#Daily Wage Workers

[fincrif]

Personal Loan Eligibility for Housemaids, Drivers, and Daily Wage Earners

Introduction

A personal loan can be a lifesaver in times of financial need, offering quick access to funds without requiring collateral. However, individuals working as housemaids, drivers, and daily wage earners often struggle to secure loans due to irregular income and lack of formal employment records. While traditional banks may impose strict eligibility criteria, alternative lending options have made it possible for low-income workers to obtain financial assistance.

This article explores the eligibility criteria, challenges, and solutions for housemaids, drivers, and daily wage earners looking for a personal loan.

Challenges Faced by Low-Income Workers in Getting a Personal Loan

1. Lack of a Stable Income

Most banks and financial institutions require proof of a steady income to approve a personal loan. However, housemaids, drivers, and daily wage workers often earn on a cash basis, making it difficult to provide consistent salary slips or bank statements.

2. No Credit History

A credit score plays a crucial role in loan approval. Many low-income workers do not have a credit history because they have never taken a loan or used a credit card, which makes lenders hesitant to approve their applications.

3. Absence of Income Proof and Documentation

Financial institutions usually require documents such as salary slips, income tax returns (ITR), or Form 16 to verify income. Daily wage earners and domestic helpers often do not have these documents, making it harder to qualify for a personal loan.

4. High-Interest Rates

Even if some lenders provide personal loans to low-income workers, they often charge higher interest rates due to the perceived risk of non-repayment. This can increase the overall burden on borrowers.

How Housemaids, Drivers, and Daily Wage Earners Can Qualify for a Personal Loan

Despite these challenges, there are several ways for housemaids, drivers, and daily wage earners to improve their chances of securing a personal loan.

1. Apply for a Loan Through Microfinance Institutions

Microfinance institutions cater to low-income individuals who do not qualify for traditional bank loans. They offer smaller loan amounts with flexible repayment options, making it easier for daily wage earners to access credit.

2. Consider NBFCs and Fintech Lenders

Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) and fintech lenders provide personal loans with relaxed eligibility criteria. These lenders may consider alternate income proof such as utility bills, rent receipts, or employer verification letters.

3. Maintain a Bank Account

A bank account with regular transactions can help in proving financial stability. Even if a housemaid or driver is paid in cash, they should deposit their earnings in a bank account regularly to create an income trail.

4. Use Alternative Income Proof

Many lenders now accept alternative income documents such as:

Employer verification letters

Income certificate issued by local authorities

Bank statements showing consistent cash deposits

Utility bills in the borrower's name

5. Build a Credit Score

Opening a savings account, fixed deposit, or taking a small loan can help in building a credit score. Using a prepaid credit card or repaying small loans on time can also enhance creditworthiness.

6. Apply for a Joint Loan or Get a Guarantor

Some lenders allow joint loan applications, where a borrower with a higher credit score or stable income can co-sign the loan. Alternatively, having a guarantor with a good financial background can improve loan approval chances.

Best Personal Loan Options for Low-Income Workers

1. Government-Backed Loan Schemes

Some governments run special financial assistance programs for low-income individuals. Housemaids, drivers, and daily wage earners can check for government-backed microloan schemes with lower interest rates and flexible repayment terms.

2. Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and Cooperative Banks

Many self-help groups and cooperative banks provide small loans to workers in unorganized sectors. These loans typically come with lower interest rates and flexible repayment options.

3. Gold Loans or Secured Loans

For those who own gold or valuable assets, a gold loan can be a good option. Gold loans require minimal documentation and provide instant cash at a lower interest rate.

4. Salary Advance Loans

Some employers offer salary advance loans to their domestic workers and drivers. These loans are deducted from future wages, making repayment easier.

Documents Required for Personal Loan Approval

Though formal documents may not be required by all lenders, having the following documents can increase the chances of getting approved:

Aadhar Card / PAN Card (Identity proof)

Voter ID / Ration Card (Address proof)

Employer verification letter (Income proof)

Bank statements of the last six months

Utility bills or rental agreement (For additional proof of residence)

Things to Consider Before Applying for a Personal Loan

1. Compare Interest Rates

Check and compare the interest rates offered by different lenders before applying for a loan.

2. Understand the Loan Terms

Read the loan agreement carefully, including repayment tenure, interest rates, and processing fees.

3. Avoid Fraudulent Lenders

Beware of lenders who ask for upfront processing fees or guarantee instant approval without verifying your details.

4. Borrow Only What You Can Repay

Taking a loan beyond your repayment capacity can lead to financial stress. Borrow only what you can comfortably repay.

Conclusion

Getting a personal loan as a housemaid, driver, or daily wage earner may seem challenging, but it is possible with the right approach. By exploring microfinance institutions, NBFCs, and fintech lenders, maintaining a bank account, and using alternative income proof, low-income workers can improve their chances of securing a loan. Always compare loan offers, verify lender credibility, and ensure timely repayments to avoid financial difficulties in the future.

If you're a low-income worker looking for a personal loan, explore the best options tailored to your needs and financial stability.

