image how much better if everyone, adults, teens, younger kids, all got recess. like if everyone got 45 minutes to an hour to just play around outside, do fun things, be “childish” and things
like my post you cowards, imagine it!
a judge: the court will now take a recess
all the lawyers: [scramble to put on sneakers and get to the playground first]
#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.
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?
Dear Employer,
You raise a number of important issues, not least among them: why do we work? Do we work because the vast majority of us are helpless to escape a fundamentally exploitative global capitalist system that requires us to exchange our time and skills and labor for money or else simply fuck off and die? Or do we work because we must get taken down a peg or two before we get too uppity to be useful to our social and economic betters?
I’m being rhetorical, of course! The correct answer is the latter, obviously. Work is not something people should or even usually do for a paycheck, which is what makes this situation so bizarre! Work is something people do because it’s the right thing to do, because it is intrinsically good for its own sake, which is to say: because it literally enriches and empowers only the most worthy in order to further distance otherwise useless, entitled grunts like your employee from getting anywhere close to laying even the barest finger, even a pinky finger, on the means of production. There’s nothing more purely and altruistically satisfying than working, especially when we know that our labor serves to strengthen the boot upon our own necks! A strong boot means a happy worker! Huzzah!
And what you have here, letter writer, is not a happy worker — what you have here is a worker who believes work and pay are related, and that they are entitled to reimbursement for their work merely because that is the immutable and binding nature of the laws where you live. I can’t think of a better example of one being too big for one’s britches than this little grabby-gabby wiseass with the gall to demand payment for services rendered per an expressly agreed-upon prior contract between all parties.
It’s a real shame that the law requires people to be paid for their labor regardless of whether they bring a sufficiently sunny attitude to the workplace, and there’s certainly nothing sunny about being clear and direct that you cannot continue to work for free indefinitely with a spring in your step and a song in your heart! What kind of sourpuss can’t show a bit of cheer in the office, even if the lights are off at home and they can’t afford groceries or other basic essentials because of the repeated incompetence of an employer who holds their very survival in their hands? That’s not the kind of can-do attitude that gets people ahead in this world!
Of course, by “people” we mean young people, who will never succeed as long as they remain universally and frightfully presumptuous. Everyone your age and older has unimpeachable comportment in every situation, whereas people who are younger than you are disrespectful smart-alecks — and it’s frankly disturbing that your HR department conceded so quickly to your employee’s unreasonable fixation on receiving money that she was legally entitled to! What’s next, avocado toast and $5 lattes on demand???? A living wage???? Health insurance???? For an entry-level employee who’s so poor with money management that she complains about going months without pay????
Only people who suffer in silence at length out of sheer and absolute terror at offending those who hold control over their financial wellbeing deserve to be paid money for food and shelter, and they can take their paychecks whenever your company damn well gets around to it, and thank you for the pleasure! Why wait to transfer this employee out of your department — surely you’re not afraid of offending this selfish peon? Cut her loose, along with anyone else she might have influenced with her money-grubbing ways, and ensure that you are surrounded only with the worshipful lackeys you deserve!
“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.
“The inevitable result of today’s decision is that there will be huge underenforcement of federal and statutes designed to advance the well-being of vulnerable workers. Congressional action is urgently needed in order to correct the court’s elevation of the Arbitration Act over workers’ rights to act in concert.” Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis (RBG, oral dissent)
Rideshare companies used technology to disrupt a hidebound industry that was sorely in need of disrupting. But they have an obligation to ensure that their success doesn’t come at the expense of either passengers’ safety or workers’ rights. Our view.Uber’s view.
If you see that Amazon is a great place to work, you know it was an article paid for by Amazon.
1,000 per 10,000 is 10%
10% of their employees are injured at any one time
it’s likely higher than this. a couple of years ago amazon adjusted their labor strategy to “accomodate” the transient nature of delivery workers (read: a shift to use people up faster because more can replace them).
their profits are literally made by breaking their workers’ backs and then laying them off when they can’t make quota.
would love to see people including cleaners + customer service workers + workers who have other such precarious jobs with very early/very late working hours in chat about restructuring the working day to avoid having to go to/from work in the dark. but alas it is all about the 9-5 mon-fri 30k+ a year to send emails crowd, as ever
it’s not that i think office workers with stable, salaried jobs shouldn’t be advocating for their labour rights, or that those sorts of jobs aren’t exploitative; it’s the fact that embedded within this discourse there is always a process of naturalising certain notions of ‘legitimate,’ visibilised labour vs invisibilised labour rendered automatised; and, invariably, these conversations fall down hard on this process of naturalisation.
when we talk about “the” workday as though we all have one shared collective understanding of what “the” workday entails, we relegate the sorts of jobs i listed above to the background – to the realm of automation where they are at once excluded from a discourse of so-called 'legitimate’ labour organising because the organising in question is so unbelievably myopic & they maintain the social infrastructure needed for the highly fetishised 'leisure time’ to be made possible in the first place. there’s already a case being made for the four-day work week on the basis that it would 'stimulate’ the economy of the leisure sector – ie. put more pressure on customer service staff. this is what these discourses miss – have you considered the ways in which more leisure time for you impacts the work of the people whose labour is at once necessary for this leisure time and reduced to systematic invisibilisation and dehumanisation? ofc not lol.
