#Employment Coordinator

[jobsnotices]

Barpak Sulikot Gaunpalika Vacancy 2081 for Employment Coordinator

Barpak Sulikot Gaunpalika Vacancy 2081 for Employment Coordinator. Interested and qualified candidates are invited to apply within 15 (fifteen) days from the date of publication of this notice. CAREER OPPORTUNITY Barpak Sulikot Gaunpalika Vacancy 2081 for Employment Coordinator Barpak Sulikot Gaunpalika (Rural Municipality), Office of the Rural Municipal Executive, Takukot, Gorkha Notice for…

[mqfx]

both of those imps were in fact one contrary imp: me!! idk i want this for them i do and its private just between them which does help and obviously over the duration of the fic there has been character development that you and your advisors are aware of my liege however... you can lead a horse to water and he might still try to be surreptitious abt drinking it...habits die hard...

no you're right...... we need some subtlety in here. some plausible deniability. I'm working round the clock on it. how about--

they sit down for their little picnic and talk about something important (political bullshit dw) and while fx's going on and on, mq's feeding him and fx takes it and still keeps going and it takes a while for him to notice and then he blanks out. mq immediately gets flustered and tries to back out of it but fx grabs his hand and (this next bit is courtesy of my inner council's advice) fx licks the cherry juice from mq's fingers. and th OH look at the time I gotta go to work. adios 🫡

[jobrascals]

TNPCB Recruitment 2024 03 Project Coordinator Posts

TNPCB Recruitment 2024 Project Coordinator Posts TNPCB Notification | TNPCB Vacancy | Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board Officially Released 03 Vacancy. TNPCB Project Coordinator Official Online Application. Interested Candidate Apply Online From 25/01/2024 to 08/02/2024 for Following Official Website https://tnpcb.gov.in/. All the Eligible Candidate Before Apply Check Full Notification Details…

[goblinbabe666]

i can’t afford rent because i haven’t worked since being assaulted LMAO fuck me i love this shit

[goteamphilippines]

HiringNow: Work from Home Finance Coordinator! 📣

Do you have at least 2 years of accounting experience and familiar with Xero and payroll? We're looking for someone like you to join our team!

✅ Earn up to PHP35K ✅ Work remotely or from your home ✅ Day shift ✅ Free HMO coverage for you and your loved one starting from day 1 ✅ Work equipment will be provided

Apply now and start your finance career with us! Click the link below.

[samycare]

NDIS Disability Support Canberra - Samy Care Services

We are available 24 hours, 7 days a week and 365 days of the year to help you with our support.

Samy Care Services provide NDIS Disability Support in Canberra along with Community Support, Personal Care Activities, Life Skills Development, and more.

Every activity at Samy Care Services is designed to target one of our primary curriculum components.  These curriculum pieces help our participants to meet the goals of increased independence in life.  People with a disability are more likely to achieve independence in their lives when they are able to develop these skills.

At Samy Care Services, we believe that if you want someone to help you with any tasks that enhance of your daily living then it should be someone you feel comfortable, someone who treat you with respect and you as the decision maker, and someone who enthusiastically engages you in what is happening to you.

Community Participation

Get more involved with your community, be social, and participate in recreational activities with our range of social and community supports designed to help you enjoy your hobbies, see your friends, and have some fun.

This service will assist you to build your independence, help you to bring strong community connection that will expand your friendship and facilitating you to bring strong supports networking through recreational, social, leisure and cultural activities.

Samy Care Services will help you with varieties of opportunities and help you with the freedom to create a support system that is tailored to suit your individual goals, interest, and skill development.

Support and Services that you may enjoy and we can assist you:

Recreational activities: Bowling, Swimming, Gym, Horse riding, Movies and more social places

Outing: Shopping, visiting Tourist Places, visiting Interstates, Going for Picnic in the park.

Attending sporting games such as soccer, rugby, tennis, cricket

Attending Classes: Music, Craft, Cooking, Art, Yoga, Zumba, computer, iPad etc

Assistance in food shopping

Domestic Assistance Services

Our Domestic assistance services are here to help you:

Taking out the rubbish

Cleaning the kitchen/bathroom /toilet

General cleaning

Vacuuming or mopping

Checking your food in the pantry or fridges if they are out of date.

Tidying outdoor areas

Watering plants/Gardening

Feeding your pets

Life Skills and Development Services

Development of Daily Living and Life Skills is a type of service that supports and encourages in your   personal development, increases opportunities to participate in the community and build your independence. People with disabilities can face barriers that most people take for granted, like communication and navigating day to day activities that make it difficult for them to live independently and participate fully in their communities.

Samy Care is here to support you to develop those skills such as:Health and Well being

It helps you to keep yourself healthy and happy. Teaching the importance of nutrition, grocery shopping, planning and preparing healthy meals, and creating healthy weekly meal plans. Not only that, but we can help develop healthy habits around exercise and staying active.

Travel Training With travel training, an individual not only can keep themselves safe around transport, but it gives them the autonomy they didn’t have before. From road safety, traffic lights, using public transport, and planning on how to get from A to B, travel training teaches everything an individual would need.

