Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[McTraveller]

https://twitter.com/scottheins/status/1351527701316853762

Edit: related https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/21/22242676/instacart-firing-every-union-employee-coronavirus-pandemic

It's illegal to do, bu with right-wingers in the whitehouse, they'll get away with it. 4 more years of this now.

I'm not anti-labor, but this is a sensationalist piece... there isn't enough information to determine if the closure of the one single location that had unionized was targeted or if it was really just because it was on the list of unprofitable locations.  I guess maybe you could argue the company could have kept that one open "just because" it was union, closing some other location, and subsidized it from the profitable ones. What good would that serve?

That said, yes, there is not much solidarity any more these days. Most people think "whew I still have my job!" but don't think of why they have a job. It's not just the whims of the Corporate Overlords^TM, it's that enough other people have jobs to keep buying the stuff their employer sells to keep them employed.

[Loud Whispers]

Reminds me of the old aphorism that any Prime Minister or President can come into power with loads of bold new ideas, until some men and women in black suits and ties come into the room with a briefcase and tell them how things are really done. Worse so when you have a President who doesn't even have any new ideas to begin with

[Dostoevsky]

Not that I'm arguing Biden actually can/will fix these issues, but it's not like the government can turn on a dime. He has put some more pro-labor people in significant positions (including at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the gatekeeper of all regulations that traditionally has only been a friend to corporate under Dem and Repub alike), but actually changing regulations takes time, which in turn takes time to yield corporations/groups changing their behaviors.

A large portion of the EOs already signed are changing overall stances or beginning review of prior (or new) actions - only in limited conditions can EOs directly & immediately affect the real world.


In other news, Pelosi will be sending over the article of impeachment on Monday, which I believe means the trial starts on Tuesday.

[nenjin]

Too bad we can't invalidate all his fucking pardons at the same time.

[Frumple]

Some of his pardons were actually okay, for what little it's worth. There were horseshit drug related stuff pardoned on top of the rest of it, just as an example.

Quite a lot of them were pretty fucking heinous, though, yeah.

[anewaname]

Instacart's actions...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The same is true now that has been true in the past...

If you want more in life than economic or actual slavery, you need to have a valued and less-common skill and to prove that skill to people who will support your use of that skill with some form of investment. They will invest you with some degree of power and control and they will exert some degree of power and control over you. Or, you can use force.

Compared to the unions of the past, how valuable are the skills of the Instacart union? That is why this happened. And this is not an endorsement of Instacart's actions...

[voliol]

@anewaname Any skill can be made rare, though enough cooperation and solidarity. That's what unions and (general) strikes are for, promoting the rights of the individual worker by creating artificial scarcities in the workforce.

[Lord Shonus]

Firing the guy that was blocking union protections was literally one of the first actions Bidem took as President

[Bumber]

Antifa rioters in Portland began clashing with police and vandalizing buildings following Biden's inauguration. Targets included the DNC headquarters and the first Starbucks.

[Vector]

Dumbasses.

[Bumber]

Biden put a bust of Cesar Chavez in the Oval Office.
A quote in the linked article says that it shows how Biden is "authentic" and showing concern for Latinos.
Another says that the gesture was meaningful because "it was accompanied by the bill outlining a pathway to legalization for millions of undocumented immigrants."

Ironically, Chavez didn't think very highly of undocumented immigrants.

Senator Chuck Schumer: Trump incited an "erection" against the United States.

[delphonso]

Yeah, whoever is steering Biden knows how that looks and is doing it intentionally. The goal is to get people complacent again, not to make progress. This is the Dems we're talking about, at the end of the day.

I can't beieve they took out the Diet Coke button...

[LordBaal]

Politics... being politics?

[anewaname]

@anewaname Any skill can be made rare, though enough cooperation and solidarity. That's what unions and (general) strikes are for, promoting the rights of the individual worker by creating artificial scarcities in the workforce.

In what ways could the Instacart employee's skills be made more rare?

[Rolan7]

By a general strike, a strike by "a substantial proportion of the total labour force in a city, region, or country".  Basically, if labour of all walks of life agree to boycott the company for its anti-labour practices.  This is why many people suggest that labor unions combine and be less specialized, to increase their power.  Or at least cooperate.