When a company spends money to discourage collective bargaining, whether that's in production of "training" videos, or closing facilities, or punishing organizers (who are more likely to call foul on that illegal activity), it means that they think that will cost them less than bargaining with labor in good faith.
They know they're taking advantage of labor, and it costs them less to keep the bootheel on than it does to negotiate. Seize the means of production.
sure sure seize it, then who's gonna manage it afterwards, and how much will they get paid, more, less, the same, for what sort of responsibility, who determines that, do managers count as much as front line assembly staff, do they have to work more or less. sooner or later the pigs become the man and the man becomes the pigs. seize it, we'll all be back here in a hundred years telling people to seize it from you.
Management of labor resources is labor. So is accounting, and marketing, and training. Ownership is not labor. Stifling collective bargaining serves the purposes of owners by ensuring that more of the compensation for work product is taken away from those who labor and given to those who own.
Seize the means of production.
sure sure seize it, then who's gonna manage it afterwards
The people the workers choose to be managers?
how much will they get paid, more, less, the same, for what sort of responsibility
They will be paid by what the workers and the individual agree is fair?
who determines that
The workers.....
do managers count as much as front line assembly staff, do they have to work more or less.
I feel like all of that is hard to apply to every situation...... the whole point is that labour will able to come to a consensus about all of these organizational theoreticals you've erected.
later the pigs become the man and the man becomes the pigs. seize it, we'll all be back here in a hundred years telling people to seize it from you.
Lol, are you saying that certain people are inherently the management and owner class? And after a hundred years of a system with a completely different organizational hierarchy, they should somehow still inherently perceive themselves as a higher class?
Do you hold the same insane opinions about other political hierarchies. Do you think there are like a group of deposed Royals that people are just aching to put back on thrones?
And the bosses have no vested interest selling this idea to you. Corporate media has no vested interest feeding this narrative to you. Worker owned co-ops are a thing, and seizure from a corporation can be successful.
Just asking questions that have been answered a million times already.
Believe it or not, there’s actually a lot of books about all of those things, and even better, they aren’t fantasy books used by North American and other capitalist schools to make young kids think communism is bad and drive them to inaction.
hen who’s gonna manage it afterwards
we will,much beter than any capitalist pig
It's pretty wild to me that healthcare workers would only earn $5 more per hour than McDonald's workers.
It's also wild that the $30,000,000,000.00 that the UPS drivers are splitting, would have only gone to a few incredibly wealthy people, had the workers not made a stand.
Let's not get too caught up on comparisons, everyone deserves a living wage. McDonald's is a job just as much as healthcare work is, an hour of your life takes just as much of your time no matter where you work. The big question to me is why this minimum wage isn't being applied across all industries
Nobody is saying it's not a job. You're required to be there and commit your time for both industries. But the effort required to get a nursing job is magnitudes greater than the effort to get a McDonald's job, and the pay should reflect that. $5 an hour more isn't enough to justify all the hoops a nurse has to jump through to get the job, and the ridiculous shit (sometimes literally) they have to deal with. Some other commenters pointed out that the $25 is for anyone who works in a hospital, not necessarily for healthcare workers in the traditional sense, which makes more sense.
I've worked food service, retail, office work, and currently I'm a janitor. Of these office work was the least demanding. The most demanding, definitely retail.
At this point a worker Bill of Rights for retail workers needs to at bare minimum not only include pay being triple, but workers absolutely need the right to self-defense from an unruly customer. Main reason don't work retail is because a drunk asshole got me fired by calling up corporate because I ask him multiple times to leave the store instead of hearing out his crazy rant about how flat the Earth was. To make matters worse it was closing time, so if I hadn't had let him out, I would have been fired for not escorting him out of the store. Making it a true damned if you do damned if you don't.
Personally all the office work was easier, I prefer being a janitor because I don't have to sit and stay in one place, I am autistic and I have attention deficit disorder, I can't sit in one place for too long it drives me crazy both physically and mentally.
