equal amount of time off for 'religious holidays' if they religious or super into religion. Then suddenly, they might be quite willing to work days that the office used to be closed.
Like, if you accommodate people. Suddenly, it becomes possible to say have the office open or building open on Easter Sunday because it's just another fucking Sunday as far as the non-Christians are concerned. Kind of the same deal with Sunday in general for many places. There are plenty of people that would have no issue working that day, provided they are allowed two days off for the week regardless of what days they work.
Of course, I suspect it'll get the same resistance as work from home because for many shitty employers and managers, their big thing outside of profits, is having control. Accommodating non-Christians would mean that they'd have to cede power and concede that not everyone is like them.
I can see this turning into "Holidays become vacation time" and businesses staying open during holidays, while work focused employees take less and less vacation each year. And employers deny vacation on the holidays because everyone wants off then.
The "fix" here is for the federal government to pull back holidays from religious celebrations (e.g. Easter/Good Friday) and make them instead non-religious holidays. We take off Labor Day because it's a US holiday, we could do the same on other days. Most holidays are already non-religious.
Christmas Day is actually the only religious federal holiday.
Federal OPM
Date Holiday
Friday, December 31 * New Year's Day
Monday, January 17 Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Monday, February 21 ** Washington’s Birthday
Monday, May 30 Memorial Day
Monday, June 20 * Juneteenth National Independence Day
Monday, July 04 Independence Day
Monday, September 05 Labor Day
Monday, October 10 Columbus Day
Friday, November 11 Veterans Day
Thursday, November 24 Thanksgiving Day
Monday, December 26 * Christmas Day
But looking at that list, most people don't get several of those off already.
Alternately, just make 'em all holidays. All of 'em, hell with it. Why not? Everywhere else has a million more statutory holidays than we do, so screw it, all of 'em are state holidays who cares.
+9
Options
zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
Honestly, we need a revisit off the whole holiday thing. Ironically, many employers being super eager to be bigots to non-Christians in the US is likely costing them a ton of business opportunities. Sure there are some holidays where because of cultural traditions, you probably have to write them off as a time where the business is closed. That said, if they were so fucking inflexible and eager to fuck over non-Christians. They'd probably find that they could work something out where the business is open more days in the year because if you give your Muslim, Hindi, Buddhist, atheist and other non-Christian employers and hell you're non-super religious Christians some flexibility on holiday leave. Well, you'd find that if those people could take time to celebrate their religious holidays or have an equal amount of time off for 'religious holidays' if they religious or super into religion. Then suddenly, they might be quite willing to work days that the office used to be closed.
Like, if you accommodate people. Suddenly, it becomes possible to say have the office open or building open on Easter Sunday because it's just another fucking Sunday as far as the non-Christians are concerned. Kind of the same deal with Sunday in general for many places. There are plenty of people that would have no issue working that day, provided they are allowed two days off for the week regardless of what days they work.
Of course, I suspect it'll get the same resistance as work from home because for many shitty employers and managers, their big thing outside of profits, is having control. Accommodating non-Christians would mean that they'd have to cede power and concede that not everyone is like them.
I can see this turning into "Holidays become vacation time" and businesses staying open during holidays, while work focused employees take less and less vacation each year. And employers deny vacation on the holidays because everyone wants off then.
The "fix" here is for the federal government to pull back holidays from religious celebrations (e.g. Easter/Good Friday) and make them instead non-religious holidays. We take off Labor Day because it's a US holiday, we could do the same on other days. Most holidays are already non-religious.
Christmas Day is actually the only religious federal holiday.
Federal OPM
Date Holiday
Friday, December 31 * New Year's Day
Monday, January 17 Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Monday, February 21 ** Washington’s Birthday
Monday, May 30 Memorial Day
Monday, June 20 * Juneteenth National Independence Day
Monday, July 04 Independence Day
Monday, September 05 Labor Day
Monday, October 10 Columbus Day
Friday, November 11 Veterans Day
Thursday, November 24 Thanksgiving Day
Monday, December 26 * Christmas Day
But looking at that list, most people don't get several of those off already.
#JeffBezosMurderedBettyWhite
Yeah. The lack of holidays is a concern.
Shitty employers have 0, 1 or 2 paid holidays.
What internal analytics show is that most employers honor 5 or 6 holidays for lower level employees. And 8 or 9 holidays for professional employees.
If your employer doesn’t give you paid holidays, find one who does. There hasn’t been a better time in the last 10 years to find a new job.
Honestly, we need a revisit off the whole holiday thing. Ironically, many employers being super eager to be bigots to non-Christians in the US is likely costing them a ton of business opportunities. Sure there are some holidays where because of cultural traditions, you probably have to write them off as a time where the business is closed. That said, if they were so fucking inflexible and eager to fuck over non-Christians. They'd probably find that they could work something out where the business is open more days in the year because if you give your Muslim, Hindi, Buddhist, atheist and other non-Christian employers and hell you're non-super religious Christians some flexibility on holiday leave. Well, you'd find that if those people could take time to celebrate their religious holidays or have an equal amount of time off for 'religious holidays' if they religious or super into religion. Then suddenly, they might be quite willing to work days that the office used to be closed.
Like, if you accommodate people. Suddenly, it becomes possible to say have the office open or building open on Easter Sunday because it's just another fucking Sunday as far as the non-Christians are concerned. Kind of the same deal with Sunday in general for many places. There are plenty of people that would have no issue working that day, provided they are allowed two days off for the week regardless of what days they work.
Of course, I suspect it'll get the same resistance as work from home because for many shitty employers and managers, their big thing outside of profits, is having control. Accommodating non-Christians would mean that they'd have to cede power and concede that not everyone is like them.
I can see this turning into "Holidays become vacation time" and businesses staying open during holidays, while work focused employees take less and less vacation each year. And employers deny vacation on the holidays because everyone wants off then.
