#BC general employees union

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Opponents of an expansion to a marine container port on B.C.'s South Coast held a news conference in Vancouver Wednesday to reiterate their concerns about the impact on the environment and local jobs if the project, recently approved by the federal government, goes ahead.

"There's times when we do need to say, 'No. We do need to say 'no,'" said Rueben George, a member of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, as he pointed to his nation's territorial waters behind him from Vancouver's CRAB Park with the Port of Vancouver in the background.

The group of those publicly opposing the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 (RBT2) in Delta, B.C., about 35 kilometres south of Vancouver, is growing and now includes two unions, the International Longshore & Warehouse Union of Canada and the B.C. General Employees' Union, along with a dozen conservation organizations.

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[darry-queen]

How much Darry and Soda would make modern day and if it would be enough to pay for at least the three of them: (note this may not be incredibly accurate and while yes I did do research while calculating this shit it wasn't super in depth! feel free to correct me on any and all mistakes you notice and feel free to also give your own opinions!! Much love!)

Starting with Darry's:

Before I get into number this is all assuming that Darry works exclusively the hours allotted to him while missing no work, he'd have a 5 day work week at 40 hours which is standard practice in the United States, except for his part time job which he'd be working 25/h a week (i talk about this more later just continue reading) also I'm not giving them any kind of insurance. Sorry! Lol!

Starting salary of a roofer in Oklahoma is $14/h with the average being around $15/h. Assuming this Darry will be getting around 30k a year. I'm going to be generous and say he works for a good company and has a strong union so I'll give him a end of year bonus as well ($200-$800)

His weekly pay would be around $550-$600

This would be taxed though! Using a taxing calculator (bc I'm not doing all that math babeee) He'd be payed around $500 a week.

Darry also canonically has a second job! Though it is never really talked about, not even mentioned whether it's part or full time. I'm just going to assume, generally, that it is probably a part time job that pays minimum wage. (I'm aware that there are many popular hc's as to what this job is I'm ignoring those lol) now I don't live in Oklahoma but I do have personal experience with working part time and it fucking sucks. They have you working only slightly less then a full time employee so they do not have to give you full benefits. It is an incredibly fucked up and exploitative practice.

Something to note is that Oklahoma allows part time employees to be payed half minimum wage the first 90 days of employment when under the age of 20. I do not think I will include this in the calculation because even though Darry would be 19 at the time of his parents death I think he would be 20 not long after and I do not care enough to look into this law to include it in my calculations! Just wanted to mention it because?? What the fuck Oklahoma?

Anyway, part time would have Darry working 25 hours a week for $7.25/h which would be around $180/week. After taxes he'd make $160/week getting him to $660 a week.

Finally, what everyone was waiting for.... doordash fucking driving baby. Considering he lives in a populated area I am going to be generous and say he manages to get around $20/h from doordash driving. Assuming he does this on the days he doesn't work part time (so the other 15 hours) he'd make a whopping 16k extra a year OMG!!

As for any money he'd earn from the state for guardianship of Pony and Soda: Idk! It's kind of confusing trying to figure out Oklahoma giving shit out for this because fostering and guardianship are two dif things and I'm almost certain Darry would have Guardianship over his siblings, not fostering them. So I'm just not including it: he may have received a check upon first becoming their guardian but since that is a one time thing I'm not going to include it in my final calculations (i know this is kinda contradictory for giving Darry a bonus for his roofing work but IDC IDC IDC IDC I AM NOT PUTTING THAT MUCH EFFORT INTO THIS (NOTE I FILLED OUT A MOCK W2 FORM TO GET A ROUGH ESTIMATE OF WHAT DARRY'S TAX RETURN WOULD BE BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN I CARE))

All of the above considered: Darry is making $960 a week. Wow!

Now for Sodapop!

Soda I'm just going to copy paste what Darry's theoretical part time job would be because it's almost time for me to go to bed and I couldn't find any special rules for 16< year olds, so he'd be working 25 hours for $7.25 which after taxes is again $160

In total him an Darry combined are making a good healthy $1120 a week on average. Probably more if you consider Darry going insane with doordash/overtime! Overall a good $4480 a month

GREAT NOW TIME FOR EXPENSES!!

Expenses Include:

Mortgage payments

power bill

water bill

natural gas

car payments (maybe)

car insurance (maybe)

fuel

food

phone payments

internet bill

probably more I can't remember off the top of my head

OKAY NOW explaining the maybe's rq

You can just, not pay for car insurance. It's illegal, but when you're poor it's not like you can really care about the legality of certain things. Sometimes, it's eating vs car insurance, y'know? Especially because Darry is only 20, that shit is going to be expensive. And the car was def under his dad's name previously so he also def doesn't have any history. I'mma be generous though and say that he does have CREDIT history, which following my own car insurance premiums: my man is going to be paying like, $400 a month. and trust me, I'm being generous here. This is also for liability only. crazy right? With that considered, if I can not get Darry's salary to work with the rest of his expenses I'm saying he's driving without insurance. Hope you understand.