btw if you don’t believe me about the automation thing try and pay attention to how office workers talk to eg. coffee shop staff :)
and like – this discourse should be about us first, sorry. we’re the ones who often can’t afford the cars and public transport that make travelling to/from work in the dark safer. we’re the ones with jobs that often can’t be done in constant daylight hours. you may want to shorten “the” work day, sure, but what about the infrastructure that you want to be in place outside of your work hours? what about the people who have to work in your bars, pubs, nightclubs, theatres, cinemas, etc etc, until long after dark? what about people who work night shifts, what about people who work early mornings? all of this labour is invisibilised so the discourse elides it completely; and a shorter work day for office workers means harder conditions for non-office workers with no financial compensation for the fact.
to use an anecdotal example – i’m a cleaner, i work early mornings, sometimes i have to come in even earlier than usual because the building where i work might be hosting a late-morning event so they need me done and out of the way by, say, 9:00am. i work relatively short shifts (as do most cleaners) and i live a 40 minute walk away from my workplace, so i generally walk to work because public transport is expensive where i live and the ratio of money spent on bus to money earned on an individual shift is not sustainable. (the buses also don’t run early enough for me to even get them to work on weekends, and the days when i need to be in at pisstake o’ clock are always saturdays, lmao.) in the summer, this is fine – in the winter, i can expect to be walking through poorly lit residential areas in the pitch black at 5am, 6am, five or six days a week, which is not pleasant and not safe! a politics of labour organising that advocates for my transport to be paid for by the company that hires me, for example, could alleviate this. or, to get wildly imaginative, we might even put pressure on businesses to organise their little events around making sure their cleaners have access to public transport at the time they’re being asked to come in such that they can get to work safely. but when we create a discourse where there are “legitimate” working hours/working days and there is labour that happens invisibly in the background that scaffolds both these legitimate working hours and the leisure outside of them, people slip through the cracks. you can get to work at 10 instead of 9, but i can’t. what are you going to do for me?
what it boils down to for me, is – could you, right now, tell me the name of your office cleaner(s)? do you know their pay, when they work, if they have fixed or zero-hour contracts? does the company you work for arrange their cleaning staff such to make unionising impossible? does your company hire its cleaners directly or are they hired through an external cleaning company, and do you appreciate the difference that that makes in terms of workplace alienation? i go to cleaning as an example because it’s what i do, but the same is true of other labour forces – what are the labour practices of the cafés and pubs and bars and restaurants you frequent? how do you treat the staff when you go in? do you tip? do you know where your tips go? do you ask? if you’re not going to stick up for the people who clean your workspace when their hours are precarious and unsociable and their pay is unlivable and their work is invisibilised to the point where people forget they exist, then i’m not clear on why i should be sticking up for you.
anyway, i guess in closing i would just say to take all of this with a big grain of salt labelled 'i think the proletariat should own the means of production anyway’ should you so wish, i guess.
Bosses adopting “outside agitator” (Starbucks) and “Soros funded” (Kellogg’s) epithets to throw at their own workers when they unionize is certainly an interesting terrible development in this hellhole country. That’s only a step away from accusing union workers of being part of a global Jewish conspiracy to destroy western civilization, you know a neo Nazi talking point. Definitely not a good thing that management is starting to use this kind of language to describe their own workers.
A new report shows that Walmart could double wages for associates just by not spending billions of dollars to repurchase its own stock: http://bit.ly/1ivFlNmhttp://ift.tt/1e44hbj
In Los Angeles, CA Walmart workers from 6 area stores went out on strike. They say that protests and strikes will continue throughout the holiday season and Walmart can expect a Black Friday to remember.
May 4th, 1886: The Haymarket Affair. A large labor rally in Chicago, Illinois by the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions is disrupted by a protestor throwing a bomb at police following police brutality and murder the day before. It erupts into riots. By the end, 8 police died and 60 were injured. 4 protestors died, more than 70 were injured, and over 100 were arrested.
May 1st, 1886: Rallies throughout the United States demanding an eight-hour workday begin. May 1st is celebrated as International Workers’ Day in many countries.
May 1st, 1946: The Pilbara strike, a strike by indigenous Australian pastoral workers for human rights, fair wages, and better working conditions, begins. It involved more than 800 workers walking off from their jobs and lasted for over three years.
Strikers were met with violence and unlawful arrest but ultimately won their demands. The 1946 Pilbara strike is remembered as the first and one of the longest industrial strikes by Aboriginal people since colonization.
alexisohanian This one is going on the desk at work.
I can’t imagine life without these two.
This ordeal, as well as the weeks and months after, has made me an even bigger advocate for paid parental leave (not just for my employees–men & women alike–but for all). We’re blessed in a lot of ways and I couldn’t imagine a new parent going through all of that without all the support, financial security, and flexibility we had.
disney employees are starting a full week of walkouts leading to their big walkout on march 22nd, 2022. they’ve asked people to not use disney products during this week. (no disney+, hulu, espn, playing games, watching videos, reviewing/blogging about any of their IP, no going to the parks). this is a targeted and timed action you can concretely participate in.
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.
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