Personal Hygiene Hygiene is really important in our daily lives. Our staff will teach you with  daily living skills and learning to develop good personal hygiene can not only increase an individual’s confidence and self-esteem but is important to maintaining health.

Assistance with Self Care Activities & Daily Life

Everyone living with a disability has special needs and goals in life. We, at Samy Care we believe that everyone living with any kind of disability requires different level of supports and services. We will support you in assistance with daily life includes providing support and supervision of personal care activities and daily tasks. Our lovely support staff will help, and supervise, you with all your daily activities including personal care activities such as:

Showering

Toileting

Personal hygiene

Supervising or assistance with meal preparation

medication assistance

Help with morning and evening routines

Domestic support including assistance with shopping, meal preparation and domestic cleaning

[bathask]

大人の発達障害アスペルガー/自閉スペクトラム症の精神科病院主治医は月毎でなく2か月毎通院推奨でちょっと不安。ASD就労継続支援B型事業所通所での作業所作業前準備運動のラジオ体操では自閉症スペクトラム不器用で発達性協調運動障害DCDぎこちなく自分だけ時々手足同時テンポで皆と外れ恥ずぃって発達障害あるある？

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

The Woodland Park Zoo is my home zoo, and the possibility of a strike has been brewing for a while. The staff at the zoo have been working without a union contract for over 200 days because the zoo is unwilling to pay them a living wage.

Zookeepers around the country are consistently underpaid, and Seattle is an incredibly expensive place to live. The zoo is losing animal care staff rapidly - I've been told they'd lost five keepers and a vet tech to another nearby AZA zoo this year alone - because they can't afford to live here. And I've been told that because there's no contract, the zoo is on a hiring freeze, which means they're perpetually understaffed.

Photo credit: Yulia Issa

There was an informational picket outside of a big event last month, which got a ton of community support. Then the only content the zoo put out for National Zookeepers Week was a single post about how much gratitude the staff are owed, which... hmmmm, came off a little tone-deaf in the current moment.

Now it looks like staff might end up striking to make their point, after almost a year of negotiations.

"Workers at Woodland Park Zoo, who are members of the Joint Crafts Council (JCC) Coalition of Unions, have been making plans to protect the animals if they go on strike. If the group of 200 workers is unable to reach an agreement with their employer over a new contract, they say they will run a skeleton crew that would provide necessary care to the animals but require the Zoo to close its doors to the general public. “We are making contingency plans to ensure the continued well-being of the animals if we are forced to strike,” said Janel Kempf, a learning coordinator who has been with the Zoo for 25 years and is a Shop Steward with Teamsters 117. “A strike is an absolute last resort and one that none of us takes lightly, but the Zoo keeps pushing us in that direction. If the Zoo doesn’t change course soon, we will have no other choice than to withhold our labor.” Negotiations between the Coalition of Unions and the Zoo have been ongoing for the last ten months with workers growing increasingly frustrated at what they say is the Zoo’s failure to value and retain an experienced workforce. “We are hemorrhaging critical animal care experience which directly affects the standard of care we can provide for our animals,” said Allison Cloud, an animal keeper and member of Teamsters 117. “The Zoo is forcing us to choose between our livelihoods and our animals, a heartbreaking decision no zookeeper ever wants to make.” Workers say low wages, the skyrocketing cost of healthcare, low morale, and high turnover have put the Zoo’s AZA accreditation at risk. Loss of accreditation could cripple the Zoo’s resources and lead to the transfer of animals to other accredited facilities. "Woodland Park Zoo cannot maintain AZA accreditation without us,” said Joe Gallenbach, an Exhibit Technician with IATSE Local 15. “The loss of AZA accreditation would demonstrate catastrophic mismanagement on the part of the Woodland Park Zoological Society.” The Coalition of Unions and the Zoo have one more bargaining session on the calendar: Friday, August 9. If the Zoo does not make an acceptable proposal next Friday, workers say they will take their case for fair wages and benefits to the public through direct, concerted action."

Now, when you bring the risk of AZA accreditation loss into the conversation, things get interesting. I've written before about how some zoos are legally or contractually obligated to maintain AZA accreditation and couldn't choose to leave. Woodland Park Zoo is one of those facilities: the agreement with the city that allows the Woodland Park Zoological Society requires them to be AZA accredited. If they lose it, they default on the agreement.

So, would there actually be a chance the facility could lose accreditation if the staff struck? I couldn't find any recent information about staff at other AZA zoos striking and how it related to their accreditation cycle, but I did find this, in an AZA press release about how the Aquarium of the Bay lost accreditation a few months ago.

"Silver Spring, Md. (May 24, 2024) –  The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) Accreditation Commission unanimously voted to rescind the accreditation of the Aquarium of the Bay.  The independent Commission notified the institution on May 13, 2024, following its conclusion that the aquarium was not meeting accreditation standards in a number of key areas, including financial stability, staffing capabilities, and employee morale and turnover. Aquarium of the Bay has until June 13 to appeal the Commission’s decision."