Now for the car itself, it might be payed off already might not. Again it's almost time for me to go to bed so I"m not willing to double check the book to see if car payments are ever mentioned. If they are I'll come back and fix this another time but for now. I'm not including it.

As for the gas for this theoretical truck? I'm going to put it from $250-$300 a month based off of what Reddit car owners said on how often they have to get gas for their own trucks. Great!

OKAY NOW FOR THE REAL EXPENSES! The average cost of utilities in Oklahoma, Tulsa specifically, is $270 a month for electricity, like $130 a month for natural gas, and for water $100 a month. Now you're probably saying, "Paya, isn't that a little high?" to which I'd say, they have 4 (presumably more) other boys coming around almost everyday. SO I feel it's fine to rate that shit on the higher side of things.

Before I forget: the mortgage payments!

This one is kinda fucked! I have no idea when the Curtis parents bought the house in canon. If it was after, or before Darry was born, etc. Because of this you can kinda just make hc's for this. The reason I say this is because obviously the housing market now is VERY different from the one in the 40s-60s which is when they'd have had to buy the house in cannon. In fact, I'm not even entirely sure they own the house in canon I'm just assuming right now! Like, if you're making a modern au: feel free to say that they're renting! Like who really cares about it? I'll even calculate it here for you so you have a frame of reference: Assuming the house is at least 2 bedrooms 1 bathroom it's gonna be around 1.5k a month. If you want to say they're paying a mortgage though, I'm going to assume based off the little data I could find of average home cost in 2004 (I'm assuming the house was bought around the time of Darry's birth) we're looking at somewhere between 150k-250k. I'm going to low ball it though because I think Oklahoma housing prices are generally cheaper and I'm going to assume they'd go for something affordable over something large. So I'll say 175k! Average interest on a home loan in 2004 was around 6%, with a 20% downpayment Darry will be paying 1k a month for the mortgage. Not that bad!

Phone bill is p cheap around 100$ feel like you may be able to play around with this. Like maybe they're paying for Johnny? Who knows not me I want to go to bed!

Food is like so fucking expensive now tbh. I pay $300 a month on grocery shopping a month for my household. Assuming Darry is purchasing food for himself, his brothers, and a little extra for the gang I'm going to put his grocery bill at around $500 a month. I think I'm lowkey low balling it, but I think he'd be a good bargain shopper. Btw, don't ask if he qualifies for food stamps! Because he doesn't!

internet bill is significantly cheaper going to be around $50 a month, as for services like live streaming and other things, we're gonna say it's all pirated. no one is paying for that shit when you can get it online for free! (Personal hc: Steve is a fucking amazing pirate and can get you literally anything you ask for.)

Final cost of living for my boys, not including school supplies, school/extra curriculars/or clothing: $2400 - $3350

Ending conclusion: If Darry works 80+ hours a week and Soda helps out with his part-time job they have more then enough to pay for almost all living expenses. Tell me where I fucked up! Thanks. Btw according to the shittily done w2 I did for Darry he'd get almost 2k in tax returns; i most def fucked something up but I'mma accept it despite that.

[reel-fear]

Genuinely so curious who Mike thinks is gonna be buying The Cage or the new DCTL GN bc with the way he tweets as far as he's concerned, it's not gonna be:

The queer people he has actively admitted he will never show any representation of in the games.

2. The POC he has actively fought against representing in his franchise. [Who he also mocked for thinking they would be represented in his franchise]

3. The Bendy fandom which has always been concerned with topics of diversity esp in the sense of queer people since its creation. Who he has responded to really poorly esp in regards to the GN.

4. The fans who critique him. [He blocked me for doing so lol]

5. His fans in general who he tweets about like this currently. [He's being vague about why people were mad at him or sent him 'nasty messages' because if you actually looked into why you'd see he was in the wrong. Either way, a very hateful way to speak abt ur own fanbase.]

Reminder while Mike is trash talking his fans he has always treated them rather poorly. The fans who won the fanart contest for Chapter 5 never got their posters actually in game due to it being rushed. Not only was chapter 5 a big slap to the face story wise, but it was literally so rushed he couldn't be bothered to add in the art his fans gave him for his game FOR FREE. [Meatly blames this on a crazy timeline, reminder him and Mike are the literal ceos of this company. The proposal of future updates here is also pretty cruel considering Mike nowadays happily admits he corrupted Chapter 5's source code and therefore literally can't update it At All currently. Because he is a moron]

At least they got to be in Boris and the dark survival, and by that I mean that was the Only game they got to be in so far, isn't that just treating your fans like you love them? Shoving their hard work into a spin off game almost nobody has played or addresses much. [Hell, who knows if with the Lone Wolf rebrand they'll even stay there. In which case they'll be in None of the games, only in the credits of BATIM]

6. The Bendy fans who just generally disagree with him on stuff. Like the new ink demon design where there is literally a public poll showing people generally prefer the old one.

