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The [Labor] Thread: strike while the iron is hot!
Hacksaw
J. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered User regular
J. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered User regular
I'm shamelessly copying and pasting my old OP onto the new one.
This is a thread for talking about breaking news and current issues in the world of labor, both organized and unorganized. Feel free to post articles about the ongoing struggles of workers across the world, be they in big union shops or little mom and pop outfits. As well, matters pertaining to labor like anti-worker practices by governments and workplaces are also welcome.
I'm going to do a bit of a break from the norm in DnD threads and use the OP for links to resources my fellow workers can use to coordinate things like organizing campaigns in the workplace, filing unfair labor practice complaints, or just straight up reporting someone to OSHA for safety violations. I'll edit them in as time goes on.
In the words of countless workers before me: "Workers of the world, unite! All you have to lose are your chains!"
A handy site for workers: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Click through to get info on your rights as a worker, where and how to file a complaint against a treacherous employer, report a serious or fatal accident on a work site, and a link for submitting an occupational injury and illness report for 2020 (and soon, 2021!). There are also handy guides for finding out what safety equipment and tools your employer is legally obligated to provide to you as a worker if you don't already know.
A handy site for labor organizers: The National Labor Relations Board. In the same vein as OSHA, this is where you go to file info, links, forms, and decisions about employer vs. employee decisions handed down by the NLRB. You can register a complaint and file relevant paperwork through the site, access and file documents, view your own cases in their handy online portal, and just generally ensure your rights as an employee not to be fucked with so easily by greedy capitalist dogfuckers.
And last but not least: The American Federation of Labor/Congress of Industrial Organizations. This is the landing page for the biggest labor coordination organization outside of the federal government. On this page you'll find links to strike maps, locations for union chapter headquarters in your area (should you feel the desire to perhaps unionize your place of employment 😎 ), guides on organizing your workplace in multiple languages, and links to the websites of unions which may cover labor jurisdictions directly related to your type of work. Give 'em a look and see about maybe injecting some solidarity into your day-to-day life whydonchya.
Oh, and before I forget...
WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! ALL YOU HAVE TO LOSE ARE YOUR CHAINS!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKhwitXvVj8
This is a thread for talking about breaking news and current issues in the world of labor, both organized and unorganized. Feel free to post articles about the ongoing struggles of workers across the world, be they in big union shops or little mom and pop outfits. As well, matters pertaining to labor like anti-worker practices by governments and workplaces are also welcome.
I'm going to do a bit of a break from the norm in DnD threads and use the OP for links to resources my fellow workers can use to coordinate things like organizing campaigns in the workplace, filing unfair labor practice complaints, or just straight up reporting someone to OSHA for safety violations. I'll edit them in as time goes on.
In the words of countless workers before me: "Workers of the world, unite! All you have to lose are your chains!"
A handy site for workers: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Click through to get info on your rights as a worker, where and how to file a complaint against a treacherous employer, report a serious or fatal accident on a work site, and a link for submitting an occupational injury and illness report for 2020 (and soon, 2021!). There are also handy guides for finding out what safety equipment and tools your employer is legally obligated to provide to you as a worker if you don't already know.
A handy site for labor organizers: The National Labor Relations Board. In the same vein as OSHA, this is where you go to file info, links, forms, and decisions about employer vs. employee decisions handed down by the NLRB. You can register a complaint and file relevant paperwork through the site, access and file documents, view your own cases in their handy online portal, and just generally ensure your rights as an employee not to be fucked with so easily by greedy capitalist dogfuckers.
And last but not least: The American Federation of Labor/Congress of Industrial Organizations. This is the landing page for the biggest labor coordination organization outside of the federal government. On this page you'll find links to strike maps, locations for union chapter headquarters in your area (should you feel the desire to perhaps unionize your place of employment 😎 ), guides on organizing your workplace in multiple languages, and links to the websites of unions which may cover labor jurisdictions directly related to your type of work. Give 'em a look and see about maybe injecting some solidarity into your day-to-day life whydonchya.