The "fix" here is for the federal government to pull back holidays from religious celebrations (e.g. Easter/Good Friday) and make them instead non-religious holidays. We take off Labor Day because it's a US holiday, we could do the same on other days. Most holidays are already non-religious.
Christmas Day is actually the only religious federal holiday.
Federal OPM
Date Holiday
Friday, December 31 * New Year's Day
Monday, January 17 Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Monday, February 21 ** Washington’s Birthday
Monday, May 30 Memorial Day
Monday, June 20 * Juneteenth National Independence Day
Monday, July 04 Independence Day
Monday, September 05 Labor Day
Monday, October 10 Columbus Day
Friday, November 11 Veterans Day
Thursday, November 24 Thanksgiving Day
Monday, December 26 * Christmas Day
But looking at that list, most people don't get several of those off already.
#JeffBezosMurderedBettyWhite
Yeah. The lack of holidays is a concern.
Shitty employers have 0, 1 or 2 paid holidays.
What internal analytics show is that most employers honor 5 or 6 holidays for lower level employees. And 8 or 9 holidays for professional employees.
If your employer doesn’t give you paid holidays, find one who does. There hasn’t been a better time in the last 10 years to find a new job.
As long as you're in the right area with a degree.
If you're on the horrible service industry side of labor you get sacrificed to the pandemic and inflation as housing prices price you out of being able to afford to exist.
Honestly, we need a revisit off the whole holiday thing. Ironically, many employers being super eager to be bigots to non-Christians in the US is likely costing them a ton of business opportunities. Sure there are some holidays where because of cultural traditions, you probably have to write them off as a time where the business is closed. That said, if they were so fucking inflexible and eager to fuck over non-Christians. They'd probably find that they could work something out where the business is open more days in the year because if you give your Muslim, Hindi, Buddhist, atheist and other non-Christian employers and hell you're non-super religious Christians some flexibility on holiday leave. Well, you'd find that if those people could take time to celebrate their religious holidays or have an equal amount of time off for 'religious holidays' if they religious or super into religion. Then suddenly, they might be quite willing to work days that the office used to be closed.
Like, if you accommodate people. Suddenly, it becomes possible to say have the office open or building open on Easter Sunday because it's just another fucking Sunday as far as the non-Christians are concerned. Kind of the same deal with Sunday in general for many places. There are plenty of people that would have no issue working that day, provided they are allowed two days off for the week regardless of what days they work.
Of course, I suspect it'll get the same resistance as work from home because for many shitty employers and managers, their big thing outside of profits, is having control. Accommodating non-Christians would mean that they'd have to cede power and concede that not everyone is like them.
I can see this turning into "Holidays become vacation time" and businesses staying open during holidays, while work focused employees take less and less vacation each year. And employers deny vacation on the holidays because everyone wants off then.
The "fix" here is for the federal government to pull back holidays from religious celebrations (e.g. Easter/Good Friday) and make them instead non-religious holidays. We take off Labor Day because it's a US holiday, we could do the same on other days. Most holidays are already non-religious.
Christmas Day is actually the only religious federal holiday.
Federal OPM
Date Holiday
Friday, December 31 * New Year's Day
Monday, January 17 Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Monday, February 21 ** Washington’s Birthday
Monday, May 30 Memorial Day
Monday, June 20 * Juneteenth National Independence Day
Monday, July 04 Independence Day
Monday, September 05 Labor Day
Monday, October 10 Columbus Day
Friday, November 11 Veterans Day
Thursday, November 24 Thanksgiving Day
Monday, December 26 * Christmas Day
But looking at that list, most people don't get several of those off already.
#JeffBezosMurderedBettyWhite
Yeah. The lack of holidays is a concern.
Shitty employers have 0, 1 or 2 paid holidays.
What internal analytics show is that most employers honor 5 or 6 holidays for lower level employees. And 8 or 9 holidays for professional employees.
If your employer doesn’t give you paid holidays, find one who does. There hasn’t been a better time in the last 10 years to find a new job.
As long as you're in the right area with a degree.
If you're on the horrible service industry side of labor you get sacrificed to the pandemic and inflation as housing prices price you out of being able to afford to exist.
That's what Zeph was saying.
I'm not sure we need to require holidays off, but we definitely need to make companies earn it. Even our "OT after 40" system is relatively barbaric compared to other countries. As many are well aware, I presently live in El Salvador, and for people who work for companies here (at least ones enough to be covered by their equivalent of L&I, all federal and local holidays are observed. If a company wants you to work, the have to pay you some percentage increase. If they want you to work over your standard shift, they have to pay you some percentage increase. If they want you to work one of your regular days off, they need to pay you a percentage increase. If they want you to work nights..... you guessed it.
Oh and these stacked. In front line tech support, I had people beating my door down to work holidays, ESPECIALLY overnight holidays as some of them were pushing 450% or more of their normal hourly rate.
The combination of the demonization of socialism and labor in the US and our "work ethic" pretty much doom these kinds of things as non-starters. Unions are the answer of course, but they have a LOT of work to do just to reclaim some of their former power, much less to really take corporations to task and fix .gov. I'm just real concerned it's going to take a second great depression to give unions the ability to break through all the anti-union propaganda.
OH AND PUT LABOR DAY BACK ON MAY 1 LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD. Can make Sept 05 something like National Teachers Day or something. They deserve some credit and an extra holiday won't hurt us.
OH AND PUT LABOR DAY BACK ON MAY 1 LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD. Can make Sept 05 something like National Teachers Day or something. They deserve some credit and an extra holiday won't hurt us.
... you know that labor day was celebrated in September before the May 1st became popular right? And the date was chosen by Labor movements?
OH AND PUT LABOR DAY BACK ON MAY 1 LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD. Can make Sept 05 something like National Teachers Day or something. They deserve some credit and an extra holiday won't hurt us.
... you know that labor day was celebrated in September before the May 1st became popular right? And the date was chosen by Labor movements?
