enframed wrote:A newer thing with larger retail chains like Bed Bath, Pier 1, etc., is to have their employees be scheduled for certain shifts and "on call" for others. If at any time during that on call period they get called they are expected to show up, and they are not paid anything for the time on call. Total fucking bullshit.Agreed 100%. Total fucking bullshit.

Gramsci wrote:sitwell wrote:enframed wrote:A newer thing with larger retail chains like Bed Bath, Pier 1, etc., is to have their employees be scheduled for certain shifts and "on call" for others. If at any time during that on call period they get called they are expected to show up, and they are not paid anything for the time on call. Total fucking bullshit.Agreed 100%. Total fucking bullshit.I noticed this with my brother in law in the US. He works in property management and they put him "on call" during weekends, not paid. Basically if a tenant has an issue on the weekend and they call him he has to deal with it... but still isn't paid. He can't go out for a drink, can be away from his phone, in fact he has to sit in front of his laptop because emails count as "calls"... how can employers get away with that?Labor is so fucked up in the US. Pretty soon everyone will have a 36hr/week "part time" job that is actually 50hr/week.

WASHINGTON ” President Obama s innovative, take-no-prisoners campaigns crafted an elite force of operatives, skilled in the political arts. Now that they re done helping Obama, however, it appears they have a new goal: weakening and defeating organized labor.http://www.buzzfeed.com/jacobfischler/w ... rs#3qdfnp1

Fascinating article. Trump s Showdown With Manufacturer Exposes Obama s Weakness on Outsourcinghttps://theintercept.com/2016/11/29/tru ... tsourcing/And since I'm here, a few more recent labor stories to catch my eye: The Standing Rock Splithttps://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/10/stan ... or-trumka/Labor Leaders Deserve Their Share of the Blame for Donald Trump s Victoryhttp://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/1 ... ps\_victoryOn the brighter side, Labor for Standing Rock is so encouraging: https://www.facebook.com/Labor-For-Stan ... 3268109852My friends who were at Standing Rock have been telling me about this Chicago carpenter they met (I posted a video he made on the Standing Rock thread) and how he was part of a rank-and-file movement within his union local to retake the executive, and then they were put down, and now there's a bunch of Trump supporters dominating his local, and he's really isolated, but he's still fighting the good fight. Drove out through terrible road conditions as part of Labor for Standing Rock, worked for two days straight building flooring and winter structures, sleeping in the back of his pickup, and then drove back to Chicago, where his union is being threatened from within by ignorant shits.

sitwell wrote:Gramsci wrote:sitwell wrote:enframed wrote:A newer thing with larger retail chains like Bed Bath, Pier 1, etc., is to have their employees be scheduled for certain shifts and on call for others. If at any time during that on call period they get called they are expected to show up, and they are not paid anything for the time on call. Total fucking bullshit.Agreed 100%. Total fucking bullshit.I noticed this with my brother in law in the US. He works in property management and they put him on call during weekends, not paid. Basically if a tenant has an issue on the weekend and they call him he has to deal with it... but still isn't paid. He can't go out for a drink, can be away from his phone, in fact he has to sit in front of his laptop because emails count as calls... how can employers get away with that?Labor is so fucked up in the US. Pretty soon everyone will have a 36hr/week part time job that is actually 50hr/week.I would say that you're underestimating just how bad things could get, FM sitwell. Outright slavery, debtor's prisons and all other nasty sorts of things are coming unless people really wake up and revolt.The events of this past year seem to offer hope that people at least inchoately recognize this eventuality and will not have it.

Heaven is in your beard wrote:Reading article after article about the awful treatment of Amazon workers has made me appreciate how lucky I am to be working in a public sector job where certain rights are still legally guaranteed. It's true that a few individual unions may have been prone to corruption and undemocratic practices - but such is the way of any large bureaucratic organisation, and I'd much rather have to put up with the occasional rogue administrator or treasurer than live in a world where employers can treat their workers however they like. So as a concept, very much Not Crap.Yeah, the Amazon shit is something. I work as a public sector union organizer in Canada and just got back to my hotel room after an organizing meeting with some municipal workers in a tiny "city" (pop: 10K) in Saskatchewan. There was a worker at the meeting tonight, probably mid 40s, with no union experience who casually mentioned that he'd broken his arm on the job, come back to work with limited mobility, and was then threatened with being fired for not being able to work properly. There was a pretty anti-union worker there, pushing back against the people who wanted to organize, who kept insisting that it was every individual's responsibility to advocate for themselves. As others spoke up about the arbitrary authority of supervisors and management, and how speaking out and asking for accountability made them afraid for their jobs, she kept insisting that everyone should just fend for themselves. Neoliberal ideology is a trip.