I remember back when the fight for 15 first started, I had plenty of people on Facebook that were quick to point out that EMT workers only made 15 an hour, and that how Ludacris it was that fast food workers would want to be paid that much and claimed you wouldn't have EMTs anymore because they would all go flip burgers.
Missing the point that if 15 is so low it is what fast food workers would need to cover their expenses and nothing more, and maybe EMTs need a raise of Their Own.
I quickly learned a slogan that I would give these people that, just absolutely, I am a big fan of, and that slogan is. We all do better, when we all do better
I elaborated on this and even specifically included EMTs much further down in the comment chain. To summarize it, I don't think this is doing enough for healthcare workers, especially those doing actual healthcare work, like phlebotomists and EMTs.
It’s pretty wild to me that healthcare workers would only earn $5 more per hour than McDonald’s workers.
A lot of people would look at that statement and think that fast food workers are going to be overpaid here in CA, but in reality, both groups were being severely underpaid and to a degree healthcare workers still are way behind what they should be earning considering the massive windfalls that for-profit healthcare providers are raking in. Billions to the top, peanuts for the rest.
Well it refers to everyone in the hospital. So even if your job is manning the coffee or gift shop, you get $25/hr
I don't understand the math behind the UPS raises. I can't believe it is as much as my math tells me.
$30 bln / 340.000 workers ≈ $88.000 per worker per year.
Am I missing something or is this actually correct?
They unfortunately didn't fight to end the two tier system for part time workers, which is why your math is off. The part time employees aren't very engaged with the union and there was/is little attempt from the union the reach out to that section of their members to educate and involve them.
The union leadership has a vested interest in selling that they got an amazing deal, but this was a huge failure to fight over. Two teir pay is used by the owners to ensure their employees aren't a united front.
Man, I hope this momentum continues. Take these assholes for all they're worth!!
And to think all of these barely make a dent in corporate profits. That’s how greedy they are.
That should be mentioned on this, like the .03% their profit went down, I wouldn't doubt in some cases they may have even become more valuable because of employee retention.
But company has to have better growth each quarter for those stock holders
Don't just hope, help build momentum by getting involved! There is so much to be done, either unionizing new workplaces, forming militant sub committees within existing unions and most importantly organizing outside the democratic party to force them out of center.
Workers Strike Back is where my wife and I have decided to best spend our time with, but there are others to join. The important part is to get off the internet and start making it happen.
Well said!
This doesn’t mention one of the big wins from the WGA strike: transparency from the streamers on what people are watching. It’s part of the residuals win, but transparency is huge on its own.
As someone who doesn't know much about that industry, why is transparency on what people are watching important?
The more popular a show, the more money writers get (residuals). In the old days, viewership was measured independently and those numbers shared (Nielsen). In the steaming age, streaming services basically tell writers, "trust us".
From what I understand a lot of Hollywood contracts (for writers, actors, etc.) include residuals for tickets sold or views on streaming services. However, streaming services did not have to provide the actual numbers of streams so people couldn't determine how much money in residuals they were owed.
I believe there were also some questions about streamers fudging numbers to say shows were more/less watched than they actually were so it's a big step to knowing what's actually going on.
Streamers are generally just a kind black box when it comes to what they recommend and what each show's ratings are. If I'm understanding this correctly, transparency will allow for things similar to Nielson ratings and keep streamers honest.
Wouldn't you want to know if everyone is actually watching that one show Netflix keeps recommending or if they're just trying to make it seem like everyone's watching it to inflate its popularity?
The funny thing is that when employees are unionised and getting paid fairly, they can spend their time working on serious stuff instead of constantly fighting against being exploited.
The professional and successful companies know this well enough. It's all the personally owned shit stores that think the owner himself can outsmart everyone by stealing nickles from their own employees to finance the underbidding of other companies and thereby delivering a shit product. Grow the fuck up already.
