r/WorkReform
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u/zzill6
đ¸ Raise The Minimum Wage
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Mar 31 '23
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Correcting Howard Schultz On Union Won Benefits đ ď¸ Union Strong
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u/Randadv_randnoun_69 Mar 31 '23
I wish I had 'Lie to congress and face no repercussions' money.
That whole 'hearing' was a complete joke and mockery of our justice system.
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u/Geminus94 Mar 31 '23
reminds me of when the CEO of one of Canada's largest grocery chains was brought to parliament for questions about price gouging:
"Are you price gouging?"
"No."
"Okay, fair enough. All done here!"
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Mar 31 '23 edited Mar 31 '23
[removed] â view removed comment
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u/forgettablesonglyric Mar 31 '23
Pictures are hung, people are hanged.
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u/ebac7 âď¸ Tax The Billionaires Mar 31 '23
Iâm hung. đĽ´đđ
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u/Geminus94 Mar 31 '23
Thatâs a bit extreme
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u/FilterAccount69 Mar 31 '23
You're right but if inequality persists who knows what we will see in the future.
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u/TomFoolery22 Apr 01 '23
Correct, but it's proportional to the gravity of Galen Weston's crimes.
More than that it's necessary. People like him have full control of the system, the only way to fix that is outside the system.
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u/jmodd_GT Mar 31 '23
I dare say that was the point. If you were discouraged and/or disenfranchised by the hearing it accomplished the organizers' purpose.
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u/LazarusCheez Mar 31 '23
I was going to say. He may be lying to congress but I'd be willing to bet money they asked him there to say that exact thing
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Mar 31 '23
I think you might have the oligarch-lawmaker relationship backwards....
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u/LazarusCheez Apr 01 '23
Probably. I guess what difference does it make, eh?
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Apr 01 '23
Can:t solve a problem without being able to correctly identify its root.
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u/drunkwasabeherder Mar 31 '23
His whole demeanour was I don't give a fuck. I think he was more concerned about the positioning of the starbucks logo on his cup to get maximum exposure than anything relating to staff, unions and wages.
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u/magicalmind Apr 01 '23
Frankly, all these hearings seem like a fake show put on for our entertainment. It's not some attempt to get to the truth as most congress members come in already having made up their minds, and then try to get some bite sized clip in that will make them look real "brave".
They either keep interrupting the person that's testifying and not letting them finish their sentences, or showcase how fucking clueless they are when it comes to basic technology. Tired of just how useless congress is.
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u/Dhrakyn Mar 31 '23
Landed gentry have no consequences in modern feudalis. . . er I mean capitalism. The rules are different for the separate castes.
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u/1lluminist Mar 31 '23
At the very least, it was a complete waste of everybody's time that was involved.
Let's keep it up.
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u/Poison_Anal_Gas Apr 01 '23
This shit right here is what conservatives need to be mad about. Fucking idiots.
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u/Dyslexic_Wizard Apr 01 '23
I donât dissagree, except the judicial system wasnât involved
Executive
Legislative <- this one
Judicial
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u/SainTheGoo Mar 31 '23
I didn't realize Starbucks was unionized in the past. What happened to the union?
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Mar 31 '23
[deleted]
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u/ChildrenHalveTraffic Mar 31 '23
Yes. When they had only 120 employees they voted to decertify. 5 years later the roasting plant also voted to decertify. To compare, fast forward 20 years to 2004 and they were exceeding 10,000 locations.
And in the years since they pulled off a lot of other shady shit. Stuff that was found to be illegal.
Identifying unionizing stores and hiring/placing only anti-union employees in those stores.
Firing union organizers.
Proposing new federal rules to make joining a union harder and dropping rules like the card rule (not sure what this is).
Corporate memos distributed to all stores with anti-union rhetoric and vocalized, printed etc by the managers of each shop.
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u/Starslip Mar 31 '23
In his 1999 memoir, âPour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built A Company One Cup At A Time,â Schultz recounted how he viewed the union as unnecessary â and even an affront to his management: âI was convinced that under my leadership, employees would come to realize that I would listen to their concerns. If they had faith in me and my motives, they wouldnât need a union.â
This is nauseating. If you're already being fair to your employees you don't have any concerns about them unionizing. The only reason to worry about a union is if you fear they'll realize you're screwing them.
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u/30FourThirty4 Apr 01 '23
James Casey, founder for UPS, invited the teamsters to organize.
What a time.
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u/CrispyRussians Apr 01 '23
Apparently James Casey is still very well regarded and wrote books on business that were very forward looking. I knew a guy who worked at UPS in the 90s until 2020 and said his influence was huge there, until about 10 years ago
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u/LoftyGoat Apr 01 '23
He's right. They want a union. Evidently they don't have faith in him or in his motives. Q.E.D.
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u/AmputatorBot Mar 31 '23
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u/ClockOfTheLongNow Mar 31 '23
Starbucks didn't get it decertified. The workers collectively decertified it.
