this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
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My manager sat on a leave request of mine for a week. When I inquired about it, he said it wasn’t a good time, but begrudgingly approved it. I understand why people are not asking. I get 12 days off a year. If I can’t have the days I want, what’s the fucking point of leave?
Remember that violent protests were used in Europe to establish our rights. It's incredibly weird looking to the US from the outside. You have the right to bear arms, specifically to oppose tyranny, yet nobody seems to do so.
TL;DR: American Conservatives have spent millions of dollars since the 70s studying language and ideas and figuring out how to frame every issue from a conservative, pro-capital, pro-business perspective.
Well, you see, back during the 1960's and 1970's there was a huge push in the US against war, against white supremacy, against fascism, against the draft, against segregation, and many other things. Many of the people who currently hold US political offices today were either in the universities and colleges when these protests were ongoing, or were already working as staffers for conservative politicians. They saw what was going on and became determined to never let these things happen again. In 1971 when then Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell mailed a confidential memo to his friends in the US Chamber of Commerce titled: "Attack on American Free Enterprise System" and outlined Powell's concerns re: the youth of the US and the growing sentiments against the Vietnam War. He was worried that our nation's best and brightest were becoming anti business because of our involvemnt in Vietnam. Powell's agenda included getting wealthy conservatives to set up professorships, setting up institutes on and off campus where intellectuals would write books from a conservative business perspective, and setting up think tanks. He outlined the whole thing in 1970. They set up the Heritage Foundation in 1973, and the Manhattan Institute after that.
And now, as the New York Times Magazine quoted Paul Weyrich, who started the Heritage Foundation, they have 1,500 conservative radio talk show hosts. They have a huge, very good operation, and they understand their own moral system. They understand what unites conservatives, and they understand how to talk about it, and they are constantly updating their research on how best to express their ideas.
Now, you might be wondering why progressives haven't done the same thing. There's a systematic reason for that. You can see it in the way that conservative foundations and progressive foundations work. Conservative foundations give large block grants year after year to their think tanks. They say, 'Here's several million dollars, do what you need to do.' And basically, they build infrastructure, they build TV studios, hire intellectuals, set aside money to buy a lot of books to get them on the best-seller lists, hire research assistants for their intellectuals so they do well on TV, and hire agents to put them on TV. They do all of that. Why? Because the conservative moral system has as its highest value preserving and defending the "strict father" system itself. And that means building infrastructure. As businessmen, they know how to do this very well.
Meanwhile, liberals' conceptual system of the "nurturant parent" has as its highest value helping individuals who need help. The progressive foundations and donors give their money to a variety of grassroots organizations. They say, 'We're giving you $25,000, but don't waste a penny of it. Make sure it all goes to the cause, don't use it for administration, communication, infrastructure, or career development.'
Another reason for the lack of liberal response from think tanks in the last few decades is infighting and cultural purity tests: https://theintercept.com/2022/06/13/progressive-organizing-infighting-callout-culture/
That is a good analysis. I think it ignores the obvious components that the conservatives are well funded precicely because conservative dogma is all about protecting the owner class. Wealthy business people are not going to fund efforts to impose progressive taxation, mandatory sick time etc.
Sure there are rich people in the arts who lean liberal at least in public, but they are outnumbered and out-spent by capital owners.
The left will never be able to spend as much on communication so the approach has go be completely different. Using the products of capitalism like social media has been effective. Peer-to-peer organizing is slow but costs little. Tacking pro-worker policies onto the platforms of the otherwise pro-business Democrats as a differentiator has lead to some success.
Reaching the mass media reach of the far right is so difficult to do without the capital backing though. The left really needs to get into the talk radio game. NPR tries but they are inevitably quite centrist.
I think unifying ideology is also much easier a task for conservative thought, because it's all about "F you, got mine." And "Those that aren't us are trying to ruin everything." And "Eat enough leather and maybe you'll get rich lol."
Leftier-leaning stuff has a "unity problem" because it seeks to understand and accommodate the vast spectrum of human experiences and points of view. Not that that's a bad thing, but it's certainly much tougher and more complex to pitch, and rally, and galvanize.
Conservatives are really good at being chill and most importantly simple for the most part at an introductory level, so they recruit a lot, and then slowly work their adherents into raging, scared, insecure violence-fantasists.