[klingercollection]

you do know that one of the most common tropes in american media for kids and teens is the bullied nerd, right? the implication that being knowledgable is naturally punished? a common phrase is "nobody likes a know-it-all". kids who spend a lot of time reading are bullied for it. parents often express concern that these kids arent developing properly and force them to do something "more productive". if i try to share a fact at the wrong moment i am told "ugh. why do you Know that?" being a "teachers pet" is a bad thing. a sports scholarship gets you further than good grades. you can have a 4.0 gpa and its the football captain they let into harvard. "they spend all of their time in the library? what a loser!" i got in trouble for reading when i had finished an exam early. they made me sit perfectly still in complete silence for 45 minutes because i knew the answers. "stop asking so many questions, its so annoying!" smart, nerd, and loser are synonyms. being smart or curious is culturally punished in the US.

[rightnewshindi]

हिमाचल कैबिनेट के बड़े फैसले: बस किराया बढ़ा, कर्मचारियों का नियमितीकरण, मुफ्त टेस्ट और जलविद्युत परियोजनाओं पर मुहर!

Himachal News: हिमाचल प्रदेश की मंत्रिमंडल बैठक शनिवार, 5 अप्रैल 2025 को मुख्यमंत्री सुखविंदर सिंह सुक्खू की अध्यक्षता में शिमला के राज्य सचिवालय में हुई। इस बैठक में कई अहम फैसले लिए गए, जो आम लोगों, कर्मचारियों और राज्य के विकास से जुड़े हैं। न्यूनतम बस किराये में बढ़ोतरी से लेकर अनुबंध कर्मचारियों के नियमितीकरण और स्वास्थ्य सेवाओं में सुधार तक, इन फैसलों ने सबका ध्यान खींचा है। कैबिनेट मंत्री…

[townpostin]

Bank Employees' Union Mulls Nationwide Strike in Jamshedpur Conclave

AIUBEA Meets in Jamshedpur to Address Worker Concerns Union Bank staff representatives gather to discuss employee shortage, wage issues, and potential industrial action. JAMSHEDPUR – All India Union Bank Employees Association convenes central executive meeting to address pressing workforce challenges. The All India Union Bank Employees Association (AIUBEA) has initiated a crucial two-day meeting…

[gayeilgeoir]

“You just hate sex workers” but I’m advocating to stop the abuse and violence they go through daily

“You just hate sex workers” but I’m advocating for them not to be subjected to sexual illness or infections on the daily

“You just hate sex workers” but I’m advocating to stop them being trafficked and forced into the industry

“You just hate sex workers” but I’m advocating for them to be given higher wages to help them out of the industry

“You just hate sex workers” but I’m advocating to just have them treated as human beings

(Op is under 18)

(Stop accusing me of wanting to ban sex work, I have literally never said that)

[boymanmaletheshequel]

Some subtle ways to honor Hermes 🪽💌

- Help guide or instruct lost or confused travelers to their destinations if you know how to

- regularly text and keep up with your loved ones and friends

- don’t snitch on shoplifters

- play string instruments like harp, guitar, or violin.

- be kind and respectful to your mail carriers

- enjoy your road-trips, vacations, or other travels.

- watch or support gymnastics events

- pirate media kept from you by corporate streaming services (hehe)

- watch and support those speaking in public

- engage in nuanced and eloquent conversations with people you interact with.

- invest in something that will bring you monetary wealth

- go for a nice drive or bus/train ride

- eat strawberries or strawberry flavored things

- be respectful and understanding of clerks, wage workers, and shopkeepers.

- watch the Olympics and especially the gymnastics.

If you like this post, and want to learn more about the gods of Hellen and Hellenic worship, please consider giving me a follow! I post daily. Blessed be your day 🏛️💙

[hellyeahscarleteen]

New donors needed to help keep Scarleteen’s queer, trans and gender nonconforming sex educators going!

We, the queer and trans, staff & volunteers at Scarleteen spend the vast majority of our time giving support. We very actively maintain a friendly and accessible website full of resources, advice and information, and provide a caring, safe and patient environment in all of our direct services. We continue to make a massive contribution towards sexuality education as a whole, as we have for the whole of our 25 year tenure. Everywhere we go we receive thanks from educators and service workers for the motivation we, and our founder Heather Corinna, have given them to do incredible work in their communities. However, for our daily survival and our dreams of the future, we need support too!

Unless our current trajectory changes we will not have the funding this year to give our volunteers end-of-year stipends to reward their generous efforts, nor bring our codirectors’ wages any closer to industry standard or even industry average rates of pay for their positions and tenure - averages which we continue to undershoot by quite some margin, nor will we be able to reimburse those staff for the many hours they have worked in excess of their basic 30 hours a week. We will also be unable to increase their healthcare benefits which for one disabled member of our team, will have been exceeded 4 times over by actual healthcare costs by the end of the year, which they have had to pay for out-of-pocket.

As part of our annual Pride celebration we are asking you to consider becoming one of the 50 (and fabulous) new recurring donors we are determined to find this week! Please consider supporting a few good queer & trans people to help us continue to deliver queer sex and relationships education, info and support, which remains free and open to all.

Recurring monthly donations of $10 or more are part of the treasured community of donors who give us peace of mind like nothing else can. We will need a further 250 recurring donors at that level or the financial equivalent to keep us on-track for our most modest projections through the coming years, so whatever help you can give us today to exceed our initial target of 50 will be cherished by us more than you can know.

Here’s some ways to help:

If you can become a new monthly donor, please do! We would love to welcome you to our valued bunch of fabulous supporters!

If you are already a donor, please consider tacking on an extra $10 per month, even temporarily, if you can!

