#labor rights

[animentality]

[dumpstercryptid]

for those who would like to support Palestinian olive farmers, equal exchange has Palestine-sourced olive oil! they're an amazing worker owned co-op that works closely with local farmers to support sustainability and pay fair wages.

i frankly cannot afford it, but i know some folks can and would like to get some. it comes in packs of 6 bottles, so if you can get 6 friends together, each person can pay for one bottle!

they also have some of the most delicious coffee and hot cocoa mixes that i've ever gotten, and the same approach applies. given how horrific farming and labor practices are in both of those industries, i highly recommend supporting them and getting some amazing products in return if you can afford it.

[emperornorton47]

[thoughtportal]

join a union

the power of collection action

[chillyfeetsteak]

[katy-l-wood]

So, I've gone back to working at Home Depot while I'm going back to college right? Well, shit is about to hit the fan at Home Depot's across the country. A new policy has been put in place about warnings for not following your schedule to the T, which originally everyone thought only applied to punch in and punch out times. Which would be fine! A lot of people do come in late too often, or leave late, or whatever.

BUT. Home Depot also, technically, schedules what time you're supposed to take your lunch. But NO ONE follows this part of the schedule because you literally CAN'T. The lunch times are so random and rarely work with people's coverage and they frequently break the rule of getting a 30 minute break every 5 hours because of where they sit in a shift. Plus, sometimes they'll be super early in a shift when you just aren't hungry yet.

And the new policy? If you are even a few minutes off on taking your scheduled lunch you'll get an attendance occurrence. (Or half of one, depending on how off you are in your timing.) Once you reach 10 occurrences, which would only take about 2-3 weeks at most of being off on your lunches, you get fired.

Talking to a customer? Too bad, you must drop everything and go to lunch. In the middle of cutting a lumber order for a customer? Too bad. In the middle of a huge rush at the paint desk with no backup that actually knows how to work the paint machines in the store? Too bad. Driving a forklift? Too bad.

The policy goes into effect in a week. People are already crossing out "customer service" and "employee support" (or whatever that one is) on the little values wheel on their aprons. There's talk of a work to rule strike.

Anywho. Prepare for some chaos at your local Home Depot and be patient with the workers going forward. We're not happy about it either.

[toddchavezwatchescartoons]

[captainjonnitkessler]

Do you guys notice how when Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers union, started planning a general strike, he did it by a) targeting his messaging towards unions with the ability to safely and effectively strike in large numbers, b) laid out a clear, actionable plan for those unions to follow (setting contracts to all expire at the same time, since many unions cannot strike while under contract), c) is using union contracts to set clear, actionable demands that can be met in order to gauge success and provide an end goal, and d) started organizing FOUR YEARS before the proposed strike date to give people the chance to plan accordingly, because it takes a really freaking long time to get tens of millions of people organized?

You notice how he didn't do it by slapping a message on Twitter saying 'hey nobody go to work on Monday, that'll really show 'em'?

[mysharona1987]

Imagine leaving the house to go pick up your meds…then be told you’re faking illness. Damn.

[catgirl-kaiju]

workplaces should have to legally provide unlimited paid sick leave available immediately upon hire. the limits that companies that even provide paid sick leave put on it is so fucked up. no one can control when they get sick, how often they get sick, or how long they are sick for, and they shouldn't have to suffer for the transgression of being ill.

"oh, but some people might take advantage of that and just stay home all the time and get paid for it!" if there is really a statistically relevant amount of people you have hired staying home on paid sick leave for months or years on end, perhaps your workplace sucks to be at, and you need to change.

give them reasons to come in to work. make it safer and easier to do their jobs. give them work that they can get invested in and talk to them about what that looks like. make sure you aren't overloading them with too much work or making unreasonable demands. pay them an amount that makes the work worth doing to them. actually form a working relationship with your employees instead of treating them like infinitely exploitable wage slaves.

only allowing your workers to accrew "2 hours a week of sick time starting after 6 weeks of employment" or some shit just doesn't match the reality of how sickness or human health works

[emeryleewho]

I keep seeing posts talking about the WGA/Sag-Aftra strike, which yes, good, but in all this "support writers" sentiment I'm seeing no one talk about book writers, which I think is something people should know more about right now.

We are at an all-time high for book bans, namely targeting queer & PoC-authored books. This means that a lot of schools and libraries are no longer stocking diverse YA books, and if you're not in publishing, you may not realize this but school & libraries are by far one of the biggest markets for diverse YA books.

This means that in 2023, YA book sales are down. This is also in part because Barnes & Noble (the largest physical book retailer in the U.S.) is no longer really stocking YA hardcovers. This means that marginalized authors and debut authors are struggling to sell books.

But it's a LOT worse than that. In the past couple of years, marginalized authors are *really* struggling to get new book deals. Most books are acquired by a publisher about 2 years before they release to the public, so this isn't all that noticeable yet, but a LOT of marginalized authors I've spoken to (myself included) have been unable to sell a new YA book since 2020. So while I had a book out last year, even if I sell one right now, you won't see it until 2025-2026. That's three to four years without a new release or the income I get from publishing those books.

On top of that, Big 5 publishers have started closing imprints (namely their diverse imprints) and have started telling their marginalized YA authors to just go. I've had multiple authors tell me their publisher basically said, "eh, we don't care to put in the work for you anymore. You can just go somewhere else". Of the authors who *are* getting offered new contracts, we're being offered pay far below the cost of living and we're being handed contracts that split our payments 4 or 5 ways and require we sign over our work to be used to train AI so they can replace us a few years down the road.

Authors are freelancers who own our IPs, which means we can't unionize the way Hollywood writers can, and despite authors showing up in droves to support HarperCollins employees when they went on strike for fair wages, we're being hung out to dry when it comes to our own rights.

If you enjoy diverse books, especially diverse YA, please understand that many of the authors you loved over the past 3-5 years are being forced out of the industry. We're being exploited, and we have no way to defend ourselves. Our books sales are drying up thanks to anti-queer legislation, our rights are being eaten up by AI, and our publishers are degrading us while profiting of us and refusing to share those profits with us.

Within the publishing industry, we've all been watching this decline happen over the last decade, but outside of it, I know most people have no idea what's going on so please spread the word. And if you care about diverse books especially in YA, please support marginalized authors in any way you can. The industry needs to be reminded that it needs us before we're all eliminated from it.

[animentality]

[victusinveritas]

[killldeer]

UPS WORKERS HAVE REACHED A DEAL THAT MEETS THEIR DEMANDS AND AVERTED A STRIKE!!!

EDIT 7/27/23: please reblog this version of the post instead! it provides a fuller picture of what’s going on and explains why this isn’t over yet.

[thoughtportal]

[thetwistedrope]

because i've not seen a lot of coverage on it, hotel workers in LA are on strike right now, too:

(x)

(x)

please remember to support these people as well!