#Daily Wage Workers

[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.

[gogh-bitch]

trying to romanticize working a minimum wage job in customer service of all things but bro this shit is hard

[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…

[cyndaquillt]

So much love for people in my little heart that I don't know what to do with all of it and also so much hate for people in my little heart that I don't know what to do with all of it

[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

[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 🏛️💙

[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

[zvaigzdelasas]

Iran is now a “legitimate target” for Israeli missile strikes, one of the country’s most senior ministers has told the Telegraph, raising the prospect of an all-out war with Tehran.

In a wide-ranging interview, Nir Barkat, Israel’s economy minister, also said Palestinians from the West Bank would never be allowed to work in the country again and would be replaced by more than a quarter of a million imported foreign workers.

He also complained that the war in Gaza had not been fought aggressively enough.

Mr Barkat, who is favourite to succeed Benjamin Netanyahu as leader of the ruling Likud party, said Israel could afford to keep fighting and open up a new front with Lebanon, despite the billion shekel (£200 million) a day cost of the conflict.

He said that as “big as the crisis is, it is also a really big opportunity”, with governments around the world needing Israel’s technical expertise to combat global jihadism.[...]

The risk of the war spreading to Lebanon and as far as Iran will alarm Western leaders, with Mr Barkat becoming increasingly influential in the ruling party.

Polls suggest the economy minister would win five more seats than Mr Netanyahu if he replaced him as Likud’s leader.

Mr Barkat, 64, said: “Iran is a legitimate target for Israel. They will not get away with it. The head of the snake is Tehran. My recommendation is to adopt the strategy that President Kennedy used in the Cuban missile crisis. What he basically said then was a missile from Cuba will be answered with a missile to Moscow.[...]

Israel is edging towards a full-blown war with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, having evacuated the north of the country. Mr Barkat said a second war was affordable while “the threat of Hezbollah must be eliminated”.

“Whatever it takes,” he said[...]

The economy is expected to grow by two per cent this year, down from five per cent forecast prior to the war.[...]

As the country lurches to the Right in the aftermath of October 7 and with Mr Netanyahu’s personal ratings plummeting, Mr Barkat appears to be making a play to replace the prime minister as party leader.[...]

Mr Barkat rejected any suggestion that Palestinian labourers, who previously came into Israel daily to work in the construction and other industries, would be allowed to return. Daily crossings for labourers into Israel from the West Bank have been on hold since October 7.

He likened the Palestinian Authority running the West Bank to the Hamas leadership in Gaza.

“You know what the difference is? Nothing,” said Mr Barkat. [...]

Israel has long been reliant on workers coming into the country from Gaza and the West Bank, but Mr Barkat, whose ministry is responsible for the construction industry, said: “We are done with Palestinian employees. The rationale behind it is very simple: we only want foreign employees from peaceful countries. We don’t want employees from enemies.[...]

India is the likeliest target for a recruitment drive with the promise of wages seven to ten times higher than at home. “Everybody wins,” said Mr Barkat.

“If you don’t do what I proposed, it’s as if we didn’t learn the lessons of October 7.”[...]

On the conduct of the war in Gaza and in the face of international condemnation of Israel’s tactics, Mr Barkat said: “Israel is being very cautious[...]

The reality is at certain points in time I prefer a much more aggressive approach.”[...]

["]This is a religious war.” [he said]

24 Jan 24

[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.

[fangirltothefullest]

I am dead serious when I say I want EVERYONE to strike. I want our entire economy upset, I want corporations, ceos, millionaires and billionaires to understand that they can’t keep doing this any more. I want them to squirm, to hurt, to panic, to frantically BEG.

I want everyone calling for a union and every established union to strike like crazy. I want teachers in unions, I want janitors in unions, I want second hand store workers in unions, I want bakers in unions I want coffee chains in unions I want waste disposal unions and park upkeep unions and animator unions and streaming unions and all worker unions everywhere because it makes them panic-

And I want unions already in existence to strike like hell all at once be it in solidarity or because it’s a good time to do so.

Ants vs Grasshoppers baby, there are more workers than ceos and we deserve respect, decent wages, fair treatment, job protections, affordable living, decent paid vacations, paid medical, the lot!

I want the wealthy to PANIC.

I want them to realize what they’ve done, I want them to realize their wealth is dependent on US. I want them HEMORRHAGING money.

If it takes losing the majority of movies and shows and package deliveries and literally anything else, we��ll fucking manage because we already live that daily. But I want the millionaires and billionaires and CEOs who think they can get away with treating people like trash to panic and lose it all.

TOPPLE IT, CRASH IT TO PIECES, BURN IT ALL TO THE GROUND UNTIL THEY TREAT EVERYONE RIGHT.

[ancient-string]

Join comrades on the picket line against Coles and Woolworths. They make billions in profits while paying workers poverty wages and raising costs of daily necessities.

https://raffwu.org.au/nationalsuperstrike7oct/

After the strike was announced, which included a partial work ban, Coles announced they would stand down and refuse to pay any employee who took part in any single action. That includes wearing a union shirt and handing union materials to customers. Even talking about the strike is enough.