The placing of Labor Day in September by the US government was specifically an anti-Communist and anti-organized labor action.
After getting laid off for the company to save money and predictably getting instantly rehired due to the company being immediately engulfed in metaphorical fire and me being their chief expert fire-putter-outer, I went to HR and was like "hey so I wasn't given any new paperwork or anything, do you guys just still have all my info and are continuing it like nothing happened?" and she was like "Yep, totally"
Here we are when I'm expecting my first paycheck since returning, PayChex is showing me a paystub and saying it should have been deposited on Friday (for the past 10 years our office has always deposited pay on Friday if the 1st or 15th falls on a weekend), and I'm still unpaid. And rent is due. FUCK.
Fuckers. I hate that shit.
Absolutely need more teeth in payroll laws along this. I'm also two paychecks into missing a pretty decent on-call stipend. There is absolutely no reason a company shouldn't be able to cut a check within 1 business day (and that's being incredibly generous).
Well, a large part of the problem is that corporate leadership sees late pay and the problems it causes for workers to be a "you" problem. A few months back, Alison Green of Ask A Manager got a letter from a manager complaining about how one of his subordinates "wasn't respectful" when the company fucked her pay up (read: stood up for herself and demanded the issue be fixed including the hardships the late pay caused her (with a very clear subtext of "I don't want to make a federal case out of his, but I will if I have to.")) The guy's response has to be read to be believed:
I’m not comfortable with one of my new staff members and how overconfident she is. Her work is great and she needed very little training but she’s got very big britches.
“Jane” has only been with us for two months. Just today she asked for a meeting with me and our payroll manager. It turns out payroll made an error entering her direct deposit information that resulted in Jane not getting paid, not once but two times.
Our company requires potential candidates to complete sample assignments during the interview process and we pay them an hourly contractor rate. It turns out she didn’t get paid for her assignment period, or for the next full pay cycle. The payroll employee apologized directly to Jane in an email, because it was their error in entering her information and not following up/fixing it that resulted in Jane not getting paid. Jane was able to show emails back and forth where she checked in with the payroll employee and asked if it was fixed, which they confirmed it was. Today was payday and Jane didn’t get paid. She checked with the employee again and they acknowledged that they “thought” it was fixed. It’s upsetting for Jane, I understand, but I think she was out of line about the whole thing. People make mistakes.
Neither payroll nor I knew anything about it until today. We both apologized and assured her the issue would be handled. After that, she looked at me and the payroll manager and said, “I appreciate your apology, but I need you both to understand that this can’t happen again. This has put me under financial strain and I can’t continue to work for COMPANY if this isn’t corrected today.”
The payroll manager was heavily in agreement, but I was speechless that she’d speak to management like that.
Payroll handled the whole thing and cut her a check with the okay from HR. Jane had referenced that not being paid put her in financial hardship and unable to pay bills, so HR allowed the use of the employee hardship fund and gave her $500 in gift cards so she can get groceries and gas and catch up on bills. I’m just kind of floored that she’s getting gift cards after speaking to her superiors like that. I’m also uncomfortable because why is our company responsible for her fiscal irresponsibility? Her personal finances or debts are not the company’s responsibility. I just don’t think it’s the company’s responsibility to give her more than what she’s earned (the extra $500 from the employee emergency relief fund) to fix things for her if she overspent or didn’t prioritize her bills or save smartly. We also don’t know if she is actually experiencing a financial hardship or just claiming she was.
HR allowed her paid time to go to the bank today and deposit her check. I told our HR person that while it’s not okay Jane didn’t get paid, the way she approached it was uncalled for. HR told me, “She’s right, it can’t happen again and it shouldn’t have happened at all.”
I’m getting tired of the respect gap I’m seeing with younger staff. I think Jane would be better suited in a different department. I’m not comfortable having her on my team since it’s obvious she doesn’t understand she’s entry-level and not in charge. Should I wait a while before suggesting she transfer to a different department?
To Alison's credit, her initial response was blunt and cut to the point:
I’m going to say this bluntly: you are very, very wrong about this situation, both as a manager and as a human.
What's funny to me is that HR clearly understands how massive a problem that is while the direct manager has just completely no understanding of the issue.
"I'm getting of the respect gap I'm seeing with younger staff" is how you very quickly find yourself without staff when people don't take your bullshit.
This is because HR knows the law, and knows that Jane would be well within her rights to have just gone to the local Department of Labor office and file a complaint that the company would have no defense against, so her seeking an internal resolution is her doing the company a favor. Meanwhile, the manager literally ends the letter with "so, what is the appropriate amount of time to wait before engaging in illegal retaliation against her?"
And there are a lot of managers who see loyalty and respect as a one way issue - you're a subordinate, you'll take what we give you and like it. Part of it is a generational gap, but a large part is just that a lot of managers learned bad habits from older managers.
Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority”
and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”
and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay.
OH AND PUT LABOR DAY BACK ON MAY 1 LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD. Can make Sept 05 something like National Teachers Day or something. They deserve some credit and an extra holiday won't hurt us.
... you know that labor day was celebrated in September before the May 1st became popular right? And the date was chosen by Labor movements?
You’re not quite right here! Albert and Lucy Parsons marched on May 1st 1886 in Chicago as part of a nation wide general strike, shortly before being arrested and executed. The Second Congress of the International decided to protest their murders on May 1st 1890, and The American Federation of Labor chose the same day to designate as “May Day”.
It wasn’t until several years later that Labor Day was signed into law in September with a toothless resolution by Grover Cleveland. It got tossed out as a token to workers, but one that the government could make sure didn’t coincide with, or share the genesis of the real deal.
Oh, and May Day was attacked almost right away by the government, because of its association with real labor movements. After the Bolshevik Revolution in the late 1910s, the government referred to May 1st as “Americanization Day”, a sort of Diet Independence Day.
