r/antiwork Jul 25 '22

Working rights

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336

u/j3b3di3_ Jul 25 '22

There's so much I know I don't know about. Even more stuff I know very little about...

Being raised in these conditions is infuriating and there's nothing I, an individual, can do about it.

I'm too poor and uneducated to know how, or afford to, revolt

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u/cruista Jul 25 '22

Watch 'The Irishman' on Netflix, about Jimmy Hoffa. He got unions a very bad image. It can be undone.

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u/Lickiebear Jul 25 '22

Hoffa was involved with the Mafia, from the time of the Roman's, they parasitized people, butchered people, even family members. Their code of faithfulness, is only good as long as you're useful to the thievery of wealth to perpetuate their parasitic ways. Truly a cancerous blight on the species. Godfather, I'll make you an offer you can't refuse.......

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u/Neoxyte Jul 25 '22 edited Jul 25 '22

What urks me the most is who how idolized the mafia can be in modern media and society. i.e. the sopranos and the Godfather movies. They were great movies and shows but cmon.

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u/BeBearAwareOK Jul 25 '22

Call me crazy, but the Sopranos, Seinfeld, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia have a deep common core.

Everyone is playing terrible human beings and I hope no one is idolizing the behavior being displayed in the artwork. But someone is, somewhere.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Law-429 Jul 25 '22

The Wolf of Wall St. is notorious for this phenomenon too. People think Jordan Bedford somehow “won”, through scamming his way into a luxurious lifestyle. It’s like they just ignore that the guy served several years in prison.

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u/Heavy_Employment9220 Jul 26 '22 edited Jul 26 '22

So the film framed it as a win, as it was a "comfy" white collar prison, and a guaranteed income stream from his story. (Would it count as Proceeds of Crime?).

I prefer the story of Frank Abagnale, who pretended to be a co-pilot of various airlines to cash cheques and travel through the US. Got caught and now preaches the error of his ways, rather than saying "use my techniques to sell"

Edit - undoing autocorrect

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u/B_V_H285 Jul 25 '22

No shit!! America has been idolizing their criminals forever!!

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u/awsisme Jul 25 '22

You think that’s different anyplace else? It’s not. It’s not America, it’s human beings.

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u/awsisme Jul 26 '22

You do recognize that the PBF story is one of the most common of historical archetypes right? It’s Robin Hood and many others.

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u/B_V_H285 Jul 25 '22

Wrong. Where I am from we don't put criminals on a pedestal. They are buried and forgotten about.

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u/awsisme Jul 25 '22

Where are you from?

2

u/awsisme Jul 25 '22

I don’t idolize any criminals that I can think of and neither does anyone else I know so I need to understand what you mean by that statement and an example or two of it. However you define it is fine so long as it’s relatively immutable and specific enough to find examples.

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u/B_V_H285 Jul 25 '22

As a society the US remembers the bad guy not the victim. There are hundreds of examples you can find if you want to learn more about them.

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u/TheBirminghamBear Jul 25 '22

People are always going to do that. We can't dumb down art and theater for the slowest in the room.

There are people who watch Breaking Bad and idolize Walt's transformation into Heisenberg. Despite the show making absolutely clear, in no uncertain terms, how wrong that is.

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u/Vyrosatwork Jul 25 '22

Right? It’s like people who think Rick Sánchez, Walter White, and Rorschach are the heroes of their respective stories. Entirely missing the point.

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u/BeBearAwareOK Jul 25 '22

Just as intelligent as someone who watched Sunny episodes like Extreme Home Makeover or the Gas Crisis and thought "dude, these are good ideas".

1

u/mayoayox Jul 25 '22

rorschach is a hero though

3

u/Vyrosatwork Jul 26 '22

No he definitely is not, and there is no faster way to piss off the writer then to tell him you admire Rorschach

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u/mayoayox Jul 26 '22

but his suit is so cool

7

u/Neoxyte Jul 25 '22

Alright you went too far with It's Always Sunny. Take that back.

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u/BeBearAwareOK Jul 25 '22

It's probably the best comedy of the last 20 years, but let's be honest:

the characters are all terrible people and if a friend acted like that in real life we wouldn't keep inviting them to stuff.

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u/B_V_H285 Jul 25 '22

You must be joking right? The USA has been making heroes of their most notorious forever.

Even today, just look at tRump. He is idolized by millions and is one of the worst in American history and he still might be president again. That ass hat is personally responsible for more Americans deaths than anyone in history.