7. The Bendy fans who can see he is actively lying to them. To their fucking faces.

He says this has always been the case, but screenshots and links to tweets regarding the books being canon prove it was not. Does he really think bendy fans are stupid or something? [Unless he's admitting here he lied to Kress when he told her the books were canon which sounds worse!]

8. Anyone who doesn't like the idea of giving money to a guy who laid off tons of employees then afterwards thought it was a great idea to express his anti-union views! Also brag about how good of an employer he was, according to his employees, he was not!

So in summary; Mike is an awful person who has not learned anything from the awful things he did. I will not be purchasing The Cage because, combined with this and his absolute refusal to take any kind of critique or see any differing interpretation of his franchise, I have no reason to think my problems with the franchise will ever be addressed or fixed. I probably will pirate The Cage along with any future Bendy Products [Including the movie] and will do my best to avoid giving it any kind of monetary support. Unless this changes any time soon, I can't see myself making anymore positive Bendy posts soon.

Mike has just managed to make it so hard to speak positively or optimistically of this franchise when he's so willing to broadcast how little he cares about it or its fans. I'm at the point where I refuse to pull any of my punches with my problems with it. What's the point of trying to play nice with my critique when either way the people creating it don't care?

So with this post, I want to invite anyone who feels similarly about the franchise to tell me, make a post or send an ask talking about how all of this makes you feel. It may not change how things are, but genuinely seeing other people share my feelings of anger makes me feel better. It feels nice to see when other people share our same concerns and worries. I'd also love to know if anyone else thinks they'll be avoiding purchasing Bendy products over this.

I'm not forcing anyone to participate in it nor trying to say anyone who doesn't supports mike but genuinely maybe if we can collectively decide to boycott things like the movie, graphic novel and The Cage... It might at least make the bendy devs acknowledge how much they have destroyed their own fandom's faith and trust in them.

The way Mike tweets about his actions like he had no control over why people were mad at him at least proves to me he takes NONE of it back nor regrets it. If you didn't know about his actions and only went off his tweets, you would be led to believe Mike has been needlessly picked apart by fans over things he couldn't control [or in his own words, had his words twisted and taken out of context]. That is not how you speak about your actions if you have actually learned better from them.

anyway, that has been my bendy dev callout post. This is an open invitation to anyone feeling similarly upset about the way the franchise is going to talk about it. It's genuinely nice to see how people feel about this and the more we talk about the more it's likely the bendy devs are forced to address our concerns. I don't think they will but hey, that's why I'm not gonna support them with my money anymore nor am I gonna be nice to them in any content I make critiquing Bendy. I mean I'm also basically making this post just in case anyone asks me Why I feel this way towards to bendy devs/as a way to respond to anyone who thinks I am too harsh in my critique in the future.

As always, it seems the best part of Bendy isn't actually anything about canon but about what the fan's are creating with the ideas Bendy failed to do anything interesting with.

Also the books, the books slap.

[xjulixred45x]

To be honest no matter how many times I whoop hades ass in the game, I don't believe it's enough. There are a few of the solo hades cutscenes you know the ones wherein you have hades on his desk admonishing Zagreus. One particular one involving his eyes still remain with me.

You know even though Hades and JJK are so far from each other a certain line hits deeper with Zagreus's situation.

Being a child isn't a sin

So why on earth does Hades punish so ?

We could say that it is the main theme of the AU I work on.

during the game Hades not only takes out his frustrations on Zagreus (HIS OWN SON) but does very questionable things to get OTHERS to kill him even if he can return through the river Styx (like ratting him out to the security of the Underworld/witches/etc, sending to the Furies after him, make him face warriors with the help of the gods, etc.), and yet he speaks to him as if he were a nuisance, just another employee, ungrateful for wanting to leave when HADES HIMSELF is the reason why that Zagreus wants to leave.

and look, I wouldn't be so against Hades if this attitude were only from the beginning of the game, if their relationship was strained BC of Zagreus desiree of getting out of the Underwolrd, but several dialogues let us see that this attitude towards Zagreus has been going on for YEARS, that he has been like this all his life, that he has never had a problem neglecting him for his own unresolved Grief, and honestly makes Zagreus' reasons EVEN MORE justified.

I completely understand that Hades felt shit about Persephone, but considering that everything happened precisely because his OWN SON DIED, one would expect that he would have had more affection for him, more respect, even if it wasn't for him, for what it meant, his union with Persephone. but no, he use it as an excuse to be bitter towards everyone INCLUDING him and be a pretty mediocre father.