So it looks like staffing issues and employee morale can definitely be things taken into consideration. Let's look at the AZA standards for more info. I found a couple standards that appear to be relevant:

7.3 "There must be an adequate number of trained paid and unpaid staff to care for the animals and to manage the institution’s diverse programs." Justification: "Although there is no set formula for prescribing the size of the staff (paid and unpaid), some of the criteria that may be used to define what is considered “adequate” include the number and type of species within the institution, the general condition of the animals and exhibits, and past staffing practices."

7.4 "Compensation for paid staff should be competitive with other similar positions in the local/regional/national market, as appropriate." Justification: "Institutions must be able to recruit and retain qualified paid staff. Competitive compensation is a key component in recruitment and retention of paid staff. Some positions can be successfully recruited for locally, while others are competitive on a more regional or national basis (e.g., animal care specialists)."

Both of those look like they could quite reasonably be an issue for WPZ at this point. They're losing paid staff due to low wages and operating understaffed due to the hiring freeze. Staff obviously aren't getting appropriate compensation if they're looking for jobs at nearby facilities that pay better.

Now, would the zoo actually lose accreditation if a strike came to pass? Honestly, I doubt it, because WPZ is too big a feather in AZA's cap for them to penalize them that harshly. Columbus - an equally prominent institution - got kicked because of a major public animal use scandal, but it was pretty clearly political because of how quickly they were re-accredited. I'd expect AZA might give WPZ a slap on the wrist, some stern public comment, maybe some minor penalties, but I'd be very surprised if they were willing to kick WPZ to the curb over something "just" as minor as a staffing problem.

Regardless, zoo staff deserve to be paid a living wage. I'll be really sad if the zoo is closed to a strike once the snow leopard cubs get old enough to debut - but I'd still rather the staff be paid a living wage than be able to see the fluffballs immediately. I want the people working at the zoos I visit to not be living in poverty. Zoo staff pub in an incredible amount of effort to care for animal collections and to facilitate the guest experience, and they should be able to do that without multiple roommates or three jobs. I know that the practical reality is that not all facilities can afford to pay their staff as highly as is ideal, but I'd expect a big zoo with reliable city funding to be able to do better. Supporting the zookeepers (and other zoo staff) is supporting the zoo.

I'll be keeping an eye on this going forward, both from a personal perspective (I'm a member, and I have a vested interest in what the organization I give money to does) and a professional interest in industry politics (what does AZA choose to do). I'll update if there's anything interesting on either end.

[reasonsforhope]

By the time Sue Shusterman turns away from the bench at the overlook and back toward the trailhead, she knows the paddleboarders are out in force 300 yards away on the gleaming blue surface of Chatfield Reservoir.  

She knows the high runoff waters have flooded the roots of Chatfield’s willows and cottonwoods, and that the first spring-green layers of the foothills rise to the west like soft fabric. 

How she acquired these life-affirming memories is at first a mystery, since Shusterman is blind and is heading back toward the parking lot making her usual sweep of the path in front with her ever-present white cane.  

But then a friendly voice emerges from the phone that Shusterman is pointing toward the path from her other hand.

A little to the left to stay on the paved path. Looks like there’s a trail all the way down to the beach, about 75 yards, if you wanted to go. I’ll just be here watching, let me know if you need anything. 

The voice is from a live, trained human guide FaceTiming through Shusterman’s phone camera on the Aira ability-assist app. Sight-impaired people have been using Aira’s guides to make it easier to do anything from navigating an airport to filling out an online job form. Now, all 42 Colorado state parks like Chatfield are geofenced to allow any visitor to use Aira for free to stroll the trails with a helpful set of eyes. 

The Aira guides seemingly effortlessly offer what a blind hiker either needs, or wants. If there’s a dangerous steep drop-off on the right, they warn. If the hiker would rather know if the sneezeweed is in bloom or the sailboats are luffing through a turn, Aira offers that instead.

For Shusterman, trying Aira as an outdoors adventure for the first time, the allure was simple: “Independence.” 

“So she’s doing, I think, a phenomenal job of including the necessary safety things, but the perks of the scenery, too,” Shusterman said, as she paused during a conversation with an Aira guide based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. “She’s doing great.”

State accessibility officials recently announced the expansion of Aira to state parks grounds, after previously providing Aira free for other state-related functions such as navigating a government building or getting help on an online site or filling out forms. Colorado cannot control the cellphone signal, though, so parks officials encourage visitors to try Aira at a familiar or close-in park space before ranging farther afield with it. Popular parks like Staunton or Golden Gate contain pockets where signals are not strong. 

For consumers buying access on their own, Aira costs about $50 for 30 minutes of assistance a month. Private employers and governments often buy package access to Aira and other accessibility apps for all employees to use. State accessibility coordinator Theresa Montano, who is blind and accompanied Shusterman on her Chatfield walk, said Amazon buys access so that sight-impaired shipping center employees can navigate steps to pack orders.

Montano uses Aira at her state job, saying the guides on the app can share her computer screen and help her get through an online task in 30 minutes that might take her four hours without help or through older accessibility tools. 

Adding Aira for state-owned lands was wrapped into the overall $250,000 budget for free Aira use on state property and with state websites. The additional utility is an obvious plus, Montano said. 