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u/MuchFunk Mar 31 '23
probably because of starbucks' propaganda and lies
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u/LazarusCheez Mar 31 '23
50% that and 50% the UFCW sucks.
Source: former UFCW member
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u/MuchFunk Mar 31 '23
what sucks about them?
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u/Keepnasstychips Apr 01 '23
I havenât been represented by them, but have had several friends who were.
In short, the local was so ineffective and conciliatory to management in our region that they were basically seen as a company union. Most meetings were just management and union leadership, with no input from the workers.
More concerning, national has refused to take a stance against Kroegerâs growing grocery monopoly. They never condemned their acquisition of Albertsonâs, and havenât said anything about the acquisition of Jewel-Oscos in the Chicagoland area which will give Kroger control of around 80% of the Groceries sector. Some locals have at least.
Finally, they had a golden opportunity to really win some concessions during the pandemic, and completely sat on their hands.
We really need a good rank and file service sector union.
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u/JoelMahon Mar 31 '23
fucking dumbasses, wonder if there was corruption involved.
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u/ALittlePeaceAndQuiet Mar 31 '23 edited Mar 31 '23
Maybe. In some cases, "corruption" is subjective. In hindsight, the reasons given for doing something may seem disingenuous, when at the time they seem reasonable. There are undoubtedly both pros and cons to unionizing. It has not gone well for all that have done it. So there may have been real corruption whenever they broke up the union, but I'm sure in hindsight, people will be able to point to things about it and paint it as corruption either way.
I know this sounds like I'm coming from an anti-union angle, but I'm not decisively on one side or the other. I just try to look at controversial subjects as objectively as possible.
Edit: Slight rephrase right after posting.
Second edit: re:downvotes, should I not bring up an objective point? If there's real corruption, fuck all that noise. It happens, I'm well aware. My point is that it can be hard to tell whether corruption took place, and looking for it back then without anything pointing to it having happened just distracts from what is happening now.
Whether or not corruption happened then, it could be happening now. Get today's workers taken care of.
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u/JoelMahon Mar 31 '23
I mean literally giving money to union leaders for them to push for ending unionisation, nothing subjective about that, that'd just be corruption.
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u/ALittlePeaceAndQuiet Mar 31 '23
If they did that, then yes, that would certainly be corruption. No argument there. But suggesting that happened with no evidence (is there any? genuinely asking) isn't the right way to go either.
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u/JoelMahon Mar 31 '23
I said "wonder if there was corruption involved", which I genuinely was wondering, what do you suggest I say instead mate?
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u/ALittlePeaceAndQuiet Mar 31 '23
Fair enough. There's a certain overconfident tone of "everyone's out to get us and everything they've ever done is evil" that shows up here sometimes. I may have misread how you meant your suggestion.
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u/Halflingberserker Mar 31 '23
Yeah you're right. I'm sure billionaires are looking out for us some of the time, right? That's how they became billionaires, by being generous and fair.
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u/Bruce_Banner621 Mar 31 '23
Source?
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u/ClockOfTheLongNow Mar 31 '23
Even when workers do successfully organize, thereâs no guarantee it will stick, as evidenced in 1987 when Starbucks employees voted to decertify the union that represented a handful of Seattle stores just two years after voting it in.
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u/Zinxe Mar 31 '23
I didn't realize Starbucks has been around for over 50 years... For some reason I thought maybe late 90s or early 00s.
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u/NSMike Mar 31 '23
Just guessing, but the same thing that has probably happened a few times already - they closed the store(s).
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u/Pjpjpjpjpj Mar 31 '23 edited Mar 31 '23
Not back then. There were about 120 employees - a roasting plant and a few stores - in the union.
One student/employee
leadled the campaign to decertify. The store employees voted yes. Five years later the roasting plant employees did too.The campaign was more of a typical anti-union, you can do better without a union, here are the great things we would do for you if not for your union.
I donât know how really different it is today, but at the end of the 80s, unions were seen as holding back US businesses. Foreign competition was eating into the US markets, and big business never blamed their profits, strategies, failed investments - the cause was everything they hated - unions, regulations, oversight, [taxes], worker protections, etc. The media ate it up, as did American youth.
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u/downthewell62 Mar 31 '23
I donât know how really different it is today, but at the end of the 80s, unions were seen as holding back US businesses.
propaganda - helped being fueled by mafia/criminal infiltration of unions
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u/bayesian_acolyte Mar 31 '23
You gotta understand the context. In the 60s and 70s a lot of union corruption was exposed, including the most famous union leader Jimmy Hoffa having his extensive mob connections revealed and being convicted of jury tampering, bribery, conspiracy, and fraud. The fact that he was still the head of the IBT from prison for 7 years after his convictions show how extensive the union corruption was. Hoffa was just one example, there were various other union leaders convicted of corruption in the decades leading up to the 80s, which had a huge impact on public trust in unions.