Then in the 1950s, Joseph McCarthy helped officially rebrand May 1st as Loyalty Day, which is pure red scare bullshit, and is still, to this day, the official legal holiday for May 1st.
minor incident on
Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
IMO bring May first back as Labor day, then change the September one into employees day. Let's reward the asshole oligarchy for their bullshit by fixing things so that they get to look forward to two days in the year where workers get to tell them to go fuck themselves.
As for the holiday stuff. We really need a law on the books, where businesses eat fines if they don't make their workers take their time off. Like I'm actually opposed to the idea of making it easy to convert PTO days into paid compensation, since that fuels a very unhealthy lifestyle. We need to kill the whole bullshit thing, where people are made to feel guilty over taking time off. If it's no longer an option because businesses are legally obligated to make people take time off and it's more difficult to turn leave time into money. Then that mind set it going to start to disappear. Also need to tackle the whole "my life is my work," I grew up in a family where my old man had that mentality and I can tell you from experience that it's just straight up fucking toxic. I can think of plenty of times where my parents had fights because work was always placed before family. Plenty of times where me and my siblings couldn't do certain things because mom had to run herself ragged and hit her limits, while the old man was essentially dead weight for family needs because he made work his end all be all. Plenty of time in the past and now, where shit don't get done around the house because the old man is either at work or when he finally does have time off, he is useless because his relationship with work makes in useless at home.
We also need to tackle overtime. One it shouldn't be possible to declared people being salaried and thus make it so they don't qualify for OT when certain criteria are in place. Also kill the BS that let's a company deny OT because, you haven't worked 40 hours, since you have holiday and PTO pay. Nah, if their pay hours exceed 40 hours, they get OT for any time over if they are full time. Also have OT kick in for part time, when part time workers exceed a certain amount of worked hours (part time being another thing that business abuse). Next OT needs to be more than time and half because I've seen too many fucking businesses where they have mandatory or almost mandatory OT running most of the year. It's a sign that it's too cheap to hire below needs and then have employees burn themselves out on OT. OT needs to be at a level where it's an option to use during periods of high workloads, that are short enough that it isn't practical to hire new people that are going to fill positions that might only exist for a month out of the year. At the same time, it does need to be high enough that a company would rather hire more employees because it's impractical to exploit OT to weasel out of having enough employees.
Do both of those and you'd really avoid the whole issue of people not taking time off because legally companies couldn't let people get away with never taking time off and they'd be less inclined to create scenarios where people are forgoing leave time because OT becomes way to expensive to do and also they can't be like "nope, no OT because your are getting a salary!"
I Agree with most of what you posted, though I'm a bit more hesitant about OT, there are some real valid needs for the ability for long term flexible OT that may in fact not justify hiring another person. Using my company for example, we have most of our staff with standard 8-5's covering the majority of the week, but we on average have 1-10 hours of "outside hours" stuff per week. Certainly not enough to hire a full time worker, and it's variable enough that even PT would be rough (and we don't really do PT employees anyway). That being said, we RARELY hurt for volunteers. Even when we do, it's fall back is the on call system, so... hey.
I'm willing to acknowledge there are employers who are abusing OT, but I think that's where a system like I mentioned about the country I'm in before makes sense. The multiplier on your base salary keeps increasing as you add more OT. I'm also somewhat radical in that I believe we should have mandatory labor union membership. The only real problem I have with that is that you start running the danger of corruption by gov't.
Oh, OT is the trickier one. The compensation needs to probably go up, just not sure by how much. Also possible that we need to some carveouts where maybe some industries get some aid because they have cyclical workloads that require OT. So maybe tax prep, I think that's a big one where you get the crazy bursts of OT, where it just isn't practical to hire more people that will be cut loose pretty quickly. Hell, the carveout aid could even be limited to certain time periods based on industry.
I suspect that this is also an argument for universal healthcare because a ton of businesses do prefer OT and part timers that don't work 30 hours because it let's them skirt by on providing healthcare. If that was no longer a thing, maybe businesses would be less inclined to exploit OT and part time workers because they could claim that the paperwork for benefits nixes a new position being viable (I suspect it's a bullshit argument, but hey, let's humor them, since its' an excellent excuse to deny them most potent hostage they can take).
Oh, OT is the trickier one. The compensation needs to probably go up, just not sure by how much. Also possible that we need to some carveouts where maybe some industries get some aid because they have cyclical workloads that require OT. So maybe tax prep, I think that's a big one where you get the crazy bursts of OT, where it just isn't practical to hire more people that will be cut loose pretty quickly. Hell, the carveout aid could even be limited to certain time periods based on industry.
I suspect that this is also an argument for universal healthcare because a ton of businesses do prefer OT and part timers that don't work 30 hours because it let's them skirt by on providing healthcare. If that was no longer a thing, maybe businesses would be less inclined to exploit OT and part time workers because they could claim that the paperwork for benefits nixes a new position being viable (I suspect it's a bullshit argument, but hey, let's humor them, since its' an excellent excuse to deny them most potent hostage they can take).
Ok, actually, yes. We need to disassociate healthcare from medical. At least.... Again I bring up a Global Southern Country, there are 3 levels of medical. Necessary care happens when it has to and is free to everyone, elective care you get waitlisted on. If you are employed by a "major" (definition is loose) company, they are required to pay into the ISSS system, which covers most working folks, and basically gets you a bit faster sertvice on more elective things. On top of that you have the private system which immigrants (who aren't employed by a local company) and richer folk pay for which gets the fastest service, but we pay for it. My point is here that they still get coverage without employment, employment just gets them better care. Still not great, but FAR better than what we have in the US.
OH AND PUT LABOR DAY BACK ON MAY 1 LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD. Can make Sept 05 something like National Teachers Day or something. They deserve some credit and an extra holiday won't hurt us.
... you know that labor day was celebrated in September before the May 1st became popular right? And the date was chosen by Labor movements?
You’re not quite right here! Albert and Lucy Parsons marched on May 1st 1886 in Chicago as part of a nation wide general strike, shortly before being arrested and executed. The Second Congress of the International decided to protest their murders on May 1st 1890, and The American Federation of Labor chose the same day to designate as “May Day”.
It wasn’t until several years later that Labor Day was signed into law in September with a toothless resolution by Grover Cleveland. It got tossed out as a token to workers, but one that the government could make sure didn’t coincide with, or share the genesis of the real deal.
Oh, and May Day was attacked almost right away by the government, because of its association with real labor movements. After the Bolshevik Revolution in the late 1910s, the government referred to May 1st as “Americanization Day”, a sort of Diet Independence Day.
Then in the 1950s, Joseph McCarthy helped officially rebrand May 1st as Loyalty Day, which is pure red scare bullshit, and is still, to this day, the official legal holiday for May 1st.
Labor day in September was already being celebrated in public parades by the labor movement before Haymarket. No question that Cleveland chose September as the nationally recognized date to distance it it from the killings, though.
OH AND PUT LABOR DAY BACK ON MAY 1 LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD. Can make Sept 05 something like National Teachers Day or something. They deserve some credit and an extra holiday won't hurt us.
... you know that labor day was celebrated in September before the May 1st became popular right? And the date was chosen by Labor movements?
You’re not quite right here! Albert and Lucy Parsons marched on May 1st 1886 in Chicago as part of a nation wide general strike, shortly before being arrested and executed. The Second Congress of the International decided to protest their murders on May 1st 1890, and The American Federation of Labor chose the same day to designate as “May Day”.
It wasn’t until several years later that Labor Day was signed into law in September with a toothless resolution by Grover Cleveland. It got tossed out as a token to workers, but one that the government could make sure didn’t coincide with, or share the genesis of the real deal.
Oh, and May Day was attacked almost right away by the government, because of its association with real labor movements. After the Bolshevik Revolution in the late 1910s, the government referred to May 1st as “Americanization Day”, a sort of Diet Independence Day.
Then in the 1950s, Joseph McCarthy helped officially rebrand May 1st as Loyalty Day, which is pure red scare bullshit, and is still, to this day, the official legal holiday for May 1st.
Labor day in September was already being celebrated in public parades by the labor movement before Haymarket. No question that Cleveland chose September as the nationally recognized date to distance it it from the killings, though.
He also did so after many socialist/communist organizations worldwide had settled on May 1 BECAUSE of Haymarket.
So in the ongoing saga of contract negotiations for pay raises, the University is still only offering the incredibly insulting 1.67/week raise for adjunct faculty. There are two pickets organized for this coming weekend to put pressure on the University. Should be good, since one will be during graduation ceremonies and will be something that parents have to see. I figure that the University Admin will buckle faster to pressure from parents than they will to pressure from the workers. It's the parents that fork over money, and that threatens their bottom line. At this point the Union is considering backing down to just securing a raise to the standards of Howard University (which would be a nearly 1k raise retroactive and nearly 2k going forward). That's good, it's a little short of what they opened with and doesn't get us to pay parity with the tenured faculty, but it ends up being about a 50% raise which is nice.
Between this and the Supreme Court I am going to put a lot of miles on my feet coming up.
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Oh, OT is the trickier one. The compensation needs to probably go up, just not sure by how much. Also possible that we need to some carveouts where maybe some industries get some aid because they have cyclical workloads that require OT. So maybe tax prep, I think that's a big one where you get the crazy bursts of OT, where it just isn't practical to hire more people that will be cut loose pretty quickly. Hell, the carveout aid could even be limited to certain time periods based on industry.
I suspect that this is also an argument for universal healthcare because a ton of businesses do prefer OT and part timers that don't work 30 hours because it let's them skirt by on providing healthcare. If that was no longer a thing, maybe businesses would be less inclined to exploit OT and part time workers because they could claim that the paperwork for benefits nixes a new position being viable (I suspect it's a bullshit argument, but hey, let's humor them, since its' an excellent excuse to deny them most potent hostage they can take).
Honestly making those hours double pay is the minimum I would want. If the company truly only needs that short burst of activity, they can handle the increased cost. If it’s a longer term thing, hopefully it dissuades them from working people and instead hire more people to do the work.
Worst case scenario there, the employees pay gets doubled for the OT hours they are already forced to work.
Dunno if folks have been catching the buzz what with SCOTUS being absolute monsters, but Chris Smalls (President of the Amazon Labor Union) was in the Senate today giving Lindsay Graham and other GOP hacks the business on business and labor relations:
.@Shut_downAmazon
of @amazonlabor
in the Senate: “First of all, I want to address Mr. Graham. It sounds like you were talking about more of the companies and the businesses in your speech, but you forgot that the people are the ones who make these companies operate.”
David Jamieson is a HuffPo Reporter
Like, will I think anything of significance comes of this hearing? Nah, entrenched power is gonna do jack until we show them just how much labor has reawakened to it's strength. But it's good to see some who's worked a day in their life speak truth to power, especially a truth they don't want to hear, but should be having repeated to them non-stop until they do something to shut it up.
Matev on
"Go down, kick ass, and set yourselves up as gods, that's our Prime Directive!"
Hail Hydra
+25
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minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
I appreciate the hell out of the fact that he didn’t put on a button up shirt and tie or some shit.
Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
His jacket literally says Eat the Rich and it is satisfying as Hell. (Couldn't find a pic small enough to post up here, but go check it out, it's cool)
"Go down, kick ass, and set yourselves up as gods, that's our Prime Directive!"
Understanding it’s largely just optics, but it was very good to see that union organisers got the opportunity to actually meet with Biden. Hopefully something meaningful will follow.
Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly.
Also RT, there is a group called Working Class History (@workingclasshistory on Twitter). Their whole thing is every day they share a story of our shared working class history, and it’s always very interesting and a good prompt to do your own further reading. They did a book which I bought; if it’s still in print I highly recommend that. I have never listened to their podcast
Still wondering how we got 3-2 on NLRB when confirmations dont matter and we might as well give McConnell the Senate.
