Author: Olivia

Currently I work in a neighborhood supermarket as a administrative assistant. However for some time now I started to replace another role in which the employee was fired, and things was going fine, but the but the owner of the place (an elderly man who clearly no longer understands his own business) started pushing me to work that is not my job, constantly demanding and even making public complaints to other employees and even customers (all this for a minimum wage, which here in Brazil means nothing). I would like to change jobs, but in this country we have a high unemployment rate and many people accept to work for minimum conditions and even below, and I depend on money to help my family. I would like to raise the discussion of how people from underdeveloped countries and with high unemployment can fight for more dignified working conditions and a…

So, I see the idea of a general strike tossed around a lot on the internet, and I'm kinda curious. What's stopping everyone from actually organizing one in some way. To be clear, I am not particularly skilled at organization nor am I a very influential person, but I feel like with the amount of organizers and people who are skilled in this way, we could very seriously set dates and make a framework for local organizers to do the more local detailed organizing and setting up things like strike funds. If we put our heads and voices together I feel like it'd be achievable and we may be able to make real change. Sorry that this is a bit rambly, I'm not great with words, but I just wanted to put it out there.

My employer makes all hourly and salaried employees sign a yearly contract that states we have to pay $3k if we quit before the end of the school year. Thus several people want to quit due to a toxic work environment, but feel like they cannot because no one makes that much in a month or more of work. I will never sign a contract again with such a red flag. It’s really sick that an employer would trap people like this. Edit: the contract states that it is for “liquidated damages, intended to represent estimated actual damages and are not intended as a penalty” lol