On February 24, 1948, Minneapolis school teachers abandoned their classrooms for the picket lines. The strike was the result of the school board deciding to cut four weeks from the school year in order to stay within budget and prevent a $2,000,000 deficit. Both union and non-union teachers rejected the shortened school year and union teachers filed new salary demands calling for an increase in the minimum pay base from $2,000 to $3,000 and an increase from $4,000 to $6,000 for salary maximums. During the strike, 92 public schools closed and 65,000 students were out of school. During the strike, many students joined in support of the teachers, carrying signs that said “Pay our teacher. Give them a fair hearing. They can’t live on hot air. We want school” and “U had yer lurnin lettuce hav hours”. The strike lasted 27 days. Students and teachers returned to the classrooms on March 22, 1948, after teachers approved a $300 pay increase for the remainder of the year and automatic increase of $200 annually.
This year, on February 23, 2022, after many months of negotiations, teachers unions in Minneapolis and St. Paul both filed intents to strike, bargaining for, among other things, more mental health professionals for students, smaller class sizes, higher wages for teachers and protections to help retain teachers of color. A strike could begin as soon as March 8. The Minneapolis Federation of Teachers last went on strike in 1970. You can read about the 1970 strike in Dr. Bill Green’s forthcoming book Strike! Twenty Days in 1970 When Minneapolis Teachers Broke the Law (University of Minnesota Press, June 2022).
#StandUpToVerizon #VerizonStrike: Thousands of Verizon workers on strike marched on Wall Street and demanded better pay and fair labor practices. Executives have continued to cut costs and ship jobs overseas, which has hurt working families and destroyed middle class jobs. More than 400 protests were held nationwide, at Verizon Wireless stores and other locations in dozens of cities. This is the third continuous week of the Verizon strike.
Hundreds of people are rallying outside JFK airport to protest against Trump’s muslim ban. Here’s a statement of support from the New York Tax Workers Alliance:
“Our 19,000-member-strong union stands firmly opposed to Donald Trump’s Muslim ban. As an organization whose membership is largely Muslim, a workforce that’s almost universally immigrant, and a working-class movement that is rooted in the defense of the oppressed, we say no to this inhumane and unconstitutional ban.”
[Image: a screencap of tweets from the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, reading as follows: “NO PICKUPS @ JFK Airport 6 PM to 7 PM today. Drivers stand in solidarity with thousands protesting inhumane and unconstitutional #MuslimBan. We cannot be silent. We go to work to welcome people to a land that once welcomed us. We will not be divided.”]
Their unionization push comes amid a wave of unionizing at other retail companies. Last month, the independent Amazon Labor Union won its union election at a warehouse in Staten Island, New York (although a subsequent vote at another nearby warehouse failed). Workers at an REI in Manhattan voted to unionize in March. Union elections have been called at Apple stores in Atlanta and Baltimore. And about 60 Starbucks stores have voted to unionize since December, with dozens more elections filed.
Many of these campaigns have important things in common. These are the kind of low-wage, service-sector workers who seemed so impossible to unionize for so long. Amazon and Starbucks workers aren’t bringing in organizers from big, established unions, but instead workers are leading the way themselves. And they’re going store by store, location by location. It was long thought that such a campaign couldn’t work. “What people didn’t recognize is the contagion factor,” said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
Target Workers Unite is hoping to instigate exactly that kind of national spread.
target is just as ruthless with its hours loopholes and anti-union propaganda as walmart or any other retailer out there. one of the first things they make new hires do is watch a complete nonsense video about how unionizing is Actually Evil. they just have better marketing than walmart. they’ve had this coming for decades.
Amazon is making sockpuppet twitter accounts as an attempt to stop unionizing. Why have corporeal scabs when you can get AI-generated scabs?
Yeah we’re betting that they’re either run by PR people or by employees told they’d get a bit extra $$ if they made the accounts and responded to people with prearranged stuff. That being said, the AI comment was because people have been pointing out that a number of these accounts use what appears to be AI-generated people for the pictures, and they could have been used from that linked website.
Remember that if unions didn’t work, companies like Amazon wouldn’t try so hard to prevent them…
“I’m barely scraping by as it is, but that’s not because Amazon is underpaying me, I swear!”
This is fucked up. Reminds me of when I was working at Whole Foods after they were bought by Amazon and one branch in Michigan or something unionized and then company-wide there were meetings everyone had to attend about how Whole Foods shouldn’t have unions. Powerpoint and everything. They literally said, “We’re not anti-unions we just don’t think they belong at Whole Foods.” Like wtf? Anyway, I being managed like that. Do they think their employees are stupid? Quit not long after.
“With one letter [our employer] sent us away, and our dialogue turned into a monologue,” says Anton Gorb, a trade union representative at Ukraine’s largest private postal service, New Post. […]
In March, the Ukrainian parliament passed wartime legislation that severely curtailed the ability of trade unions to represent their members, introduced ‘suspension of employment’ (meaning employees are not fired, but their work and wages are suspended) and gave employers the right to unilaterally suspend collective agreements.
