Tag: Workers

A Labor Day Message–2024

Happy Labor Day!

I have lots of grilling to do so this will be the only post today….but I think the message that was in this DNC speech needs repeating and often…..and a way to honor our workers on Labor day.

AS a past organizer for the IWW I have always wanted more emphasis by our candidates to put the workers above the special interests and in all my years of political watching I have yet to see that happening…..

I will say I like the speech given by John Russel at the recent DNC….words that need repeating, as I have said…..it is said that his speech was the most radical convention speech in history.

The Democratic National Convention featured a video and speech from More Perfect Union reporter John Russell, who stressed to the Chicago crowd that the party has an opportunity to win over working-class people.

“Thank you to the workers that make this convention happen,” Russell began. “Let’s never forget how essential all of our labor is.”

“I come from Appalachia,” he explained. “We kept the lights on in this country for generations. But the wealth made by our broken backs and our black lungs never did trickle down. And Washington listened to rich men demanding that we stick with dirty energy at any cost.”

“Across the country, working-class people are looking for a political home, after years of both parties putting profit above people,” he said before taking aim at the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump—who has chosen Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), author of Hillbilly Elegy, as his running mate.

“Now Trump, a billionaire, says that he’ll take on the elites, but then he promises handouts to Big Oil and he punches down at anyone with the guts to be different,” Russell noted. “Populism that insists we are too different to get along is just divide and conquer by a different name.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/john-russell

The workers need to be better represented in Congress…..we have enough sycophants that only concern is how much cash they can milk out of the special interests.

Labor is the driving force…..let’s look at something Eugene Debs wrote many years ago…..

I would hail the day upon which it could be truthfully said, “Labor conquers everything,” with inexpressible gratification. Such a day would stand first in Labor’s Millennium, that prophesied era when Christ shall begin his reign on the earth to continue a thousand years. The old Latin fathers did a large business in manufacturing maxims, and the one I have selected for a caption of this article has been required to play shibboleth since, like “a thing of beauty and a joy forever,” it came forth from its ancient laboratory. It is one of those happy expressions which embodies quite as much fancy as fact.

The time has arrived for thoughtful men identified with labor — by which I mean the laboring classes — to inquire, what does labor conquer? Or what has it conquered in all the ages? Or what is it now conquering?

“Labor Omina Vincit”

Put your vote for the good of the people not to massage some egocentric tool….I agree with Debs when he stated….“I’d rather vote for what I want and not get it, than for what I don’t want and get it.”  And that is why I have not voted for a presidential winner since 1976…..not a very good track record but my principles mean more to me than a tick in the win column

Let me reiterate….“I’d rather vote for what I want and not get it, than for what I don’t want and get it.”

Enjoy your day and as always….Be well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Four Day Workweek?

Something that I have been thinking about for some years now. Where I worked the Summers are oppressive and the humidity hangs around 90+% daily…..making for your day to be long and miserable….your body is shot by 10 am if you work outside. I think that a 4 day workweek would benefit everyone.

It is good to see the Bernie is still pushing for a better work experience.

The four-day workweek is gaining momentum in Congress: Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced legislation Wednesday that would reduce the standard workweek to 32 hours without a pay cut.

The act would shorten the standard workweek over four years by mandating that overtime pay kicks in after 32 hours worked in a week, down from the current 40. Those who work more than 8 hours in a day would get overtime pay at time-and-a-half, and those who work more than 12 hours in a day would be entitled to double their regular pay.

Today’s 40-hour workweek has been federal law since 1940 following the passing of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Proponents of a shorter workweek say advances in technology have made workers more productive, but have not resulted in higher wages or time back.

“The financial gains from the major advancements in artificial intelligence, automation, and new technology must benefit the working class, not just corporate CEOs and wealthy stockholders on Wall Street,” Sanders said in a press release introducing the bill.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/14/sen-bernie-sanders-introduces-4-day-workweek-legislation.html

I think it is a great idea….but you can bet the big business Repubs just don’t see it….

GOP lawmakers pushed back against Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) new proposal for a 32-hour workweek during a committee hearing Thursday, saying such a mandate would hurt workers and crush small businesses. 