I don't think Hades hates Zagreus, I think he DOES loves him, but he definitely didn't love him enough for most of his life. and in this Au, that would be the cause of his fall. before the hands of the son he became his replacement.

In general I think it's good to address Hades' abuse of Zagreus properly, I'm glad to see a lot of people with that perspective.

____

podriamos decir que es el tema principal del AU en el que trabajo.

durante el juego Hades no solo saca sus frustraciones en Zagreus (SU PROPIO HIJO) sino que hace cosas muy cuestionables para que OTROS lo maten incluso si puede volver por el rio Styx(como delatarlo con la seguridad del Inframundo/las brujas/etc, enviar a las Furias tras el, hacer que se enfrente a guerreros con ayuda de los dioses, etc), y aun asi le habla como si fuera una molestia, un empleado mas, un desagradecido por querer irse cuando el PROPIO HADES es la razon por la que Zagreus se quiere ir.

y mira, no estaria tan encontra de Hades si esta actitud fuera solo de al principio del juego,, que su relación se haya tensado porque Zagreus decidió irse, pero varios dialogos nos dejan ver que esta actitud hacia Zagreus tiene AÑOS, que ha sido asi toda su vida, que nunca ha tenido problemas en descuidarlo por su propio Luto sin resolver, y sinceramente hace que las razones de Zagreus esten AUN MAS justificadas.

tipo, entiendo completamente que Hades se sientiera de la mierda por lo de Persefone, pero teniendo en cuenta de que todo paso justamente porque su PROPIO HIJO MURIO, uno esperaria que le hubiera tenido mas cariño, mas respeto, aun si no era por el, por lo que el significaba, su union con Persefone. pero no, lo uso como una excusa para estar amargado con todos INCLUYENDOLO y ser un padre bastante mediocre.

no creo que Hades odie a Zagreus, creo que lo ama, pero definitivamente no lo amo lo suficiente la mayor parte de su vida. y en este Au, eso seria la causa de su caida. ante las manos del hijo que convirtio en su reemplazo.

en general creo que es bueno dirigirnos al abuso de Hades a Zagreus como se debe, me alegro de ver a mucha gente con esa perspectiva.

He literally treats the DOG better than Zagreus by GOD---

[smokewars]

ok ive given myself a few hours to think abt it. i dont think i can accept the apology. the fact that it took him this long to be clear about this is telling and ever since i saw the tweet my first thought was "i wonder why they're apologising now". good faith tells me its because of the director realising how much they've fucked up these past weeks, but i can only wonder if theyd have released this at all if their asses weren't lit on fire by the unions first

because of this many other things have come up as well. whether or not you believe the director saying the worker left on their own violiton (this part reminds me of when angela profusely insisted that the library was fair bc the guests agreed to the terms, ignoring the external factors that could push them into doing that btw), what about the leviathan artist who was unfairly treated to the point that they had to quit? what about the translator who kept getting harrassed and also quit because of it? speaking of the translators in general, its been a bit of an open secret for a while that they're understaffed and overworked to hell. im aware that bringing those up detracts from the original topic and the director will likely never acknowledge it, but theyre things im still taking into consideration when thinking about the company

the end of the apology isnt good either. its not stated who its directly targetting but i think its pretty obvious that theyre going after the pmua. talking about "[taking] action to the end against those who claim to vehemently oppose cyberbullying yet somehow believe that attacking the company and its employees with falsehoods and manipulation and using its fans as mere opportunities to amplify their voices, as stepping stones to larger, more righteous discussions is justifiable" is fucking INSANE when the cause of all of this bullshit (dcinside users) hasn't been brought up once by the director. and its not like apologising will make me forget the dogshit statement he made two days ago

like it or not, the incels who attacked projmoon pretty much won. and they'll do this again the moment they get pissed off at the company for some arbitrary reason because its pretty clear that this worked

[captain-lovelace]

Hey I saw your rb, I really want to get into paleontology, specifically working in a paleontology lab doing fossil prep and such. I have no idea how to go about this, I was home schooled and worried I'd not even be accepted, I also do not know what steps to take to get on the path to studying this. I also am mid 20s and worried it is too late. So many people are discouraging to paleontology related fields, saying it is worthless to even bother bc "They're not needed and you won't ever get paid enough to live" etc

Any advice? Thanks!

So also based on your other ask it seems like this is a three part question: first, is studying paleontology worth it; second, how’s the money; and third, how would someone with your background start studying paleontology professionally.

With regards to the first question, I’ve wanted to be a paleontologist all my life and I’ve heard the same things you have about it not being worth it, about paleontology being a useless career/unnecessary, etc. To be blunt, the people who say these things overwhelmingly have no clue what they’re fucking talking about. Paleontology is the foundation upon which our understanding of modern evolutionary biology is built, paleontology is the source of a huge chunk of our understanding of mass extinctions, fossil data is necessary for understanding the relationships between modern species, etc. We absolutely do need people studying paleontology, and it is possible to have a career in it!