The Greens are organising a contingent to go down and support the striking workers. The more people who join the picket line, the better.

You can also contribute to the strike fund, to pay the workers taking part, who are being screwed over by Coles.

https://chuffed.org/project/superstrike

[opencommunion]

"The suit describes how incarcerated Alabamians are forced to work for free in prison and paid extremely low wages to work for hundreds of private employers — including meatpacking plants and fast-food franchises like McDonald’s — as well as more than 100 city, county and state agencies. And it alleges that the state keeps the scheme going by systematically denying parole to those eligible to work outside jobs. ... In the case of the government officials, they’re also accused of conspiring to increase the size of the Alabama prison population — which is predominantly Black — through the discriminatory denial of parole so the state can continue profiting from forced labor. '[Prisoners] have been entrapped in a system of ​‘convict leasing’ in which incarcerated people are forced to work, often for little or no money, for the benefit of the numerous government entities and private businesses that ​‘employ’ them,' the suit charges. In Alabama, that charge comes with ugly historical baggage. Convict leasing — a practice of forced penal labor prevalent in the post-Emancipation South (in which incarcerated men were ​'leased' to private employers) — was a massive state revenue driver. Thanks to the Black Codes, a racist program to criminalize petty offenses both real and imagined, Black people were locked up at a massively disproportionate rate to their white neighbors. Many were then sent to work on plantations to fill the labor gap left by Emancipation. ... Convict leasing was formally abolished in Alabama in 1928, but prison labor has remained a significant source of income for the state. ... According to the lawsuit, Alabama reaped a $450 million benefit from forced prison labor in 2023 alone. ... Lakiera Walker worked for Jefferson County doing roadwork for approximately two years and was paid a $2 daily wage to handle large trash removal (including a Jacuzzi). She found out that the non-incarcerated workers on her team were making $10 per hour for the same job. One day, the lawsuit alleges, Walker’s boss attempted to coerce her into unwanted sexual activity; when she refused, he wrote her up on a disciplinary offense for ​'refusing to work.' She was then sent to work unpaid in the prison’s kitchen, and when her family called the commissioner and the warden to demand something be done, no action was taken. ... During Walker’s 15-year incarceration, she held a litany of unpaid jobs throughout the prison itself, too, including in the kitchen, housekeeping and healthcare. She even provided hospice care to dying patients. ​'The nurses really weren’t interested in taking care of sickly or terminally ill people, so they would get the inmates to do it,' Walker says. She says she was regularly required to work seven days a week, and she often had to work two shifts a day. None of these prison jobs were paid, and quitting or refusing work was not a viable option. ​'You can’t say, ​‘Hey, I can’t go to work today,’' Walker explains. ​'You would go to segregation, which was solitary confinement. … People were so tired and just hopeless at that point, they would kind of welcome solitary confinement, just to have a break.'

... Walker did finally make it home after all those years of forced labor, but many others are still trapped in the system. ... By 2022, the parole rate was 11% overall and only 7% for Black prisoners — meaning that 93% of parole-requesting Black prisoners were denied. That’s what happened to Alimireo English, a charismatic 48-year-old Black man who, according to a judge, should not be in prison right now. ... But instead of being back home with his family, at church with his faith community, or visiting his eldest son in New York, English is at the Ventress Correctional Facility in Clayton, Ala. His case did not come before the parole board until November 28, 2023, more than two years after he’d already been acquitted, but he was denied anyway. His next parole date is November 2024. 'They gotta keep me for another year until they can find somebody else on the street that they can pull back in and take my place,' English tells me. ​'If they can’t replace you, they don’t let you go.'

... English works as a dorm representative for the facility’s Faith Dorm, where he is on call 24 hours a day, seven days per week. He is responsible for the safety and well-being of 190 incarcerated men, many of them elderly or medically vulnerable. He handles custodial duties and maintenance, screens dorm visitors and is also the first responder for drug and health emergencies. In his scant free time, he runs a therapy and counseling group for his fellow prisoners. He consistently works 12 to 15 hour days and, for most of the week, he is the sole individual in charge of the dorm; a retired prison chaplain comes in to assist him a few times weekly, but otherwise English is not supervised by any corrections personnel. As the lawsuit highlights, ​'Since Mr. English has been in this position, the Faith Dorm has had no fights, deaths, or overdoses.' The plaintiffs’ legal team estimates that ADOC saves roughly $200,000 a year by not having a corrections officer in that one dorm. Meanwhile, English is paid nothing. ​'The inmates basically run the prison, but the officers are getting compensated for it,' English says. ​'The wages the inmates are paid for their work hasn’t changed since 1927.'