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which Sanders chairs, met to discuss “new technology and increased productivity” and focused on the possibility of a standard four-day work week. 

“In reality, there is no free lunch,” Ranking Member Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said of the proposal. 

“Workers will be the ones who would pay — not get paid extra. The government mandating a 32-hour workweek requiring businesses to increase pay at least an extra 25 percent per hour, would frankly destroy some employers.” 

Sanders introduced a bill Wednesday that would lower the threshold required for overtime pay from 40 hours to 32 hours over four years, arguing the shortened workweek would increase productivity.

Cassidy said many jobs would be shipped overseas or replaced with automation, or businesses would be incentivized to hire more part-time employees to avoid penalties associated with requirements for full-time workers.

“If this policy is implemented, it would threaten millions of small businesses operating on a razor-thin margin because they’re unable to find enough workers,” Cassidy said. “Now they’ve got the same workers, but only for three-quarters of the time, and they have to hire more.”

Republicans pan Sanders’s 32-hour workweek bill

This will go nowhere because business has lots of cash to influence Congress and they are not afraid to use it but are afraid to pay workers better.

Go figure!

That is it for me for this week….I hope everyone has a good and productive weekend.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Musk And His Employees

Elon Musk has been making news all over the place…..from his purchase of Twitter to his cage match with the Zuck to his many lawsuits…..employees are trying to get what he promised them in the past.

Since Elon Musk took over as CEO of X, formerly known as Twitter, the company has been a lawsuit magnet. There’s that class-action suit in California by former employees who claim they weren’t paid promised bonuses. Another claims the company hasn’t ponied up $500 million in severance pay to employees who were laid off.

Now add more than 2,200 arbitration cases, according to a complaint filed earlier this week in Delaware. All told, the social media giant is potentially on the hook for more than $3.5 million in filing fees, according to CNBC‘s estimate. When it rains, it pours!

The deluge of arbitration cases was revealed in a court document filed by former employee Chris Woodfield against X and Elon Musk. Last month, Woodfield slapped the company and Musk with a separate complaint, claiming they hadn’t paid him his promised severance.

The cases underline Musk’s bull-in-a-china-shop approach when he first took over the social media giant in October last year. When he became CEO, Musk laid off legions of workers, cutting staff numbers from around 8,000 to just 1,500 as of this April. That’s a lot of pissed off people with an axe to grind — hence the flood of suits.

The arbitration cases from former employees add another messy wrinkle to the legal challenges X and Musk are facing.

Arbitration is a legal process in which two opposing parties agree to mediate their dispute with a third party arbitrator rather than going through the court system. At Elon Musk’s other company, Tesla, employees are forced to sign arbitration agreements as a requirement for employment in states where it is legal, which is a move some politicians decry as a way to hide complaints of discrimination, which Tesla has faced.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-twitter-employees-lawsuit

It is not bad enough that he is moving into the Trump camp but he now acts like the robber barons of old.

X has lost about 60% of its ad revenue….and Musk had to borrow millions from SpaceX, you know that multi-billion dollar enterprise that cashes many government checks.

My thought is he is a feminine hygiene cleansing agent that one might use on a Summer’s Eve.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Robots Vs Worker

For decades now there has been an increase of robots doing jobs that workers use to perform….from auto workers to mail workers to researchers……and in all that time there has been a debate on whether this is good or bad for society. (And that is a post for another day)

The newest area of confrontation is hospitality and in Las Vegas…..

The tourism-heavy economy is Las Vegas has left many workers vulnerable to being replaced by robots, and the city should work to diversify its economy to make sure humans still have jobs, analysts say. It’s already common to see robots doing jobs including bartending at establishments like the Tipsy Robot in Planet Hollywood, and many hotel check-in desks have been replaced by kiosks, NPR reports. With the use of artificial intelligence rising, studies have shown that as many as two-thirds of jobs in the city could be automated by 2025. Indeed, a July report from the Chamber of Commerce ranked Las Vegas as the No. 1 city when it comes to potential job losses due to AI.