With that said, the pay is on par with grad student salaries in general— aka, pretty bad. Academia is kind of unique (derogatory) in terms of structure; usually you’re a grad student for 4-8 years depending on how long your PhD takes + if you do a master’s, then after you get your PhD you have a postdoc position for a varying number of years, then you move on to start your own lab as an assistant professor. After that, you can get tenure and move on to being an associate professor, and then in some cases eventually a full professor. (This isn’t the only path, obviously, but it’s the one I know the most about.) Your pay as a grad student and as a postdoc is likely not going to be great! In my master’s program I was paid around $32,000 a year, and in my upcoming PhD program my estimated pay is around $45,000; I did not have to pay tuition in either program. The livability of a grad student wage is going to also depend on location. Living on a salary like mine would be different in California versus in Alabama, for example. Also, like I said in my tags, I highly recommend going to a grad school where the academic student employees are unionized! Finally, this is US-based— I don’t know how it is outside the country.

About the last part of your question: I am not well-versed in non traditional education, and my advice should be taken with a grain of salt. With that said, if you have no college education, your first step might be getting an undergraduate degree, and I highly recommend looking for people who have gone through the process of getting an undergraduate degree in their late 20s and asking them about the process! Other than that, I advise looking at the geology departments of universities in your area to see if anyone is studying paleontology in them, just to get an idea of where and with whom you might like to study eventually. Usually there will be at least a couple of people with a paleontological focus.

The last thing I want to say is that even though my advice has been geared towards academia, there’s a lot of different ways to get involved in paleontological work. One thing that I really recommend doing is looking up volunteer opportunities at natural history museums in your area! That’s where I got my first experience in paleontological work, and it was really helpful for getting to where I am today. Also, read papers you find interesting! Even if you decide you don’t want to do paleontology as a career, that doesn’t mean it can’t be a part of your life.

[pdanno]

i’m just fuming over my job rn lol (forgive the rant but it’s me getting mad over labor regulations or the lack thereof)

i’m an RA (resident assistant in a university/college) and going through training. and it’s absurd the lack of labor laws or boundaries expressed. housing as an organization is cultish.

it should be noted because of special classification RAs are not typical employees, are not protected under the fair labor law standards, and if we try to unionize I don’t think there is much in the way of preventing our employer from firing everyone and hiring other broke college kids. which is particularly insidious because where you live is also then in jeopardy. and unionization is hard- most ppl in the role are always first years, a few second years and almost no third years. so ppl just leave as soon as they join. not to mention the role inherently means you live where you work, so housing seems to believe the job becomes your identity and life. there are no boundaries.

i start training at 9am, and then at 12 i don’t get a real break; i am required to eat lunch with all my coworkers and talk about things with them for the duration of lunch. if I’m lucky and get out early I might have 15-20 minutes to myself before training goes for another 4 hours. then another required meal period where my supervisor asks us questions. then some “optional” socials or “mandatory” extra training for half an hour to an hour and a half.

it is a requirement we eat meals as a team on weekends, and i didn’t even get the days off because sunday had 2 hours required meals and 3 hours required “activities.”

and then we are also expected to decorate the hall floor, make door decorations, start prepping for arrivals. all on our own time. if we do not meet expectations regarding this it’s going to be brought up by supervisors.

so today i was at required activities from 9am-6:30pm with 2 extra hours of work besides. counting meals, which I would because it’s not really free time, that’s 10.5 hour day. and i’m not getting paid until the end of the month. but it’s like 12 grand for the year bc my housing and meal plan is free plus other stuff. but it’s so not worth the emotional toll lmao. i love the people but I cannot stand the attitude to work and work ethic.

like even just, the hourly pay for on call expectations would be so different if it were fair. as of right now we do not get paid for that.we get a financial aid package (about 11k you are not spending but are also like. not receiving? personally they phrase it like it’s compensation when i think it’s distinctly just not charging you, therefore not having a profit on their end is not compensation on ours, and also that i think the role generates more value than they lose by providing housing.)

and a stipend of about $200 a month.

but please understand their expectation is that you are always always always working, in customer service mode, when you are in your living space. any time you see a resident you are not you. you are an RA . i sometimes dread going to the bathroom.