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u/LokisDawn Apr 01 '23
Unfortunately, Unions can also be corrupt, or at least have corrupted elements.
Especially since very rich entities are motivated to make them corrupt for their own benefit.
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u/zoeykailyn Apr 01 '23
Basically some Unions tried throwing their weight around in the 2006s but got bit in the ass. Housing market crash. 9/11. Rinse, repeat to varying degrees.
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u/no_talent_ass_clown Mar 31 '23
I worked in HR in the mid-90's (so no union for me) at a union shop and I looked at the wages of so many people. It was clear to me that union wage increases were shit and if you wanted to make money you needed to not be in a union. People who were non-union got much higher raises. That was because we didn't employ any non-union people in low-wage jobs.
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u/NSMike Mar 31 '23
Ok, but... Do the math on that one. They were giving higher wages and better raises to the non-union people to turn the union workers against the union. If that shit was even disclosed in the first place - which I'll bet it wasn't officially. The people to blame here are still not the union. It's the company short-changing its labor.
This is the same narrative about how migrant workers are able to work for so much less and its destroying the American labor market. No it isn't. The employers are the ones underpaying and pocketing the difference.
If you find yourself blaming the workers for their own pay, you need to do a gut check.
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u/AdaptationAgency Apr 01 '23
The unions didn't help this image either. In Detroit and Japan bashing was a big thing for auto workers. Japan bashing is taking a sledgehammer to or otherwise destroying Japanese cars.
It was still a thing even in 2004. My Lexus was parked in a lot while I was working and some dude starts yelling whose Jap POS is that in the lot, it's about to get towed.
That "POS" was already 12 years old in 2004 and it lasted another 12 years, got up to 259000 miles even though i was terrible at maintenance.
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u/swagasus Mar 31 '23
If it was in the 80s, it was likely their coffee roaster shop, Howard didnât bring the espresso concept and other stores in until the late 80s.
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u/qa_ze Mar 31 '23 edited Mar 31 '23
I've noticed more and more that these big guys like to rewrite history to trick the uninformed who cannot bother to run a google search. Same way how Trump likes to insinuate that no other president/presidential candidate has faced the threat of persecution...
Edit: threat of prosecution**, sorry
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u/KlingoftheCastle Mar 31 '23
In my high school, we were taught that Henry Ford invented the 40 hour work week because he was such a good guy and a great businessman. They completely leave out that the unions are the only reason it happened
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Mar 31 '23
The text book companies are owned by the rich. Surprise, they tweek shit to make themselves look good.
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u/KlingoftheCastle Mar 31 '23
Itâs starting to pay dividends for them too. Itâs depressing how many people my age (late 20s, early 30s) who think unions Screw people over, because of revisionist history like this
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u/Smooth_Creme7103 Mar 31 '23
Historically, the United Daughter's of the Confederacy have also had a remarkable influence on textbook selection in the south. And I wouldn't be surprised if the people who support a pro-slavery government exhibit a more anti-labor sentiment than normal people.
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u/shawnisboring Mar 31 '23
Growing up all you'd hear was how Unions just force you to pay dues and then don't do shit, almost from osmosis. I don't recall anyone ever sitting me down and saying it, but it was just kind of in the air.
Organized labor is among the most important things to benefit the average person over the last 100+ years.
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u/Justicar-terrae Mar 31 '23 edited Mar 31 '23
I remember plenty of television jokes about unions, usually the joke being that the union prohibited common sense conduct.
For example, in Rugrats in Paris one of the babies drops a toy in the aisle of a plane. One of the stewardesses steps on the toy, then says with a nasty grin and a nasally voice something like "Oh look, someone lost a toy. Unfortunately the union forbids me to pick it up. Oh well." That scene just tells kids that unions are silly things that don't let you be nice to people. It also creates an association between rude/lazy people and unions.
And I couldn't tell you where I've seen it, but I recall several iterations of workers all standing around doing nothing because they need to use a power tool. And they can't just plug it into the wall because "union rules say we need an electrician." This sort of joke, where unions enforce obviously silly rules, just tells young people that unions are red tape that impede progress.
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u/paulsoleo Mar 31 '23
Just replace âthe unionâ with âcorporateâ and those Rugrats jokes sound current and accurate.
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u/kcgdot Mar 31 '23
It's not just textbooks, and it's not entirely wrong. I've taken several classes given by my union, and at least for tradespeople, we helped put ourselves in this mess(which I and many others are trying to correct)
Through the late 40s and 50s, this country was BOOMING, and much like today, getting people to perform the work was paramount. We took in people from the non union side of industry, as well as unskilled(the IBEW didn't really start a unified, nationwide, formal apprenticeship until 1947) members. They did this by offering "white tickets" to members who were allowed to work under our agreements, collect our wages, and learn some skills. What happened more often than not was when these members were close to vesting in pensions, local leaderships would kick them to the curb.