John Restrepo at RCG Economics in Las Vegas says that to save money, the resort industry will replace humans wherever it is possible to do so without affecting “productivity, profits or the customer experience.” The city, he says, needs to move away from hospitality toward jobs “that are more highly skilled, that are not easily replaced by AI.” But hospitality workers aren’t giving up their jobs without a fight. Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer of the Culinary Union, says the union plans to make sure protections against AI replacing jobs will be in the new contract. The union represents around 60,000 hospitality and service workers.

Pappageorge tells NPR that there was a “huge fight about tech” while negotiating the last contract and he expects the same this time around. “How do our folks make sure that the jobs that remain, that we can work them? And that we’re not thrown out like an old shoe? We’re not going to stand for that,” he says. Optimists include Sabrina Bergman, who assists the robots at the Tipsy Robot. She says machines will never fully replace the human touch in customer service roles

As a past labor organizer I hate to see robots replace workers that are only trying to provide for their families.

What’s next?  Will robots eventually replace our Congresses?  (Not a bad idea maybe then we could get some action out of the Congress)

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Murder Of The Middle Class

There is a slow and torturous murder being inflicted on the Middle Class in this country.

Since the last half of the 20th century the Middle Class has been struggling to maintain the position and the life that they have been enjoying since the invention of the Middle Class….and sadly it is a losing battle.

Corporations have been chipping away at the Middle Class status with the help of the government….and it began in earnest with the election of Reagan in 1980.

Forty years ago, on August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired 11,345 striking air traffic controllers and barred them from ever working again for the federal government. By October of that year, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, or PATCO, the union that had called the strike, had been decertified and lay in ruins. The careers of most of the individual strikers were similarly dead: While Bill Clinton lifted Reagan’s ban on strikers in 1993, fewer than 10 percent were ever rehired by the Federal Aviation Administration.

PATCO was dominated by Vietnam War-era veterans who’d learned air traffic control in the military and were one of a vanishingly small number of unions to endorse Reagan in 1980, thereby scoring one of the greatest own goals in political history. It’s easy to imagine strikers expressing the same sentiments as a Trump voter who famously lamented, “I thought he was going to do good things. He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”

https://theintercept.com/2021/08/06/middle-class-reagan-patco-strike/

I have written many posts on the death of the Middle Class…..

What’s Killing the American Middle Class?

Who Or What Killed The Middle Class?

The American middle class is dying.

In 2015, it dipped below 50% of the population for the first time since data collection started on the issue. It’s now an official minority group.

Meanwhile, nearly half of Americans don’t have enough money to cover a surprise $400 expense. Many are living paycheck to paycheck, with little to no cushion. And US homes are less affordable than they’ve been in decades—possibly ever.

I’ll tell you why this is happening and how to secure your spot among the “haves” in a moment. But first, let’s take a look at the America that was.

The Long Death of America’s Middle Class

Centrism and corporate control of the government is killing the Middle class….not long from now there will be little left of what use to be the jewel of the American economy…..today it is all about the shareholders and cash….the workers mean NOTHING.

I do not see a reversal of this trend….since cash drives the politics in this country it will only get worse.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

GOP Unemployment Lie

Since the pandemic and people working from home or unemployed have been subsidized by the stimulus packages from the government.

Another of the GOP ‘Big Lies” is that unemployment benefits is keeping people from returning to work because they are making cash without working.

Yeah, what crap! At $300 a week I will be buying my much cherished Ferrari any day now.

So with an election looming, 2022, the GOP has decided that instead of finding solution they will just keep repeating the same damn lie….over and over…..

Republicans promoted the conspiracy theory that Americans weren’t going back to work amid the COVID-19 pandemic because they were too busy living the comfortable life on the U.S. dime. Data now shows that they were wrong.

The New York Times reported Sunday that in Missouri when federal pay for the unemployed was scrapped, workers still were being choosy. Gov. Mike Parson (R) proudly proclaimed that his state would be among the first to kill unemployment benefits. It still hasn’t worked, however.

“Work-force development officials said they had seen virtually no uptick in applicants since the governor’s announcement, which ended a $300 weekly supplement to other benefits,” said the report. “And the online job site Indeed found that in states that have abandoned the federal benefits, clicks on job postings were below the national average.”