“This gives blind people the same opportunity to come and enjoy it by themselves or with their family if they want to, and be independent,” she said...

Shusterman walked away taking more from the big picture experience, rather than any particular scenic detail. 

“For me, it was, you know what, I could go for a walk on this path, and I could feel completely safe, and I would enjoy a nice walk and get some exercise, in an unfamiliar area,” Shusterman said. “It’s definitely a real confidence boost for me.”  

-via The Colorado Sun, June 11, 2024

[jobsnotices]

Shahid Lakhan Gaunpalika Vacancy 2081 for Employment Coordinator and Assistant

Shahid Lakhan Gaunpalika Vacancy 2081 for Employment Coordinator and Assistant. Interested and Qualified candidates can apply by 16 Shrawan 2081. CAREER OPPORTUNITY  Shahid Lakhan Gaunpalika Vacancy 2081 for Employment Coordinator and Assistant Shahid Lakhan Rural Municipality, Office of the Village Executive, Ghairung, Gorkha Notification Regarding Employee Recruitment on Contract Service In…

[somesecretpie]

Fans and Creators of Webtoons!

I want to talk about Line Webtoon’s new “Super Like” program and why it sucks for literally everyone.

What is a “Super Like?”

According to their website, super likes are a new way for webtoon creators to monetize their work. Readers can pay real money to buy a super like for their favorite webtoon, and the creator gets a fraction of that money.

Wait, a fraction? Not all of it?

Yep! Webtoon skims quite a chunk off the top.

30% goes to Webtoon, and then another 30% of that amount goes to the payment processor.

So what do creators get? 49 cents for every dollar their fans try to give them. Literally half.

That’s pretty ludicrous, right?

Interestingly enough, they announced that they had a “tipping system” in the works in the same email they ended the CANVAS creator rewards program (and many comic creators livelihoods)

They said tipping system in their social media posts too

Obviously this tipping system is referring to super likes right? They say they’re going to do a tipping system, and then this rolls out.

But “tips” are not something that buisinesses can just take a cut of, at least not in the United States. According to the Department of Labor, it is illegal for any amount of tips from customers to go to an employer.

Webtoon is trying to walk back this language, of course. You won’t find the word “tip” anywhere on their website page explaining how it works. But those old social media posts are still up.

This is all pretty scummy

But wait, it gets worse!

They removed the Patreon button at the end of episodes and replaced it with this:

Yep! That’s right. Webtoon really said “what if we replace the tipping system that already existed with a shittier one where you only get half of it 🥺”

Unsurprisingly, they faced a ton of backlash.

Webtoon was quick to point out that the Patreon button was only removed from the end of episodes and there was still a button on the creator’s homepage. But of course, the end of episodes is where that button matters the most.

Creators know this. Webtoon knows this.

Eventually, after days of continued complaints from creators on social media, Webtoon went on damage control mode and announced that they would be putting the Patreon button back at the end of episodes—

As of right now (May 11th, 2024) the Patreon button is still not back.

***

So…Super likes are “super totally not a tip.”

But if they aren’t tips…what are they?

Well there’s a bit more to the story of what a super like actually is. After announceing the program, the app updated to reveal a new ranking category on the front page

When you click on this ranking tab, you can see that there is now both a daily and weekly ranking

If you’re a CANVAS creator, you know how difficult and seemingly random it can be to get your comic on the front page of the app—so my immediate worry was that comic creators were going to buy superlikes on their own series to get in this ranking and…

Yep, that’s already happening.

But why would webtoon even allow creators to buy superlikes for themselves? How does that make sense?

Surely goading desperate creators into buying superlikes can’t be that lucrative, can it?

No. I think there’s another, possibly even worse reason.

Fandom wars

If you’re into music, you probably are aware of how common it is for super fans to make concerted efforts to get their favorite musician to the top of the billboard charts. They coordinate over social media, stream music on loop as soon as an album drops to inflate the numbers, buy albums in bulk to increase sales, all so that they can say their fav is number one. It’s especially common among K-pop fans and swifties

This phenomena is well documented

Fans of Webtoons can be just as ravenous as K-pop, so I think Webtoon is trying to capitalize on this. They want to encourage fandom war and make money. That’s why they have this ranking. Not only can super fans brag about their favorite series topping the charts but they can wear their super like proudly on their reader profile that webtoon will be rolling out soon.

They’re just testing this super like stuff out on CANVAS right now, but once this starts up with originals? Oh. It will be a very profitable, very terrible mess.

(Oh and I mean profitable for webtoon, not creators, in case that wasn’t clear.)

***

Anyway, if you’re a creator, do yourself a favor and don’t enable super likes.

If you’re a fan of a webcomic, just donate to that creators patreon or Ko-Fi to show your support. Don’t give a red cent to webtoon because they did not do any of the work to make the series you love, alright?

Also check out my webtoon haha.