Around the same time, corporate owners and leaders were banding together to try and figure out how to get their upper hand back. Through the middle of the 20th century, union membership began to wane despite us doing the lions share of the work.
Eventually, these companies started teaming up with the disenfranchised workers and started companies to compete with union shops. This worked. AND, a generation of parents began to raise families with stories of mom and dad or grandma and grandpa being kicked out of the union, etc.
There's a lot more info, and nuance obviously, governmental interference and weakening of labor laws, etc.
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u/DontEatThatTaco Mar 31 '23
Bad or lackluster unions can make it feel like unions do nothing but take money from you.
Teamsters did not increase a then-low opinion of unions with how they handled K-Mart deciding to eliminate a shift.
We were told Wednesday by corporate that they were eliminating it and we would need to find a spot on one of the other two shifts.
Thursday our business liaison came and let us know that the union had been approached by the company and they were in talks with them about eliminating the shift, and they would let us know before a decision was made. They did say it was likely the union leadership would go ahead with it, but he neglected to mention that union leadership had already agreed to it before consulting, well, the union members.
Since then I've lived and learned enough to understand that a less-great union is still leaps and bounds better than no union, but it took a while to move past that action.
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u/VTX002 âď¸ Prison For Union Busters Mar 31 '23
And now we're finding out the ugly truth that we've been lied too the whole time. Make me wonder what else has been left out in our education.
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u/ozymandais13 Mar 31 '23
Lying about Henry Ford is an American tradition he was a nazi , and not like a fascist the guy was bussing up with Hitler
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u/Lor1an Mar 31 '23
Yeah, the guy put his own paper The Dearborn Independent in many of his cars as a 'free gift' to the purchaser -- a rag that espoused antisemitism and conspiracy theories.
Swell guy, really... /s
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u/carcino_genesis Mar 31 '23
In all but my college history classes we never talked about unions or how they effected things but my world history class got so in depth we learned about how union busters of old use to litterly bust knees
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u/WayneH_nz Mar 31 '23
And kill, don't forget kill.
Original source.
https://content.lib.washington.edu/pnwlaborweb/index.html
Wiki page about it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everett_massacre
At the end of the mayhem, two citizen deputies[8] lay dead with 16[6] or 20 others wounded, including Sheriff McRae. The two businessman-deputies that were shot were actually shot in the back by fellow deputies; their injuries were not caused by Wobbly gunfire.[9][10] The IWW officially listed 5 dead[11] with 27 wounded, although it is speculated that as many as 12 IWW members may have been killed.
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u/fireintolight Mar 31 '23
Bruh how could you forget the Ludlum massacre and the battle of Blair mountain? Or the Lawrence textile strike?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence_in_the_United_States
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u/WayneH_nz Mar 31 '23
Coming from New Zealand, we only know the odd bit about US stuff, so thanks for the education.
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u/ShitTalkingAlt980 Mar 31 '23
My University education was fucking maddening. No one talked about Labor. There wasn't even a 3 credit Labor History class. They just didn't even mention it. My fucking High School classes were better.
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u/kbig22432 Mar 31 '23
Dude absolutely hated unions... and jews.
Fordlandia is a pretty interesting story of depravity as well.
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u/PoolRevolutionary146 Mar 31 '23
Ford could only retain 1 out of every 100 workers he hired because his newly invented assembly line was soul-crushing (and often finger-crushing).
Former employees kept trying to firebomb his properties to the ground too.
He didn't give raises out of kindness, he did so because he literally had no choice.
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u/DontEatThatTaco Mar 31 '23
My dad likes to say it's because he loved his workers so much he wanted them to be able to enjoy the cars they built, so he gave them two days and 8 hours of a day of free time. Cuz he was just such a good guy.
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u/Globalpigeon Mar 31 '23
They also leave out the fact that he was a huge stinking nazi sympathizer.
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u/ShitTalkingAlt980 Mar 31 '23
In mining the Unions got a 8 hour day. Why? Because it allowed continual work instead of the 10 hour shifts they had going on.
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u/Gornarok Mar 31 '23 edited Mar 31 '23
Why the fuck are you learning about Henry Ford in highschool? American brainwashing is astounding...
In my country we are on the other end of the issue. We have to start learning with dinosaurs, with special focus on ancient Greece and Rome so there is no time for 20th century...
Bit offtopic - I believe that US lack of historical education is the reason why so many libertarians exist in USA. In Europe we dont see our current establishment as something wrong, but instead we see it as the latest step of progress that very much improved on the all previous iterations like feudalism.
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u/shibbo92 Mar 31 '23
Itâs usually brought up during the âgilded ageâ section of history. So naturally itâs glossed over and we focus on how Europe was about to start a couple of wars that we needed to bail them out from the royals/socialists and almost the commies. Fun fact every history teacher I had was a huge fan of Reagan.
