The new U.S. labor movement

Discussion in 'Politics' started by GeneWright, Dec 9, 2021.

  1. GeneWright

    GeneWright Well-Known Member

    "Nobody wants to work anymore"

    "The Great Resignation"

    "Occupy Wall Street"

    "$15/hour now"

    "Tax the rich"

    Over the past few decades, there has been a growing labor movement in the United States. Covid seems to have kickstarted that movement into high gear with strikes on John Deere winning for employees, Kellogs facing a massive strike currently, and Starbucks employees winning the vote for their forst unionized store in America just hours ago as of writing this post.

    Workers are demanding fair treatment and unionization is popularizing. There is a massive and growing online community called "antiwork" with over 1.3 million members on reddit where workers share stories of exploitation and encourage each other to quit and seek better opportunities. Unintentionally, my wife and I are a part of this movement by quitting high paying skilled jobs to leave the labor force entirely for a new country.

    What really characterizes this movement is 3 points:

    1. Questioning work authority on fair treatment and wages: if a cost of living adjustment doesn't keep up with inflation, pointing out this is effectively a pay cut. Absolutely speak to co-workers about wages.

    2. Unionization and solidarity: teaching friends and family about how to unionize their workplace, as well as not supporting companies currently undergoing strikes. To that end I would encourage you all to stay away from Kellogg's products.

    3. Perhaps most important, workers are realizing they have the power in a workplace. It's their labor that actually generates income. Due to labor shortages, employees are learning it's impossible for their bosses to fire them, allowing them more comfort in demanding better treatment. To enhance this, workers are being encouraged to threaten quitting and actually do it when their bosses don't relent. One area this has had a huge impact in, jobs that can be done remotely. Workers don't want to go back to the office and covid showed them they don't have to in order to be productive.

    It has been interesting to watch this movement unfold. Has anyone else noticed these changes in culture taking place? What are your thoughts?
     
  2. StankyBoy

    StankyBoy Well-Known Member

    I don't care as long as people are actually making an effort, both to improve where they are, or to find a new position. The handouts are out of control, though, and I know aplenty who have no qualms about sucking off unemployment. I have family who will feed off of the teat of Democrats until the spicket's supply is cut.
     
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  3. toughcoins

    toughcoins Rarely is the liberal viewpoint tainted by realism


    My thoughts?

    When I'm evaluating equally qualified job applicants, those who have a gaping hole in their verifiable employment history during these difficult times will be taking a back seat to other applicants who worked through them.
     
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  4. ddddd

    ddddd Well-Known Member

    The issue might be that you have little to no choice. I'm not sure how long this will last but currently there are very few candidates to hire. If things start to stabilize, your method would be valid again.
     
  5. GeneWright

    GeneWright Well-Known Member

    That actually will be tough as well. I see a lot of people in those groups encouraging people to lie on their resumes and offering to pretend to be professional references for each other. How would you know if a candidate had done this?
     
  6. toughcoins

    toughcoins Rarely is the liberal viewpoint tainted by realism

    I wasn’t referring to hiring right now. I was talking about all hiring, now and well into the future.

    The current “leveraging” of circumstance comes at a cost, and will leave indelible scars upon the records of the short-sighted.

    Like price-gouging gas stations during an evacuation, or the hoarder of hand sanitizer at the onset of COVID, such actions will draw both the recognition of and the ire of those impacted by them.
     
  7. toughcoins

    toughcoins Rarely is the liberal viewpoint tainted by realism

    I wrote “verifiable”, and human resource departments, accounting departments and taxpayer records don’t so easily cover the tracks as do networks of ne’er-do-wells.

    Regarding those who would cover for their work-shunning cohort, the practice you described won’t last long. Once such lying is discovered, professional liability will follow those who compromised their integrity, and they too will have labeled themselves.
     
  8. GeneWright

    GeneWright Well-Known Member

    Ah yes, you are right. The philosophy is to not work for anyone asking for those level of details. Alternatively, agree to give references if the employer will give you contact info of the last 3 people who had the job. A company isn't worth working for if it's previous employees can't vouch for them as a good place to work. To my knowledge, very few employers are giving references like this, but it's nice to see the script of interviews start to flip to "why should I sell my labor to you?"
     
  9. toughcoins

    toughcoins Rarely is the liberal viewpoint tainted by realism

    Good luck with that. In my experience, substandard workers are more common than substandard employers.

    By the way, giving references only makes prospect evaluation more convenient, not more reliable, and this fact is not lost on HR departments. I’ve told them before that I wanted permission to call insiders at past employers on applicant’s resumes rather than references on job applications, and was permitted to do so. That spared us hiring a couple of candidates who looked too good to be true, and likely were.


    At the rate things are going, one will be lucky to find companies to work for at all, let alone employers feeling compelled to attract workers that might otherwise go to their competition.

    This opportunistic, pandemic-dependent war on private enterprise has run too long, and most companies are irretrievably depleted, struggling to emerge as one of far fewer survivors in their respective markets. What many don’t realize is that, as competitive companies fall by the wayside, the ability of job seekers to leverage multiple employer’s needs for the same industry-specific skills is rapidly disappearing.

    The goose is being consumed, and the eggs soon will be no more.


    As opposed to, “Why should I hire you over someone who chose not to live off the efforts of others during the same difficult times?”
     