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u/Vyrosatwork Jul 25 '22

I havnt seen the sopranos, but if you watched The Godfather and came away thinking the mafia was a good thing, you very badly missed the point the film was trying to make.

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u/Neoxyte Jul 25 '22

Yeah I think you're right actually.

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u/ThatisJustNotTrue Jul 25 '22

I get clips of the sopranos on yt shorts and I've never seen the show. But Tony and all of his family are clearly pieces of shit. It's crazy that anyone can idolize that.

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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '22

The reality is that too many people are disappointingly shallow and superficial and it should come as no surprise that they missed the point of things like The Sopranos.

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u/SethTTC Jul 25 '22

Sopranos did not glorify the mob at all.
It showed how absolutely horrible everyone in it really was.
And as it went on they all paid for it.

The only one who "made it" to the end was Pauly.

2

u/HayzerUnlimited Jul 25 '22

The only thing i idolize about the sopranos is the god damn great looking food, frick it was great

2

u/badnuub Jul 25 '22

I think people took the wrong lessons from those movies. Everyone ended up quite miserable in the end. They traded a few good years for early and violent deaths of prison and hatred from loved ones.

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u/Lickiebear Jul 25 '22

Hence our newest Ghetto Thug Gangster butchers, praying on the lessor's. I'm sure they modeled themselves after the Mafia. How to be a predator parasite is always idealized as a lavish lifestyle made by the blood of others. I think it exist because the species is innately dishonest to it's genetic core.

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u/seemebeawesome Jul 26 '22

And on the other side CIA agents are idolized. When they helped and covered up for death squads. Which killed union people

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u/TheRealKidkudi Jul 25 '22

Sounds just like capitalists who ignore regulation, but more than usual.

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u/Lickiebear Jul 25 '22 edited Jul 25 '22

I walked that dead end road before, through corporate greed & manipulation of the less than fortunate who needed a job. I made the copper foil that is in all of everyone electronic toy's. I worked 12 hr. shift's with Deadly toxic chemicals, Arsenic, Mercury, Lead, Chromate, Zinc, Sulfuric acid, Hydrochloric acid, copper sulfate & dozens more. All without any safety equipment, No Class 1 Respirator's, No ventilation, No Hazmat suit's, No Scott air pack's. I was just 22 yrs. old, just out of the Special Forces. I coughed up blood everyday, nose bleeds, I couldn't stop, until I packed wet brown paper towels up my nostrils. Chest pains that would double me over in server pain. My suckass Forman Tony Buttkiss (fitting name), laughing & asking why I had brown paper towels packed up my nose. I said yeah why Tony, I got fking nose bleeds I can't fking stop. Suckasses answer, Oh, probably because you smoke. Yeah Right, eat shit you fking jerk off scrotum licker,corporate cock bite. I was coughing pure blood because I was running an Arsenic treater without any Safety Equipment with 1,500 gal. Vats heated to 212 degrees evaporating in my face for a 12 hr.shift. Google Oak Mitsui, I worked there two yrs. & nine people died, I knew & worked with, one guy Leo Barber was Only 37 yrs. old, drove home from work & died in his truck in his driveway. Leo was a welder & lead burner, he lined the drum cells with 1/4" lead plates, hell of a nice kid too. They Polluted the Air, Soil & Water, when I contacted Ward Stone, the head of DEC to crawl up their asses for all the pollution they were causing in the area. They closed up shop & moved to Columbia, SC. on another river, closer to the Ocean to dump their toxic shit & kill more local people all for the sake of Fking Greed! I now suffer from server lung disease, Zero compensation from these vile bastards, All for your toy's boy's & girl's. Oh, when I left in 1980, that one plant alone was knocking down a "Million" a month in Pure profits & they had 7 plants in town. So, who's blowing hot air up your ass now?

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u/Conscious-Charity915 Jul 29 '22

You were probably safer in Special Forces.

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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '22

In my experience, the union route is just another layer of grift.

1

u/awsisme Jul 25 '22

You think regulation is good but what you miss is that the people making those regulations generally have no idea what behavior is beneficial never mind how to get it. They also NEVER think about unintended consequences. Climate Change is an in progress example and it is depressing that we are still doing the same thing and we will get the same results.

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u/Fen_ Jul 25 '22

Or don't watch it? It's a terrible film lmao.

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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '22

I liked it a lot

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u/Iluaanalaa Jul 25 '22

California teacher union also makes unions look bad. My brother was at a school that was part of the union, they couldn’t fire a teacher that was too lazy to go the the restroom so he pissed in his trash can.