If you cannot currently afford to donate an increased amount, or cannot donate at all, please consider reaching out to someone who you think can, so that eventually we can find that new donor. (And if you manage to sign someone up, do let us know so we can thank you!)

If you only want to or can give us a one-time donation we will still be incredibly grateful for that help at any level. We know a thing or 12 about deep financial limitations and having to choose very carefully where you give.

Please go to scarleteen.com/donate to begin your monthly donation, or if you have further questions head to scarleteen.com/contact drop us a message.

Thank you once more for your support and for being your queer/trans/allied/otherwise-awesome self,

Yours sincerely,

The Scarleteam …

of Scarleteen: queer sex ed for all since 1998❤️

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Housing is a labor issue

There's a reason Reagan declared war on unions before he declared war on everything else – environmental protection, health care, consumer rights, financial regulation. Unions are how working people fight for a better world for all of us. They're how everyday people come together to resist oligarchy, extraction and exploitation.

Take the 2019 LA teachers' strike. As Jane McAlevey writes in A Collective Bargain, the LA teachers didn't just win higher pay for their members! They also demanded (and got) an end to immigration sweeps of parents waiting for their kids at the school gate; a guarantee of green space near every public school in the city; and on-site immigration counselors in LA schools:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

Unionization is enjoying an historic renaissance. The Hot Labor Summer transitioned to an Eternal Labor September, and it's still going strong, with UAW president Shawn Fain celebrating his members victory over the Big Three automakers by calling for a 2028 general strike:

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/uaw-general-strike-no-class

The rising labor movement has powerful allies in the Biden Administration. NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo is systematically gutting the "union avoidance" playbook. She's banned the use of temp-work app blacklists that force workers to cross picket lines:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/30/computer-says-scab/#instawork

She's changed the penalty for bosses who violate labor law during union drives. It used to be the boss would pay a fine, which was an easy price to pay in exchange for killing your workers' union. Now, the penalty is automatic recognition of the union:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

And while the law doesn't allow Abruzzo to impose a contract on companies that refuse to bargain their unions, she's set to force those companies to honor other employers' union contracts until they agree to a contract with their own workers:

https://onlabor.org/gc-abruzzo-just-asked-the-nlrb-to-overturn-ex-cell-o-heres-why-that-matters/

She's also nuking TRAPs, the deals that force workers to repay their employers for their "training expenses" if they have the audacity to quit and get a better job somewhere else:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/14/prop-22-never-again/#norms-code-laws-markets

(As with every aspect of the Biden White House, its labor policy is contradictory and self-defeating, with other Biden appointees working to smash worker power, including when Biden broke the railworkers' strike:)

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/18/co-determination/#now-make-me-do-it

A surging labor movement opens up all kinds of possibilities for a better world. Writing for the Law and Political Economy Project, UNITE Here attorney Zoe Tucker makes the case for unions as a way out of America's brutal housing crisis:

https://lpeproject.org/blog/why-unions-should-join-the-housing-fight/

She describes how low-waged LA hotel workers have been pushed out of neighborhoods close to their jobs, with UNITE Here members commuting three hours in each direction, starting their work-days at 3AM in order to clock in on time:

https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1669088899769987079

UNITE Here members are striking against 50 hotels in LA and Orange County, and their demands include significant cost-of-living raises. But more money won't give them back the time they give up to those bruising daily commutes. For that, unions need to make housing itself a demand.

As Tucker writes, most workers are tenants and vice-versa. What's more, bad landlords are apt to be bad bosses, too. Stepan Kazaryan, the same guy who owns the strip club whose conditions were so bad that it prompted the creation of Equity Strippers NoHo, the first strippers' union in a generation, is also a shitty landlord whose tenants went on a rent-strike:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/20/the-missing-links/#plunderphonics

So it was only natural that Kazaryan's tenants walked the picket line with the Equity Stripper Noho workers:

https://twitter.com/glendaletenants/status/1733290276599570736?s=46

While scumbag bosses/evil landlords like Kazaryan deal out misery retail, one apartment building at a time, the wholesale destruction of workers' lives comes from private equity giants who are the most prolific source of TRAPs, robo-scabbing apps, illegal union busting, and indefinite contract delays – and these are the very same PE firms that are buying up millions of single-family homes and turning them into slums:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/08/wall-street-landlords/#the-new-slumlords

Tucker's point is that when a worker clocks out of their bad job, commutes home for three hours, and gets back to their black-mold-saturated, overpriced apartment to find a notice of a new junk fee (like a surcharge for paying your rent in cash, by check, or by direct payment), they're fighting the very same corporations.

Unions who defend their workers' right to shelter do every tenant a service. A coalition of LA unions succeeded in passing Measure ULA, which uses a surcharge on real estate transactions over $5m to fund "the largest municipal housing program in the country":

https://unitedtohousela.com/app/uploads/2022/05/LA_City_Affordable_Housing_Petition_H.pdf

LA unions are fighting for rules to limit Airbnbs and other platforms that transform the city's rental stock into illegal, unlicensed hotels:

https://upgo.lab.mcgill.ca/publication/strs-in-los-angeles-2022/Wachsmuth_LA_2022.pdf

And the hotel workers organized under UNITE Here are fighting their own employers: the hoteliers who are aggressively buying up residences, evicting their long-term tenants, tearing down the building and putting up a luxury hotel. They got LA council to pass a law requiring hotels to build new housing to replace any residences they displace:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-11-28/airbnb-operators-would-need-police-permit-in-l-a-under-proposed-law

UNITE Here is bargaining for a per-room hotel surcharge to fund housing specifically for hotel workers, so the people who change the sheets and clean the toilets don't have to waste six hours a day commuting to do so.