Quality work is done by qualified people who takes enough pride in their work to join a union of people who does similar kind of work, instead of winging it like a poorly paid servant.
Tech worker union should be next
There is a tech union :) Unions and pro-union movements have been growing a lot in major tech companies in recent years and they have already had significant achievements in improving workers' conditions. If you would like to join don't hesitate to check out CODE-CWA and remember the most important thing is to start building support for unions among your coworkers!
Fuck yeah
Coming up this weekend! https://labornotes.org/techcon2023
You don't work in tech do you. Tech is all about the gig economy and changing jobs frequently to get better pay.
Unions only benefit the low quality tech workers that couldn't get a job anywhere else
You only need to change jobs frequently because there's no union.
I don't know about the first part but the second one is a load of crap. Every employee can benefit from a union.
This right here is Stockholm at its finest lol.
Wow. Incredible.
I feel like part of this needs to address the common claim that the businesses in question will go bankrupt as a result of the increases in pay for labor.
It's great that unions increase pay. But that hasn't been the argument I've heard against unions. It's that increasing the pay will tank the company and everyone would shortly be out of work. Which I don't believe at all, but that's the common argument against unions
We heard all these excuses back in 07 in the lead up to the minimum wage going up federally. None of it came true and it never has.
I can't think of a quick indisputable rebuttal to that claim, like I could say the companies have paid higher wages in the past relative to the value of the dollar and stayed in business, but there are a lot of factors involved that would need examining. But like another comment said risk is inherent in any business, if your business can't succeed with these wages another company will fill your place. If no company can succeed with pay rates and benefits that are bare minimum for living then there is a root aspect of this setup that needs to change.
One thing we could do is look at companies that have unionized or increased wages and benefits for workers and were successful as a business afterwards. I don't know any specific companies off-hand that are good examples, but there are probably some that could be mentioned if people doubt the possibility.
There are consulting companies that specialize in preventing unions from forming. If the law allows it (most US states do), they'll get everyone to watch anti-union "training" videos. That's not even getting into the historical violence that companies have inflicted on striking workers.
Companies would not do these things if they thought unions were no big deal.
I am asking once again for your support of unionization and strikes. While the WGA strike is over, the UAW, Kaiser employees (soon-ish) , and of course, SAG-AFTRA, still need your support.
Because this is only the beginning.
Image Transcription:
White text on a blue background reading
"Here's proof that his year's organized labor uprising is working:"
The next few paragraphs are in yellow:
"340,000 UPS workers won $30 BILLION in raises, more time off. and more full-time jobs after threatening to strike.
"Writers beat the greedy Hollywood CEO's replacing them with AI and won increased residuals, healthcare, and pension contributions.
"Half a million Fast Food Workers in CA won a $20 minimum wage and a seat at the table determining future wages, benefits and working conditions.
"Half a million California Health Care Workers won a $25 an hour minimum wage."
The final paragraph is in white again:
"Unions work. You can bank on it."
[I am a human, if I’ve made a mistake please let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. 💜 We have a community! If you wish for us to transcribe something, want to help improve ease of use here on Lemmy, or just want to hang out with us, join us at [email protected]!]
So uhh how about contracted companies that do janitorial working. Asking for a friend.. who works the same shift I do.
Look into the justice for janitors movement! There have been unionization successes for contracted janitors!
Crothall?
Say Crothall.
Crothal took over the housekeeping department in the hospital that I work at. The difference in how clean the place was before and after they took over is night and day, and not in a good way.
Crothal is all about theater. As long as it looks like someone is cleaning, that's good enough for them
It's not Crothall
Where I work now, Big Lots, is the greatest example of a company that needs a union I have ever seen. However in the less than 6 months I've been there the staff has almost entirely changed and we've gone from about 15 employees to about 8. It's the worst corporate nonsense, the worst pay, the worst hours, the worst benefits, the worst recognition, and the worst job in general I've ever fucking had by a MASSIVE margin, so naturally it forces employees to watch the strongest anti union video I've ever bore witness to in my life. I would love to start a union here, but by the time I even talked to everyone half of them will have quit already.