Several of the plaintiffs I spoke to also mentioned ​'institutional need,' a specific designation that plaintiffs have reported is added to certain prisoners’ files to signify their utility to their current facility. According to Walker and her lawyer, institutional need is yet another trick used by the ADOC to keep especially useful incarcerated workers from leaving, so the state can continue benefiting from that person’s skills. ... 'Most people, it stops them from going home or making parole because it says that we need you more in prison than the world needs you in society,' Walker explains. ​'This lady, her name is Lisa Smith, she’s been in prison about 30 years, and every time she comes up for parole, regardless of her crime, she’s an institutional need. She can fix anything in the prison — she can probably build a prison — but she’s not getting paid. Sometimes they won’t even call in a free world contractor because she knows what to do. It’s looking bleak that she will ever make it out of prison, because they need her there.'

... Because of a 1977 Supreme Court decision, incarcerated workers in the United States — including those in ADOC’s work release program — are legally prohibited from unionizing. The Supreme Court decision barring incarcerated workers from unionizing has not stopped organizations like the Industrial Workers of the World’s Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, Jailhouse Lawyers Speak and the Free Alabama Movement (FAM) from organizing labor actions, strikes and protests against prison slavery, or individual prisoners from finding their own ways to dissent. ... One of the founders of FAM, Kinetik Justice, is a plaintiff in the Alabama lawsuit. He has helped organize and lead several high-profile nationwide prison strikes since 2016. He’s been in ADOC custody for the past 29 years, and he has been repeatedly punished, harassed and tortured for his work organizing against forced labor. According to The Appeal, he spent 54 months in solitary confinement between 2014 and 2018 and has been repeatedly sent back into the hole. As he told Democracy Now! in 2016, ​'We understood our incarceration was pretty much about our labor and the money that was being generated from the prison system, therefore we began organizing around our labor and used it as a means and a method to bring about reform in the Alabama prison system.' He is no stranger to filing lawsuits on his own and his fellow prisoners’ behalf against ADOC, so it is fitting that this landmark class action suit bears his name."

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Private equity ghouls have a new way to steal from their investors

Private equity is quite a racket. PE managers pile up other peoples’ money — pension funds, plutes, other pools of money — and then “invest” it (buying businesses, loading them with debt, cutting wages, lowering quality and setting traps for customers). For this, they get an annual fee — 2% — of the money they manage, and a bonus for any profits they make.

On top of this, private equity bosses get to use the carried interest tax loophole, a scam that lets them treat this ordinary income as a capital gain, so they can pay half the taxes that a working stiff would pay on a regular salary. If you don’t know much about carried interest, you might think it has to do with “interest” on a loan or a deposit, but it’s way weirder. “Carried interest” is a tax regime designed for 16th century sea captains and their “interest” in the cargo they “carried”:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/29/writers-must-be-paid/#carried-interest

Private equity is a cancer. Its profits come from buying productive firms, loading them with debt, abusing their suppliers, workers and customers, and driving them into ground, stiffing all of them — and the company’s creditors. The mafia have a name for this. They call it a “bust out”:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

Private equity destroyed Toys R Us, Sears, Bed, Bath and Beyond, and many more companies beloved of Main Street, bled dry for Wall Street:

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2023-06-02-days-of-plunder-morgenson-rosner-ballou-review/

And they’re coming for more. PE funds are “rolling up” thousands of Boomer-owned business as their owners retire. There’s a good chance that every funeral home, pet groomer and urgent care clinic within an hour’s drive of you is owned by a single PE firm. There’s 2.9m more Boomer-owned businesses going up for sale in the coming years, with 32m employees, and PE is set to buy ’em all:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/16/schumpeterian-terrorism/#deliberately-broken

PE funds get their money from “institutional investors.” It shouldn’t surprise you to learn they treat their investors no better than their creditors, nor the customers, employees or suppliers of the businesses they buy.

Pension funds, in particular, are the perennial suckers at the poker table. My parent’s pension fund, the Ontario Teachers’ Fund, are every grifter’s favorite patsy, losing $90m to Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency scam:

https://www.otpp.com/en-ca/about-us/news-and-insights/2022/ontario-teachers--statement-on-ftx/

Pension funds are neck-deep in private equity, paying steep fees for shitty returns. Imagine knowing that the reason you can’t afford your apartment anymore is your pension fund gambled with the private equity firm that bought your building and jacked up the rent — and still lost money:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/25/pluralistic-your-daily-link-dose-25-feb-2020/

But there’s no depth too low for PE looters to sink to. They’ve found an exciting new way to steal from their investors, a scam called a “continuation fund.” Writing in his latest newsletter, the great Matt Levine breaks it down:

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/mergers-and-acquisitions/matt-levines-money-stuff-buyout-funds-buy-from-themselves

Here’s the deal: say you’re a PE guy who’s raised a $1b fund. That entitles you to a 2% annual “carry” on the fund: $20,000,000/year. But you’ve managed to buy and asset strip so many productive businesses that it’s now worth $5b. Your carry doesn’t go up fivefold. You could sell the company and collect your 20% commission — $800m — but you stop collecting that annual carry.