IMO fair compensation JUST IN THAT aspect would be a low base hourly pay rate for on-call (we are geographically restricted and cannot legally leave, which is usually grounds for a base on call pay. but oops this is a student position and we are not afforded those labor rights.) and higher rate when actively responding to complaints. however nope i’m just gonna have drunk teenagers try to hug me covered in vomit for 200 bucks a month thanks. plus on call is 14 hours every week. and then there’s weekends where it’s occasional 48 hour shifts. always being ready to respond to emergencies.

idk i feel like the role itself is inherently exploitative. I also understand most of my complaints are with capitalism and not like anything like too specific to my university. but god i want my parking to be covered. i don’t need to spent money on a permit for this shit. i try testing the waters and saying i think we should get parking permits and get shot down because “we are the best compensated in the state” well maybe we shouldn’t be aiming to be the best of the worst now huh? what’s wrong with wanting more?

same supervisor has complained in the past about small responsibilities being changed to make the job easier as “getting less work for more money” AS IF THAYS A BAD THING???? THAT IS THE END GOAL. everyone should always be slowly doing less work for more money- more efficiency. but not the case when you moralize work i suppose. i feel bad for him sometimes. he’s a nice person but his has drank the kool aid so thoroughly it’s unbelievable. that since he had to work x amount of jobs and burn himself out, that’s a reasonable expectation to have of other ppl? like ok sure

i am already making their lives more difficult bc i want to take care of myself and I advocate for myself. so i’ve been on the upper staff radars like 3 fucking times in one week. because i need their OH so gracious permission to take my ADULT ASS off campus to eat dinner with people that are not them. thanks for the fucking hall pass assholes. something about that feels genuinely dystopic.

speaking of, we are only allowed 14 nights off campus. like wtf. even when i am not on call i am geographically restricted? what kind of bullshit is that. it’s a huge load of it is what it is. this includes weekends btw.

i understand this is a very privileged take though. I keep the position bc it’s good for my pocket and I can help ppl. But I think it’s fair to criticize either way. im grateful for the reduced bill cause helps a lot for my debt. mental health tho… hahaha :(

TLDR

The RA position is setting people up who are early in their careers, or new to professional environments, and it is telling them that these unhealthy expectations are normal and expected, to the extent that the rest of their lives they will be constantly exploited without ever realizing it. Because this job teaches them that it is both acceptable and normal. it’s bad.

[isthisjackie]

I spent 6 months looking for the right job, and it took so many months to even get interviews. I wanted to work for a local health dept SO bad bc 1) they notoriously have amazing benefits, some of them are already unionized, etc and 2) bc I know how important public health workers are going to be as we continue to see the effects of global warming and just like general disregard for like science and facts

I ended up getting a position with a National, very well known nonprofit org that has historically made a huge difference in their field/target social problem and I’ve seen how well they take care of their employees. And now LHDs have so much to worry about in addition to the chaos and disruption happening within the government— like how can you manage infectious/communicable disease outbreaks effectively right now? How can you rely on any type of job security?

Basically what I’m getting at is sometimes we don’t get what we want/when we want it, but sometimes that’s truly for the best

[allthecanadianpolitics]

After weeks of organizing, employees of an embattled B.C. housing provider, the Atira Women’s Resource Society, have officially unionized.

More than 500 workers at over 35 Atira worksites joined the BC General Employees’ Union (BCGEU) on Monday, citing the need to address safety concerns, staffing shortages and other living and working conditions at Atira’s housing facilities.

“As frontline workers we know how to make Atira better for workers and for residents,” Atira women’s support worker Kadidja Youssouf said in a BCGEU news release.

“By unionizing, we now have the collective power to speak out, and for our ideas to be heard.” [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[b4kuch1n]

a penny for your sv thoughts

short version: gamefreak employees should unionize

long version: I purposefully don't tangle myself with new pokemon mainline games until at least five years have passed, regardless of generation. the fact that development is rushed and little to no experiments happen with the main formula betrays a deep insecurity antithetical to art, and no matter how I will feel about the actual game once I get to it I cannot stand for that. common marks of quality don't matter to me bc I am a freak of nature who likes ugly games with abysmal interaction as long as it has vibes, so the whole "AAA games should look pristine and smooth as butter and be the perfect product" is fundamentally not a good talking point imo. any problems that show up in scarvi's development and release are emblematic of the whole industry, you can't overlook them when the final product is pretty and clean and relegate them to games that look the quality of its management. go on itch.io and play funny little games with me. pokemon games should be ugly as sin and the models should be half-finished and every other attack should glitch out and kill the player IRL and the devs should shove their whole keyboard up the ass of whoever comes over to check on their progress. they shouldn't be sold they should be shoved into ur hands while ur getting groceries by a random guy in a windbreaker. they should take ten years to make and a full suit of body armor to play. we should learn to find meaning in dead leaves on the ground again. nintendo should turn into mush from which butt-naked mario mario of famous game mario emerges and runs into the woods never to be seen again. gamefreak employees should unionize. lechonk is pretty cute

[fuck-customers]