It’s early on in the post-pandemic era, but thus far, the GOP claims appear to be false.

https://www.rawstory.com/republican-unemployment-lie/

Axios has taken a good look at the people that are staying home…..https://www.axios.com/high-unemployment-insurance-people-reject-jobs-9e426791-65b6-453b-9803-81aa3d0ca7e7.html

For those with economic tastes here is a deeper dive into the situation from the Morning Consult…..

  • The termination of federal unemployment insurance benefits is likely to produce an estimated 1.84 million jobs through the end of the year, particularly as more UI recipients begin actively looking for work.

  • The U.S. economy will remain roughly 4.7 million jobs short of where it was prior to the pandemic even after workers on unemployment insurance return to working.

  • Most unemployment insurance recipients know that their benefits have started to expire and feel the pressure to find jobs, likely leading them to reduce spending and save a greater share of their benefits as they transition to a more permanent source of income.

Expiring Unemployment Insurance Could Add Up to Nearly 2 Million Jobs This Year

As usual the GOP finds some non-existent problem to demonize for an election….sad part is the American voter is so damn ignorant they will believe the lie and vote accordingly.

The GOP never has a solution of perceived problems….all they ever have is lies, misinformation and finger pointing as well as demonization.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

May Day 2021

AS the weekend begins IST would like to look at the day workers get international recognition for the contributions to society.

Commemoration of the May Day

It is 01 May and the International Workers Day……and May Day has a long history and not all of it deals with the workers…..

The Celts of the British Isles believed May 1 to be the most important day of the year, when the festival of Beltane was held.

This May Day festival was thought to divide the year in half, between the light and the dark. Symbolic fire was one of the main rituals of the festival, helping to celebrate the return of life and fertility to the world.

When the Romans took over the British Isles, they brought with them their five-day celebration known as Floralia, devoted to the worship of the goddess of flowers, Flora. Taking place between April 20 and May 2, the rituals of this celebration were eventually combined with Beltane.

https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/history-of-may-day

But these days the mention of May Day conjures up  visions of the workers and unions and dare I say….socialism.

For me it conjures up memories of the historical event that has become known as the Haymarket Riot….

The Haymarket Riot (also known as the “Haymarket Incident” and “Haymarket Affair”) occurred on May 4, 1886, when a labor protest rally near Chicago’s Haymarket Square turned into a riot after someone threw a bomb at police. At least eight people died as a result of the violence that day. Despite a lack of evidence against them, eight radical labor activists were convicted in connection with the bombing. The Haymarket Riot was viewed as a setback for the organized labor movement in America, which was fighting for rights like the eight-hour workday. At the same time, many in the labor movement viewed the convicted men as martyrs.

https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/haymarket-riot

This event is the beginning of the use of “Anarchy” as something derogatory and synonymous with chaos. (A post to follow soon…..watch for it)….

As typical the powers decided that labor was to blame and since those days they try to dismantle the labor movement….and have been successful to a point….

May Day in the 'city of joy', Kolkata

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Will Workers Be Protected?

This pandemic has shove unemployment up the worker’s butt and broke off……but Congress decided to step in an extend unemployment and try to help save the lives of laid off workers.

The problem is the bill that protected the workers is due to expire on 25 July, the CARES Act…….once it expires will Congress step up and protect workers again or will they decide to screw them hard like they do most of the time?

Some 25 million US workers are facing a reduction or outright elimination of a $600 weekly federal addition to state unemployment benefits when the supplemental payment authorized by Congress under the CARES Act expires on July 25.

In the midst of a raging pandemic and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, with at least 30 million out of work and new jobless claims surpassing one million a week, the supplement is all that has been keeping many families above water. Coinciding with the impending end of a federal moratorium on evictions and the expiration of state moratoriums, the cut in jobless pay will propel millions into destitution and homelessness.

One survey found that 37 percent of renters and 26 percent of homeowners feared they could be homeless by the end of the year. Researchers at Columbia University say they expect US homelessness to increase by 45 percent compared to 2019.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/07/21/pers-j21.html

Since Congress only worries about party politics and could care less of the plight of the workers….I think they will find a way to screw those people that need help (as always)…..even economists see the need to extend the Act even the need to expand it a bit….