Oh, and before I forget...
WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! ALL YOU HAVE TO LOSE ARE YOUR CHAINS!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKhwitXvVj8 Hacksaw on
+9
Posts
Don’t listen to their lies
Us poor folks haven’t got a chance
Unless we organise!
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
Several isn't a lot in the context of ~15,000 Starbucks locations in the US, but this news stirs my heart nonetheless. The success of the first seems to have inspired a minor wave of revolt, and more victories could spur more organization.
It's going to be a case study in why corporations are terrified of unions, watching Starbucks after Starbucks unionize while the parent company wails about the injustice of having to pay fair wages and earning somewhat less of it's usual ultra-billions.
I look forward to 20-30 years from now when somebody puts together an animated infographic showing the gradual growth and then sudden explosion of union Starbucks until they're all union.
The union has announced that the workers will not do so and instead take their severance, offering a public statement on the matter:
People are undoubtedly confused at why any of this shit is going down; as it stands work from
Home is becoming more common, there doesn’t seem to be a particularly need as to why exactly the AV Club staff need to relocate, on their own expense, from Chicago to LA.
Well, Scottish author Charlie Stross has a suggestion: union busting on G/O’s part
In short, the NYT owners want to bust one of the unions working for them through illegally denying membership federally & state recognized holidays. Somehow believing this will not result in any blowback, further consolidation of union solidarity, or them giving in like last year when negotiations led to them giving even more time for parental leave to union members over what was promised to rank and file.
Edit: to be clear hopefully the union stays strong.
The ultra rich are very good at getting the middle class and poor to fight each other.
@moniker
Republicans lying about goals is of course only part of it, Democrats got pretty shitty at talking to labor too. Maybe related to consultant capture.
Lot easier to get away with lying when the other side forgets how to play.
Podcasters union attempting to be recognized. Their website has an excellent FAQ section on why people should get unionized.
Short version: it’s an attempt to break labor, not solve a shortage of personnel
Yes, I saw this first hand. The local fruit growers, one of the richest and therefore most powerful groups in the region, went on a months-long campaign about there being no local people to pick the fruit. Media reports centered on people being lazy. I attempted to place nearly 50 young folks, at minimum wage (this was not a profit making exercise, so there was no requirement to build in a margin), and the growing groups refused to even talk to me. Only two companies that did were large multinationals, and they made it clear that unless we held multiple certifications from self regulatory groups they controlled (non-mandatory certifications), they just simply couldn't work with us.
Turns out what they were actually doing was maneuvering themselves to force international borders open so that they could go back to bringing in their workers from poor pacific islands nations.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
Yeah, its pretty clear they’re basically using the pressures of the pandemic to extract more out of the labor force than before using the chaos and uncertainty, plus working a pliant media and political class to keep the pressure going.
I need to find it in one of Johnson’s replies, but I saw someone post an article that found apparently the trucking industry or some industry connected had been posting record profits despite the supposed “shortage;” lemme go see if I can find it in a bit
EDIT: nice, he actually retweeted it after it got sent to him:
https://www.businessinsider.com/largest-shipping-company-maersk-most-profitable-quarter-supply-chain-crisis-2021-11
If you can't afford the going rate for labor, that's not labor's problem.
Employers don't want to pay more because they aren't going to be able to walk it back later and cut everyone's pay without a lot of uproar
Which is why, for example, traveling nurses are getting paid like 5x their normal rate to cover at hospitals where they "can't maintain adequate staffing," because they would rather pay a temp contractor more short-term than have full-time staff paid more and have to keep paying them that rate after the pandemic.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
But at the macro level all that does is take labor from some other company who now has to pay more etc etc. A better solution would be to find ways to make do with less workers through automation or getting rid of jobs that aren't really useful.
And if we end up with spiraling inflation it is going to be everyone's problem.
Given that everyone and their capitalist mother is making out like fucking bandits despite the pandemic with record profits, I’m gonna say the actual answer is the thing that’s always been the answer:
“Fuck you, pay me.”
