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[hector13]

I have a Facebook friend that suggests otherwise.

[Karnewarrior]

If I recall that's what she said, although in nicer words.  For what it's worth, I agree with you, but that's the kind of thing that didn't engender support for her among those affected.

The alternative would be to pledge that the government would support a dying industry just for them, or lie, but here we are I guess.

I'd rather just straight up tell them I have no interest in propping up the coal industry, and that my attention would be focused instead on constructing a safety net strong enough for them to get educated for and land a different, more modernized job.

But yeah, people get real fuckin' attached to what they do (even a shitty job like mining coal), to the point where they're willing to tank the economy just to keep a small fraction of the population doing something. You can't really win with those kinds of people, because even if you try to help them the Free Market is going to come down on them like a ton of bricks and hit you in the process.

Assuming we still have a country in 2 more years, I certainly hope the pupulace is not so gullible to elect orange idiot for 4 more years.

Most of his supporter base is the sort to simply dismiss all evidence that he's not perfect as Liberal propaganda, and because they believe that academia has been infiltrated and subverted by liberal interests, there's no way to convince them because the only evidence they accept is evidence that agrees with them. If you turned Rush Limbaugh around to talk about how Trump was a traitor to America, people would just stop listening to Rush because he's obviously been bought by communists.

[wierd]

re: Coal

The issue is not so much "coal".  The issue is "I used to be able to make a living-- a GOOD living-- with nothing but hard physical work that nearly anyone can do."  is being replaced with "Now I have to go into considerable debt to gain an education, that employers may or may not actually honor as being suitable for employment, and my children's futures are in danger because of this."


Coal mining just so happens to be the major vocation that was held in this way.

To win over the "coal" demographic, you have to make it easy for the non-skilled, and non-wealthy to get good paying jobs.  Good luck doing that without some very extensive reforms to how businesses operate, and how senior executives get paid vs low-tier workers get paid.

It's a thing a politician cannot give, without being either a liar, or being suicidal.

[hector13]

Maximum wage tied to how well you pay the people under you.

[wierd]

Here's the short list of things that need to be addressed.

1) Employers need to be transparent on why they declined a job application. (and I mean, actually transparent. No "not a good fit" answers. I'm talking "we dont like XYZ, and you have XYZ on your resume." here.) There also needs to be a system of redress of grievance if they lie about this reason. Yes. that will make it very hard for them to cherry pick. That's the fucking point. Cry me a fucking river.  This will also do wonders for putting nails in the coffin of racism and homophobia in hiring practices.

2) Employers need to get off the crack cocaine of thinking they can outsource entry-level skills building in new hires, and jump straight to "premium talent". (News flash, when all employers do that, NOBODY is getting trained. NOBODY. It's a brick wall to new workers.)

3) Employers need to be beaten with the clue-bat, as regards the huge disparities between executive pay scales and salary/hourly pay scales.

4) "Fiduciary responsibility" needs to be defined in actual law, and not as "Get the most money for investors as possible, by any means possible."

Any one of those things is antithetical to modern corporations, and their power structures.  Modern corporations have more liquid capital than many entire nation's GDP.  Politicians rely on the donations of these corporations to get the exposure and campaign finances they need to run for office.  I think you can see the conflict of interest here.

Like I said.  Either a liar--- or suicidal.

[Lord Shonus]

2,3,and 4 are good ideas. 1 will never work due to the massive number of applications received for every position.

[wierd]

To counter that--- Employers would get fewer "Clearly will never work" applications, if their applicants ACTUALLY KNEW what the employer is actually looking for.

EG-- quality of applicant will improve, because people will know, with confidence, that the employer is not just ghosting the application as a legal smoke screen. (as happens VERY VERY frequently.)

[Il Palazzo]

There will inevitably and commonly going to be situations, where you have more than one candidate with exactly the required skillset. Then you, as an employer, would have to pick one at random or 'by the gut', and what would you then tell the others?
Because if 'you were rejected at random' is a valid reason, then any application can be given that reason, even if the actual reason is e.g. 'you're black' or 'you're too old' or 'I don't like your hair'.

[wierd]

"You were one of X equally qualified applicants. Below is a video of how we determined the selection."

In which, names are put into random drawing, a name is pulled, and it was not theirs.

Which is straight up being honest and transparent, which is what is required here. 