This is what we vote for and why ever election matters because even with our universal disappointment putting the right people in these places matters.
If we threw Manchin (that fucker) out of the party the NLRB would still be 2-3 and controlled by Republicans. The boring process shit matters.
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
The NLRB stuff is cool, but all the union successes have been worker-driven. The NLRB has, at best, assisted in the effort. A hostile NLRB isn't good, but it can't actually prevent workers from organizing. Not even Trump's NLRB managed to stop a tide of unionization in 2018 and 2019.
But I think this would probably be a discussion more suited for the Democratic Party thread, instead.
The NLRB stuff is cool, but all the union successes have been worker-driven. The NLRB has, at best, assisted in the effort. A hostile NLRB isn't good, but it can't actually prevent workers from organizing. Not even Trump's NLRB managed to stop a tide of unionization in 2018 and 2019.
But I think this would probably be a discussion more suited for the Democratic Party thread, instead.
No, I really think the makeup of the NLRB and why we have that is actually suited for the Labor thread, as it - per the OP - broadly covers all labor related topics.
We got union lawyers onto this board only because Biden nominated them and these lawsuits only happened because they got confirmed. Any other Senate wouldn't have confirmed this NLRB board and it matters.
So I think it is clear that as sad or low bar as it may be, we have actually the most pro-labor administration in our lifetimes and quite possibly ever. FDR maybe, he was more pro-worker than pro-labor.
Still wondering how we got 3-2 on NLRB when confirmations dont matter and we might as well give McConnell the Senate.
This is what we vote for and why ever election matters because even with our universal disappointment putting the right people in these places matters.
If we threw Manchin (that fucker) out of the party the NLRB would still be 2-3 and controlled by Republicans. The boring process shit matters.
My dude you are deliberately picking a fight about the democrats failure to protect reproductive rights, and the party’s coddling of its antiabortion legislators, by storming in here and going “BUT LABOR”
It seems more what you want to do is press is a petty institutionalist grudge against folks who think the party would be better excising it’s regressive neck-millstones while a giant flank of the societal boat is on fire (thanks in large part to the cumulative effort of said millstones and their enablers in leadership), and you figured out a way to do so while staying within the letter of Forum Law while doing it in a thread made by one of the dudes you’re grudging
Addendum: while the support of the NLRB is welcome, it is important to remember the power and strength of the labor movement comes not from institutions like it, but from the people who constitute the labor force. Even in the face of Trumpian appointees, labor still has power, and that power can reshape society for the better.
Still wondering how we got 3-2 on NLRB when confirmations dont matter and we might as well give McConnell the Senate.
This is what we vote for and why ever election matters because even with our universal disappointment putting the right people in these places matters.
If we threw Manchin (that fucker) out of the party the NLRB would still be 2-3 and controlled by Republicans. The boring process shit matters.
Whenever something good finally happens I think about how I can use it in service of my petty forum beefs too man.
The NLRB suit against Starbucks today that is (reasonably) being called “unprecedented” and “massive” can also be accurately described as “the federal government enforcing existing labor law,” which is something many of us have never seen in our lifetimes.
To the point being made by this labor reporter, rather than just celebrating the NLRB for doing their jobs, step back and ask why this is so unprecedented despite these issues existing for so long.
Anyway. The point isn't about Manchin because good god the last thing we need is another thread talking about that asshole. I am in complete agreement about that.
The NLRB is ultimately a political institution and is an important part of backstopping and affirming any gains that the workers can make, and in enforcing their regulations (as we see here) giving the workers an opportunity to organize despite the best efforts of the mega corps. That until the past year the NLRB has been effectively neutered and unable to fulfill their mission effectively for most everyone in this threads lifetime and seeing them making the smallest effort is heartening.
Appreciation and recognition of the interactions between the current political climate that empowered the NLRB to do a small part of their job is important because without government institutions to lock in the gains workers make the power of workers is limited to early 1900s type actions that usually led to violence and dead organizers. We can't pretend all progress for labor comes from the ground up in a vacuum and without the NLRB and similar government institutions stepping in corporations will do everything they can to crush any and all organization or worker efforts. I think that is exceedingly obvious.
Hopefully we will see even more support for labor out of the current administration and them confirming more labor activists to similar positions for as long as we are able to nominate and confirm people to positions. The interactions between government and labor are always complex but ultimately if the government is against labor there is no progress without a lot of pain and blood which I think most of us want to avoid.
I'd love to see more unionised white collar service industry workers in the UK
Our manufacturing base is limited and a large amount of people work in relatively low to medium level office jobs, admin, functionary stuff. And that's fine but historically there's so little union representation in those areas
The unions in the UK that remain have ended up being representative of a relatively specific group of people I.e public sector workers, blue collar service workers, certain privatised sectors like transport, and the last remnants of manufacturing. And that's good that they're unionised but increasingly people are working in jobs covered by none of them.
Posts
I can see this turning into "Holidays become vacation time" and businesses staying open during holidays, while work focused employees take less and less vacation each year. And employers deny vacation on the holidays because everyone wants off then.
The "fix" here is for the federal government to pull back holidays from religious celebrations (e.g. Easter/Good Friday) and make them instead non-religious holidays. We take off Labor Day because it's a US holiday, we could do the same on other days. Most holidays are already non-religious.
Christmas Day is actually the only religious federal holiday.
Federal OPM
Date Holiday
Friday, December 31 * New Year's Day
Monday, January 17 Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Monday, February 21 ** Washington’s Birthday
Monday, May 30 Memorial Day
Monday, June 20 * Juneteenth National Independence Day
Monday, July 04 Independence Day
Monday, September 05 Labor Day
Monday, October 10 Columbus Day
Friday, November 11 Veterans Day
Thursday, November 24 Thanksgiving Day
Monday, December 26 * Christmas Day
But looking at that list, most people don't get several of those off already.