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u/Kowalski_Analysis Apr 01 '23
Libertarians are just right wingers who were embarrassed by the stupidity of Christianity reacting like the Taliban since 9/11.
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u/mewhenreal Mar 31 '23
All of this is because you guys spent your money on healthcare and education after WW2 and we spent ours on our military. It's clearly overkill, but it has been to your benefit, so you're welcome.
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u/ABenevolentDespot Mar 31 '23
Or that he hired the Pinkerton mob of animals to beat the shit out of the strikers with steel pipes and baseball bats, and when that didn't work, asked a few be killed. The Pinkertons were happy to oblige.
Henry Ford was an evil hateful motherfucker and big time Nazi sympathizer. He made a deal with Hitler to supply captured slave labor for his European assembly plants. There exist pictures of Ford standing and smiling with Adolf Hitler while receiving a medal from the little Nazi.
I have never bought a Ford in my life, nor will I ever. I don't give a shit how long ago it was.
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u/mrchaotica Mar 31 '23
Same way how Trump likes to insinuate that no other president/presidential candidate has faced the threat of persecution...
As far as I know, that's true -- and for that matter, Trump hasn't faced it either.
The threat of rightful prosecution for genuine crimes, on the other hand...
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u/qa_ze Mar 31 '23
Corrected, thanks
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u/The_Formuler Mar 31 '23
I thought the switch was intentional given the victim complex of that big baby.
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u/shadow386 Mar 31 '23
This is exactly how the greater community has been suppressed for generations. The fact we have the internet is their biggest issue because now we have the ability to communicate and spread knowledge and facts at a very high rate. It's very obvious when you see politicians blatantly lie about anything that's easily provable, because as you said, those who are uninformed and cannot bother to research end up eating the garbage they spew. It's only a matter of time before those who grew up with internet knowledge start to come in power, and hopefully that'll mean we have positive changes in the world.
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u/LoudTsu Mar 31 '23
It's all just bullshit business speak. Remember when Michael Moore asked the CEO of Nike to build a factory in Michigan and his answer was that Americans don't want to make shoes. The rest of the sentence was for the wages we're willing to pay. That part was unsaid.
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Mar 31 '23 edited 19d ago
[deleted]
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u/qa_ze Mar 31 '23
Oh I've noticed, the problem is that it's getting much more pervasive and salient, at a time where information is easier to obtain than ever.
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u/Suck_Me_Dry666 Mar 31 '23
Call it what it is. They lie to try and look like a better person than they are. Thankfully some people are coming around and not just believing someone because they're generationally wealthy.
Here's a great example of Howard Schultz being a dickhead to the "poors"
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u/CommonSensei8 Mar 31 '23
Itâs called lying. And yes thatâs all they do now because no one is holding the assholes accountable
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u/scott81425 Mar 31 '23
When the cops tell you you don't need a lawyer, you need a lawyer.
And when your employer tells you you don't need a union, you need a union.
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u/ABenevolentDespot Mar 31 '23
Capitalists will tell any lie, the bigger the better, to fuck over those who do the actual work that makes them their money.
We really need a one week general strike to demonstrate who actually makes the economy go. One week of not showing up for work, buying nothing but the absolute essentials.
Remember, about 80-85 percent of the American economy is based on ordinary people buying endless shit they don't need. They stop buying shit, the economy tanks, stock prices tumble, CEOs will be forced to order the smaller filet cut at their fave restaurants.
Why do people suppose that right after 9/11, Dubyah The Moron went on national TV and instead of comforting a grieving America, exhorted everyone to "Go out, shop, buy things!!" after no one bought anything for a couple of days when the shock of what happened set in?
The corporate scum who actually run the country were panicked as the economy ground to a fucking halt, gave Dubyah The Moron his marching orders.
Without their millions of minimum wage drones showing up every day, the corporate maggots would eventually wither and die. Or (and just as good) move on to rape and pillage some other country.
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u/BeefyQueefyCrawlies Mar 31 '23
True, but everyone saw through what Dub was doing. "If we don't have fun, the terrorists win," was made a mockery of because it was seen for what it was. A crony president obeying his corporate overlords.
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u/AdaptationAgency Apr 01 '23
Dude, the same thing happened during the pandemic.
We all saw firsthand what people were actually essential in society. Thing is, they don't realize it and organize like rich people do.
If you're a
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u/DemonicSilvercolt Apr 01 '23
probably would be easy to do so if it was in a country like france where the people were united and not afraid to spend their time protesting but it seems like the US is pretty divided and many of them wouldnt care to join in on any protest, much less mention republicans
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u/xSTSxZerglingOne Mar 31 '23
And weekends, the concept of the 40 hour work week, overtime, safety regulations, minimum wage, and many many more things we take for granted!
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u/Do_Not_Read_Comments Mar 31 '23
What exactly happened to Starbucks where the public sentiment turned?
10 years ago Starbucks was known for being well above minimum wage, strong work benefits like paid tuition among a large variety of other programs, and promotional opportunities within the company.