[probablyasocialecologist]

The Spanish Meteorological Agency had warned of the severity of this DANA (isolated high-altitude depression) days in advance, yet the government of Valencia–led by Mazón from the Popular Party (PP), which allied with the far-right VOX in the last election–did not raise the alert level or inform residents of the impending danger until it was too late. These climate change-denier parties made dismantling the Valencian Emergency Unit one of their first actions in power, scrapping a unit established by the previous left-wing government to coordinate emergency responses. Such a response could have saved hundreds of lives, as only after five days were fire brigades from other parts of Spain finally allowed to respond, despite being ready from day one, some stationed only a couple of hours away. The staggering dysfunction was made clear when a team of French firefighters, arriving voluntarily and without permission on Saturday, discovered they were the first responders in the area. Employees who received warnings from family and friends about river overflows upstream were not allowed to leave work. Consequently, when the worst of the flood came, countless people were trapped in their cars on the way home, many of them returning from industrial parks on Valencia’s working-class outskirts, caught at the end of their full shifts. Those workers now still lie trapped in their cars, waiting for rescue–if they survived–or decomposing. Meanwhile, the areas hardest hit by the torrent are mostly working-class neighborhoods, built on floodplains near the river’s overflow zone. Construction was permitted there for developers–many friendly with politicians–in a region known for government corruption, particularly under the right-wing Popular Party’s administrations between 1995-2015.

[...]

Capitalist employers put profits before their workers’ lives. Testimonies abound of employees spending the night at work, unable to leave until it was too late. A video has gone viral showing a Mercadona supermarket lorry, owned by a tycoon notorious for ruthless business practices, stuck in the floodwaters–though the servile Spanish media pixelated the logo to protect its reputation. The same employer, while making a show of charitable donations for the flood-affected, has forced affected employees back to work since the very next day. The underground car park of the Bonaire shopping center, one of Spain’s largest, is feared to hold many bodies, as the center stayed open despite the red alert from the Meteorology Service. Public institutions like Valencia’s University sent staff and students home hours before, as did the Valencia government, which sent its workers home because of “a high risk for the population”.

4 November 2024

[mostlysignssomeportents]

When the app tries to make you robo-scab

When we talk about the abusive nature of gig work, there’s some obvious targets, like algorithmic wage discrimination, where two workers are paid different rates for the same job, in order to trick occasional gig-workers to give up their other sources of income and become entirely dependent on the app:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

Then there’s the opacity — imagine if your boss refused to tell you how much you’ll get paid for a job until after you’ve completed it, claimed that this was done in order to “protect privacy” — and then threatened anyone who helped you figure out the true wage on offer:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/07/hr-4193/#boss-app

Opacity is wage theft’s handmaiden: every gig worker producing content for a social media algorithm is subject to having their reach — and hence their pay — cut based on the unaccountable, inscrutable decisions of a content moderation system:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

Making content for an algorithm is like having a boss that docks every paycheck because you broke rules that you are not allowed to know, because if you knew the rules, you’d figure out how to cheat without your boss catching you. Content moderation is the last place where security through obscurity is considered good practice:

https://doctorow.medium.com/como-is-infosec-307f87004563

When workers seize the means of computation, amazing things happen. In Indonesia, gig workers create and trade tuyul apps that let them unilaterally modify the way that their bosses’ systems see them — everything from GPS spoofing to accessibility mods:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/08/tuyul-apps/#gojek

So the tech and labor story isn’t wholly grim: there are lots of ways that tech can enhance labor struggles, letting workers collaborate and coordinate. Without digital systems, we wouldn’t have the Hot Strike Summer:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/02/not-what-it-does/#who-it-does-it-to

As the historic writer/actor strike shows us, the resurgent labor movement and the senescent forces of crapulent capitalism are locked in a death-struggle over not just what digital tools do, but who they do it for and who they do it to:

https://locusmag.com/2022/01/cory-doctorow-science-fiction-is-a-luddite-literature/

When it comes to the epic fight over who technology acts for and against, we need a diversity of tactics, backstopped by tech operated by and for its users — and by laws that protect workers and the public. That dynamic is in sharp focus in UNITE Here Local 11’s strike against Orange County’s Laguna Cliffs Marriott Resort & Spa.

The UNITE Here strike turns on the usual issues like a living wage (hotel staff are paid so little they have to rent rooming-house beds by the shift, paying for the right to sleep in a room for a few hours at a time, without any permanent accommodation). They’re also seeking health-care and pensions, so they can be healthy at work and retire after long service. Finally, they’re seeking their employer’s support for LA’s Responsible Hotels Ordinance, which would levy a tax on hotel rooms to help pay for hotel workers’ housing costs (a hotel worker who can’t afford a bed is the equivalent of a fast food worker who has to apply for food stamps):

https://www.unitehere11.org/responsible-hotels-ordinance/

But the Marriott — which is owned by the University of California and managed by Aimbridge Hospitality — has refused to bargain, walking out negotiations.

But the employer didn’t walk out over wages, benefits or support for a housing subsidy. They walked out when workers demanded that the scabs that the company was trying to hire to break the strike be given full time, union jobs.

These aren’t just any scabs, either. They’re predominantly Black workers who rely on the $700m Instawork app for gigs. These workers are being dispatched to cross the picket line without any warning that they’re being contracted as strikebreakers. When workers refuse the cross the picket and join the strike, Instawork cancels all their shifts and permanently blocks them from new jobs.