But beyond this temporary measure, a group of Ukrainian MPs and officials are now aiming to further ‘liberalise’ and ‘de-Sovietise’ the country’s labour laws. Under a draft law, people who work in small and medium-sized firms – those which have up to 250 employees – would, in effect, be removed from the country’s existing labour laws and covered by individual contracts negotiated with their employer. More than 70% of the Ukrainian workforce would be affected by this change.
Against a background of concerns that Ukrainian officials are using Russia’s invasion to push through a long-awaited radical deregulation of labour laws, one expert has warned that the introduction of civil law into labour relations risks opening a “Pandora’s box” for workers. […]
But in April, under Ukraine’s wartime suspension of certain labour rights – which was billed as ‘temporary’ – New Post’s management revoked 30 points of the collective agreement with the trade union.
Most of these points relate to coordination of working conditions with trade unions, but also some social guarantees, such as providing workers with uniforms, the availability of a first-aid kit at the workplace, working hours and others. […]
“De facto, this regime assumes that literally anything can be entered into an employee’s employment contract, without reference to Ukrainian labour laws. For example, additional grounds for dismissal, liability, or even a 100-hour week,” explains Sandul.
Ukrainian workers had previously protested against the introduction of this law, but as protests have now been banned by the Ukrainian government (using wartime emergency powers) it’s unlikely they’ll be able to stop it going through.
“In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as ‘right-to-work.’ It provides no 'rights’ and no 'works.’ Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining… We demand this fraud be stopped.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
If demonstrators attempt to occupy the Capitol — as happened in Wisconsin two years ago amid protests over collective bargaining legislation — Adamcyzk said they will remove them “as professionally as possible” when the Capitol closes Tuesday evening.
The Capitol closes 30 minutes after the House and Senate have adjourned for the day, but no earlier than 5 p.m.
“If you’re a passive protester, we’ll just carry you out of here and you will be arrested. If you’re an aggressive protester, we will use force as necessary to remove you,” Adamcyzk said. “We do not want to arrest anyone. It doesn’t serve any purpose to allow yourself to be arrested. Voice your opinion, leave when you’re supposed to leave and come back to protest another day.”
Also, some schools are shutting down tomorrow because so many of their teachers — members of a public employees union — have notified them they will be absent:
At least two Michigan school districts have announced plans to cancel classes Tuesday – the same day some teachers and other union protesters are expected to converge at the state Capitol to protest right-to-work legislation.
Warren Consolidated Schools in southeast Michigan is canceling school “due to the number of staff who has notified us that they will be absent” Tuesday, according to a letter from Superintendent Robert Livernois posted on the district website.
Meanwhile, a group of Michigan Democratic Congressmen and U.S. Senator Carl Levin met with Governor Rick Snyder today to voice their outrage at the actions being taken by him and his Republican colleagues.
Calling the fast-moving ‘right-to-work’ legislation moving through the Michigan Legislature a “Michigan cliff,” the Democratic members of Congress said they urged Gov. Snyder to put a stop to it.
The Democratic Michigan delegation, including Sen. Carl Levin, and Reps. John Dingell, John Conyers, and Sander Levin, and other members of the delegation attended the meeting with Snyder.
They held an hour-long private meeting with him about the ‘right-to-work’ legislation this morning. {…}
Michigan Sen. Carl Levin said the delegation was blunt with the Governor in their urging to veto the bill.
“We’re not sure he understood how these unions worked,” said Levin during a press call with reporters after the meeting.
Gov. Snyder has said the ‘right-to-work’ issue is about workers freedom to choose.
“I believe most Michiganders and most Americans believe [that workers should] have the ability to choose whether they want to belong to an organization or not.” Snyder said during an interview with Paul Egan of the Detroit Free Press last week.
“That is absolutely false,” said Rep. Sander Levin (D) on the call with reporters. “There is no requirement that people join a union.”
Union membership is not a requirement in a ‘union shop.’ But all workers do have to support the union financially.
Sen. Levin said he pointed out to Gov. Snyder that unions are required to provide equal benefits to everyone in the workplace, even though not all employees are required to join the union.
“The governor said it incorrectly. And today, I don’t think he understands what it is really about,” said Rep. Levin.
Marvel movies have completely eliminated the concept of practical effects from the movie-watching public’s consciousness
Not just practical effects just like. Basic set design lol
How… How do they think sci-fi was done before CGI?
Really badly? Do you remember sci-fi before CGI? It was shit. And don’t say Star Wars because they went back and fixed that with CGI later.
*big sigh* *puts head in hands* heathens who’ve never watched pre-MCU sci-fi movies OR the unedited Star Wars movies, my beloathed
So first of all, most people agree that the majority of the “CGI fixes” in the Star Wars original trilogy (excluding minor visual/sound effects like lightsaber colors and blaster sounds) are unececssary, extremely conspicuous, and/or bad. This is not news to literally anyone older than about 20 who has consumed Star Wars content on any level. There are quite literally two very famous ‘despecialized’ fan projects explicitly dedicated to un-doing all of the shitty “fixed” CGI effects while simultaneously restoring the OT in HD.