A good example is with men. Leftists groups have a serious deficiency in speaking to and empathizing with masculine issues, and are shocked when normally moderate, but wayward, men are happy to just be accepted...then radicalized, by hyper-nationalist conspiracy theorists with a fetish for sharp geometric symbolism...
It's only tyranny if the colored people or the gays do it.
Oh no, we respect the police we'd NEVER!/s yeah. There's a weird dichotomy in the US.
People do on occasion, like there were armed leftists that prevented police from raiding encampments in Texas, and at some protests there have been organized armed groups like John Brown Gun Clubs or Socialist Rifle Associations. Several people that argued for more militant resistance to state violence were murdered in 2020, and many times for decades before that, so a lot of people are scared and not organized sufficiently, but there are groups that have been preparing.
It's completely boggling. The other longer reply nailed it perfectly. But yeah, conservatism is a really weird ideal in that regard.
It's because it's all "anti big government", but usually they're talking about bringing down social safety nets and building up walls.
They're so obsessed with governmental tyranny (even though they're religiously huge fans of police and armed forces...huh?), but they're completely blind to tyranny on smaller levels, on a domestic scale.
So you usually catch them simping for capitalists instead of opposing them.
"Because one day I'll get to wear the boot! 🤡"
I think they see abuse by bosses, landlords, and the ilk as "paying ones' dues" or something. They'll of course have zero compunction about passing on that abuse if they somehow end up in the high-chair.
So basically: "Don't tread on me!*
*...Unless you're my boss. I'm happy I'm at least free to choose my own tyrant among an infinite number of other tyrants, and I'll ~~die~~ talk a really big game to make sure everyone is exploited by private interests instead of government ones!"
There's for-the-people groups like Socialist Rifle Association but they're smaller in comparison.
Heck, gun-fever and the NRA are basically all private marketing schemes to begin with.
People bragging about not taking their PTO days are quite common in the work place. I always like to remind them that it's a compensation and part of their contract. Then I brag that this month, I didn't asked to be paid because I'm dedicated worker like them. It makes them look stupid.
And manager being difficult when requesting PTO are horrible. Because it's their job to manage staffing. They should understand the concepts explained above. But they don't, they are probably the kind of people bragging about "working a lot"
My last job it was really difficult to use PTO because we were always kept short staffed and there were only like 2 or 3 PTO "slots" a day and less on weekends. During the summer if you didn't get your request in months ahead it was practically impossible and forget about getting a whole week. One of many reasons I left was dealing with that shit.
I knew a guy who never took vacation. First dude they laid off.
While it's not the area I ended up working in, I learned in accounting school that the employees who never take vacation are held as highly suspicious. People who are in a position to skim off the top tend to never take days off so nobody gets opportunity to see what they're doing.
As to me personally, I remember one year taking all the PTO that was due to me and getting shit on in writing at evaluation time for doing so.
The following year I took zero PTO and got shit on in writing at evaluation time for doing so.
I went to management with copies of both evaluations and said, "since you're gonna shit on me in writing at evaluation time regardless of what I do, you can expect me to take every minute of PTO going forward."
They were at a loss for words and just found other reasons to shit on me in writing at evaluation time.
I spent five and a half years in that environment.
Never again. Not for any amount of money.
I've been with this company long enough for to get 15 vacation days a year and 7 personal days even still I have to compete with 300 some people for those days off and only 2 are allowed on any given day and none are approved in the summer if they weren't requested a year in advance. I'd be happy to not take all the pto if the company would just pay me out for those days at the end of the year or let them keep rolling over but it's a use it or lose it situation.
So when we switched over to the unlimited PTO scam, there was an option to get paid out for the PTO you had accrued. Naturally I was like two hours short of the threshold, so at the end of the year, around December fifth or so, I was like, "later bitches! See ya in January!" and there was nothing they could do about it. It was beautiful.
In the US the manager’s job regarding staffing is to continually do more work with less people as much as possible to make the bean counters happy.
I'm a remote worker, and work on a pretty free and respected team. I found out the hard way that our PTO accrual expires at the end of the calendar year and starts from 0 on Jan 1. I haven't submitted leave requests this year. but i have taken time off that i've run by my team.
I would check whether that's actually legal in your area, if I were you.