#JeffBezosMurderedBettyWhite
Shitty employers have 0, 1 or 2 paid holidays.
What internal analytics show is that most employers honor 5 or 6 holidays for lower level employees. And 8 or 9 holidays for professional employees.
If your employer doesn’t give you paid holidays, find one who does. There hasn’t been a better time in the last 10 years to find a new job.
As long as you're in the right area with a degree.
If you're on the horrible service industry side of labor you get sacrificed to the pandemic and inflation as housing prices price you out of being able to afford to exist.
That's what Zeph was saying.
I'm not sure we need to require holidays off, but we definitely need to make companies earn it. Even our "OT after 40" system is relatively barbaric compared to other countries. As many are well aware, I presently live in El Salvador, and for people who work for companies here (at least ones enough to be covered by their equivalent of L&I, all federal and local holidays are observed. If a company wants you to work, the have to pay you some percentage increase. If they want you to work over your standard shift, they have to pay you some percentage increase. If they want you to work one of your regular days off, they need to pay you a percentage increase. If they want you to work nights..... you guessed it.
Oh and these stacked. In front line tech support, I had people beating my door down to work holidays, ESPECIALLY overnight holidays as some of them were pushing 450% or more of their normal hourly rate.
The combination of the demonization of socialism and labor in the US and our "work ethic" pretty much doom these kinds of things as non-starters. Unions are the answer of course, but they have a LOT of work to do just to reclaim some of their former power, much less to really take corporations to task and fix .gov. I'm just real concerned it's going to take a second great depression to give unions the ability to break through all the anti-union propaganda.
OH AND PUT LABOR DAY BACK ON MAY 1 LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD. Can make Sept 05 something like National Teachers Day or something. They deserve some credit and an extra holiday won't hurt us.
... you know that labor day was celebrated in September before the May 1st became popular right? And the date was chosen by Labor movements?
The placing of Labor Day in September by the US government was specifically an anti-Communist and anti-organized labor action.
Source
You’re not quite right here! Albert and Lucy Parsons marched on May 1st 1886 in Chicago as part of a nation wide general strike, shortly before being arrested and executed. The Second Congress of the International decided to protest their murders on May 1st 1890, and The American Federation of Labor chose the same day to designate as “May Day”.
It wasn’t until several years later that Labor Day was signed into law in September with a toothless resolution by Grover Cleveland. It got tossed out as a token to workers, but one that the government could make sure didn’t coincide with, or share the genesis of the real deal.
Oh, and May Day was attacked almost right away by the government, because of its association with real labor movements. After the Bolshevik Revolution in the late 1910s, the government referred to May 1st as “Americanization Day”, a sort of Diet Independence Day.
Then in the 1950s, Joseph McCarthy helped officially rebrand May 1st as Loyalty Day, which is pure red scare bullshit, and is still, to this day, the official legal holiday for May 1st.
It would be nice if we could really reinvigorate civics in schools and spend an entire year on labor alone.
No CRT in schools!!! /s
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
As for the holiday stuff. We really need a law on the books, where businesses eat fines if they don't make their workers take their time off. Like I'm actually opposed to the idea of making it easy to convert PTO days into paid compensation, since that fuels a very unhealthy lifestyle. We need to kill the whole bullshit thing, where people are made to feel guilty over taking time off. If it's no longer an option because businesses are legally obligated to make people take time off and it's more difficult to turn leave time into money. Then that mind set it going to start to disappear. Also need to tackle the whole "my life is my work," I grew up in a family where my old man had that mentality and I can tell you from experience that it's just straight up fucking toxic. I can think of plenty of times where my parents had fights because work was always placed before family. Plenty of times where me and my siblings couldn't do certain things because mom had to run herself ragged and hit her limits, while the old man was essentially dead weight for family needs because he made work his end all be all. Plenty of time in the past and now, where shit don't get done around the house because the old man is either at work or when he finally does have time off, he is useless because his relationship with work makes in useless at home.
We also need to tackle overtime. One it shouldn't be possible to declared people being salaried and thus make it so they don't qualify for OT when certain criteria are in place. Also kill the BS that let's a company deny OT because, you haven't worked 40 hours, since you have holiday and PTO pay. Nah, if their pay hours exceed 40 hours, they get OT for any time over if they are full time. Also have OT kick in for part time, when part time workers exceed a certain amount of worked hours (part time being another thing that business abuse). Next OT needs to be more than time and half because I've seen too many fucking businesses where they have mandatory or almost mandatory OT running most of the year. It's a sign that it's too cheap to hire below needs and then have employees burn themselves out on OT. OT needs to be at a level where it's an option to use during periods of high workloads, that are short enough that it isn't practical to hire new people that are going to fill positions that might only exist for a month out of the year. At the same time, it does need to be high enough that a company would rather hire more employees because it's impractical to exploit OT to weasel out of having enough employees.
Do both of those and you'd really avoid the whole issue of people not taking time off because legally companies couldn't let people get away with never taking time off and they'd be less inclined to create scenarios where people are forgoing leave time because OT becomes way to expensive to do and also they can't be like "nope, no OT because your are getting a salary!"
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
I'm willing to acknowledge there are employers who are abusing OT, but I think that's where a system like I mentioned about the country I'm in before makes sense. The multiplier on your base salary keeps increasing as you add more OT. I'm also somewhat radical in that I believe we should have mandatory labor union membership. The only real problem I have with that is that you start running the danger of corruption by gov't.
I suspect that this is also an argument for universal healthcare because a ton of businesses do prefer OT and part timers that don't work 30 hours because it let's them skirt by on providing healthcare. If that was no longer a thing, maybe businesses would be less inclined to exploit OT and part time workers because they could claim that the paperwork for benefits nixes a new position being viable (I suspect it's a bullshit argument, but hey, let's humor them, since its' an excellent excuse to deny them most potent hostage they can take).