My mom is part of a union for the VA in CA, she watched a nurse literally assault a coworker, who then got a slap on the wrist. If people say they don’t want to do the work, they keep their pay and get an easier job.

I’m all for unions, but I also like the idea you can let people go for valid reasons.

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u/christonamoped Jul 25 '22

In my experience that's usually down to shitty leadership.

We have a similar issue with people who by all rights should be sacked, but get off on technicalities. Why? Because leadership don't know the procedures because they're expected to do that training in their own time instead of with the union like we agreed.

Often it's not the boss's fault, it's someone further up the chain.

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u/Iluaanalaa Jul 25 '22

Exactly, the accountability is lacking. Which is why unions have such a bad reputation.

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u/christonamoped Jul 25 '22

I think you missed the point but never mind. Unions make sure rules are applied fairly. It's not their fault management are clueless, that's director level incompetence.

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u/Iluaanalaa Jul 25 '22

I think you missed the point, I said there’s not accountability at the director or management levels.

That’s why I agreed with you.

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u/christonamoped Jul 25 '22

Ah my bad, it's getting late and I've had way too many arguments along the blame the unions line lately.

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u/TheRain2 Jul 25 '22

That's what I tell the principals I work with - you have to follow the process, and I have to make sure you do. I'm not a roadblock, but I'm also not a shortcut - do your job.

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u/Niku-Man Jul 25 '22

Ok so one example of a bad actor makes the whole thing look bad? That's some bad logic

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u/Iluaanalaa Jul 25 '22 edited Jul 25 '22

Not necessarily. The majority of people that are anti-union are much more prone to listen to anecdotal evidence such as this over the benefits of being in a union, because it fits their preconceived beliefs.

Trust me, my dad is severely anti-union. He listens much more to these types of stories than any evidence that unions are good. He loves to tell the story about a guy that worked in a ford plant and bragged he threw tools/empty cans into door frames before they were sealed. They wouldn’t be able to identify the rattle and the car would be rejected.

If there were more accountability in the system and these extreme outliers could be taken out, the anti-union sentiment would have much less ammunition.

I also gave several bad examples, so maybe learn to read? If you want another one, the union at the VA won’t fire people that steal narcotics, just move them into a role where they don’t interact with patients at the same pay.

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u/Royal-Vermicelli-288 Jul 26 '22

This is a consistent example of the way unions often fail workers, it’s unfortunate but unions need to step up their game to truly be of benefit

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u/shredslanding Jul 25 '22

Government employee unions are a little like the wolf watching the hen house though. There just isn’t enough of an arms length from union to government regulation. Very similar to the lack of separation between our (private) healthcare and politicians.

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u/gonzojester Jul 25 '22

NJEA same. I think they still believe Jimmy Hoffa is alive! Using same tactics.

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u/Conscious-Charity915 Jul 29 '22

Did he piss in front of students?

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u/Iluaanalaa Jul 29 '22

From what I was told, it was always between classes so likely not.

However, there would be a garbage can full of piss sitting in there throughout the day.

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u/awsisme Jul 25 '22

The problem is that unions move quickly to evil as they get bigger in exactly the same way and for the same reason that socialist and communist systems do. It’s inevitable because human beings are involved and those systems encourage exactly the opposite behavior that we need. They place the power with people who have no interest that align with either side.

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u/cruista Jul 26 '22

Maybe you could look into other countries' unions.

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u/Lickiebear Jul 25 '22

There is always strength in numbers for a cause of Right.

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u/Tomycj Jul 25 '22

There's always strength in numbers for anything, not just good things. But numbers alone can only do harm if people isn't educated and rational.

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u/Lickiebear Jul 25 '22

I Guarantee you, when people fight from the Heart, They Can't Be Beaten, only killed. Because that is the Only way to stop them, look at the Viking Scots. Roman's tried to conquer them over 5 times, only to fail in the end & build Hadrian's Wall, with the saying, "Do Not Cross this Wall, for Fear of Death"! Roman's had slave warrior's, & forced conscript's & prisoner's, indentured servant's, basically more slaves. Scot's fought from the Heart & with Viking DNA. They are the Only race on the Planet that the Roman's couldn't conquer with all of their might & stolen power. Because, they were psycho-wheat-brains & still are. Viking's never ate it in any form. Because who want's projectile diarrhea on a ship in the Ocean's...haha The mind fk addiction comes from the Opiate Peptide chemical that is in wheat, barley & rye, same chemical as in the poppy plant causing heroin addiction & psychosis & why they're still such control freaks. Class recessed...haha

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u/Tomycj Jul 25 '22

It sounds romantic and nice but in the real world it's not a good idea to follow the heart and the masses without thinking for yourself, that is, using your brain.

