Fred Wright

When I talk about the value of work vs. the wages the worker gets, this is exactly what I’m talking about.  And today, more of that value winds up going to the shareholders than even the business owners.

So long, Solidarity Summer! Helloooooo, Fuck You Pay Me Fall!

Don’t you just love Kiss My Ass Autumn?

Essential workers @everyone calling them heroes while they work for minimum wage through a pandemic

the bar is set very very low

heres how it’s gonna go down

amazon: if our workers unionize i’m going to be fucking pissed we have to do everything in our power to disenfranchise them

amazon warehouse workers: we organized a labor strike

everyone: cool we’ll boycott using amazon in a way that impacts yall in order to support you warehouse workers in any way we can

media: wow look at how much stuff amazon owns you should boycott all of this stuff otherwise you’re fake woke and don’t care about amazon workers

everyone: how can i boycott all of amazon that doesnt make sense they own everything uhg… am i a bad person because i can’t boycott everything?

amazon: yes yes, yes yes! we’ve turned this into a question of whether or not boycotts are effective!!!! ignore the workers don’t look at the workers forget about the workers!!!

everyone: so you mean our boycott did do something?

amazon, in a fake nice voice: oh of course, we’re just so sad about this boycott that we decided to make amazon prime free for a month because we’re so very sad about making you all sad uwu

media: boycotts work! 

amazon warehouse workers: did yall forget about us and what this was about or?

media: the amazon boycott did it again!

this is why you can’t allow them to take the narrative from the workers. we need all eyes on them. we need to make this about the workers. it is about the workers. it was always about the workers. anything you’re doing right now to help is in relationship TO THE WORKERS.

Also, it’s helpful to bombard Amazon on twitter and other places to tell them SPECIFICALLY that you are watching what happens to the workers, why you are boycotting, why you support their rights. Look at what warehouse workers are demanding and tell Amazong specifically that you support those demands or Amazon gets no money- not this day or any other until they change.

keep your narrative centered on the workers. be loud about your support of amazon warehouse workers. don’t forget who this is about. 

reddit drama highlights of the week: a redditor was fired from walmart for leaking an attendance policy. as a result the walmart subreddit is being flooded with union memes

This is also spreading to...other retail workers subs. These are non official spaces, created by Us. Bluntly, IWW could post freely, use it to recruit, and the bosses would be Powerless. So, if you are Also a reddit user of this stripe

SOLIDARITY.

Keep pushing.

anyway, the 8 hour workday and the concept of “8 hours work, 8 hours rest, 8 hours recreation” is outdated and based on the lives and needs of married straight men who had a wife at home doing all the unpaid domestic labor, childcare, and elderly care. We should all be fighting for a 4 hour workday tbh

Research suggests that in an eight-hour day, the average worker is only productive for two hours and 53 minutes.

They did an experiment with a 6 hour workday in Gothenburg, on a nursing home. The staff became happier and healthier and the elderly also became happier and more content because the staff could focus more on their needs when they weren’t overworked and tired. The staff felt they had more time and energy towards the elderly.

Recently there was an article about a care home in Stockholm were they “””over hired””” (I would argue they just hired enough people), that is they added 1,5 full time staff member. There was an economic gain, not only in health for the workers but also with fewer temps, less overtime and less time wasted on constantly educating new people.

The 8 hour workday was met with the same ridicule a 6 hour workday would. Once, the upper class thought that 14 hour days were reasonable because the poor would just get into trouble if they had time off. Even when there’s actually net gain from caring about their workers, employers prefer making them miserable and paying the cost in new hires, medical costs and poor performance. People have fought and died for our free time and our weekends, even when we know a healthy worker is a healthy company. 

So it’s not strange, nor unbelievable, to take that fight again. There’s nothing holy or special with an 8 hour workday. It isn’t set in stone. It could be done.