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Ok, actually, yes. We need to disassociate healthcare from medical. At least.... Again I bring up a Global Southern Country, there are 3 levels of medical. Necessary care happens when it has to and is free to everyone, elective care you get waitlisted on. If you are employed by a "major" (definition is loose) company, they are required to pay into the ISSS system, which covers most working folks, and basically gets you a bit faster sertvice on more elective things. On top of that you have the private system which immigrants (who aren't employed by a local company) and richer folk pay for which gets the fastest service, but we pay for it. My point is here that they still get coverage without employment, employment just gets them better care. Still not great, but FAR better than what we have in the US.
Labor day in September was already being celebrated in public parades by the labor movement before Haymarket. No question that Cleveland chose September as the nationally recognized date to distance it it from the killings, though.
He also did so after many socialist/communist organizations worldwide had settled on May 1 BECAUSE of Haymarket.
We need an Assassin's Creed I reckon.
Between this and the Supreme Court I am going to put a lot of miles on my feet coming up.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Honestly making those hours double pay is the minimum I would want. If the company truly only needs that short burst of activity, they can handle the increased cost. If it’s a longer term thing, hopefully it dissuades them from working people and instead hire more people to do the work.
Worst case scenario there, the employees pay gets doubled for the OT hours they are already forced to work.
Sure but the obvious PoV is....Assasins Creed : Pinkerton
#JeffBezosIsDecendedFromGroverClevelandsAffairWithASuccubus
David Jamieson is a HuffPo Reporter
Like, will I think anything of significance comes of this hearing? Nah, entrenched power is gonna do jack until we show them just how much labor has reawakened to it's strength. But it's good to see some who's worked a day in their life speak truth to power, especially a truth they don't want to hear, but should be having repeated to them non-stop until they do something to shut it up.
There's always the novel The Jungle, but it's pretty old. Still pretty accurate though.
Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
Tweeter is a reporter for More Perfect Union.
Me, a union sicko: Yes! Ha ha ha! Yes!!!
Thank god we had the Senare Majority to confirm Prouty and Wilcox last year to get the majority on the board.
More of this please.
Also RT, there is a group called Working Class History (@workingclasshistory on Twitter). Their whole thing is every day they share a story of our shared working class history, and it’s always very interesting and a good prompt to do your own further reading. They did a book which I bought; if it’s still in print I highly recommend that. I have never listened to their podcast
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
Still wondering how we got 3-2 on NLRB when confirmations dont matter and we might as well give McConnell the Senate.
This is what we vote for and why ever election matters because even with our universal disappointment putting the right people in these places matters.
If we threw Manchin (that fucker) out of the party the NLRB would still be 2-3 and controlled by Republicans. The boring process shit matters.
But I think this would probably be a discussion more suited for the Democratic Party thread, instead.
No, I really think the makeup of the NLRB and why we have that is actually suited for the Labor thread, as it - per the OP - broadly covers all labor related topics.
We got union lawyers onto this board only because Biden nominated them and these lawsuits only happened because they got confirmed. Any other Senate wouldn't have confirmed this NLRB board and it matters.
So I think it is clear that as sad or low bar as it may be, we have actually the most pro-labor administration in our lifetimes and quite possibly ever. FDR maybe, he was more pro-worker than pro-labor.
My dude you are deliberately picking a fight about the democrats failure to protect reproductive rights, and the party’s coddling of its antiabortion legislators, by storming in here and going “BUT LABOR”
It seems more what you want to do is press is a petty institutionalist grudge against folks who think the party would be better excising it’s regressive neck-millstones while a giant flank of the societal boat is on fire (thanks in large part to the cumulative effort of said millstones and their enablers in leadership), and you figured out a way to do so while staying within the letter of Forum Law while doing it in a thread made by one of the dudes you’re grudging
Addendum: while the support of the NLRB is welcome, it is important to remember the power and strength of the labor movement comes not from institutions like it, but from the people who constitute the labor force. Even in the face of Trumpian appointees, labor still has power, and that power can reshape society for the better.
Whenever something good finally happens I think about how I can use it in service of my petty forum beefs too man.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
To the point being made by this labor reporter, rather than just celebrating the NLRB for doing their jobs, step back and ask why this is so unprecedented despite these issues existing for so long.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Edit - removed needlessly antagonistic part.
Anyway. The point isn't about Manchin because good god the last thing we need is another thread talking about that asshole. I am in complete agreement about that.
The NLRB is ultimately a political institution and is an important part of backstopping and affirming any gains that the workers can make, and in enforcing their regulations (as we see here) giving the workers an opportunity to organize despite the best efforts of the mega corps. That until the past year the NLRB has been effectively neutered and unable to fulfill their mission effectively for most everyone in this threads lifetime and seeing them making the smallest effort is heartening.
Appreciation and recognition of the interactions between the current political climate that empowered the NLRB to do a small part of their job is important because without government institutions to lock in the gains workers make the power of workers is limited to early 1900s type actions that usually led to violence and dead organizers. We can't pretend all progress for labor comes from the ground up in a vacuum and without the NLRB and similar government institutions stepping in corporations will do everything they can to crush any and all organization or worker efforts. I think that is exceedingly obvious.
Hopefully we will see even more support for labor out of the current administration and them confirming more labor activists to similar positions for as long as we are able to nominate and confirm people to positions. The interactions between government and labor are always complex but ultimately if the government is against labor there is no progress without a lot of pain and blood which I think most of us want to avoid.
Our manufacturing base is limited and a large amount of people work in relatively low to medium level office jobs, admin, functionary stuff. And that's fine but historically there's so little union representation in those areas
The unions in the UK that remain have ended up being representative of a relatively specific group of people I.e public sector workers, blue collar service workers, certain privatised sectors like transport, and the last remnants of manufacturing. And that's good that they're unionised but increasingly people are working in jobs covered by none of them.