I hope you're looking something else. You shouldn't subject yourself to that bullshit.
Bro I'm barely hanging on. I can't pay my bills anymore, I can barely afford to eat, I have zero energy and I'm depressed constantly. I have easily put out hundreds of applications on Indeed in the past few months and had no luck finding anything close to decent at all, I get a few calls here and there but the jobs are always wild as fuck, like the Amazon company that called me yesterday that wanted me to only work Saturday and Sunday for 12 hours each day. I have honestly considered pan handling as I know I would legitimately make ten fold what I'm making for 1% of the effort, but primarily these days I just think about ending it all.
I used to make good money and threw it all away due to stress. Big fucking idiot I am had no idea what small stress I was trading in was going to be replaced by the biggest stress and the lowest points of my life.
You got to fight for a fair share of the revenu you're generating those greedy fuck would not even pay you if they could
Dumb question but what if the entire labor market started forming unions. Could every job out there be part of some union?
Would this be better? Or do some jobs not make sense to unionize?
I think any job could benefit from workers union. No matter if restaurant workers or software engineers. We can see right now the issues that exist with US at-will work situations and green card holders being held hostage.
I am part of a union as a software engineer and I wouldn't have it any other way anymore. I am based in the EU though.
I live in a country where more than 50% of worker is are in some union or another. Not a single person or union would allow it's members to go to work if it was even remotely close to the situation in the US. Not to mention that you'd have to change a whole bunch of laws that give rights beyond what unions fight for, which don't exist in the US
Same thing in my country. The percentage of union members has been in steady decline for years, mostly due to years of right-wing paid propaganda that has had an alarmingly great effect on the younger generations.
Another reason is that since the unions did such great work in the years after WWII, the working conditions in most workplaces are pretty damn good. Therefore many assume that "union membership is useless for me, why should I pay anything for something I already have?"
The unions are slowly losing their power to defend the workers due to this idiocy. Many of the unions have been poorly managed and haven't done their work defending the workers as efficiently as they should have, this cannot be denied.
Right now our right-wing government is planning new labour laws that would break the peace between the unions and employers that has lasted for decades. A peace that has brought us such prosperity our grandparents couldn't even dream of.
But no, the rich just must have more and more.
I don't know if you are in Europe, but I work somewhere in the US with high safety standards relative to what I've seen. We had a team from EU working with us and they mentioned a few of the things we did regularly wouldn't be allowed in their country haha.
It's best to unionize everyone as much as possible, and indeed there are unions for essentially every job, so that everyone's pay and working conditions can improve as much as possible. Everyone deserves a shorter working week.
I saw another comment where I think you said you work in tech, so I will paste this:
There is a tech union :) Unions and pro-union movements have been growing a lot in major tech companies in recent years and they have already had significant achievements in improving workers' conditions. If you would like to join don't hesitate to check out CODE-CWA and remember the most important thing is to start building support for unions among your coworkers!
All of the money gained by the unions will be passed on to consumers, further concentrating everyone except billionaires into a class between middle and poor. What unions are doing are unquestionably good but we NEED it to be in tandem with a wealth tax and actually holding billionaires accountable.
1,000 billionaires, 1 guillotine.
But hyperbole and my friend said.
If you'd like to join a union: https://join-a-union.github.io/
You can also look at other countries that have been through all of this already. For example Austria. Now in 2023 nobody would ever dare to say that a Union is a bad thing.
How does 30 billion split on 340k drivers work? That's $88235 per driver... in raises?
It's not evenly distributed, but it's pretty well distributed. Average UPS drivers will make 49$/h (roughly 100k a year), and up to 170k a year on the higher end.