Labor unions and tenant unions have a long history of collaboration in the USA. NYC's first housing coop was midwifed by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America in 1927. The Penn South coop was created by the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union. The 1949 Federal Housing Act passed after American unions pushed hard for it:

http://www.peterdreier.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Labors-Love-Lost.pdf

It goes both ways. Strong unions can create sound housing – and precarious housing makes unions weaker. Remember during the Hollywood writers' strike, when an anonymous studio ghoul told the press the plans was to "allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses?"

Vienna has the most successful housing in any major city in the world. It's the city where people of every income and background live in comfort without being rent-burdened and without worry about eviction, mold, or leaks. That's the legacy of Red Vienna, the Austrian period of Social Democratic Workers' Party rule and built vast tracts of high-quality public housing. The system was so robust that it rebounded after World War II and continues to this day:

https://www.politico.eu/article/vienna-social-housing-architecture-austria-stigma/

Today, the rest of the world is mired in a terrible housing crisis. It's not merely that the rent's too damned high (though it is) – housing precarity is driving dangerous political instability:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

Turning the human necessity of shelter into a market commodity is a failure. The economic orthodoxy that insists that public housing, rent control, and high-density zoning will lead to less housing has failed. rent control works:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/16/mortgages-are-rent-control/#housing-is-a-human-right-not-an-asset

Leaving housing to the market only produces losers. If you have the bad luck to invest everything you have into a home in a city that contracts, you're wiped out. If you have the bad luck into invest everything into a home in a "superstar city" where prices go up, you also lose, because your city becomes uninhabitable and your children can't afford to live there:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/27/lethal-dysfunction/#yimby

A strong labor movement is the best chance we have for breaking the housing deadlock. And housing is just for starters. Labor is the key to opening every frozen-in-place dysfunction. Take care work: the aging, increasingly chronically ill American population is being tortured and murdered by private equity hospices, long-term care facilities and health services that have been rolled up by the same private equity firms that destroyed work and housing:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/26/death-panels/#what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-CMS

In her interview with Capital & Main's Jessica Goodheart, National Domestic Workers Alliance president Ai-jen Poo describes how making things better for care workers will make things better for everyone:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-12-13-labor-leader-ai-jen-poo-interview/

Care work is a "triple dignity investment": first, it makes life better for the worker (most often a woman of color), then, it allows family members of people who need care to move into higher paid work; and of course, it makes life better for people who need care: "It delivers human potential and agency. It delivers a future workforce. It delivers quality of life."

The failure to fund care work is a massive driver of inequality. America's sole federal public provision for care is Medicaid, which only kicks in after a family it totally impoverished. Funding care with tax increases polls high with both Democrats and Republicans, making it good politics:

https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2021/4/7/voters-support-investing-in-the-care-economy

Congress stripped many of the care provisions from Build Back Better, missing a chance for an "unprecedented, transformational investment in care." But the administrative agencies picked up where Congress failed, following a detailed executive order that identifies existing, previously unused powers to improve care in America. The EO "expands access to care, supports family caregivers and improves wages and conditions for the workforce":

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/04/18/executive-order-on-increasing-access-to-high-quality-care-and-supporting-caregivers/

States are also filling the void. Washington just created a long-term care benefit:

https://apnews.com/article/washington-long-term-care-tax-disability-cb54b04b025223dbdba7199db1d254e4

New Mexicans passed a ballot initiative that establishes permanent funding for child care:

https://www.cwla.org/new-mexico-votes-for-child-care/

New York care workers won a $3/hour across the board raise:

https://inequality.org/great-divide/new-york-budget-fair-pay-home-care/

The fight is being led by women of color, and they're kicking ass – and they're doing it through their unions. Worker power is the foundation that we build a better world upon, and it's surging.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/13/i-want-a-roof-over-my-head/#and-bread-on-the-table

[mesetacadre]

Any resources you would recommend about why proletarians would be against worker's rights? It's a topic that has been interesting to me lately

I don't know any specific resources, maybe Lenin touches on this in What is to be Done but I'm not sure. I think a better way to phrase the question is to ask why workers would go against their class interests, even in the most economicist and immediate struggles. Essentially, I'd say it's a concatenation of two facts: most workers lack actually consistent politico-economic education, and the propaganda of liberalism works more like an invisible mold than anything explicit you can point to and single out as a Propaganda Piece. No matter how angry a worker is at their own bad situation (which they might not even conceive of as exploitation), if they've spent all their lives soaking in liberal ideology everywhere from school to the generally accepted trains of thought to even the most innocent piece of media, it's not that surprising they might oppose, say, a rise in the minimum wage. Maybe they've bought into smart-sounding liberal economics and have some vague notion or memorized slogan about inflation rising. Or maybe they've internalized the narrative of individual achievement, they feel like they've "earned" having a better salary than minimum wage and feel it's unfair for others to begin at a better place than them.