Congress is back in session, and it has a weighty task before it — figuring out what to do about the economy as COVID-19 infections spike across the country and states roll back their reopenings. One central point of tension: the $600-per-week supplemental unemployment insurance benefit that was enacted in March as part of the CARES Act and is set to expire on July 31.

Democrats have proposed extending the payment until jobless rates in states fall below a certain threshold. Republicans, meanwhile, are leery of continuing the full payments, saying they will discourage people from returning to work. And it’s true that research has shown that many workers are making more money on the beefed-up benefits than they would be at their old jobs.

Economists Think Congress Should Keep Paying Unemployed Workers $600 A Week — Or Even More

Time to end these damn wars and use the money saved where it is most needed…..in this country to help those that are paying for the wars.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

Closing Thought–01Jul20

But first….the most useless info available…..

01Jul1963…..zip codes were used for the very first time.

We are told by so many that the workers in this country have it made compared to workers in other countries….but just how true is this claim?

Actually…it is a lame ass claim ……

The U.S. has the worst record among major developed countries when it comes to workers’ rights, according to a survey of labor unions.

The world’s largest economy (US) is ranked a 4 in a scale by the International Trade Union Congress, meaning there are “systematic violations of rights.” Every other Group of Seven country ranks 3 or better.

Globally, the ITUC said the situation has worsened for workers, with violations of rights at a seven-year high. The worst region is the Middle East and North Africa, and the organization noted a number of countries have impeded the registration of unions, as well as banned strikes and collective bargaining.

Excluding countries where there are no rights due to a breakdown of the rule of law, the 10 worst in the survey are Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Honduras, India, Kazakhstan, Philippines, Turkey, and Zimbabwe. All are rated 5, for “no guarantee of rights.”

Europe dominates the top-ranked countries for workers, with the list including Sweden, Italy, Netherlands, Ireland and Germany. Uruguay is the only non-European nation in the group.

(Bloomberg)

I have been working to give workers a better life for 40 years….and my work is never been more important than it is today.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Trump On Screwing The People

Even if you are an ardent supporter of Donald the Orange you are about to be bent over and hammered hard by the Trump administration…..

First, those people that are collecting unemployment benefits……

White House Economic Advisor Larry Kudlow made clear that the Trump administration will not allow an extension of emergency jobless aid to workers laid off during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re paying people not to work,” the former Wall Street executive declared. “Almost all businesses,” he said, understand that the additional unemployment benefit “is, in effect, a disincentive” for people to get back to work.

Three months ago, Congress passed the CARES Act. While handing vast sums to big business, it included a $600-per-week emergency payment by the federal government to supplement the far lower state unemployment benefits, which are, for example, capped in Michigan at approximately $350 per week.

More than 20 percent of the US workforce—some 36.5 million people—have been thrown out of work because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/06/16/pers-j16.html

On the retirement front…..how many of my readers will depend on a 401(k) for their retirement?

If you do then you had better read this and understand what will happen to your retirement fund……

With the American public’s attention consumed by the Covid-19 pandemic and mass protests against police brutality, the U.S. Labor Department earlier this month quietly gave corporate sponsors of retirement plans something they’ve been agitating over for years: a government green light to invest workers’ savings into funds managed by notoriously predatory private equity firms.

The move, announced on June 3 by Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, allows large managers of 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts (IRAs) to put workers’ retirement savings into private equity investments that offer the possibility of huge returns—and devastating losses.

U.S. workers “have socked away $6.2 trillion in 401(k) accounts and another $2.5 trillion in IRA accounts.”

“If just 5 percent of the money in these retirement funds were available to private equity,” wrote Appelbaum, “it would be a windfall of $435 billion—real money even to private equity millionaires and billionaires.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/16/leading-us-retirees-lambs-slaughter-trump-labor-dept-quietly-offers-401k-plans

While retirees are pissing and moaning about being locked down and they cannot get a haircut….Donald the Orange and his thieves are being permitted to rape your retirement fund.

And yet he still has some undying support….I question their mental process….as a wise man once said….”you can’t fix stupid” or maybe I should say “stupid is as stupid does”…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”