But what if you do both? Here’s how: you create a “continuation fund” — a fund that buys your old fund’s portfolio. Now you’ve got $5b under management and your carry quintuples, to $100m/year. Levine dryly notes that the FT calls this “a controversial type of transaction”:

https://www.ft.com/content/11549c33-b97d-468b-8990-e6fd64294f85

These deals “look like a pyramid scheme” — one fund flips its assets to another fund, with the same manager running both funds. It’s a way to make the pie bigger, but to decrease the share (in both real and proportional terms) going to the pension funds and other institutional investors who backed the fund.

A PE boss is supposed to be a fiduciary, with a legal requirement to do what’s best for their investors. But when the same PE manager is the buyer and the seller, and when the sale takes place without inviting any outside bidders, how can they possibly resolve their conflict of interest?

They can’t: 42% of continuation fund deals involve a sale at a value lower than the one that the PE fund told their investors the assets were worth. Now, this may sound weird — if a PE boss wants to set a high initial value for their fund in order to maximize their carry, why would they sell its assets to the new fund at a discount?

Here’s Levine’s theory: if you’re a PE guy going back to your investors for money to put in a new fund, you’re more likely to succeed if you can show that their getting a bargain. So you raise $1b, build it up to $5b, and then tell your investors they can buy the new fund for only $3b. Sure, they can get out — and lose big. Or they can take the deal, get the new fund at a 40% discount — and the PE boss gets $60m/year for the next ten years, instead of the $20m they were getting before the continuation fund deal.

PE is devouring the productive economy and making the world’s richest people even richer. The one bright light? The FTC and DoJ Antitrust Division just published new merger guidelines that would make the PE acquire/debt-load/asset-strip model illegal:

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/07/ftc-doj-seek-comment-draft-merger-guidelines

The bad news is that some sneaky fuck just slipped a 20% FTC budget cut — $50m/year — into the new appropriations bill:

https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/1681830706488438785

They’re scared, and they’re fighting dirty.

I’m at San Diego Comic-Con!

Today (Jul 20) 16h: Signing, Tor Books booth #2802 (free advance copies of The Lost Cause — Nov 2023 — to the first 50 people!)

Tomorrow (Jul 21):

1030h: Wish They All Could be CA MCs, room 24ABC (panel)

12h: Signing, AA09

Sat, Jul 22 15h: The Worlds We Return To, room 23ABC (panel)

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/2023/07/20/continuation-fraud/#buyout-groups

[Image ID: An old Punch editorial cartoon depicting a bank-robber sticking up a group of businesspeople and workers. He wears a bandanna emblazoned with dollar-signs and a top-hat.]

[mesetacadre]

Does socialist theory have any use for classes based on wealth/income? (rich/poor as opposed to bourgeoisie/proletariat)

Short answer: kinda but not really

Long answer: Classes in marxist theory are exclusively defined by the objective relationship of the subject to the property of the means of production and to the organization of labor, in capitalism it being mostly salary work. From these objective and economic relationships spring the classes of the proletariat, the bourgeoisie, the petit-bourgeoisie, the lumpen-proletariat, artisans...

Income, while highly correlated with one's position in class society, is not the defining trait of the subject, but the consequence's of the individual's conditions and specific relationship to their own work. Income itself is just the remuneration for a part of the labor-power that one exerts, or for the value created by others' labor-power that you exploit by virtue of having private ownership of the means of production. In neither of these cases is income the cause of one's class, but a consequence of it.

What a "class" analysis based on income gets you is the inability to actually strike at the core of what organizes class society. For example, the income-based analysis most radical liberals and social-democrats prefer to use (while still choosing to appropriate marxist terminology like "owning class") does not allow them to properly identify the exploitative nature of small businesses, thus, you'll see them rallying against Big Capital while their beloved family-owned small business commits labor law violations on the daily with 11 hour workdays for minimum wage. The income of the petit-bourgeoise is not that great, it's still higher than an average salary worker, but small enough that recessions or the mere existence of concentrated capital is enough to render the small property owner into a worker, a process known as proletariatization. See this really good explanation of what that dynamic means for the political implications of this economic fact.

An income-based analysis would place the small business owner and their 3 employees on the same side with, supposedly, the same interests, because they don't get a lot of money. I don't need to harp on any more to explain why that is nonsense, I hope.

Furthermore, within the working class, there are contrasts in income. There are workers who have a lavish salary, and there are workers who don't even make enough to support their basic needs. The objective fact of their exploitation is the same: they generate value with their labor-power, and sell it to a capitalist for a fraction of what they generate. Exploitation in the marxist sense is not a moral judgement. This is not about whether it's morally wrong or not to extract value from workers. Exploitation creates alienation and a class antagonism that can only ever be resolved one way, which is through the overthrow of the exploiter class by the exploited, history shows that this antagonism is what has propelled it forwards.