The REAL fear, is that hiring managers getting told "We need X people of FOO demographic!!!" would have to tell applicants that. 
"Sorry white male code monkey, but you aren't a woman, or a minority, so I can't hire you."

As for the "Any reason can be lied about as being the loser of a random drawing"--  Again, legal grounds for grievances by the applicant, if the employer lies. (there's a thing about conspiracies. You can't keep them a secret. It's impossible.)

[Trekkin]

And then you'd come in and tell us how management were idiots for thinking we'd believe a video they made.

[wierd]

Truth exists regardless of if people believe it.

Conspiracies never last very long in secret.

These are both fundamentally true. 

The employers could equally make it a routine practice to broadcast their hiring antics on social media.  In any case, it would still be a major improvement over getting a computer generated thank you note, that says nothing of substance other than that you were rejected--- because HR people are afraid of airing their linens.

[nenjin]

Wouldn't that just drive the already risk averse mindset in to overdrive, if you have to justify why you didn't hire someone and prove it? If the hiring pool is by law a potential mine field of lawsuits, actual hiring would be even more of an obfuscated process of who you know that is connected to the powers that be, so it can sidestep all the nonsense.

Also.....imagine the scenario where you have three candidates, all equally qualified for a position. All are smart, hygienic, reasonably attractive, snappy dressers and positive, pleasant people (at least in the interview.) All the same gender. Let's just make them all the same minority race too, just to eliminate that variable.

One of them is rail thin. One of them is easily 150 pounds overweight. One of them is 9% body fat and clearly works out seriously, has lots of muscle.

You're going to the hire the fitter person, pretty much no matter the job. That's just kind of human nature. By dint of their physique, you already know that candidate #3 has a strong work ethic and is willing to go the distance to achieve what they want, and the simple fact that they're more aesthetically pleasing on average to the other candidates makes them more appealing.

What are you gonna tell candidates #1 and #2? Either or is "body shaming" on some level, and the argument would be made by someone that they've been discriminated against. If you clearly explain that the only difference between them were their bodies and that made the decision, no one would accept that despite it being the truth. They would ask "why do our bodies have anything to do with a job not involving your physical appearance."

Regardless of how much employers are going to pay, and how much they have the labor market by the nuts, hiring is still mostly a meritocracy. Which in theory is a good thing because it's a motivation to be better than other applicants. I'm not saying I would love reform across the whole area, but putting hiring practices under a microscope I don't think would have the pay off you desire.

[smjjames]

it would have been another Clinton in the White House.

I've heard this a lot from family too.  I'm not sure what Bill Clinton did to hurt them so much since they never phrase it as avoiding presidential dynasties.  They just don't like Clintons.  Or Obamas.

The media certainly amplified it by going 'It's gonna be a battle of the dynasties!' early on, with Game of Thrones comparisons* to boot.

*well, okay, one, which was a political cartoon.

re: Coal

The issue is not so much "coal".  The issue is "I used to be able to make a living-- a GOOD living-- with nothing but hard physical work that nearly anyone can do."  is being replaced with "Now I have to go into considerable debt to gain an education, that employers may or may not actually honor as being suitable for employment, and my children's futures are in danger because of this."


Coal mining just so happens to be the major vocation that was held in this way.

To win over the "coal" demographic, you have to make it easy for the non-skilled, and non-wealthy to get good paying jobs.  Good luck doing that without some very extensive reforms to how businesses operate, and how senior executives get paid vs low-tier workers get paid.

It's a thing a politician cannot give, without being either a liar, or being suicidal.

I think you mean it's something a politician cannot give without being called a socialist. You seem to imply that it's an impossible thing to do, but it's not. I don't proclaim to know the ultimate solution, but there are certainly ways and ideas out there to improve and fix things for the "coal" demographic, some of which are going to trigger hair-trigger cries of 'AAAA! COMMUNIST!!!11!!1! *FALLS OFF CLIFF*', some of which aren't but may be politically difficult, and others which aren't neccesarily politically difficult and just require political will and effort.

[nenjin]

The opportunities for them to do something else near their homes have to be there first, and someone likely has to pay to get them the training they need so they can transition in to a new skill set.

Otherwise people will continue to insist that nothing can change, because there is nothing to catch them.

[Hanslanda]

Daily reminder: the vast majority of the poorest US counties vote Republican