A friend of mine fell on hard times after his wife passed away. A master carpenter and cabinet maker, he fell into a deep depression (though he did not really recognize it at the time). It only took a couple of years before he lost his house and hit the economic tipping point where you become too poor to climb out of poverty.
But he's well known around town, and some people and organizations tried to give him some opportunities. One local housing group offered him nearly $40K and full benefits (along with a company-supplied truck) to take care of all their housing projects. But he turned that down because he would have had to join a union.
A few months later, he got a temporary gig at a local manufacturing plant. They liked his work enough that they offered him full-time with full benefits. But because he would have had to join the union, he quit instead.
I lost touch with him around that time because it became clear that he wasn't going to help himself or left himself be helped if doing so clashed with his Rightwing anti-union views. The last time I spoke to him, he was living in Section 8 housing and bitching about his layabout neighbors, and how unfair it was that he could only find part-time work at the gas station/minimart up the street.
I was hearing my grandpa wax rhapsodic beside the firepit about his first job out of the USAF in the early 1950s. He was making cooler cabinets to store milk in houses. He claimed the wages were good & as a bonus all the crafters received a free gallon of milk. But, he goes on, the union came and ruined all that. My uncle, G's son-in-law, chips in "Why don't workers just act more like ants and everybody just does their job without any fuss & nobody steps out of line?" Not wanting to explain the structure of an ant hive to him or, really, the economic and emotional realities of human existence in a capitalist penal colony, I reply, "Right on, you mean like in Stalinist Russia?"
"In my darkest moments I fear a total reversion to Gilded Age wage-slavery as soon as the bastards think they can manage it..."
Already there. It's covered up by public assistance, Medicaid and easy availability of credit. We're already at a point - or more like were before the pandemic -- where ~25% of workers aren't making a living wage with the aforementioned "cheats". Kids graduate colleges with obscene levels of debt. We're already at a point where there's a huge percentage of workers that are debt serfs. Which is to say Feudalism 2.0 is already here. And the post-pandemic economy will be worse than the pre-pandemic one like post-2008 was worse than prior to that financial collapse.
"First up would be employers’ legal immunity from all liability for forcing their workers to return to their COVID-19 death traps..."
These Covid cases would be shitty litigation-wise. Much hard work for little pay off at best; likely losers though. I mean, proving exactly where one got it? Even hospital workers would have a tough time with meeting the burden of proof.
But the problem law drafting-wise is that Dems have been shitting on labor for so long they can't agree to the immunity provision even though Business has it as a practical matter.
"There’s a reason to be optimistic, though."
Uhh... I missed how dissatisfaction with the economy does anything for labor which would require a reversal of the extractive, exploitative economy we have had since the 1980s. I don't see that coming from Old Joe (or, if/when the time comes, Harris). Maybe mitigation, but you know, too little matter. The easy credit noted above is now established interests and the rule has been that established businesses cannot be deprived of a single penny. That's why the ACA could only be so good and it had to be an instrument for routing money to private insurers.
Sorry to be a little shit on the Friday of a big holiday weekend.
Anywhere people work for wages, you hear the usual bitching about how bad they’re treated by the bosses. But posit that things could be better if they only had a way to join together to insist on better conditions, pay and benefits, and one of the biggest gripers will turn around and say, “Oh, you mean a ‘union,’ Mr. Communist?”
This holds true for every job I’ve ever held, especially among physicians.
I checked out that roster of 2019 top-grossing films, and of those that were in current release I had caught only two (𝘒𝘯𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘖𝘶𝘵 and 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘦), but found myself obscurely gratified to note that a personal favorite of mine—no, really—made the list at #455: 𝘓𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘠𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘢𝘵 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘣𝘢𝘥.
The little town of Wagner, SD, is having their 120th Labor Day parade this weekend. Granted, I think the focus is more Generic Holiday Parade than it is Workers Unite, but still. (Not sure of the wisdom of holding a celebration in a state that’s a Covid-19 hotspot, but nobody asks my opinion on these things.)