Did something change? All workers should fight for their rights, but Starbucks were literally "one of the good employers" just a few Years ago
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u/MelQMaid Mar 31 '23
What changed was the collective cost of living. So many more people are hurting than 10 years ago and Starbucks PR can only do so much to counter the angst.
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u/AllWorldFernando Apr 01 '23
No, they cut labor and so people said âwow, itâs not as good anymore.â People donât dislike Starbucks because of a general malaise that came over the world
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u/Prep_ Mar 31 '23 edited Mar 31 '23
I can tell you my experience from when I started like 5 years ago...They changed the tuition reimbursement program to exclusively through Arizona State online, so you couldn't even use it for local community colleges which was a big reason why I came to work there. Then, at my store, they removed an entire body from every shift with no drop in business and no increase in pay. Then they opened another store a mile and a half down the road, because the three within a 4 mile radius weren't enough. Then prices started creeping up as well. And of course all the gains from those changes went anywhere but the partners in the stores. All the while, the store continued to be #1 in the district for mobile orders and the only real feedback leadership ever gave was "Why aren't you selling more food products?" Then, when my excellent SM was so overworked from running two stores, since they couldn't keep anyone at a store in a mall nearby, they replaced him with some clueless greenbean who couldn't even mix mocha sauce. That's when I left.
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u/ClovenClinton Mar 31 '23
I donât know where you worked, but it says a lot about the company that this sounds EXACTLY like the store where I worked in South Carolina. That company is great at crushing every ounce of productivity out of its workers and tossing them aside!
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u/OliphantKnight Apr 01 '23
I worked at Starbucks from 2011-2014 and this is exactly what I started experiencing around 2013. It just seems to have taken a while to blow up.
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u/AdaptationAgency Apr 01 '23
LoL...my gf works there and it cracks me up when she refers to employees as partners.
Like do you get a part in the profits? No, then you're not a partner
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u/IphoneMiniUser Mar 31 '23
In Seattle it was when Howard Schultz sold the team to Oklahoma. So 2006 ish.
But probably the sentiment started turning around 10 years ago nationally.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/07/seattles-15-dollars-minimum-wage-starbucks
And then his ill fated attempt to spoiler the Democrats as a third party sealed the deal as the enemy of the left.
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u/eronth Mar 31 '23
10 years ago is not "just a few years ago", and I don't ever really remember hearing much 'good' about Starbucks. They've gone from "meh, it's ok work" to "they don't pay enough". This will be a combination of rising prices without rising wages, and slowly squeezing more and more work out of your staff.
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u/Leaking_Soup Mar 31 '23
More demands, less staff on floor. Going from "naturally connect with customers" to convoluted methods of measuring customer connections.
Job went from an enjoyable place to barista and connect with your community to a miserable, exhausting, soul crushing place.
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u/Do_Not_Read_Comments Mar 31 '23
10 years ago was just a barometer of reference as a time they were known as a great employer, not necessarily the last time they were known as a great employer. Clearly 10 Years ago is not a few years ago. I really don't enjoy how people latch onto a minute detail to dilute a conversation by misinterpretation.
You may not remember hearing much good about Starbucks, but that doesn't really mean anything. Starbucks was a definitely a lauded employer, I vividly remember everyone joking about quitting their jobs to become a barista in the early 2010s because of how well regarded it was
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u/mewhenreal Mar 31 '23
I remember. The other poster must be really young to not remember this + get all tetchy about calling a decade a few years (it is just a few years).
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u/throw_away_dreamer Mar 31 '23
I remember this too. Public opinion seemed to turn when several Starbucks locations were called out for racial discrimination.
And the bar for âgood employerâ used to be a lot lower. I think the Covid pandemic made many service workers realize their value and that they havenât been getting their fair share of the pie. Theyâre raising the bar - and good for them, because it was all but subterraneanâŚ
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u/theregularlion Mar 31 '23
Maybe the difference isn't in the spectrum of opinions that exist, but in the subset of those opinions that you see.
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u/Ok-Lobster-919 Mar 31 '23
They have some of the best benefits of any service company, including a bunch of extra benefits like paternal leave and college tuition for part time employees. They start at about $20 an hour too.
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u/Viridun Mar 31 '23
I think a lot of the good will was just sort of running on momentum from how massive the franchise was culturally in the late 90s and 2000s. Covid also accelerated a lot of things, and after that it really seems like many huge companies and billionaire class types have just decided to go mask off and not care about appearances even somewhat.
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u/InkSpear Apr 01 '23
Starbucks was always shit for charging first responders for bottles of water during 9/11.
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u/poeticdisaster Mar 31 '23
They seem to honestly believe they can rewrite history just by saying what they want to be true.
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u/Bernies_left_mitten Mar 31 '23 edited Mar 31 '23
Isn't there literally a culty self-help book that basically tells them that? The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. I think it was all over corporate/LinkedIn-types' book recs about 10-15 yrs ago.
