321–330 of 339 posts
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Last year Verizon workers had a strike. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_strike_of_2016 It affected many of our circuit orders around that time and caused us to go with different last mile carriers.
The Verizon strikers would regularly blast air horns outside my home and office. Extremely annoying, and apparently legal. Made me lose my sympathy for them real quick.
Happy to hear workers are standing up for themselves. The anti-union FUD campaign in the US has contributed significantly to the erosion of middle class wages over the past 50 years (check out Thomas Piketty's work if you're curious about this).
Erosion of Middle Class "may" have started long before, but it rapidly took off after 2008. ( There are Middle Class / Level wages, but those wages dont put them in Middle Class anymore )* The way I see it, is either Government protect their Workers and working class with benefits and wages, Like what many parts of Europe have done or they allow Union to do it. And i know this is considered an extremely unpopular opi…
German here.
At this point, I think it's not yet a problem comparable to the US, but there is rising (perhaps overblown, but certainly not unfounded) fear of a social decline among the middle class.
Remember, the German employment environment (I'm struggling to find a good word) is different from the US. Trades are stronger and more respected, university education is free, social systems offer more protection (but only from outright poverty, not from social decline).
So the pressures are probably not felt a sharply. But there is growing worry.
Same happened in Germany at 6 Amazon logistic sites at Oct 31, one of the biggest german holidays. https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Verdi-ruft-an-drei-d... They even have their own website: https://www.amazon-verdi.de/
What effort people take to work at an obviously toxic company... the job market must be really bad.
There is no general labour shortage in germany right now. 2 million foreigners are getting unemployment payments right now, which is ~1.000 Euros per month (housing included). In addition, 7 million german people are out of work.
All in all i guess we have ~10 million people waiting in lines for more work or work at all.
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It's not crazy in a civilized country. They're not slaves, you know..?
But the people paying them are slaves, and can be forced to continue paying them for nothing?
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> So you can't really opt out. Unless of course you go and work for companies who don't sign the EBA Actually there is a better way. The better way is to do everything in your power as a worker and citizen to prevent the union from being formed in the first place. Either at YOUR company, or at any others, even if you don't work there. As well as by pushing for any law that reduces the power of unions. A union can't f…
And what incentive do collective groups have to do that? I struggle to understand why people would act against their own self-interests to undermine their own rights and pay. Did you know that global wage growth is being outstripped by inflation? What good does crippling unions do? You think it's useful for large portions of the community to be on stifled wages and bad working conditions? Unions are less powerful in…
Because we do not want the union "benefits" that aren't really benefits.
We do not want another group controlling our workplace or forcing us into horrible, one size fits all, collective bargaining agreements. We want to be allowed to negotiate for ourselves.
We do not want gigantic barriers to entry, meant only to discriminate against people who couldn't afford to buy a fancy 4 year piece of paper.
We do not want discrimination against young people (ie, seniority pay requirements) forced into our contracts. We want to be judged equally on our own merits.
We do not want to be stuck in an organization that we can basically never get rid of once it is established.
I believe that I am way better off without any union forcing me to join.
And apparently a whole lot of other people ALSO agree with me.
We believe that it is very much in the self interest of workers to prevent unions from destroying our industry with overbearing rules and regulations that prevent us from doing our job.
This is not some rare, weird, opinion that I hold. This is the MAJORITY opinion. Unions are less popular than ever, because we the workers don't want them.
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So basically, they're saying Amazon is straight up lying about their wages being the highest in the sector.
According to a link that someone else posted [1] (Sorry but it's in Italian), they get about 1200 EUR/month (this is net income after taxes, compulsory health insurance and retirement fees). I guess that Amazon is applying the national contract for the commerce sector [2] (PDF, this too in Italian) and the amount is supposed to be about 1250 EUR (you should consider the lower amount, which is what probably applies to…
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Serious consideration is being given to driverless cars so why not similarly upgrade all trains for situations far less demanding than public roads?
It's rolling in slowly. Many London lines are automated. Trains in Singapore are all automated and rarely ever have drivers. London will get to that point after they replace the existing train stock. Driverless cars can't match the volume of trains: http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-sol...
The new deep-level stock (i.e., New Tube for London) is specified to be able to be retrofitted with GoA 4 equipment (i.e., "there are no staff on the train, driver, attendant, or otherwise"), but will start out as GoA 2 (Victoria, Central, Northern, and Jubilee lines are already fitted and run as such with their existing stock).