Typically the first and only type of class consciousness that workers develop, what Lenin defined as economic-spontaneous consciousness, or consciousness from within (and the type of consciousness most anarchists love to praise), is the one that arises from the daily happenings of class antagonism. But this is a highly subjective and imprecise class consciousness. Without further education and a scientific approach (acquiring political-revolutionary consciousness, or consciousness from without), spontaneous consciousness can be easily misguided by the aforementioned liberal state of affairs or by the worker's own biases. Someone predisposed to racism for whichever environmental reason might take that imprecise, spontaneous class consciousness and assign the cause of their felt exploitation to the presence of migrant workers in the economy, and therefore support measures that harm that specific minority while also greatly benefitting the capitalists exploiting both. The worker aristocracy is also very vulnerable to supporting the imperialist system when their spontaneous consciousness, especially in regards to trade unions, aligns with imperialist interests. And besides all of this, some workers never develop any sort or consciousness and believe themselves potential equals to their exploiters

[weepingchoir]

True Blue Collars are always powerful mountains of muscle, for reasons that are surely uninformed by fascist body worship

Horseshoe theory is about the fantasy both the american left and right wing have that True Blue Collars will always band together to defend the heart of america, which is either socialism or Freedom, depending

[emperor-kumquat]

"Public domain Sunder" outside of Tumblr (How my project art runs away)

This is NOT a general Sunder! As cool as he looks, he belongs to me and Mynametia/ Inishira (Instagram)!

I want to talk about how reposted art causes harm. It has been stressful to see and I hope fellow artists can sympathize or empathize. And please, if you base art off this Sunder, credit the project Transformers: Mercy!

Firstly, I've heard both "you're niche and unknown" or "you have a big following so watch your mouth"

It feels mean either way... :( Like the jab takes whatever stance is most convenient.

Bottom line: I don't consider myself special. I am just a very hard worker. The only reason I have gotten as far as I have was my hours of daily work for years on my project and YouTube channel.

I am awed when I reflect on how far I have come. Growing my social media platforms, working with 100 different artists from all over the world, commissioning comic artists like Alex Milne and Livio Ramondelli for posters, getting interviewed, collabing, or having shoutouts on other YouTube channels, sitting on panels at TFcon in front of hundreds (although it was t e r r i f y i n g) and getting to talk to them about Transformers: Mercy! And this year, I will be selling Mercy merch at a table at TFcon in the art gallery!

So I don't think I am niche anymore... I don't think my project Transformers: Mercy is. Over the years it has become very widespread with art posted on blogs across social media platforms. As I will discuss, maybe too widespread in one wrong way.

But... there is a long way to go to completing the project. I have about 1000 images now. That's insane! This is no tiny lil project. And I am gunning for 1000s more to make this TFP fan-made sequel. But, I have to pay so so much out of pocket despite making less than minimum wage most months. I need a lot of support to make this big dream possible. Thank you to all who have already helped me thus far.

I think I am just writing this post to clear the air. I am honoured deeply by fanart or fanfictions or fan animations people have created for Transformers: Mercy. It is very motivating and heartwarming and helps me keep up the pace of working hours every day on this project.

I don't mind inspiration being taken from my work. It is an honour. My project draws inspiration from James Roberts' MTMTE and would be nothing without his appealing takes on characters. We may critique MTMTE but where would we be without his Whirl, Rodimus, Drift, Ratchet, Pharma, Cyclonus, Tailgate, Chromedome, Rewind, Swerve, Overlord, DJD, etc.? I carried on from him, others may carry on from me.

A while back, I never meant offence when pointing out one animation of Sunder had features that looked eerily similar (to me) to the Sunder of my game. The reason I got a jolt of horror stems from the fact that this project has fallen victim to reposts on places like Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, the fan wiki, and other TF forums with zero credit to me or the artists. The growing popularity of Mercy art has also caused it to appear in general searches for IDW or TFP characters. This is why if you search "Transformers Sunder concept art" you are likely to see Mercy Sunder right there but uncredited. So you would see our art but not know what it was for. And Mynametia/Inishira (the artist) did such a good job that it even looks like IDW concept art. It can be mistaken for official content.

But it's not. It was created for my project with very specific features to match my story. A project which costs so much of my time and money and it needs all the donations it can get. It is loses support when its art becomes popular with no tie back to this project. It is still a project in development and is therefore vulnerable.

Transformers: Mercy, after all the years, has become a famous project. But it is a struggling project due to the high financial cost. It is made with ok not blood, but real sweat and tears as I have pushed so hard to make it this far. It has been emotional. It even brought me the love of my life, my spouse.

I want to continue to work on it, the largest Transformers fan project that I believe has ever been attempted. But I need that support, that credit. It hurts when I use google/another search engine and search "Transformers Sunder concept art" and see our work totally visible to the public and not at all attached to Mercy. It then jumpscares me to see other people creating something that looks just like my creations. I see fanart that uses the face of my ghoul Sunder, the one-eyed purple-eyed version with a gaping black pit where the other eye should have been with a small white light within (or the other specific features I requested for Mercy Sunder).

It feels like my ideas are running away from me.

I do not believe anything was done with intent to harm or any malice or spite. I did not believe my project art had been knowingly stolen by any animator or fan artist of Sunder. But when I wrote my post in response to one animation, I did believe that Mercy Sunder had been seen and used as an inspiration because he does appear in general Sunder searches on the Internet. So this is where I came from and why I felt compelled to step in at the time.