This is a new, technologically supercharged form of illegal strikebreaking. It’s one thing for a single boss to punish a worker who refuses to scab, but Instawork acts as a plausible-deniability filter for all the major employers in the region. Like the landlord apps that allow landlords to illegally fix rents by coordinating hikes, Instawork lets bosses illegally collude to rig wages by coordinating a blocklist of workers who refuse to scab:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/10/company-that-makes-rent-setting-software-for-landlords-sued-for-collusion/?comments=1

The racial dimension is really important here: the Marriott has a longstanding de facto policy of refusing to hire Black workers, and whenever they are confronted with this, they insist that there are no qualified Black workers in the labor pool. But as soon as the predominantly Latino workforce struck, Marriott discovered a vast Black workforce that it could coerce into scabbing, in collusion with Instawork.

Now, all of this isn’t just sleazy, it’s illegal, a violation of Section 7 of the NLRB Act. Historically, that wouldn’t have mattered, because a string of presidents, R and D, have appointed useless do-nothing ghouls to run the NLRB. But the Biden admin, pushed by the party’s left wing, made a string of historic, excellent appointments, including NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, who has set her sights on punishing gig work companies for flouting labor law:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/10/see-you-in-the-funny-papers/#bidens-legacy

UNITE HERE 11 has brought a case to the NLRB, charging the Instawork, the UC system, Marriott, and Aimbridge with violating labor law by blackmailing gig workers into crossing the picket line. The union is also asking the NLRB to punish the companies for failing to protect workers from violent retaliation from the wealthy hotel guests who have punched them and screamed epithets at them. The hotel has refused to identify these thug guests so that the workers they assaulted can swear out complaints against them.

Writing about the strike for Jacobin, Alex N Press tells the story of Thomas Bradley, a Black worker who was struck off all Instawork shifts for refusing to cross the picket line and joining it instead:

https://jacobin.com/2023/07/southern-california-hotel-workers-strike-automated-management-unite-here

Bradley’s case is exhibit A in the UNITE HERE 11 case before the NLRB. He has a degree in culinary arts, but racial discrimination in the industry has kept him stuck in gig and temp jobs ever since he graduated, nearly a quarter century ago. Bradley lived out of his car, but that was repossessed while he slept in a hotel room that UNITE HERE 11 fundraised for him, leaving him homeless and bereft of all his worldly possessions.

With UNITE HERE 11’s help, Bradley’s secured a job at the downtown LA Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites, a hotel that has bargained with the workers. Bradley is using his newfound secure position to campaign among other Instawork workers to convince them not to cross picket lines. In these group chats, Jacobin saw workers worrying “that joining the strike would jeopardize their standing on the app.”

Today (July 30) at 1530h, I’m appearing on a panel at Midsummer Scream in Long Beach, CA, to discuss the wonderful, award-winning “Ghost Post” Haunted Mansion project I worked on for Disney Imagineering.

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

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

[Image ID: An old photo of strikers before a struck factory, with tear-gas plumes rising above them. The image has been modified to add a Marriott sign to the factory, and the menacing red eye of HAL9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' to the sky over the factory. The workers have been colorized to a yellow-green shade and the factory has been colorized to a sepia tone.]

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[end-otw-racism]

On needing a comprehensive harassment policy

We've been getting some confusion about the part of our demands that talks about OTW needing to consider "off-site coordinated harassment of AO3 users" - which is fair, because I realize that could sound like "OTW needs to monitor/regulate what happens on other platforms" - but that's NOT what we meant by it.

What we meant is: if AO3 users are getting harassed on AO3, and they provide proof in their abuse claim of off-site harassment, that off-site harassment should also be considered as context for making a decision in the abuse claim.

An example of this - which we have permission to share - is what happened to an abuse claim filed by Dr. Rukmini Pande. We won't be linking directly to what happened because we are not trying to target individual users here, but all of what happened is still in public record.

Dr. Pande, a scholar of fan studies who wrote the seminal text on race and fandom, talked on her twitter account a few years ago about a Nazi fic on AO3 that was not only incredibly harmful, offensive, and antisemitic, but where the author had been sending their friends to harass people who criticized the fic. The author proceeded to add a tag to the fic that said "Rukmini Pande Lied About This Fic".

Because Dr. Pande tweeted her criticism from the account with her full name, people said this wasn't doxxing - which is true. But the author of the fic also was tweeting publicly to entertain the idea of reporting Dr. Pande to her employer, and they were also once again sending friends to harass her on Twitter.

When AO3 considered this abuse claim, Dr. Pande provided proof of what was happening on Twitter to show that the author of the fic added the tag of her full name with the intention of inciting harassment to her. But the AO3 Abuse team said that this did not constitute harassment under their TOS.

Cases like that are what we mean by OTW considering "off-site coordinated harassment of AO3 users". Obviously OTW cannot control what is happening on Twitter, or Tumblr, or any other platform. But their Abuse team should be able to consider off-site harassment, when they are given proof of it, in determining whether a case on AO3 is harassment or not.