So this is kind of a time sensitive question but I’m asking it anyway just in case the situation is still happening when it gets posted. I have a coworker, let’s call her Z, who’s essentially being forced to quit by my manager (B). She was hired shortly after I was, about 6 months ago. She’s in college so in the beginning she was working around 20 hours a week, then it got dropped down to 15, then 11, and now she’s doing 3 hours. 3 HOURS. A WEEK. LET THAT SINK IN. She’s from the Philippines so her tuition is astronomical compared to what it would be for a citizen and she has a kid. Her husband works but they’re barely making enough to survive. I know she’s looking for a new job but I wanted to reach out and see if there’s anything I can do or say to my manager to help Z. If she quits she could lose some eligibility for federal govt benefits and severance pay, but I can’t exactly force B to fire her instead. My other coworker (T) used to do the scheduling before B took over again. T realizes how fucked up it is and she tries to give Z as many hours as she’s able (and that she wants). I was doing some paperwork with T when I noticed Z’s 3-hour-weeks so I asked her about it. Apparently my manager doesn’t like Z or her worth ethic. This is Z’s first retail job and first job in Canada so we had to teach her a lot at the start, though she hardly makes mistakes. She sits down a lot (but stands when customers approach) and generally doesn’t do much away from the till. However, she has severe asthma so I get why she doesn’t want to stand all day or do the back-breaking work of stocking. It’s also refreshing to see an employee not bend over backwards for customers and their wishes. When I see her just chilling it reminds me to take a breather because the Western retail environment has ingrained in me a must-not-let-customers-see-you-as-human mindset. All this to say, she’s not a bad person or worker. I’ve worked with worse and they were treated a lot better by B, which leads me to think that Z’s mistreatment is partly due to racism. I also think Z doesn’t know a lot about extra around-the-store tasks, like tagging or cycle counting. But that’s only because no one’s trained her! B can’t be annoyed that Z isn’t doing these things when she doesn’t set aside time to train her, or schedule extra people so there’s enough help while one of us teaches her. We don’t have a union and I’m not even sure how to go about starting one. I’m the youngest worker by a long shot and I don’t have any authority. My store’s a chain but it’s small and there’s only 9 workers including B. Everyone’s pretty chummy with the managers and I think most of them wouldn’t want a union, even T. I just feel so bad and I don’t know what to do. When Z saw the new schedule she started crying and had to hang out in the break room for a bit. I live in BC, Canada if anyone has resources.

[princessnijireiki]

yes I still have a Starbucks Coffeegear account, she's a #scammer, but also #nosy

ANYWAY I check their inventory sometimes bc occasionally they drop free merchandise (not this time smh), but with this new merch they DID say, "UGH 🙄 okay negros, HERE, just don't unionize" and released an open back satin lined cap for partners to wear, marketed towards Black employees ofc bc the free hat they give you when you're hired does suck ass + has a velcro closure— almost no one wears it, they either buy official visors or generic black visors & caps, and speaking personally I just refuse to have velcro near my hair, yk? not in a million years.

but y'all lol. guess how much their regular ball caps & visors cost. $7.25 to $12.50. poly acrylic beanies go for $8.55 to $10.55. guess how much their satin lined half a cap ones (to accommodate ✨️ethnic hair poofs & high ponys✨️) are... $23.00. BEFORE TAX. and their cheapest full cap at $7.35 is 100% cotton with a fabric strapback... this $23 hat is 100% NYLON OUTER & 100% POLYESTER SATIN, and STILL HAS VELCRO IN THE BACK.

like ik it's useless pandering and EXTREMELY tone deaf timing after the fucking racist mass shooting (classic case of Black ppl saying, "stop killing us!" and corporations going, "damn, we already took aunt jemima off the syrup! here's a hat, shit"), but how are they THIS BAD at racist pandering?! they surely have enough practice by now?! I'm honestly stunned.

[thedreadvampy]

finally made some moves on the unionising front at the staff conference though! gonna meet a couple of other people for a drink when I get back from Prague and make some plans for next steps. My colleague reckons if we pitch our approach right the CEO, who is very pro-union in general, will back us in putting together a union shop.

however I'm a bit more sceptical. I've watched other people unionise left-leaning NGOs before and it's amazing how much Very Pro Union leadership teams will suddenly be Very Threatened by unions when it's their employees asking to unionise. so I think a) we need to have a solid base among the frontline employees saying 'yes we want a union' before we go to leadership, have made decisions about what union we want to join and what structure we want it to take, and b) we need to pitch our approach very very carefully to make sure it doesn't read as a threat to leadership but does allow us to build accountability for leadership.