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> You aren't interested in the service, fine. Not if unions get a foothold in my industry, then it won't be "fine". If that happens then they will be able to implement rules and regulations that force me to join them. And yes, there ARE movements to get the tech industry unionized (they aren't very popular, Fortunately). No thanks. I'm a not going to let my industry be ruined like that. I'd rather stop all of that in…
You have zero awareness of class struggles or how much of a chump you're being to the owner o capital. And I don't even have a pinch of Marxism in me.
I can fight for my self better on my own, thank you very much. I do not want an organization, forcing me to join them and forcing me to agree with their opinions "for my own good", because I don't know any better.
I will negotiate, and fight the capitalist class, using the ways that I feel are best, and not through a coercive organization that is only looking out for themselves.
If unions were so great, then they wouldn't need to make everyone join them. They would stand on their own merits. I do not want their "benefits".
And because unions refuse to be voluntary, my only option is supporting the anti-union movements that make them powerless nationwide. They can't force me to join if they are universally powerless.
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And what incentive do collective groups have to do that? I struggle to understand why people would act against their own self-interests to undermine their own rights and pay. Did you know that global wage growth is being outstripped by inflation? What good does crippling unions do? You think it's useful for large portions of the community to be on stifled wages and bad working conditions? Unions are less powerful in…
> And what incentive do collective groups have to do that? Because we do not want the union "benefits" that aren't really benefits. We do not want another group controlling our workplace or forcing us into horrible, one size fits all, collective bargaining agreements. We want to be allowed to negotiate for ourselves. We do not want gigantic barriers to entry, meant only to discriminate against people who couldn't aff…
"The union protects and improves Members' wages and conditions. Our successful bargaining campaigns continue to deliver fair wages and better conditions like superannuation, site allowances, redundancy pay and income protection. In the year 2000 this branch of the CFMEU won the 36 hour week, giving workers 26 paid days off a year."
Also get 5% YOY pay rises, which allows wages to stay in line with inflation instead of stagnating. You're being naive with your comments IMO, ignoring the reality of the matter and trying to pitch us into a "everyone's different and should be able to negotiate" which has been shown to be damaging. How much data do you need to see about stagnating wage growth and consistently growing executive wages to see that this "we don't need unions" argument is ignorant of the truth?
> We do not want another group controlling our workplace or forcing us into horrible, one size fits all, collective bargaining agreements. We want to be allowed to negotiate for ourselves.
http://www.epi.org/blog/strengthening-collective-bargaining-...
http://www.epi.org/publication/how-todays-unions-help-workin...
You can believe what you want, you do realise that most of them don't FORCE you to join, but you will likely just be treated like a leech, which is appropriate.
Please provide some data for your claims because I'm straight up gonna say you're wrong on the majority of your points.
> We believe that it is very much in the self interest of workers to prevent unions from destroying our industry with overbearing rules and regulations that prevent us from doing our job.
This one (and a few of your other comments strike a nerve) because I think that you have the entire purpose of unions confused, unions are there to provide workers, me and you, your parents, normal non-1%ers, an opportunity to get a fairer distribution of the pie, not ALL of the pie, just what is fair. If you actually provided some concrete examples of industries where you don't think the unions should be, I could have easily pulled data up on their profits, compared it to their workers wages, and it would be a lot easier to make the point that most companies can afford to pay workers better wages, which is a win-win for everyone, the idea that if I work at McDonalds, and am an enterprising individual, and ask for a pay rise vs my other workers, is laughable, why would they bother? They've crushed dissenters, and now because of the shit conditions you work in, they'll just fire you and grab someone who doesn't ask for better conditions. It's an incentive disparity, companies have no interest in paying workers more.
For example:
https://twitter.com/VirginTrains/status/881138129176014848
Here's a good one, ITT they acknowledged that they understaff consistently and expect workers to be able to work their rest days so they can keep staffing requirements low. Then naturally, it's the workers fault when they actually take their rest days.
Man, the more I read this comment, the more I think you're just trolling.
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They are basically saying that they talked with Amazon management and they were open to listen but not to act in order to raise their salaries and add bonuses. The reasons why they are asked it's because they have to work nights, Sundays and have forced overtime. The economy in Italy is really bad, most of my friends don't have jobs and those who do usually have ones who are just average pay (18k euros/year). From wh…
He works 37 hours at a stretch 6 days a week?