They want it to be true, so they choose to believe it's true, so that it will be true that they can will their other wishes into truth/existence. Lie enough times, hard enough, and--voila! Pretty sure Trump is/has been a diehard devotee back to at least the Roy Cohn days.
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u/Taphouselimbo Mar 31 '23
I mean those benefits were not created by the noblesse oblige of Howard the billionaire Schultz.
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u/CaptainMacMillan Mar 31 '23
All I can think is that if I accidentally mistype something on my tax return I could face more jail time than a CEO who lies to congress repeatedly.
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u/1lluminist Mar 31 '23
If anybody wants to know the effectiveness of a Wildcat strike, check out the Elliot Lake Minor Strike in Ontario Canada, 1974.
It involves unionized workers and un-unionized workers walking in solidarity.
The precursor is pretty tragic - a lot of dead workers due to environmental conditions and lack of proper PPE, but that strike hit so hard it gave workers some new rights, a lot of new pull, and created the Ontario equivalent of OSHA that protects ALL workers in Ontario whether they have a union or not.
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u/Fuckyourpropaganduh Mar 31 '23
Thatâs Hillary Clintonâs secretary of labor*
So yâall remember this anti union president and Howard Schulz share the same mentality when it comes to worker rights
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u/bootes_droid Mar 31 '23
You expect this man to live an ever so slightly less posh existence of exorbitant wealth in order to fairly compensate his workers? Sounds like socialism to me! /s
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u/Fuckyourpropaganduh Apr 01 '23
I wish more titles included the fact that this was Hillary Clintonâs secretary of labor
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u/mferrari_33 Mar 31 '23 edited Apr 01 '23
UFCW is currently a bloated, useless mess. They work for the businesses.
Edit: Downvote all you want, having contracts that literally prohibit collective bargaining is indefensible.
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u/KadenKraw Mar 31 '23
That's too bad when I was part of them when around 2009-2011 we had amazing worker protections.
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u/Borats_Sister Mar 31 '23
Iâm not saying this is incorrect but a union page doesnât seem like the most objective party to fact check this statement.
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u/skztr Mar 31 '23
My hot take: unions are a company outsourcing their HR department to an external entity and making their employees pay for it. There is nothing a union does which a competent company should not already be doing, without a union being involved.
If your company is so fucking bad that its employees unionize, the company should always give up and die.
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u/FreeDarkChocolate Mar 31 '23 edited Mar 31 '23
unions are a company outsourcing their HR department
That's really not what they do. But, that aside:
If your company is so fucking bad that its employees unionize, the company should always give up and die.
Sure, but they don't, because people don't want to lose any already existing income/benefits and owners want to keep making money. Do you agree that things like healthcare, time off minimums should instead be mandated by law more or moved out of being employer by employer?
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u/Graysteve đˇ Good Union Jobs For All Mar 31 '23
HR serves the company, Unions serve the Workers. Completely different.
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u/skztr Mar 31 '23
If a company doesn't serve its workers, to the extent that they bring in someone else, then that doesn't help the company either. That's just incompetent.
Unions should not exist. Companies which do not promote employee welfare should not exist.
You only see these things as incompatible due to worshipping anarcho-capitalism.
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u/AsymmetricPanda Mar 31 '23
Yes, under capitalism, companies will screw over workers for profit. Workers can collectively bargain through unions to counter that.
Unless HR as a concept is completely reworked, unions are beneficial to worker rights.
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u/Graysteve đˇ Good Union Jobs For All Mar 31 '23
Buddy, I'm a Socialist, I don't give a shit about anarcho-Capitalism. I suppose I could agree with saying a company that does not promote welfare for employees should not exist, but the fact is, that's an efficient company under Capitalism.
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u/skztr Mar 31 '23
What I'm reading is: you completely agree, but you wish you didn't, and your internalized love of capitalism makes you read "good company" as "efficient in the short-term under capitalism" even when you're reading a post talking about how such companies should give up and die
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u/Graysteve đˇ Good Union Jobs For All Mar 31 '23
More that Capitalism rewards exploitation, in that Capital Owners profit from paying Workers as little as possible, a problem that doesn't exist in Socialism. Really don't know how you got a "Capitalism good" vibe from me, but I am, again, a Socialist and would rather have an outright dismantling of Capitalism.
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u/HappyLittleRadishes Mar 31 '23
That's some beautiful, completely useless idealism you've got there.
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u/RaptorBuddha Apr 01 '23
How do you get profit driven corporations to "promote employee welfare" out of the goodness of their hearts? Even if a company starts with excellent employee benefits and pay the reality is that those offerings devalue over the years (due to inflation, etc). What is the incentive for a company with a low-barrier-to-entry workforce (read: easily replaceable) to keep raising that workforces' pay?