As I always say, and thanks, Roy, for the IWW flag at the top, we could do worse than to look to the example of the Wobs who knew how to talk to the people and make them understand how they're being shafted. Take that toxic populism that is so popular these days and wash it out and turn it around for the benefit of people. We might not be able to get them to sing "Dump the Bosses Off Your Back", but there's an opening now - especially with the Kids who aren't afraid of the word "Socialism" like their parents are - to not wake the masses but get them to realize they've been awake all this time.
Yes. Even here at the Fed the words "collective bargaining agreement" draw a blank from a generation of younger workers. It's like they have no idea where a 40-hour work week came from. (But then again, so many of them are "contractors" it's ridiculous.)
THe FIRE sector of the economy went from 10% in 1947 to 20% in 2018 while manufacturing went down proportionally over the same period. This reflects the well-known divide between "Wall Street" representing the FIRE sector and "Main Street" representing manufacturing and small businesses. "Main Street" is where Labor lives while Capital dominates "Wall Street". As long as this yawning divide exists, the US economy will remaining increasing unstable and extremely unequal.
There was an OpEd in today's Baltimore Sun complaining that Maryland was still not a right-to-work state. In my working days. I was a dues-paying member of the NTEU and resented the people who refused to join, but got all the tangible benefits the the union gave us. It's crazy (and stupid) not join a union if one is available. Management is not your friend.
Correct me if I'm wrong--in fact, nah. Don't bother--but this one seems written with a bit more brio than usual. (And they're all written with tons of fucking brio.) That phrase--"They're being cheated"--strikes me as v. powerful. It should be fired like a dart at voters, workers, Dems, Republicans, union people, anti-union people, and everybody else, because a) it's true, b) it's easily understood, and especially c) it's perfectly consonant with what everyone knows about Trump. Even his fans know he lies. Yeah, but guess what, MAGA--you're being cheated.
A friend of mine fell on hard times after his wife passed away. A master carpenter and cabinet maker, he fell into a deep depression (though he did not really recognize it at the time). It only took a couple of years before he lost his house and hit the economic tipping point where you become too poor to climb out of poverty.
But he's well known around town, and some people and organizations tried to give him some opportunities. One local housing group offered him nearly $40K and full benefits (along with a company-supplied truck) to take care of all their housing projects. But he turned that down because he would have had to join a union.
A few months later, he got a temporary gig at a local manufacturing plant. They liked his work enough that they offered him full-time with full benefits. But because he would have had to join the union, he quit instead.
I lost touch with him around that time because it became clear that he wasn't going to help himself or left himself be helped if doing so clashed with his Rightwing anti-union views. The last time I spoke to him, he was living in Section 8 housing and bitching about his layabout neighbors, and how unfair it was that he could only find part-time work at the gas station/minimart up the street.
I was hearing my grandpa wax rhapsodic beside the firepit about his first job out of the USAF in the early 1950s. He was making cooler cabinets to store milk in houses. He claimed the wages were good & as a bonus all the crafters received a free gallon of milk. But, he goes on, the union came and ruined all that. My uncle, G's son-in-law, chips in "Why don't workers just act more like ants and everybody just does their job without any fuss & nobody steps out of line?" Not wanting to explain the structure of an ant hive to him or, really, the economic and emotional realities of human existence in a capitalist penal colony, I reply, "Right on, you mean like in Stalinist Russia?"
They changed the subject pretty quick.
"In my darkest moments I fear a total reversion to Gilded Age wage-slavery as soon as the bastards think they can manage it..."
Already there. It's covered up by public assistance, Medicaid and easy availability of credit. We're already at a point - or more like were before the pandemic -- where ~25% of workers aren't making a living wage with the aforementioned "cheats". Kids graduate colleges with obscene levels of debt. We're already at a point where there's a huge percentage of workers that are debt serfs. Which is to say Feudalism 2.0 is already here. And the post-pandemic economy will be worse than the pre-pandemic one like post-2008 was worse than prior to that financial collapse.
"First up would be employers’ legal immunity from all liability for forcing their workers to return to their COVID-19 death traps..."