It is another question, and one that concerns us less, whether the salary, the price with which a capitalist buys a fraction of the worker's labor-power, is enough for the worker to lead a relatively accommodated life or not. If this was the question, which it is for, say, social-democrats, then the mere reform of capitalism (which, to be clear, is not possible to enact for all workers and all countries) to ensure a decent livelihood under the system of salary work would be enough.

With a lavish income, some might argue, a worker ceases to share the same interests with the rest of the working class who can't afford the first's lifestyle. But what this is omitting is that, in the cases of some workers with a really high salary, it becomes possible for the worker to join the ranks of the bourgeoisie by acquiring capital. Here, top-rated actors and athletes comes to mind. Actors and athletes are paid a salary in exchange for their labor-power, but the highest rated ones generate so much value that the capitalists pay them a really high salary, and then, most of the time, these highly-paid workers acquire some property and become a part of the bourgeoisie. In the US, for example, a bunch of high-rated workers of the entertainment industry such as Oprah, with more than 2,000 acres, have become large landlords in Hawai'i, taking advantage of the colonization of the island chain.

The break in common interests between highly-paid workers and the rest of their class comes from the change in economic class that their income allows for, not the income itself.

There is one instance when income becomes more relevant, and that is in the case of the labor aristocracy. Because of the international division of labor created by and protected by imperialism, the workers of the imperial core, as much as they are still exploited by capitalists and have revolutionary interests, benefit directly or indirectly from the even greater exploitation placed on the workers of the imperial periphery and global south, allowing for a generalized improvement in the quality of life for the imperial core workers.

Two conclusions can be made from this fact:

First, that the social-democratic welfare state depends on the exploitation of vast swaths of the world, and thus, it is not an applicable system in the majority of the world. Second, that the working class of the imperial core can, by the objective fact of the improvement of their material conditions by the spoils of imperialism, can act in the interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie. Take as an example the SAG-AFTRA union, which decidedly supported the imperialist project of Israel after al-Aqsa Flood. This does mean that a greater effort is needed for most workers in the imperial core, the labor aristocracy, to achieve revolutionary-political consciousness. The spontaneous class consciousness that some people insist is enough to be revolutionary, is born of the daily class antagonisms one experiences, and also of the material conditions underlying one's existence, therefore, as we have seen a lot this past year, spontaneous consciousness can include attitudes that favor the bourgeoisie.

And still, even if the labor aristocracy is broadly defined by a higher income, it is still dependent on the relationship to the organization of labor. Even the most desperate and destitute homeless citizen of the imperial core benefits in a lot of ways from the system of imperialism. For example, they don't need to worry about the political instability most imperialized countries suffer, and to put a cruder example, they are never going to get shot by a 22-year-old USamerican soldier doing target practice.

[kurogane2512]

Hello there! I'm a big fan of your work and I've read almost all your stories on wattpad and Damn I love it so much 😌.

Anyway, can I request a one-shot where the reader is working under Beidou, as her first mate and because of that, the reader does work that roughs up her hand, like you know, her hand is rough and dry and Ningguang took notice of this one day and decided to do a full body care for the reader.

Like Ningguang applies hand cream on the reader's hands, she massages the reader's face and stuff like that. I'm kinda bad at explaining things 😭

Aww anon this is so cute istg comforting/caring is one of my favorite tropes with all my wives especially the ones who are more authoritative and hold a high position (Ningguang and Signora come to mind most). And dw your explanation was perfect I get it :))

Ps this turned out longer than expected hope you don't mind

Game: Genshin Impact

Characters: Ningguang x fem!reader

Type: Fluff (caring and pampering from mommy Ningguang)

The Tianquan sacrificed her Jade Chamber to protect the people of Liyue and now it was time for the people rebuild that same abode for their Tianquan. Ningguang organized a competition to gather materials and labor for the Jade Chamber, many businessmen and merchants attracted by the prize took part in it and diligently worked day and night to gather materials.

"Baiwen, isn't that the First Mate of the Crux?" Ningguang questioned her secretary while looking at the construction site of the Jade Chamber, inspecting the working when she spotted a familiar yet unexpected face.

"Yes, Lady Ningguang, she is." Baiwen replied.

"Why is she helping among the construction workers? Did Beidou send her? Are there any other members of the Crux helping around?" Ningguang questioned more as she looked at you carrying and assembling construction materials around like a daily wage worker, appearing as common labor hired to rebuild the Jade Chamber.

"From what I know, there is no other member of the Crux seen on the site. I will find out more, Lady Ningguang."

Ningguang pondered for a moment, her gaze fixated on you working so hard with a smile on your face. "No need, I will talk to her myself."

"As you wish, Lady Ningguang." Baiwen bowed and excused herself away. Ningguang didn't come to meet you immediately, she decided to wait and see what your intentions were.