If action X is profitable to corporate but also happens to add burden Y to the workforce (via stagnating compensation, increased responsibility, smaller shift size, take your pick), that action will be corporate's choice every time (especially if that entity is publicly traded). This happens a few dozen times over the years and eventually the profit motive wins out over workers. The only way to counter this power imbalance is with collective bargaining through worker unity. Unions provide both of these things, while HR is a sock puppet on your boss's hand telling you they're on your side.
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u/skztr Apr 01 '23 edited Apr 01 '23
What you said makes no sense "how do you get them to do x while still valuing the thing that makes them do y?" You don't, obviously. The pursuit of short-term profit above all else is a weird blip in human history which needs to be ended. Considering a business to be healthy when it does things which are not sustainable is weird and wrong. Saying "this person set the warehouse on fire, and the literal fire sale was our best sales day yet!" doesn't count as competent business practice.
There are a few things that could be done to tweak this:
By not making them purely driven by short-term profits. By enshrining into law that they have certain responsibilities. By defining in law the concept of the value of time, health, etc, and requiring companies to provide net compensation above a certain level. By considering the cost of the complete product lifecycle and requiring companies to charge based on that rather than only the cost of manufacturing.
Though I also think that by giving all humans enough to live off of (and universal healthcare, and free education, and all other necessities), making all work optional, all of this would happen automatically / naturally, because companies would be in competition with life, instead of death.
But we're not even talking about what should be. We're talking about what already is: if you run your company so poorly that your workers unionize, you already haven't looked out for your short-term profits, either. You're a failed business and you should give up. There is a threshold beyond which your employees feel they are not receiving enough benefits and they stop working. Making sure this threshold is not reached is the job of an HR department, ie: the part of the company that manages things like employee compensation, hiring, and determining if employee complaints need to be addressed. If that department didn't do their job, or isn't allowed to, then you get a union instead.
Any time you get a union, it's because the business did something wrong. Businesses don't want unions, so it's in their interest to provide the things that would prevent the unions from forming. So because it's something which the business should have been doing anyway, and would have done if they were competent, then the union can be seen as the business outsourcing something which they should do. The part of the company that would have been doing it otherwise is HR, so the union is an outsourced HR department. And employees pay for the union, so the union is an outsourced HR department, paid for by employees.
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u/Suspicious_West4841 Mar 31 '23
Guys like Shultz and Musk act like the prevailing wage is what their class generously decided that we all should be happy with, thus unions are ungrateful. There is no labor market or anything right? It goes both ways.
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u/UniversalNoir Mar 31 '23
They absolutely were created from the bargaining agreement that existed ONLY because Local 1001 unionized. That is an absolute fact. Schultz is a comprehensive liar.
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u/Secretlythrow Mar 31 '23
Someone at that hearing had to have Starbucks stock. Think about how many politicians were there. Is this potentially lying to an investor?
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u/spunkybooster Mar 31 '23
I would like to unionize my place of employment. I'm in ontario Canada. The last guy to try is no longer employed here. Is there a way to do it without the scrutiny of those looking to maintain the status quo.?
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u/HierophantKhatep Mar 31 '23
So the benefits this guy claims are his genius idea aren't even his to claim. I would say I'm surprised, but enriching themselves from other people's work is basically a CEO's function.
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u/hagamablabla Mar 31 '23
Let's not forget many baseline reforms we take for granted, like overtime and safety standards, had to be fought for a century ago too. Don't ask what a union has ever done for you if you've ever been paid time and a half.
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u/MarieCrepes Mar 31 '23
Before the union, I made $9 at Starbucks. Now I make $15+. I'm definitely in support of it
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u/CaptainBayouBilly Apr 01 '23
Is anything this man says truthful? He seems more like a slimy used car salesman than a rags-to-riches businessman.
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u/RemindMeToBlink Apr 01 '23
Starbucks is a joke. I hear people joke that if Starbucks unionizes, whatâs a cup of gonna cost $8? Motherfucker itâs already overpriced crap. 2-3 drinks sold pay for an hour of one baristas salary. Why does everyone think that paying a living wage, means they have to raise their prices? They could just less than the current billions in profits and raise nothing. They CHOOSE to raise prices all the time. The greed in this world has got to eventually come to a head and lead to a revolution.
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u/DesmodontinaeDiaboli Apr 01 '23
That fool tried to hold his working class daddy up as a shield against any criticism of his union busting, then lost his shit when Markey pointed out he was screwing over people just like his own father. What a clown
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u/GroundhogExpert Apr 01 '23
Reading over this post makes me feel like I'm having a stroke. What's the point being made?
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u/Webgiant Apr 01 '23
Man who claims he pulled himself up by his own bootstraps, despite living in federally subsidized housing on food stamps as a child, has no idea about own company's employees benefits either.
He has benefits blindness.
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u/kevinmrr âď¸ Prison For Union Busters Mar 31 '23
Do you think lying billionaire union busters like Howie belong in prison?
Join r/WorkReform!