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  10. GeneWright

    GeneWright Well-Known Member

    I do get what your saying. The mentality seems to be that companies who cannot afford to treat their employees well were never truly competitive and only exist through exploitation of labor.

    Some answers to this eventuality, should we arrive on it, include collective bargaining. Or if the employers here simply aren't competitive enough, leaving for opportunities in other countries.
     
  11. toughcoins

    toughcoins Rarely is the liberal viewpoint tainted by realism

    Yeah . . . basically, the dregs of the employers attract the dregs of those willing to work. They deserve each other.

    The problem now is that good workers are looking for more concessions than are reasonable and, when the dust finally settles, they will find themselves out in the cold.


    Here I vehemently disagree . . . in order for collective bargaining to be fair, so should collusion between employers. Both are unacceptable in my mind.
     
    Last edited: Dec 10, 2021
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  12. GeneWright

    GeneWright Well-Known Member

    I definitely agree with you there. So long as an employer is good to their employees they shouldn't have issues. One thing I've noticed is different between now and the past, job hopping is common in my generation. Loyalty isn't rewarded half as well as starting a new job every few years.

    So you don't like unions? In my mind, the base state of employees dealing with employers is unfairly stacked against the individual. The employer can create and use competitition between their employees to buy their labor as cheaply as possible. When workers have solidarity with each other, it gets better for all the employees. Ultimately the power is still in the hands of those paying the bills, the owner class employers, but collective bargaining creates a more equal playing field.
     
  13. Mopar Dude

    Mopar Dude Well-Known Member

    I have seen it from both sides and here’s what I know having seen this dynamic from either side….. The employee side of the equation does not have the benefit of seeing the larger picture. There is a sound reason that a person that stays employed in one business, masters their trade and becomes profitable to the business earns more. If I am hamstrung continually hiring and training new people, it costs my business and all my staff. I just divvied up 50k in Christmas bonuses between seven people. Those that have been with me and bring more to the table received the larger slice of that pie.

    Fact is, when I see a resume that shows five different employers in three years time, I will not hire them….. It is simple economics. If my business is earning more, I am giving more to those that work for me. The employer/employee relationship only works when both sides are working towards the same goal. If you are working and all about yourself, you will not reach your best earning potential and a labor union will not change that dynamic for you.
     
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  14. toughcoins

    toughcoins Rarely is the liberal viewpoint tainted by realism

    Bullseye, MD.
     
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  15. toughcoins

    toughcoins Rarely is the liberal viewpoint tainted by realism

    I also have little sympathy for these rigid, spoiled brat, "remote or bust" workers who, in the event of a lasting internet collapse, would likely watch their careers dissolve before their eyes, rather than adapting with the on-site workforces which could more quickly pick up the pieces and move forward.

    Those "they need me more than I need them" workers are woefully unprepared to survive such circumstances, let alone the potential loss of current tools . . . needing to resort to hand calculations instead of industry-specific software packages, drawing board and T-square in lieu of 3D modeling software, microscopes versus digital magnification, hand scheduling rather than letting MRP software do it, sneaker-net versus email, etc.

    There are crutches everywhere we look, and too many people were unwilling to maintain the skills / processes upon which those modern tools were built. It's entirely possible that no such event will ever occur, but the fact is that there are some who decided to maintain their "obsolete" capabilities while learning to use the newest tools . . . the others could be in for quite a sour ride.
     
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  16. charley

    charley Well-Known Member


    Good Lord.....
     
  17. GeneWright

    GeneWright Well-Known Member

    Oh man, if the internet goes down for any lasting period, it's over. The reason these people are "remote or bust" is that 90% of their job is done on the internet or a computer anyway, and it doesn't matter what physical location they do it in.

    If the internet goes down we lose all e-commerce, most communication, infrastructure running via remote databases, and so forth. Strange how dependent we are on it, given many of you vividly remember a time before it. However I believe losing the internet for a lasting period would spell societal collapse at this point.
     
  18. toughcoins

    toughcoins Rarely is the liberal viewpoint tainted by realism

    Ye, of little faith . . .
     
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  19. toughcoins

    toughcoins Rarely is the liberal viewpoint tainted by realism

    Labor unions are the bastion of the parasitic work culture. Slackers convince productive workers to go along to get along. But the members who work hardest know who they are . . . and they know who the parasites are. They don't like it, but they put up with it. It's high time they respect themselves, and break with the unions . . . for their own good, and for the good of the nation.
     
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  20. GeneWright

    GeneWright Well-Known Member

    But with many unionized jobs, the upward mobility was limited from the start. Going back to early unions like coal miners, the guy who mined the most coal wasn't suddenly going to become cheif coal miner. And he was just as likely to be horribly injured or killed on the job as the lazy guy next to him. It was only once theybstood together that concessions were made to support the livelihood and safety of everyone. To the modern era, though not unionized (yet), what good has being the best factory worker at amazon done anyone? We shall see how this plays out with the recent union victories at starbucks locations.

    One point that I think meets you in the middle a bit, it's not like this at every business, especially small businesses. Which is why it's rare to see unions pop up at small businesses, it wouldn't make any sense as you have direct access to the owner and their attention/care. We don't need unions for 99% of businesses, but we do need them for 99% of workers that work at 1% of businesses (don't quote those numbers)
     

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