These Covid cases would be shitty litigation-wise. Much hard work for little pay off at best; likely losers though. I mean, proving exactly where one got it? Even hospital workers would have a tough time with meeting the burden of proof.
But the problem law drafting-wise is that Dems have been shitting on labor for so long they can't agree to the immunity provision even though Business has it as a practical matter.
"There’s a reason to be optimistic, though."
Uhh... I missed how dissatisfaction with the economy does anything for labor which would require a reversal of the extractive, exploitative economy we have had since the 1980s. I don't see that coming from Old Joe (or, if/when the time comes, Harris). Maybe mitigation, but you know, too little matter. The easy credit noted above is now established interests and the rule has been that established businesses cannot be deprived of a single penny. That's why the ACA could only be so good and it had to be an instrument for routing money to private insurers.
Sorry to be a little shit on the Friday of a big holiday weekend.
Anywhere people work for wages, you hear the usual bitching about how bad they’re treated by the bosses. But posit that things could be better if they only had a way to join together to insist on better conditions, pay and benefits, and one of the biggest gripers will turn around and say, “Oh, you mean a ‘union,’ Mr. Communist?”
This holds true for every job I’ve ever held, especially among physicians.
I checked out that roster of 2019 top-grossing films, and of those that were in current release I had caught only two (𝘒𝘯𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘖𝘶𝘵 and 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘦), but found myself obscurely gratified to note that a personal favorite of mine—no, really—made the list at #455: 𝘓𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘠𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘢𝘵 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘣𝘢𝘥.
The little town of Wagner, SD, is having their 120th Labor Day parade this weekend. Granted, I think the focus is more Generic Holiday Parade than it is Workers Unite, but still. (Not sure of the wisdom of holding a celebration in a state that’s a Covid-19 hotspot, but nobody asks my opinion on these things.)
https://www.yankton.net/community/article_bf01619c-ed8f-11ea-a3e4-3fa478c0881a.html
As I always say, and thanks, Roy, for the IWW flag at the top, we could do worse than to look to the example of the Wobs who knew how to talk to the people and make them understand how they're being shafted. Take that toxic populism that is so popular these days and wash it out and turn it around for the benefit of people. We might not be able to get them to sing "Dump the Bosses Off Your Back", but there's an opening now - especially with the Kids who aren't afraid of the word "Socialism" like their parents are - to not wake the masses but get them to realize they've been awake all this time.
Yes. Even here at the Fed the words "collective bargaining agreement" draw a blank from a generation of younger workers. It's like they have no idea where a 40-hour work week came from. (But then again, so many of them are "contractors" it's ridiculous.)
THe FIRE sector of the economy went from 10% in 1947 to 20% in 2018 while manufacturing went down proportionally over the same period. This reflects the well-known divide between "Wall Street" representing the FIRE sector and "Main Street" representing manufacturing and small businesses. "Main Street" is where Labor lives while Capital dominates "Wall Street". As long as this yawning divide exists, the US economy will remaining increasing unstable and extremely unequal.
There was an OpEd in today's Baltimore Sun complaining that Maryland was still not a right-to-work state. In my working days. I was a dues-paying member of the NTEU and resented the people who refused to join, but got all the tangible benefits the the union gave us. It's crazy (and stupid) not join a union if one is available. Management is not your friend.
I was a union rep. Tough gig. The hardest part? Working people who revile the union for no real reason.
Correct me if I'm wrong--in fact, nah. Don't bother--but this one seems written with a bit more brio than usual. (And they're all written with tons of fucking brio.) That phrase--"They're being cheated"--strikes me as v. powerful. It should be fired like a dart at voters, workers, Dems, Republicans, union people, anti-union people, and everybody else, because a) it's true, b) it's easily understood, and especially c) it's perfectly consonant with what everyone knows about Trump. Even his fans know he lies. Yeah, but guess what, MAGA--you're being cheated.
"but at least, and at last, the folks at home are beginning to look educable." Roy the optimist. I hope you're right.