union!

Friday Links

By in Friday Unrelated Information, union!

1. The United Auto Workers Union went on strike at midnight this morning at three plants. As the NY Times reports:

This limited strike… could hamper the automakers because the sites produce some of their most profitable trucks, such as the Ford Bronco sport utility vehicle and the Chevrolet Colorado pickup.

The union has demanded a 40 percent wage increase over the next four years, pointing out that the compensation packages for the chief executives of the three companies have increased about that much, on average, over the last four years.

The UAW president Shawn Fain is my new hero. We absolutely love to see someone saying it like is: “It’s not that we’re going to wreck the economy, we’re going to wreck their economy, the economy that only works for the billionaire class.”

 

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2.  This was cool: Proof of evolution that you can find on your body 

 

3. Thinking about tomatoes yesterday made me realize I haven’t been to a farmers market this year (!) which reminded me of this: There Are Two Types of Farmers Market

Type 1 includes

  • A place for everything, and everything in its place!
  • They’re selling fruits and vegetables from farms
  • In the summer they have a lot of tomatoes
  • Hey, strawberries!
  • Early to bed and early to rise!

The dreaded Type 2? CHAOS! and lavender

  • If you get lost and try to reorient yourself by going back to the table that sells lavender and lavender products? Good fucking luck pal! That is a different table from a separate lavender farm!!! You have been dealt zero aces! They will try to sell you a $40 microwavable aromatherapy neck pillow that does not handle being microwaved very well!

Strike!

By in union!

In news almost as exciting as my new bench max, the Writers’ Guild of America is on strike. I’m not a screenwriter but this one feels pretty close to home, and they’re not asking for anything the people profiting off their work don’t already have.

Vulture talked to a former entertainment lawyer turned journalist about what led to this point and what the consequences could be, and this phrase near the end really struck me:

The most powerful tool labor has is to withhold its labor. The difficulty is that unlike a hammer with a cushion grip, this is more like a knife you have to hold by the blade. It hurts the workers as much as, or perhaps even more than, it hurts the studios.

If you love stories, support writers. Hold the line!

Happy Workers’ Day, Comrades

By in union!

It’s May Day, or International Workers’ Day. How did such a holiday come about? Because people didn’t want to work sixteen hours a day (and ACAB).

According to NPR,

May Day in America was born out of the 8-hour workday movement in 19th-century Chicago. At the time, as the capitalist system gained a foothold in industrial-era America, working-class conditions had worsened. A 16-hour shift wasn’t unusual for workers at the time.

In Chicago, more than 40,000 people went on strike on May 1, 1886; strikes and clashes between protestors and police grew until May 4, when a bomb went off and police started firing into the crowd (the Haymarket affair). Eight anarchists were arrested and convicted with no evidence and four were executed.

To honor the Chicago workers, the International Socialist Conference in 1889 named May Day a labor holiday, birthing what many nations now call International Workers’ Day.

But in the U.S., anti-communist attitudes during the Cold War, as well as opposition to working-class unity, led authorities to suppress May Day’s association with labor movements.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower instead declared May 1 “Law Day” — dedicated to the principles of government under law — and Labor Day is now celebrated in September.

 

Links For Labor Day

By in union!

1. More Instagram:

Can I recommend playing You Are Jeff Bezos to get an idea of how much money that really is?

 

2. Anthropologist David Graeber died this week; I hadn’t read any of his work until now but clearly I need to get the book that came from this essay: “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs”

The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger…And, on the other hand, the feeling that work is a moral value in itself, and that anyone not willing to submit themselves to some kind of intense work discipline for most of their waking hours deserves nothing, is extraordinarily convenient for them.

[…] If 1% of the population controls most of the disposable wealth, what we call ‘the market’ reflects what they think is useful or important, not anybody else.

 

3. Remember: