[–] 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

TLDR Unions work and I observe it every day from management's POV.

My employer uses lots of IBEW union labor. I'm adjacent to HR functions.

EEs (employees) need things. My and adjacent departments handle their requests tied to annual insurance enrollment, wage discrepancies, leaves of absence (LOAs), employment verifications, etc. The first question my team asks of an EE task is "Are they union?"

Union = TOP priority
I have standing instructions from management to "do whatever it takes to keeps the unions off our backs". I stop other duties to procure a resolution within 3 hours. Whatever deliverables (answers to questions, arranging back pay, LOA paperwork) are put in the hands of union EEs practically the same day.

Non-union = diet priority
My team works in good faith, with EEs' interests genuinely at the forefront of our minds, to make everyone happy, with an imperfect but high success rate (thus the "diet"). Nevertheless, hearing/reading "non-union" immediately puts the request at the end of the queue. It'll get done, but probably in 10 days or so. The legal time frame is often much longer, and we use that knowledge liberally. Non-union tasks are the first things I jettison if other priorities bottleneck.

Among my HR/adjacent coworkers are our share of smarmy middle class white women who scoff when a top priority union task hits their desk. They say shit like "Unions had their day and age, but..." and then shake their heads and literally not even complete that sentence, basking in solidarity with the same MAGA lady who asked everyone, video in hand, "(Elon's) salute doesn't look like that, does it?"

Our guy who represents the company in union negotiations is a MAGA propagandist who, in an informal interview with me about ideas to improve morale, answered my question "How could so many people see fit to elect a bona fide rapist as POTUS?" with a dubious anecdote about his elderly mother needing protection from all the trans talk at the dinner table.

I know this is a tangentious tangent. Apologies.

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  • [–] 31 points 2 months ago (8 children)

    7th grade me asked teacher "Did they shoot at the drummer boys too?" and without hesitating she says "YES!" I'm sure she's right, but she had a gleeful face which made me think she was happy to answer regardless of its truthfulness.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago

    Ah, to reminisce of that time in nineteen ninety eight when the undertaker threw mankind off hеll in a cell, and plummeted sixteen feet through an announcer’s table.

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  •  

    Beware this US Homeless Population topic in the coming days.

    It has the ingredients of the Nth National Fucking Disgrace: ICE targeting people who are homeless, regardless of citizenship.

    This murder's intersection with the homeless community, whether by chance or by conspiracy, puts downtrodden citizens and noncitizens alike in the sights of the ICE Pigs doing their thing: Youtube link to SoaD's Deer Dance

    The timing of this being WINTER could be deadly for vulnerable citizens and noncitizens who avoid emergency overnight shelters for fear of being rounded up.

    I haven't seen any news of this happening yet. Maybe I missed some?

    If it isn't in the news now, we all see that they would do it, right?

    Does it mean anything to see it before it happens? Am I tin foil hat?

    me_irl (lemmy.world)
     

    My father in law is dying. He's too weak to sign an important paper. Instead, they're video recording him having the legal doc read aloud, asking if he agrees to it, in hopes of this video counting as if he signed it.

    He was able to speak up. He had the same presence of mind I recognized from his cogent days. He responded to all these macabre questions about funerals and deaths and wills and finality. He responded in a detectable upbeat way.

    But guys...

    His voice sounded like it was coming out of THE
    FUCKING
    D
    D
    Drain

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