(Also if you aren't familiar with Dr. Pande's work, her book Squee From The Margins: Fandom and Race is not only fantastic but was the first to comprehensively look at fandom racism, and she also edited a great anthology of articles on race and fandom called Fandom, Now In Color: A Collection of Voices. If you can't afford to buy them, you can request that your local library stock them!)

[joontroverted]

thinking about sweet single dad satoru who you could never tell is a single dad. 

this is HELLA unedited and just a brain dump lol. 

you probably should not be out tonight, especially not this late. but that's the beauty of being your own employer right, you have no boss! the only person who's gonna be holding you responsible is yourself but that's not tonight's problem. that's tomorrow you's problem.

so you're out the house too damn late, spinning on the bar stool, waiting for the bartender to fix your drink, and you spin right into the chest of someone tall. soft hands gently hold your shoulders, lifting you off of him with a melodious laugh, and you turn to see such a pretty man. just stupidly pretty. pale skin standing out in the darkness of the club and white hair slightly spiky with sweat, with his blue eyes trained on yours.

“whoa there, are you okay?” he leans in to your ear to ask.

you apologize immediately, and you see that you've made him spill his drink, causing you to apologize even more, offering up your concoction in exchange. he laughs and says that it's not even alcohol, just sprite. he even pays for your drink! you still insist on him having your drink because of how mortified you are, and after a second of consideration, he gulps it down.  

if that wasn't enough, he spend the entire night with you, hovering around you, tucking your hair behind you ear, and when you finally hit the dance floor, he dances with you like he's drunk, spinning you about and dipping you every chance he gets, no real semblance of coordination, but his charm and earnest have you beaming and blushing. 

he's flirting right? he's definitely flirting.

you ask if he's drunk once you see the pink flush spreading across his face, to which he responds saying that he’s a lightweight and doesn't even enjoy drinking. when you ask him why he accepted your drink and why he's in the club alone at all, he giggles and says he just wanted to keep talking to the pretty woman who bumped into him, silly! also it's been a long day, and he's had some family trouble, which he just wants to cool off from.

you nod, rubbing his back and out of nowhere he blurts out “my son told me i'm both clingy and avoidant at the same time, like a teenager that never developed so i better start acting like my millennial age.”

you have no idea what to say to that. 

“and funnily enough we have a father son bonding activity planned tomorrow morning and i don't even know how the fuck to go about it after that.”

“today morning,” you supply unhelpfully.

“what?” 

“it's almost 3 am, it's already tomorrow.”

“what?” he repeats, incredulously, staring into his chunky sparkly watch that looks too expensive to be here in the trenches with you. “it's fucking three am? what the fuck?? i am a stupid teenager who never grew up!” 

and in under a minute, he's up and gone.

you uber yourself home, completely sober, wondering what the fuck you just bumped into. as you near home, as pretty and charming as he was, you're glad you’re not messing with that train wreck. a dad with a whole son old enough to roast him like that? let alone the fact that he probably has some poor woman or significant other waiting at home for him as he makes poor decisions with you of all people. you really dodged a bullet with that one, you chuckle. 

***

you smile at the newest student and direct them to their seat. it's a beautiful morning, and you truly love your job. the sun is out, the birds are chirping and the flowers are fresh! you don't have even a drop of tipsiness in your body and you are well rested and excited for the class. you look up with a smile as the bell tinkles and the door opens, to welcome in the last of the students, and you see a familiar tall man's white head of hair accompanied by a sulky black haired teenager, arguing. 

“now if you could just talk to me and let us bond over these fucking flowers, that would be great! and we're already late, which is- “ his eyes meet yours. “oh.”

the teenager doesn't even bother being surprised, as he looks between the two of you with a flat look. 

“hello! good morning!” you say, trying not to sound odd.

“hi,” replies the man, blinking at you.

the teenager looks at him, and then at you again. “he has a wife,” he says before walking in and taking a seat.

“no i don't!” sputters the man. “i don't!” he insists to you, and you can't be fucked to deal with this nonsense. taking a deep breath, you gather your composure and push into the class. 

the art of flower arrangement is not something to be taken lightly. it is an art, something soothing yet there is a system to it. it's important to find your style and flow as you go through it, and you've mastered it over the years, and you hope that your students take something they can cherish from your 1 day work shop. or at least fix their father son bond. in silence.

you learn that his name is gojo satoru, and his son is megumi. you can't lie, they're good students. quiet and dedicated, listening to you explain and following your every step and instructions. you catch them helping each other out here and there and you're glad that this cheating man can actually create some beauty, despite his flaws. 

the class draws to an end in a few hours, and you’re glad to see that everyone's had a good time, from all the pictures they're taking and how almost each of them personally came up to you and commended you, some even taking your business cards. you look up and see that megumi has made his way up to you.

“he's single. no wife. just me.” 

“did he ask you to tell me that?” you snort.