Tl;dr - Join a union, folks!
Are there any numbers of jobs that were eliminated because of fast-food restaurants automating their kiosks and/or going delivery only?
(☝◞‸◟)☞
“Nice argument Senator, mind backing that up with a source?”
UPS workers getting average 100k/year source: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/18/ups-drivers-can-earn-as-much-as-172000-without-a-degree.html
California fast food workers getting 20$/hr: https://www.marketplace.org/2023/10/02/california-minimum-wage-for-fast-food-workers/
California health care workers getting min 25$/hr: https://californiahealthline.org/news/article/california-lawmakers-approve-nation-leading-25-minimum-wage-for-health-workers/
UPS is probably the biggest win, with some UPS workers getting over 75$/hr. Join a union, folks!
Also, sure this works in pockets of America but most people are still voting for Trump, against healthcare, against education, etc.
Lead poisoning, hookworms and propaganda has done it's job. USA is on the brink of extinction, parts of it will survive for sure (CA/NY/TX?) but it's going down. It's a damn shame, for many reasons. Too bad the people of the nation aren't caring for it.
Most people are not voting for Trump. Do you believe his stolen election lies or something?
Most people didn't vote for him even when he won! Though I mostly agree otherwise.
Spoken like a true non American who knows nothing about what’s going on in America.
I don’t need to remind anyone where the troll farms were located.
NY has never been self sustainable. If you thought the USA was on the brink of extinction, but somehow NY would survive, you clearly didn't think very much.
In reality won't these costs just be passed on to the consumer because there is absolutely no chance corps are going to stop worrying about shareholders and profits above all? I'm all for unions and people making more but it all seems like a waste if the cost of these changes just translates to more expensive everything.
You think corpos could sell you a burger for $8 but are only charging $6 out of the goodness of their hearts?
Companies always have charged and always will charge as much as consumers are willing to pay. If consumers won't pay enough to keep them profitable, they go out of business.
The whole concept of "passing on costs to consumers" is just a psychological ploy tricking you into accepting higher prices. If we don't accept higher prices, they won't charge higher prices.
If enough people believe that higher wages = higher prices, then it will become so. In fact it likely already has become so.
But higher wages COULD = lower profits/exec salaries/stock buybacks etc. If we refuse to pay higher prices. Or if there's nowhere else to make up the costs, they go out of business. Capitalism baby!
Yep, it's corporate propaganda to blame price hikes on workers to put shoppers against workers instead of having everyone hate corpos.
Legally going on strike isn't an uprising
Please give us the proper legal definition of an uprising.
The common use isn't to talk about people legally going on strike (which is their right during a collective agreement negotiation) because that's just it, going on strike. It could have been called an uprising if they had just decided to walk out illegally outside of the negotiation period.
love the UPS and healthcare workers stuff...but...fast food? I'd like to see every fast food place go out of business. Celebrating a bit higher wages from mega-corp fast food places seems a bit...odd, considering fast food is a cancer on society. although i guess if paying the higher wages squeezes them more, i'm all for it. But seriously...who in their right mind even goes to fast food places these days? it's basically setting fire to your own money and health.
You can want fast food to go out of business while also wishing the workers there a very happy pay raise until then.
Unions work, until they don't. They are always corrupt in the end.
Unlike those totally clean and uncorrupt corporations that only have the worker's interests in mind?
They're never as corrupt as the corporations they keep in check, and they exist from member dues and are therefore accountable to the members.
and are therefore accountable to the members.
hahahaha.
Hoffa and Taylor have chosen to deliberately ignore the wishes of UPS Teamsters and side with the company against their own members, despite significant portions of the UPS Teamsters who want to take the fight to the company. In June, 90 percent of UPS and UPS Freight Teamsters voted to authorize a strike, and now a majority of UPSers have voted down both Teamsters contracts. Hoffa and Taylor don’t care.
