Author: Olivia

Unions used to have vibrant, militant leftist factions that brought the vigor, courage, and zeal to fight like hell for the best working conditions and wages; it were these radical militants utilizing direct action that helped secure the economic prosperity of the post-WW2 Boomer era. However, the red scare and anti-communist witch hunts of the 50's drove out most members of these factions from unions, which resulted in many unions, run by moderates, to become weak and complacent, prone to fighting with each other over jurisdictions and neglecting the workers who voted for them. We saw this in the John Deere strike, we see this in the unionized grocery stores with the shit pay and constant struggling of grocery workers throughout the US, we see it in the decline of unions in general and the cowardice/resistance one usually faces in the labor movement when they suggest labor actions that aren't…

Just adding this here, because I think I’ll find some people have a similar story. I used to work at a “production facility” which packaged and shipped COVID test kits. I won’t name the company due to sub rules, but just know it’s one of the big ones. I was supposed to start my shift at 3pm today. 3pm-11:30pm. I got a call from the shift manager saying that they were shutting down the production facility and laying everyone off at 1:45pm. This was today(Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022). Luckily for me I was able to find another job, but that isn’t that goddamn point. They let us go AN HOUR before our shift was supposed to start. I was already driving to work when I got the call. Per the rules of my “employment contract”, I was supposed to give them a full week’s notice before I quit. They gave…

My boss (m) has been verbally abusing a coworker (m) consistently in the time I’ve worked for company 2.5 yrs. It has been escalating to an extreme lately. Yesterday he hit the coworker. Who should I call? This is in California. The coworker has come to work with injuries on the face in the past but I cannot confirm this was also from the boss although I suspect it might be.

I work in a small local owned restaurant owned by a retired parole officer his daily habits include staying at the restaurant's bar and drinking until about 7pm the days he gets too far down the bottle he decides that is a good day to yell and nit pick every single food order that comes out of the kitchen. His tantrums include throwing food against the wall then commanding that someone in an already busy kitchen clean it up, yelling at the supervisor about the items on his menu. The point where he was dumb enough to try to guilt trip me after a miscommunication where i didn't have the ability to clock in and still worked, then when payday came i had to tell them to get me my check. Argument followed. We settled to give me a draw until my check got figured out and he says “your…

Man has this made me real cynical about the value of education in employment, I basically fell hook line and sinker growing up for the common wisdom of NEEDING a college degree to do anything worthwhile in life, and I also come from a well-educated family of teachers and engineers further exacerbating the self inflicted pressure. But due to a variety of circumstances I'm nowhere close to where I guess I felt entitled to be at after all the time I spent nearly killing myself from mental health deterioration for 5 years total at universities. But it was all going to pay off when I finished right? I like to think I also put myself through it for the old school enlightenment purposes of university, but a larger part of it was definitely hoping it would result in being able to land a decent paying job(s) to fund a quiet,…

I'll go first: when the job description lists “fun work environment” in it's pros.

And I started thinking, “yes, individually looking for better wages would be good. But if everyone starts to do this whole industries would fail and there would be a bottleneck for people looking for better jobs.” Am I right or wrong? I've been thinking about this for the last hour.

Hey! So basically around a month ago my manager came and did a drop in on me in the field and found I wasn’t there (was up the street using a washroom). He has had something against me since I grieved him in the past for expecting me to do jobs I wasn’t trained on/ saying safety was a grey area. The following day I found myself suspended for fact finding. They claimed in the past 30 days I had misappropriated 24 hours of company time. We questioned it and the company said it was out of their hands. Two weeks later I got terminated for misappropriation. The union set up an interview and it came out that most of the time I was accused of stealing was actually my unpaid lunch time that I wasn’t even charging for. Since then my meetings with the union/ company have been delayed…

If you accept a bid or estimate and you complain about the price, you’re a jerk. The house you are in has skyrocketed in value. If you don’t have enough money, you have too much home. Downsize or refinance because complaining to service providers who are likely trying buy a home have zero sympathies for your cash poor, equity rich position.