Pay for truck drivers has dropped as much as 50% since 1980. One driver makes less per hour now than when he started in the 70s. According to this inflation calculator, prices have increased 360% in that time. So you have truckers making possibly half of what they once did during a span when prices more than tripled.
The article about truck drivers interviews people who opine that truck drivers being bled dry is good actually because it makes stuff cheaper, except all those "savings" ended up going to big box store owners. Wal-Mart thrived, and 90% or more of new truck drivers now burn out bankrupt within six months.
There isn't a labor shortage. There is a wages shortage.
Those savings went to the vast majority of Americans. "Regulatory capture and an effective monopoly were good actually" is a hell of a take.
Is there any evidence of this?
Some folks really, really need to talk with a therapist at least once in their life rather than going “our art should be suffering.”
Wait until this guy finds out about factories
Those wage numbers have already been inflation-adjusted and it's "paid $30 an hour in today's dollars" to "earns around $25 an hour after taxes" which is very unusual wording. Comparing pre to post tax wages?
I wonder if this guy realizes that Hollywood is a creative industry which is unionized nearly all the way through and functions relatively fine for it. It's not ideal by any means, but having worked entertainment in both union and non-union capacities, my ability to get paid and collect benefits as a worker was vastly easier on the union side, and we manage to churn out some pretty amazing art in the process.
There's plenty of blood, sweat, and tears during tech week and some of the assembly periods, but you can be damn sure we get paid for it like we ought to.
I don't understand why you quoted me on this.
...Because what you said is relevant to what I said? I was building off your post?
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Okay see that's why I figured but I'm not seeing the connection. Reservation wage is a labor supply (employees) factor, but you're referring to labor demand (employer) factors. So I just didn't see the connection.
I mean, you're right! Wages are sticky! But that's a bit separate from higher reservation wages.
Reading around, the ruling is on Monday, but everybody agrees that the fix is in. Neither the Biden admin or Business America will tolerate any further disruptions to the supply chains, and will destroy anybody that tries.
We, as a society, valorize harm. There is this idea that growth is impossible without suffering - we've all heard "no pain, no gain" (which is actually a very dangerous belief that gets people hurt in the gym) before, as well as "suffering is good for the soul," among others. The idea that one can grow without having to suffer is genuinely alien thought for a lot of people.
Hollywood isn't without its own sins here (see: the Rust fiasco), but it is a damn sight better than the video game industry - and the expectations the industry had regarding voice actors made that abundantly clear.
The cheaper prices people pay for a ton of staples. Clothing as an example has had if not a negative inflation rate, an almost negligible one. Wal-Mart is shit and is keeping a good chunk of the savings for a lot of changes we've seen in markets in the past like 40 years but a lot of those savings are also going to consumers as well. Wal-Mart having it's jeans made by children in Bangladesh and then shipped to the US saves them money, yes, but it also saves the person buying said jeans money as well. A lot of the changes we talk about and/or complain about do actually save consumers money. They just do so in ways that are often invisible to us because we don't think about what those prices could have been.
I'm not sure if trucker wages are connected to these changes in the economy but it's not out of the realm of possibility.
And of course, these changes aren't necessarily a net good because the price of products is not the whole of the story. eg - you used to make bikes for a living but then the bike factory moved to China and the factory became a Wal-Mart. So now you work at Wal-Mart and when you buy a bike it's cheaper but that's not necessarily better for you, even if your reduced wages and/or benefits and/or quality of living is balanced out by lower prices on the goods you purchase.
You're talking about supply/demand between wages/job demand from the clean, theoretical model assuming rational economic actors.
I'm talking about the practical reality of the supply/demand that actually exists right now, where one side has disproportionate control of the scales and will act against their (theoretical, objective) "self-interest" because the economic model that our world operates in isn't about "and therefore, both parties achieve maximum benefit" but "how little benefit can we get away with giving the other side, because we can weather the harm longer than they can"
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar