Author: Olivia

As President’s Day occurs it reminds me of how few people really get these holidays. For those in the executive suites, they get time off, those in blue collar labor, it’s just another day.

The company dinner post reminds me of one that happened to me. This was just over 20 years ago. On 9/11/2001 as a matter of fact. Fortune 50 Company back then. My group of about 20 people (white collar, cube-farm office) was on a field day out of the office for a “team-building day”. Or boss gave us the address to gather at the business of friend of his to “volunteer” to do exterior painting for him. At the beginning of the day he tossed out t-shirts to all of us with his friend’s business name on them, because “we didn’t want to get paint on or own clothes, did we?” 9/11 happened that morning. Our boss was in and out of his buddy's office watching the news, and told us vaguely that something was happening in New York with plane crashes, but he had us keep painting until close…

Get ready for the wall of text Comrades. Gonna try to give some context on my employment and history with this company first before diving into today’s lesson! Long time lurker and labor rights activist reporting in. Gonna try to be neat and thorough here without leaving much out, though I likely will have to due to the length of my employment with this company. I work for a grocery chain in California, it’s unionized but it is a business union whose interests tend to align with management’s, and today I was suspended again. I’m also a college student studying Political Science and Labor Studies. I’ve been employed at this specific store for over 3 years now, since before the pandemic started, and I have been an ardent unionist and leftist for quiet awhile now. Telling people about their rights and how to stand up for themselves is something I’m…

So my girlfriend's been working in retail for a little over a year now. Big multinational corporation that doesn't give a shit about its employees and their mental and physical wellbeing, the usual mess. She spends hours on her feet with unbearable backpain, sometimes coming home crying. Management is aware, they just decide to do nothing about it and to keep hiring new dumbasses slaving away for minimum wage. Prior to quitting she was thinking of how to quit, what to say to her manager, what her reason would be and how to approach it. She has been starting her own company for a while, so she actually had a pretty solid reason to quit in the first place. At the workfloor she addressed the manager and told her: 'Oh hey, can I talk to you for a minute?' The manager, clearly sensing her depressed demeanor for the last x…

First I would sleep for a good two weeks or longer, and let my body recover. And then I would work my ass off creating art and writing books. I would find a safe spot to garden and farm, I would bring in impoverished youth, and I would work so hard to protect them! Not needing to work would give me the energy to work so much harder.

I’ve been a team lead for almost 10 years. And I’m sick and tired of hearing about shitty, weak managers who don’t take care of their teams. If you manage people, EVERY DAY you should be finding ways to: – advocate for fair, thriving wages – proactively do salary reviews – find ways to promote – create psychological safety – demand work/life balance for your team by rejecting unreasonable, arbitrary timelines – create opportunities for growth – help your team find new jobs if your company blows – show empathy at every turn – speak truth to power about retention and salary In the employee/manager power dynamic, YOU have it all. Use it. Show them what a good manager looks like. Help them understand what they should not settle for. Protect them from people who don’t give a shit about them. It doesn’t matter if you’re a middle manager, new…

Just recently seen the post about someone’s coworker basically being ridiculed by the other staff for possibly needing more than 3 days off. Just triggered a horrible memory for me, and needed to share incase it helps others. My ex coworkers and I were quite close, we would hangout outside of work and attend each others weddings/baby showers ect. In one month my grandma died as well as two of my coworkers. We worked at a VERY reputable hospital so I assumed the Union would cover us for the expected three days and then I could call in sick for two. The loss wasn’t that devastating for me and she had be declining for years and was a shell of herself, but my mother was inconsolable. She worked at the same facility as me 7 years prior and told me to take the 3 days and call in sick for…