I think the guys I've been talking to are worried that organising first then going to leadership is likely to get back to leadership early on and set a bad tone. which I understand. but I also think I've seen it happen multiple times where people in lefty NGOs have taken for granted that bc we all have on paper pro-labour politics and a good relationship with leadership that leadership will support forming a union, and that has rarely if ever been the case.

wondering if when we meet for drinks I should see about inviting a couple of my pals who unionised their workplaces recently, so we can hear a wee bit about their approaches and experiences and make some informed decisions. but most of them have been unionising workplaces of like 5-30 employees in one office - we're trying to organise of nearly 200 employees over 4 counties, which is a bit daunting, and right now this is a conversation between 2-4 of us. I know other people have had these conversations over the years but I don't know who they are or how to reach out to them without having already made a decision about the approach.

as a person who handles internal comms I have access to the all staff mailing list and a list of managers and non managers, so once we know our play I can contact everyone, or only lower level staff, but I don't know who among the staff is just waiting for an opportunity to join a union, who needs a conversation about why, and who's going to be actively disinterested/hostile. it's a challenge.

[lastoneout]

I just wanna add on, my fiancé had to learn to recognize scams when he worked at a credit union, and he said the main way scammers work is by scaring you. They put a ton of pressure on you, insist that this needs to be done right now and that you not hang up, make it sound like you're in danger and they're the only person you can trust bcs people don't make rational decisions when they're freaked out.

The "don't hang up" thing is textbook, one way you can def tell if someone is a scammer is that they will get really mad at you if you try to hang up and start upping the stakes and putting more pressure on to make you panic, and my fiancé told me basically every scam victim is a person who comes in wanting to withdraw a large ammount of money, who looks scared, and is on speakerphone with someone who is insisting they not hang up no matter what otherwise something bad will happen.

And like the scammer saying "don't tell the bank what you need them money for bcs the identity thief could be working there" is so genius in how evil it is specifically because the bank employees are trained to recognize in progress scams and they will absolutely try to intervene, he's making sure she doesn't trust the only people who could help her realize what's going on before it's too late.

So yeah this is kinda obviously a scam, but smart people fall for scams all the time, and this one clearly used all the tricks to get inside this person's head(especially dragging her kid into it, that is def gonna make any parent start freaking out bcs they'd do anything to protect their child) until she was so scared/stressed that she couldn't possibly think rationally enough to realize what was going on.

Generally, a good way to try to protect yourself is to remember that scammers want you scared and stressed out, and if the person on the other end of the phone starts insisting you can't trust anyone but them and getting angry when you try to hang up then you should hang up and call wherever they said they were from yourself to confirm if that was an actual employee/agent or if it was a scammer. Remember: most actual banks/credit unions understand that not everyone can talk right away and won't get mad when you ask if you can call back in an hour or so, and if you're really in enough danger that the CIA is involved you're probably not gonna be hearing about it over the phone.

what is going on at NY magazine

[a-method-in-it]

Hello! I know you've made a few posts about workers rights and unions and I have a question. I was written up at work and then complained on camera (like security office camera w/ audio) to a coworker about issues I had with the write up, and then other coworkers came to me and said that I needed to be careful what I said in my office bc it was recorded and my complaints were heard by upper management and they were upset about it. My coworkers warned me it could lead to trouble for me (another write up or termination) if I didn't watch how I spoke about the companies/managements actions when being monitored. If I ever did get in trouble for this peer to peer venting about the work place (nothing posted to social media or said in front of clients) what are my rights, especially when there isn't anything outlined in our employee handbook in regards to surveillance?

Hey! So, I am not a labor lawyer, so you should take everything I say with a grain of salt (like, just so you know, this is the sort of thing that if you were in my union I would want to run some questions by our lawyer before I said anything for sure). But:

So the real issue here is not the surveillance -- there are shockingly few laws governing an employers' ability to surveil their employees -- but rather, the possibility that they might take action/retaliate against you for talking to your coworkers.

In general, you have the right to discuss what's usually termed the "terms and conditions of your employment" with your co-workers. The most clearly protected aspect of this is the right to discuss pay. Discussing safety concerns is also up there as far as being clearly protected. But there are also lots of other things that fall under this umbrella.

You can find some additional info here: https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/employees/concerted-activity

My instinct is to say that talking to your co-workers about disciplinary action would probably be protected concerted activity. But also, it might depend on what you written up for, or what exactly you said to your co-workers, or what your purpose was in discussing it. Like I said, I'm not a lawyer, so I can't say for sure.

I will say that if you know there is surveillance in your office/workplace, you should try to avoid it if possible. Or at least, that's my standard practice as a paranoid union steward. But if you don't have places where you can talk to your coworkers outside that surveillance, I would say you are probably protected when it comes to discussing most things relevant to your opinions about your job -- but you should try to make sure they are in fact about the job itself. (So think, like, "I think our scheduling system is unfair" as opposed to "I think our manager is an idiot.") Also avoid swearing. Swearing is, I have discovered, a really easy excuse for management to crack down on someone for speaking up, while still being able to provide a legal justification for it.

I hope this was helpful!