I hope I have expressed myself better than last time and I just would like to voice that not this artist/ animator I first reblogged, but other people have reposted Mercy Sunder and caused him to become like.... public domain? Please, I just want it to be known that what you see on search engines, forums, wikis.... was taken from my project. Please do not base your Sunders on that art without crediting Transformers: Mercy and Inishira (Instagram or X).

I hope all the artists here can imagine the feeling of distress I feel seeing credit and support fly away from me and that talented artist, Inishira (who designed Mercy Overlord, Sunder, Crankcase, Fulcrum, Misfire, Krok, Spinister, Waspinator (bug form), and angel Starscream).

I don't want drama or a public back and forth. I seek amicable relationships going forth. Please be very mindful and go back to add in credits if you realize you used this Sunder design as a reference!

[probablyasocialecologist]

Like Google’s knowledge monopoly and Facebook’s ‘social industry’, Amazon’s logistics behemoth displays an increasingly totalitarian style of economy. The growing number of partnerships between the tech giants, as well as their contracts with various government agencies, stage a ghoulish capitalist politburo that aims to deliver a kind of data-determined social harmony, as enchanting as it is ruinous. One can reasonably conclude that in this imagined future, the principal means of expropriation is no longer the wage relation but data capture, where the platform class no longer relies on labour so much as social activity, drawn from the habits and movements of day-to-day life. Looking at the range of services the platform giants hope to one day automate – warehouses, delivery, human resources, health and finance, to name but a few – we see a future in embryo, one in which the wage is effectively abolished, in which huge conglomerates stretching into cosmic totalities continue to own and control the means of production but no longer employ people, whose primary role is simply to feed machines data via their daily activities. This imagined future haunts the world of microwork, where data about a task is often more important than the task itself. Work as a productive activity becomes secondary, but it does not disappear. Rather, in becoming increasingly marginal to the interests of a system no longer creating jobs, it permeates the entire social landscape, as workers desperate for income are forced to turn every waking hour into monetizable activity.

Phil Jones, Work Without the Worker: Labour in the Age of Platform Capitalism

[tangentiallly]

One way to spot patterns is to show AI models millions of labelled examples. This method requires humans to painstakingly label all this data so they can be analysed by computers. Without them, the algorithms that underpin self-driving cars or facial recognition remain blind. They cannot learn patterns.

The algorithms built in this way now augment or stand in for human judgement in areas as varied as medicine, criminal justice, social welfare and mortgage and loan decisions. Generative AI, the latest iteration of AI software, can create words, code and images. This has transformed them into creative assistants, helping teachers, financial advisers, lawyers, artists and programmers to co-create original works.

To build AI, Silicon Valley’s most illustrious companies are fighting over the limited talent of computer scientists in their backyard, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to a newly minted Ph.D. But to train and deploy them using real-world data, these same companies have turned to the likes of Sama, and their veritable armies of low-wage workers with basic digital literacy, but no stable employment.

Sama isn’t the only service of its kind globally. Start-ups such as Scale AI, Appen, Hive Micro, iMerit and Mighty AI (now owned by Uber), and more traditional IT companies such as Accenture and Wipro are all part of this growing industry estimated to be worth $17bn by 2030.

Because of the sheer volume of data that AI companies need to be labelled, most start-ups outsource their services to lower-income countries where hundreds of workers like Ian and Benja are paid to sift and interpret data that trains AI systems.

Displaced Syrian doctors train medical software that helps diagnose prostate cancer in Britain. Out-of-work college graduates in recession-hit Venezuela categorize fashion products for e-commerce sites. Impoverished women in Kolkata’s Metiabruz, a poor Muslim neighbourhood, have labelled voice clips for Amazon’s Echo speaker. Their work couches a badly kept secret about so-called artificial intelligence systems – that the technology does not ‘learn’ independently, and it needs humans, millions of them, to power it. Data workers are the invaluable human links in the global AI supply chain.

This workforce is largely fragmented, and made up of the most precarious workers in society: disadvantaged youth, women with dependents, minorities, migrants and refugees. The stated goal of AI companies and the outsourcers they work with is to include these communities in the digital revolution, giving them stable and ethical employment despite their precarity. Yet, as I came to discover, data workers are as precarious as factory workers, their labour is largely ghost work and they remain an undervalued bedrock of the AI industry.

As this community emerges from the shadows, journalists and academics are beginning to understand how these globally dispersed workers impact our daily lives: the wildly popular content generated by AI chatbots like ChatGPT, the content we scroll through on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, the items we browse when shopping online, the vehicles we drive, even the food we eat, it’s all sorted, labelled and categorized with the help of data workers.

Milagros Miceli, an Argentinian researcher based in Berlin, studies the ethnography of data work in the developing world. When she started out, she couldn’t find anything about the lived experience of AI labourers, nothing about who these people actually were and what their work was like. ‘As a sociologist, I felt it was a big gap,’ she says. ‘There are few who are putting a face to those people: who are they and how do they do their jobs, what do their work practices involve? And what are the labour conditions that they are subject to?’

Miceli was right – it was hard to find a company that would allow me access to its data labourers with minimal interference. Secrecy is often written into their contracts in the form of non-disclosure agreements that forbid direct contact with clients and public disclosure of clients’ names. This is usually imposed by clients rather than the outsourcing companies. For instance, Facebook-owner Meta, who is a client of Sama, asks workers to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Often, workers may not even know who their client is, what type of algorithmic system they are working on, or what their counterparts in other parts of the world are paid for the same job.