Reading article after article about the awful treatment of Amazon workers has made me appreciate how lucky I am to be working in a public sector job where certain rights are still legally guaranteed. It's true that a few individual unions may have been prone to corruption and undemocratic practices - but such is the way of any large bureaucratic organisation, and I'd much rather have to put up with the occasional rogue administrator or treasurer than live in a world where employers can treat their workers however they like. So as a concept, very much Not Crap.

Andrew. wrote:Heaven is in your beard wrote:Reading article after article about the awful treatment of Amazon workers has made me appreciate how lucky I am to be working in a public sector job where certain rights are still legally guaranteed. It's true that a few individual unions may have been prone to corruption and undemocratic practices - but such is the way of any large bureaucratic organisation, and I'd much rather have to put up with the occasional rogue administrator or treasurer than live in a world where employers can treat their workers however they like. So as a concept, very much Not Crap.Yeah, the Amazon shit is something. I work as a public sector union organizer in Canada and just got back to my hotel room after an organizing meeting with some municipal workers in a tiny "city" (pop: 10K) in Saskatchewan. There was a worker at the meeting tonight, probably mid 40s, with no union experience who casually mentioned that he'd broken his arm on the job, come back to work with limited mobility, and was then threatened with being fired for not being able to work properly. There was a pretty anti-union worker there, pushing back against the people who wanted to organize, who kept insisting that it was every individual's responsibility to advocate for themselves. As others spoke up about the arbitrary authority of supervisors and management, and how speaking out and asking for accountability made them afraid for their jobs, she kept insisting that everyone should just fend for themselves. Neoliberal ideology is a trip. Oh dear. That's exactly the kind of divide-and-rule politics that keeps non-unionised workforces compliant , in which individual employees are effectively silenced by the constant, implicit fear of being sacked if they dare complain. And yes, the case of the employee with the broken arm that you mentioned typifies the kind of conditions we'd all be forced to work under if unions had never existed. I did once have a manager at my workplace who was strongly anti-union (and a bully, quite frankly) but out of the blue she was suddenly told by human resources that she'd have to either accept a lower paid position or leave. She left. Whilst I wasn't party to all the behind-the-scenes machinations that lead to her getting the chop I know that she'd ruffled quite a few other people's feathers apart from mine and I suspect that HR had received complaints about her that behaviour that forced their hand. That wouldn't have happened at Amazon or Sports Direct.

The thing I fear most as a labor organizer happened yesterday. The lead inside worker in an organizing drive got fired. The union I work for is going to back him up and take it to the Labour Relations Board, but it's two weeks before Christmas, he's a young father with two kids, and he just got canned for trying to form a union.

My own work experience is quite small, so I can't comment on the day-to-day dealings of unions. Overall though, Not Crap in the slightest.I consider myself lucky to have been born in a place with a traditionally powerful labour movement, translating into strong unions and a secure job environment in general. Sweden notably has no miminum wage, leaving wages to be set by collective agreement.This success however is in part of course due to the major unions being tied to the Soc-Dem party, which is why it has also been a mixed blessing. The modus operandi eventually agreed upon was one of cozy compromise: Companies agree to pay good wages and benefits while the party agrees to choosing negotiation over conflict and preventing workers from getting too radical - The Swedish Model, as it is known. While far be it from me to denigrate guaranteed fair working conditions, it did mean that the party and the unions has in some ways acted as a damper on an active labour movement. This is probably a common scenario.The past two decades has seen the entrance of employment agencies (previously outlawed) and the sneaking in of workfare-type programs to which any labour leader with self-respect would call for nationwide factory occupations, but which were met with hardly more than a few grumbles.There was a really retarded incident some years ago where the chairwoman of LO (the organization comprising all the Soc-Dem unions) was photographed carrying a Louis Vuitton bag. Comments in the media ran Does this show a lack of solidarity with the working class? and stupid shit like that. I was thinking Maybe her six figures a month salary is the bigger problem? Doesn't take a genius to figure out that it might create a conflict of interests.So yeah, it's complicated.