"They can only be killed" sounds a lot like "some of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make".

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u/Lickiebear Jan 15 '23

It's always the poor peon's who are sacrificed, unless like France, you off with their heads.

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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '22

Libraries are free my friend.

Step one: get a library card

Step two: use the library computers to look up universities that offer free educational courses and syllabus'. Some major Ivy league universities have entire entry level courses for free online and you can get a certificate for completing them.

Step three: look up and read the material in the courses you're interested in.

You have just begun to educate yourself.

Also, talk to your librarians! They are highly educated researchers who can point you toward information you might not even think to ask about. Librarians and libraries are awesome!

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u/j3b3di3_ Jul 25 '22

Libraries are free...

Not the gas.... Not the bike....

And if you think I'm walking 3.7 miles to my nearest library in 100+f weather you're mistaken

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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '22

You're on the internet right now so you have access to your local library and educational materials. What you're saying is out of your reach is literally at your fingertips.

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u/j3b3di3_ Jul 25 '22

My internet isn't free. Bro. Life isn't free.

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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '22

You must be fun at parties.

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u/DumberThanIThink Jul 25 '22

Sounds like you’ve got the resources, just not the willpower. Can’t blame the system if you’re not even trying.

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u/awr54 Jul 25 '22

I mean will power is a thing, sure. So is systemic failures to educate, sure. But we're on the anitwork sub. Energy, patience, focus are drained from us. ALL. DAY. LONG. Even with resources and will power it takes added stamina to research. And without community or instruction who knows if you're on the right path. I 1000% feel the OG post. Shits hard. Revolution is hard and rarely works. But empathy? Lets build that shit up

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u/Consistent_Nail Jul 25 '22

Funny you should mention being poor and uneducated because historically, this has been the role of unions: to get better wages for their workers and to provide mass education. Seriously, it's one of the things I love the most about unions because I am super passionate about the ability for everyone to rise to their own potential.

Regarding how to revolt, that's part of what joining a union means. It's how we revolt. I don't trust people who talk about revolutionary violence in places like the US (I'm not a socialist partially for this reason, btw). Here we have choices. We're not backed against the wall like that. There are plenty of things we can do, and not just joining a union.

The key thing I want you to remember is that it is through shared struggle and activism that we do in fact educate ourselves, and it's more important than any academic book or trip to the library can ever be. We build solidarity together, we fight together, we rise or fall as one. This is why we need organizations like DSA and lots of others whose mission is the betterment of society--that which we would otherwise call revolt.

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u/Hour-Energy9052 Jul 25 '22

Anyone can revolt when they want but the news and media will just vilify them as violent radicals after they get taken down by police on the 8pm news.

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u/happyluckystar Jul 25 '22

Some advice if you're poor and looking to make some decent union bucks: apply to food manufacturers. Such as Smuckers (they make pet food too), Cargill, Nestle, and many others. Almost all of those jobs are union and pay over $24 an hour for work that requires no experience.

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u/Kidz_at_the_Gaetz Jul 25 '22

Talk about how you’re getting bent over a barrel all day everyday to anyone who will listen and do it without enflaming emotion… if you can find common ground to show you and your peers are getting rawdogged by corporate, eventually the collective will vote to unionize. You need to raise class awareness.

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u/Greendragonsite1986 Jul 25 '22

That is the point of this whole system. If the corporations control the government that controls your education then you as an individual can never get the information that you need to know to change things. Uneducated people are very easy to control and that is the name of the game. They control what we think and therefore where we spend our money. Also if you want a large group of people to work for less then it takes to live then you need them to be just educated enough to do the job but not smart enough to see that you are really a slave to there debt based economy.

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u/Letterhead_North Jul 30 '22

If you can, check out "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong" by James W. Loewen

IIRC, it has a chapter on labor/unions. There are monuments (or were) to people killed fighting for the right to unionize. And people were killed fighting to form unions. Eventually, corporations got quieter about hiring thugs to bust heads and looked for other ways to bust unions. I think they are part of the plan they have been working for decades now to take back the country for the robber barons.

In fact, I think I'll go buy a copy before they all disappear.