The arrangements of a company like Sama – low wages, secrecy, extraction of labour from vulnerable communities – is veered towards inequality. After all, this is ultimately affordable labour. Providing employment to minorities and slum youth may be empowering and uplifting to a point, but these workers are also comparatively inexpensive, with almost no relative bargaining power, leverage or resources to rebel.

Even the objective of data-labelling work felt extractive: it trains AI systems, which will eventually replace the very humans doing the training. But of the dozens of workers I spoke to over the course of two years, not one was aware of the implications of training their replacements, that they were being paid to hasten their own obsolescence.

— Madhumita Murgia, Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI

[indecisiveavocado]

What could Hamas have done if they didn't want Israel destroyed?

Summary: If not for their greed and embezzling, Hamas could have, single-handedly, provided every. Single. Gazan with bomb shelters, healthy food, clean water, and electricity (via batteries) for over two years. Details and sources below the cut.

Shelter

First, let's figure out the cost of a bomb shelter. Fortunately, we can get this information relatively easily, thanks to the Cold War. Admittedly, this is a nuclear bunker, but hey; if Israel takes the nuclear option, Gaza will be fine. I mean, not really, but you know, better to go overkill than underkill.

According to the Department of Defense (1962) a Belowground Corrugated Steel Culvert Shelter cost $150 in 1962. The BLS (2025) says that's worth $1589 or so as of January 2025. Technically the shelter fits three adults (or two adults and two children), but only for a few weeks, so I'm going to pretend like it has room for only one person and a lot of food and water.

OK. What's the installation cost? They say two days excavation and four days building, plus what I'm going to say is one day of transport.

The US Department of State (2023) says the average daily wage in Gaza was $15. We'll be nice and pay our workers $30, giving us a cost of $210 for the installation. So that's a total of almost exactly $1800 per person.

As an upper estimate on Gaza's population, I'll use the UNRWA, which claims 2.4 million residents (UNRWA, August 2023). Multiplying it out, we find that the cost to provide shelter to everyone in Gaza is $4.32 billion dollars.

Food

The World Food Program USA claims the average cost of a meal they provide is 50 cents (WFP USA, 2024). At three meals a day, this means the cost per day to feed 2.4 million people is $3.6 million, which works out to $2.635 billion to feed everyone in Gaza for two years.

This means our total cost for two years is $6.667 billion dollars.

Excellent!

Water

FEMA recommends having a gallon of water per person per day (FEMA; archived link used because FEMA is 'being updated to comply with President Trump's executive orders'. I have done similarly for all non-interactive government websites).

OK. What about water sources for Gaza? It is a desert, after all; you can't just expect water to magically appear.

The most likely water source would be desalinated water. One UNICEF project was $12 million in 2013, or $16.63 million in 2025 (BLS). It produced 6000 cubic meters per day. As one cubic meter is 1000 liters, that's 6 million liters a day of water. According to the WHO, 20 liters per person per day is the minimum recommended amount; this works out to 48 million liters per person per day. Meeting that demand would require only 8 plants. To store up a reasonable amount and include maintenance, I'll quadruple that number, for a total of $532.16 million in construction and maintenance costs. (No, I have no idea what it costs to maintain a desalinization plant in Gaza.)

Assuming we can save 48 million liters/day, it would take only, well, two years to save up two years' worth of water. So, our total for shelter, food and water is $7.19916 billion for two years' worth.

Lovely!

Electricity

Currently, Gaza imports natural gas. But hey, we're dreaming, and Gaza seems perfectly suited for solar power.

One source (who, if I'm recalling correctly, is now HR for Hamas) told NBC Gaza needed 500-600 megawatts a day (Abdelkader). I'm going to say 720 a day, or 30 megawatts an hour.

For my estimate of home electricity generation, I used a building I'm pretty sure was the Chabad of Ashkelon.

I tried to make the outline small, because this is a lower estimate. Regardless, I got a figure of 18.8 kilowatts/day. Since there are 1000 kilowatts in a megawatt, that's 720,000/18.8=38,297 buildings. Let's say 40,000 are needed to meet demand and 80,000 to double it.

According to the UN, if you do the math, 116,000 buildings are still standing in Gaza, so we should be good there.

Now, I am not an expert at batteries and electricity, but I'd assume there's some way to convert the energy of solar generators to the kinds of batteries you can put in storage and forget about.

So what would the installation cost of that be? NPR says $30,000 per house (Simon), which works out to $2.4 billion; surprisingly cheap! I'll add another half that to account for batteries, so $3.6 billion for electricity. Set it up in 2021 and everyone has two years' worth saved up.

So we have a total of a little over $10.7 billion for at least two years' worth of food, water, shelter, and electricity for everyone in Gaza. I'm going to round up and say $11 billion.

$11 billion is not a small amount.

But, unfortunately, neither is the amount Hamas has stolen:

$700 million stolen from aid according to Fatah, a Palestinian organization (Winer)

$100 million/year military budget (Issacharoff) in 2016. This works out to $900 billion since then.

I could add other ones of varying reliability, but I don't need to.

But the really big one? Their leaders. According to the Times of India, they were worth $11 billion.

That adds up to $12.6 billion dollars, more than enough to cover it.

And much of this would be, effectively, one-time costs! Of the $11 billion we estimated it would take, shelter's $4.32 billion is basically one-time only and the $2.4 billion solar cost is, too.

Works cited

Abdelkader, Rima. “Gaza Has Access to Less than 40% of the Energy It Needs. Locals Hope Solar Power Can Fill the Gap.” NBC News, 23 Aug. 2022, www.nbcnews.com/news/world/gaza-access-less-40-energy-needs-locals-hope-solar-power-can-fill-gap-rcna43723.

De Luce, Dan, and Lisa Cavazuti. “Most of Gaza Is Poor, but Hamas Has Cash. Where Does It Come From?” NBC News, 25 Oct. 2023, www.nbcnews.com/news/world/gaza-plagued-poverty-hamas-no-shortage-cash-come-rcna121099.

Department of Defense, Office of Civil Defense. Family Shelter Designs. Jan. 1962, pp. 19–20, dahp.wa.gov/sites/default/files/FamilyShelterDesigns.pdf.

FEMA. “Water.” Ready.gov, 2021, web.archive.org/web/20250201201522/ready.gov/water. Via Internet Archive.

Issacharoff, Avi. “Hamas Spends $100 Million a Year on Military Infrastructure.” Times of Israel, 8 Sept. 2016, www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-spends-100-million-a-year-on-military-infrastructure/.

Lipson, Nathan. “Tunnels of Cash and Cryptocurrency: Hamas’ Finances Explained.” Haaretz.com, Haaretz, 12 Dec. 2023, www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/2023-12-12/ty-article-magazine/.premium/tunnels-of-cash-and-cryptocurrency-hamas-finances-explained/0000018c-5d6f-de43-affd-fd6fcbb30000. Archive/unpaywalled link: https://archive.is/AfbPq.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “PVWatts Calculator.” NREL, 2019, pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php.

Simon, Julia. “Why the U.S. Government Is Spending $7 Billion on Solar for Low-Income Homes.” NPR, 1 Aug. 2024, www.npr.org/2024/07/31/g-s1-8152/solar-for-all-epa-low-income-climate-change-solution.

TimesofIndia.com. “‘Hamas’s Top 3 Leaders Are Worth Staggering $11 Billion.’” The Times of India, Times Of India, 8 Nov. 2023, timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/israel-hamas-war-ismail-haniyeh-worth-moussa-abu-marzuk-khaled-mashal/articleshow/105055536.cms.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “CPI Inflation Calculator.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025, www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm.

UN News. “‘This Is Our Land’ – Building Gaza’s Future from the Wreckage of War.” UN News, Mar. 2025, news.un.org/en/story/2025/03/1160661.

UNRWA. “Gaza Strip.” UNRWA, Aug. 2023, www.unrwa.org/where-we-work/gaza-strip.

US Department of State. “2023 Investment Climate Statements: West Bank and Gaza.” United States Department of State, 2023, www.state.gov/reports/2023-investment-climate-statements/west-bank-and-gaza/. Archive link: web.archive.org/web/20231011090250/https://www.state.gov/reports/2023-investment-climate-statements/west-bank-and-gaza/.

Winer, Stuart. “Fatah Official Accuses Hamas of Stealing $700m from Gazans.” Times of Israel, Oct. 2014, www.timesofisrael.com/fatah-official-accuses-hamas-of-stealing-700m-from-gazans/.

World Food Program USA. “Here Are 10 Facts on Hunger and WFP’s Work.” World Food Program USA, Nov. 2024, www.wfpusa.org/articles/10-quick-facts-hunger-wfps-work/.

[phoenixyfriend]

An interesting and somewhat infuriating development in California:

The minimum wage for fast food workers has been raised from $16/hr to $20/hr, with a VERY specific exception for Panera. Turns out a major donor of Gavin Newsom's is a high school friend who now owns 24 Panera locations.

I first heard about this on Morning Brew Daily 2/29/24, where they go into detail on how the legislation impacts California, what induced it, and how the exception works. In text format, the story is also available here.

California's minimum wage in all fields is currently $16/hr, with certain cities and counties having much higher minimum wages. Unfortunately, despite legal protections, undocumented workers and other minorities are often paid at less than that, which is a lasting problem. Paying subminimum wages to disabled workers will also not be fully banned until 2025, a process that has been in the works since 2021.

If you live in Cali, I'd suggest calling your state reps (not federal) to express that you applaud the raise in minimum wage, but not the exception carved out for Panera specifically.

[tomhardyitalia]

📸 daily mail uk

And Tom Hardy is up there with one of the nicest guys in showbiz, along with Keanu Reeves and Hugh Jackman.

Tom recently offered to pay the wages of an entire TV set crew on the new Guy Ritchie series after a construction company went into liquidation.

The Venom star, 47, recently filmed scenes for Guy Ritchie 's upcoming TV series, The Associate, in London.

But around 50 freelance building workers were left devastated after Helix 3D, the construction company contracted to build sets, went bust, The Times reported.

This is when Tom stepped in and offered to pay the workers' wages that Paramount resolved the situation and set about sorting their paychecks.

And after Tom's sweet gesture this week, MailOnline takes a look at who the nicest guys in Hollywood are...

#TomHardy #thefixer #VenomTheLastDance

#GuyRitchie