She observed the site for 3 days and saw you every day doing the same kind of work; sometimes transporting materials from one place to other, other times assembling the materials as instructed and so on. Her curiosity perked, and she finally decided to indulge it one day. She walked up to you and you immediately greeted her then engaged in conversation.

"I have been observing you for some days now, First Mate of the Crux." Ningguang didn't waste time and jumped to the topic of concern, "What might be your reasons for engaging in common labor like this? I believe this is rather below your paygrade. And I hope you are aware that this is separate from the competition to acquire the materials, there is no special prize for this only the appropriate wage."

"Oh, yes I know, Lady Ningguang. I'm not here for money or even the competition prize....."

"Then what might your reason be? I don't believe Captain Beidou sent you to assist considering there are no other members of the Crux here."

"Yes, she didn't send me. I came by my own accord. Captain Beidou is helping in acquiring the materials of the competition so everyone else is engaged in that. I....um....I was just more interested in this kind of work so I came...." you trailed off and made-up whatever reason came to your mind. You weren't expecting the Tianquan to notice you this way and question you, you almost felt like you did something wrong due to her constant questioning.

Ningguang chuckled after a moment of pause, "How interesting~ I was right to think the First Mate of the Crux was much more capable and fascinating than the Captain. You have my gratitude for assisting here, if pos—"

"Oi! Look out! The ropes will snap!" suddenly someone shouted and you noticed there was a trolley carrying stones right above you and Ningguang that broke from the rail and came crashing down. You swiftly reacted and jumped away pulling Ningguang along with you, both of you falling on the ground. You softened the fall for Ningguang by taking the force and shielding her above you, your back hitting the ground first with Ningguang wrapped in your arms.

The trolley crashed with a loud thud, alerting everyone on site to come rushing and see what had happened. Baiwen came running to look for her Tianquan and was relieved to see her safe and unharmed as you pulled her away at the right moment.

"A-Are you okay, Lady Ningguang?" you asked out of concern, slightly panting beneath her. She was shocked for some time until she grasped the situation and realized she was lying above you in your arms. Baiwen came to your side and helped Ningguang stand up then Ningguang offered her hand to you and you happily accepted then stood up and brushed your clothes while Baiwen checked Ningguang all over.

"I'm fine. What about you, Y/n? You took the fall, I hope your head isn't injured." Ningguang almost instinctively caressed your head but held back and folded her arms over her chest.

"Y-Yes, I'm fine, Lady Ningguang. Your safety is more important here."

Ningguang let out a sigh then turned around to look at the scene, her eyebrows furrowing as anger rose in her.

"Baiwen, get me whoever is responsible for these trolleys and the ropes. Have a thorough inspection of every trolley and rope before resuming the construction, I do not want anything like this to repeat."

Ningguang ordered with a glare and Baiwen immediately rushed to complete her command; it was rare for Ningguang to become so worked up, after all. The crowd of on-lookers gathered quickly dispersed away as well then Ningguang turned to face you before gently holding your hand, the action causing a blush to spread across your face.

"You can take the rest of the day off and rest, I will compensate you for this."

"O-Oh, no, it's okay. I'm completely fine, Lady Ningguang. Please, allow me to keep working."

"Not much construction is left now, I will pay you for all the days the construction went on. You can rest easy and go back."

"I...." you hesitated to reply but seeing Ningguang's gentle and concerned expression made you melt and agree, "As you say, Lady Ningguang. Please do call me if you need more workers any time."

Ningguang smiled and gently caressed your hand before releasing it and allowing you to leave. She watched you walk towards the harbor and board the Crux then looked at her own hand that was previously holding yours and pondered, "....Such rough hands. What a shame someone as adorable as her has to live a life like that. And I wouldn't be surprised if Beidou gives all the dirty work to Y/n while she drinks and slacks away. Hmm, perhaps I could do something...."

The Jade Chamber was finally rebuilt after another 2 days and Ningguang gathered the winners of the competition to let them collect their prize. The top 3 winners were the Traveller, Yun Jin and Captain Beidou herself who went a little later as she was with the crew giving out instructions.

"Keep your eyes and ears open for anything once the battle begins."

"Yes, Captain!"

"Oi, Y/n. Are you sure you don't want to come up there?"

"Huh? For what?"

"For your prize, of course! I won't let Ningguang get away with making you work your ass off and paying nothing!"

The crew let out a laughter while you sighed, "Don't say that to her, Captain. She has promised me she will pay me everything."

"Hah~ You...." Beidou let out a drawled sigh and left the crew in your hands then went up to the Jade Chamber where Yun Jin, Shenhe and the Traveller had already asked their questions and Paimon prompted Beidou to be next.

"Huh? No, I have nothing to ask. If anything, you should compensate my First Mate for all the work she did for you."

"Don't make it seem like I forced her to work, Beidou. She was there by her own accord and I already promised her the right amount."

"Yeah yeah, she was there for you, after all~"

Ningguang squinted her eyes in confusion, "What are you implying, Beidou?"

"Huh? Don't tell me you are so thick headed that you didn't realize even after she did so much....Hah~ This girl, I told her it's futile but she still insisted to help you just to please you."

"Please me? And whatever might that mean?"

Beidou clicked her tongue and turned around to walk away, "Never mind, forget I said anything. I'm going back to the ship to prepare."

Ningguang was about to call her back but Beidou descended long ago, leaving Ningguang confused and pondering. "What is that supposed to mean? Please me as in.....please me to get on my good side for her own benefit? Is that what she means?"

Ningguang looked down in contempt and thought back to what you said to her and bit her lower lip, "So, she's just like everyone else too....get close for benefits from my position. Haha~ can't say I'm surprised, I suppose...."

"Lady Ningguang, it's time." Baiwen called out to her and she put all her thoughts aside and began the ascension of the Jade Chamber. A fierce battle ensued soon after with Beisht over the sea, you commanded the Alcor alongside Beidou while Ningguang soared in the sky in her Jade Chamber and defeated Beisht together. Nobody was gravely injured thanks to the Traveller and Shenhe's help with the combined efforts of the Millelith.

"Y/n, come on, Ningguang has called us to see Yun Jin's show right now." Beidou informed you after the battle, preparing to go up the Jade Chamber.

"You can go, Captain. I'll stay and look over the damage and if anyone requires medical help, then we have to treat the crew as well."

"Ah, shut it. She specifically asked you to come so move it."

You found it hard to believe but Beidou left no room for negotiation and practically dragged you along. You reached the Jade Chamber and found Ningguang seated on one of the tables, she looked at you and squinted her eyes before standing up to greet you. You watched the show together sitting on the same table until Ningguang asked you to accompany her to get something from inside and you agreed hence went to her office.

"As promised, here is the remuneration for the days of the construction." Ningguang handed you a bag of mora which you hesitantly accepted and thanked her, she then stayed silent for a moment before walking up to her table and leaning against the edge.

"....Ask away what you require and I shall see that it is done." Ningguang spoke in a serious tone, glazed with her usual formalness.

"What do you mean, Lady Ningguang?"

"Wasn't that your purpose for helping in the construction? To please me? Well, I was pleased. Now state your requirement and our deal will be complete."

You looked at her wide-eyed, "Why do you think that, Lady Ningguang? I-I wasn't—"

"Your Captain told me you wanted to please me; naturally, I understand you must have something you want from me for which you wanted to get on my good side and gain favors. It is quite a common strategy in business and I believe in equivalent exchange so I'm ready to give you what you want."

Your heart almost broke at her words, you didn't understand why she reached this conclusion.

"I....Y-You misunderstand, Lady Ningguang. I did want to please you but not for this....I don't want anything from you or your wealth, I just wanted to help you rebuild your home and see you happy...."

Ningguang was also surprised now and walked closer to you, standing in front of you with her arms crossed over her chest.

"....So, you don't want anything materialistic? Why would you even want to see me happy?"

Your face turned red and you shyly looked away, appearing extremely adorable to Ningguang who had rarely seen you this way.

"I....I happened to see you at the harbor one night a few days after you sacrificed the previous Jade Chamber. And....you looked really upset, sorrowful. I couldn't bear to see you that way....I wanted to do something but it was difficult from my position. Then I heard about the reconstruction and urged Captain Beidou to return so that I could participate....I would have participated in the material gathering competition but I felt that wasn't enough so I let her handle that and I came to the labor side."

Ningguang felt her heartbeat fastening at your honest confession, an unexpected feeling of relief spreading in her chest.

"Well then, you did accomplish your goal. In return, would you let me do something for you now?~"

"H-Huh?! I don't want anything, Lady Ningguang. E-Even this mora isn't required but I can deposit it in the crew's treasury, other than this you really don't have to bother!"

Ningguang smiled and gently held your hand, the blush on your face darkening feeling her so close.

"It's not a bother. Come with me~"

You slowly agreed and let Ningguang lead you towards her private chamber, you felt her soft and delicate hands hold your dry and rough ones and suddenly felt nervous, even distant. It made you recall the distance between you both and the differences in your state of living. You were proud of your job and didn't regret it ever, but falling in love with the Tianquan made you almost wish you were in different circumstances.

"Have a seat." Ningguang made you sit on the bedside while she went to her dressing and picked out a few things before coming to sit beside you.

"....Life at the sea must be tough, right?" she spoke as she took off her gloves then proceeded hold your hands and caress them.

"Uh, i-it is but it's also fun with everyone around, and Captain Beidou especially keeps us well-fed and entertained."

"Hmm, well-fed for sure but not well tended to." you felt her soft fingers brush across your palm before intertwining with your own.

"That day when you saved me from the falling trolley, I felt your rough skin as you held my arms. I wouldn't have noticed it in the moment of panic but it felt uncharacteristically prickly that I couldn't help but remember and I also confirmed it later by holding your hand." she let go of your hand then gathered some cream on her own.

"I understand you cannot take care of your skin and personal appearance at sea much; you'd prioritise health and hygiene more. But still, you shouldn't let your adorable appearance go to waste this way. You are still a young girl; don't follow in Beidou's steps and become a brute like her, at least." she proceeded to rub the cream across your palm followed by your forearm.

"I....I j-just never cared for how I looked, especially...." you trailed off and averted your gaze, making Ningguang concerned as she massaged the cream on your hand.

"Especially?" she asked in a soft voice.

You furrowed your brows then swiftly pulled your hand away from her hold, catching her off-guard. "You don't have to do this, Lady Ningguang."

Ningguang looked at you firmly and lightly held your wrist, "I want to, let me."

"W-Why do you even want to? You don't have to pay me back for what I did, you don't have to waste your time on this."

"I decide how I spend my time and I deem this to be worth it."

You knew it was pointless to argue with the Tianquan once she had decided something. You were feeling overwhelmed seeing how eager she was to do this; you didn't understand her reasoning at all. A celebration was being held for her outside at this very moment yet here she was tending to a mere pirate. Ningguang observed you for some time before shifting closer and gently cupping your face, making you move your gaze towards her.

"Hmm....now that I'm seeing you up close this way, you really are quite cute and have rather youthful features, at least compared to the other crew members I have seen~"

A dark blush spread across your face at her compliment and how close she was, Ningguang rubbed her thumb across your cheek and slid it up towards your eye-patch in an attempt to take it off. You reacted out of instinct and stopped her hand from moving further, earning a soft smile from her.

"Let me see, I have always been quite curious about it. Not to mention, I need to apply the cream on your face so this needs to be removed anyways."

You bit your lower lip and slowly agreed then moved your hand away and let her slide off your eyepatch. She then brushed aside the bangs hanging over your eye and tucked them behind your ear before gathering moisturizer on her palms and gently spreading it in circles on your cheeks. Ningguang's gentle smile didn't fade even for a moment, she was focused on applying the cream all over your face and covering every part.

You noticed how she was especially careful when rubbing it over your eye as if the scar still hurt you— which it didn't as it was years old now. It almost shocked you how accepting and normally she was treating you; you knew the Tianquan was rather humane than what people made her to be but this felt extraordinary. Her soft and gentle fingers drawing circles on your face made you relax into her palms and close your eyes to relish the feeling.

"....Would it be okay to ask how you got this scar, Y/n?"

The question caught you off-guard but you agreed to tell, "Yes. It was before I joined the Crux, I was attacked by some Treasure Hoarders who raided my village. I got careless and let down my guard which gave them the chance to attack me and....yeah, that's how I got it."

Ningguang looked at you with a sympathetic look, "My apologies if it was uncomfortable to recall...."

"N-Not really, it was a long time ago. In fact, that's when Captain Beidou took me in. Seeing that she had a similar injury and how confidently she carried herself gave me some motivation too but...."

"....But you still remain insecure about your appearance due to it, right?"

You nodded in guilt, feeling weak in front of her. You didn't expect to tell your deepest secret to the Tianquan at all, but you also felt lighter telling her because of how accepting she was.

"I-It's okay now, Lady Ningguang! It's not like I brood over it all the time, I see it as a battle scar and know nothing can be done about it. I'm blessed nobody mocks me for it and the crew makes me feel accepted for who I am...."

Ningguang smiled wider and nodded in agreement, "Well, would you mind taking off your shirt? I wish to apply the cream on your body as well~"

"H-Huh?! I can do that myself, Lady Ningguang!" you exclaimed, feeling extremely flustered. Ningguang let out a chuckle then patted your head, "Alright then, let me apply on your back, at least. It would be difficult for you reach there anyways."

"Uh...o-okay."

You turned over and pulled your shirt up till your neck to expose your back to Ningguang. She saw the scars and injuries adorning it as well and felt more upset for you but decided to not bring them up and continued rubbing and massaging the cream. Your face was red up till your ears, the feeling of her smooth fingers rubbing over your bare back sent shivers down your spine and you did your best to hold back any kind of strange noises.

"Alright, it's done."

Ningguang helped you pull your shirt down then you turned to face her and she gently smiled, "I'll have some of these products delivered to you tomorrow. Try to apply them as much as you can, I can assure you that you will see improvement very soon."

"....Thank you very much, Lady Ningguang. T-This wasn't required at all but you—"

"Shh~" Ningguang put her finger on your lips, "Consider us even now, I won't listen to any excuses~"

You nodded in agreement and she retracted her hand then both of you proceeded to go outside. You stood at the platform to go down and bid farewell to her and thanked her once again for what she did, she smirked and all of a sudden walked closer then you felt a kiss planted on your cheek, near the place where your scar was. Your heart skipped a beat and you looked at Ningguang with a flustered expression while she looked as confident as ever.

"I'll call you if there are more similar jobs in the future for you to do. We can also discuss the right kind of remuneration for them~"