“yeah. but i said i wouldn't do it.” he shrugs. “he’s a good guy. and i really enjoyed the class. thank you,” he adds awkwardly, before turning and rushing out.

that leaves you with just gojo satoru.

he's sheepish, but the boyish charm from last night is still present and as you break the ice with what megumi said, the conversation moves rather smoothly. smooth enough that even though the environment in your shop is vastly different from that of the club last night, the energy between you is the same. light and flirty at first, but he doesn't show any signs of leaving, helping, no doing most of the cleaning up of the set up, his blue eyes following and lingering on you as you flit around him. he takes every opportunity to abuse his height privilidge in helping you put things away and is surprisingly strong despite his slim build. 

you can't help but look at the strip of stomach that shows as he lifts his arms and how his forearms flex as he moves about. 

by the time you've cleared everything up, both of your stomachs are growling in hunger for lunch. he has both his and megumi's flower arrangement to take home, and you're leaning into each other's personal space and that's not even talking about how he has a large hand placed on your waist, blue eyes piercing into yours.

you're barely done eating the ramen he's cooked before you're on his lap, his hands coming up from under your shirt, kissing sloppily. he picks you up and takes you to his bedroom in his too big apartment that is neat but sparse save for the flower arrangements set at the table.

the two of you roll around in his bed, him seemingly obsessed with mapping out every inch of your body from the crook of your neck to the cushion of your soft thighs. it's not in your nature to ever move this quickly with a man, especially one that has an entire son, but soon enough you are rid of your panties as he is sinking into your heat. long and hard, he pumps into you, slowly eyes never leaving each other as he whimpers when he settles into you. what started out as slow soon becomes hurried and desperate, the cool sheets clinging to you as he buries his head in your shoulder, biting it in frustration as he has to pull out and come on your stomach. 

he’s not done with you though. mouth latched onto your clit, he sucks and sucks, pulling two orgasms out of you in quick succession till you have to push him off of your pussy, causing him to whine. 

after he cleans you up and your snuggling, he has his head on your chest 

you giggle. “megumi's not wrong. you are clingy.”

“forgive me for wanting to rest on your tits,” he grumbles, only snuggling in closer. “can we not talk about my son after we've fucked?”

you laugh and nod. “okay.”

there's some silence between you as you run your fingers up and down his spine, scritching his scalp and ruffling his hair. he almost purrs like a big happy cat.

“you know megumi's not biologically mine, right?”

“hmm, i figured,” you reply, thinking about how they more or less look nothing alike except for their hairstyle, and even that was a reach. 

“his father dumped him on me when i was eighteen and fucked off. megumi was like barely four. his father was a distant cousin. which would make megumi my distant nephew. i tried telling megumi that, so i could be like… his cool uncle. most unhelpful thing ever. i could have told him i was jesus christ himself and that wouldn't have stopped him from launching his school bag at my head at every minor inconvenience.”

the thought of anyone let alone a small angry kid you had no urge to care for throwing a school bag at your head at a whim sounds like actual hell, but satoru (what a beautiful name) has a fond smile on his face as he recalls the memory.

“you think he's moody now? oh this is nothing in comparison to what he had going on back then. he was such an angry baby. so sulky. so moody. and so unwilling to speak to me. and i had no patience for him either. we used to have these screaming matches and it's crazy to think about now. i was screaming back to an actual kid who had completed only a grand total of four trips around the sun. and here i was. eighteen and looming over him, also moody and fresh off of a break up, wondering how the hell this kid had the audacity to hate me so much.”

you press a little kiss on his forehead. “aww, you were an angsty little teenager too! like father like son!”

he pouts, pushing his nose further into your soft breast. “that's why i was so annoyed with what he said last night. i'd like to think i've gotten better. and megumi actually took it back and we did bond today. thanks to your class.”

that makes you feel warm and happy. people don't usually, well ever, see the importance in your craft, invalidating and degrading it too often. you're glad that both satoru and megumi not only enjoyed the class and did well, but also could make a good memory out of it.

“you're welcome.” you whisper, pressing a kiss on his hair.

“we've gotten through much worse without any flowers to help us through it, me and gumi. you know once he took a hammer to school and threatened to smash some kid's head in because he kept pulling the local stray dog's tail. and that was the day i was elbow deep in work and decided to put my phone on silent, and i forgot to pick him up from school. imagine the screaming match we had when we got home after i checked my phone to see 24 missed calls and had to get yet yelled at by his principal. and mid way through it he just burst into tears. and then so did i. and then we cried together as he told me that the stray was his only friend and he missed his family… that's when i finally saw that he wasn't just some annoying kid dropped off on my doorstep. he was just a baby.”

you pull back to look at him. his big doe eyes and unblemished skin, his hand kneading your breast as he thinks back fondly. you think of how gentle he was with megumi in class and how sweetly he speaks of him. you think of the past, a younger, gangly, angsty version of him.

“so were you” you say softly, brushing his hair back. you can feel him breathe in and out against your body.

“huh?” he says, looking up at you.

“you were just a baby. and you're not even thirty now. people have kids when they're past thirty and they still think they're too young. and here you are doing an amazing job! but... you're still just a baby,” you tell him gently, holding him against you.

satoru feels naked under your caring, thorough gaze. vulnerable and safe. his eyes widen as he feels comfort spreading through his body, tangling his legs with yours even more. he continues watching you as the room darkens and your eyes shut, drowsiness taking over you. 

he feels like he’s been given a miracle in hands, not for the first time in his life. and as he snuggles into your warm embrace, he decides not to resist falling this time.