And yes, I do, in fact, remember sci-fi special effects before CGI was the foundational cornerstone of moviemaking. It was not, in fact, shit:
Also, ironically I can show you by….*gasp* using fucking Star Wars, of all things. Welcome to the Tatooine pod race set of The Phantom Menace, which was not, as popularly believed, CGI’d but was instead a fully-built miniature set:
Yes, they built the entire set as a minature, built life-sized pod racers for the actors, then spliced the two together using digital effects. Yes, they did such a fantastic job that people think the entire set and scene sequence was basically completely CGI’d to this day. You’re fucking welcome for undervaluing the time, effort, and talents of set designers by implying that set design and practical effects inherently mean things will look like shit.
CGI also ages really poorly. What you think looks incredibly realistic now is going to look terrible in a few years. Just look at the original vs remastered Star Trek. They “restored” Star Trek around 2006 and replaced a lot of the practical effects with CGI, and maybe it looked ok in 2006, but it looks so bad and fake now.
In the 60s they built a whole model of the Enterprise, complete with blinking lights and beautifully sculpted/painted details. It looks stunning! Then they replaced it with that horribly smooth and fake looking cgi ship.
Just look at this beauty
You can see the model at the Air and Space Museum in DC
Unfortunately the remastered version is the only version available to stream, but you can still find DVDs with the original effect.
made in 1968 and still stunning 2001 A Space Odyssey
the designers worked with engineers at NASA to make realistic futuristic special effects using models and matte paintings no computer effects at all! - and incidentally inspired David Bowie to write Space Oddity, later performed in space by astronaut Chris Hadfield
The CGI of the original Jurassic Park may not be aging well (though arguably still better than some), but the practical effects will always look stunning.
I want to talk fantasy.
This shot was achieved with splicing and green screen.
This wild-looking shot (and similar manipulations) was famously achieved by having a professional juggler in a duplicate of Bowie’s jacket and gloves sitting behind him, basically with Bowie in his lap, doing the handwork while Bowie kept his arms behind the juggler. You may have seen a game based on this on Whose Line Is It Anyway.
This? Wires! Splicing! THE CGI TO DO THIS DIDN’T EXIST YET! (The juggler is hidden under the cape. If there’s a scene where he’s wearing a cape, that’s actually probably why.)
And this? This heartstopping shot?
This does appear to be from the version with CGI—
—CGI THAT WAS USED TO ERASE THE SHADOW FROM THE PRACTICAL EFFECT.
The shot itself hasn’t changed. The lift itself was done with wires and Bowie was given some propulsion with an air cannon so he could make that turn at speed. A minor amount of CGI was used in the 30th anniversary to “touch up” the work done in 1986, and one of the things they did was to remove a shadow on the wall from one of the wires.
How about this?
You don’t know it, but you’re looking at a practical effect. In real life, the Ruby Slippers are almost orange. That luxe, rich ruby color showed up on the film as black when the shoes were the correct color, so the costumers adjusted the actual costume to give the color they wanted.
A MODEL OF A HOUSE SHOT INSIDE A NYLON STOCKING ATTACHED TO A FAN.
MAN IN A COSTUME.
HORSES DUSTED WITH COLORED GELATIN.
And this? This is where it would’ve been useful to have CGI. Margaret Hamilton got really badly burned on the steam doing one of her entrance/exits, and ended up in the hospital. THIS is what you use CGI for.
You come into my house and insult practical effects?
I’ll just finish off by reminding you THIS IS ONE, TOO.
That last one, iirc, was there was a double in a sepia-toned costume, and the interior door and wall there was painted brown, so when it was lit and shot it all appeared to still be in the sepia tone of the Kansas scenes, and part of why Dorothy stepped back out of the frame was so the double and Judy Garland (in the proper blue-and-white costume) could swap.
You are correct. The double’s name, by the way, was Bobbi Koshay.
the left will fail and keep failing as long as it doesn’t offer joy or a vision of the future. Like chris smalls and the union organizers didn’t win by writing scathing op-eds about Amazon and sending out long dry newsletters with donation links about Amazon’s unfair labor practices to employees, they won by literally meeting people where they were at, at the bus stop where the workers gathered to go home, and hosting cookouts and bonfires. He ate with people and smoked with them and talked to them about their lives and the job, about their rights as workers and how life could be better. He brought joy to them!!! And food and community!! And that’s how one of the biggest victories for labor in a century was won. If I can’t dance I don’t want to be in your revolution
It’s funny that you mention dancing because after my library’s vote to unionize passed, we actually had a dance party. Rented out a room, got a former employee who supported our organizing to DJ, and just…celebrated. At the end of the night he played “Solidarity Forever” and we all stood in a big circle with our arms around each other and danced. Still one of my favorite moments.
