#big three

[sirius-ate-my-homework-irl]

I saw a post somewhere about how Percy is probably jealous of Jason's relationship with Nico, because Nico can connect with Jason as an older brother figure, while with Percy there's all this baggage and the reminder of Bianca hanging over them.

And I realized. Nico is probably jealous of Jason for similar reasons. Jason and Percy have this casual bromance going on. They fight together, they make storms together, they regard each other as equals. And Nico is just. There. The youngest one. The weird one. And there's too much stuff between him and Percy for them to ever be completely comfortable together, even though, I think, Nico would secretly love to get a Percy fistbump.

Idk now I want to write a fic about it

[puppyaulait]

[u-sari]

The future is ahead of us.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

"Efficiency" left the Big Three vulnerable to smart UAW tactics

Tomorrow (September 22), I'm (virtually) presenting at the DIG Festival in Modena, Italy. Tomorrow night, I'll be in person at LA's Book Soup for the launch of Justin C Key's "The World Wasn’t Ready for You." On September 27, I'll be at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles with Brian Merchant for a joint launch for my new book The Internet Con and his new book, Blood in the Machine.

It's been 143 days since the WGA went on strike against the Hollywood studios. While early tactical leaks from the studios had studio execs chortling and twirling their mustaches about writers caving once they started losing their homes, the strikers aren't wavering – they're still out there, pounding the picket lines, every weekday:

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/09/how-hollywood-writers-make-ends-meet-100-days-into-the-writers-guild-strike.html

The studios obviously need writers. That gleeful, anonymous studio exec who got such an obvious erotic charge at the thought of workers being rendered homeless as punishment for challenging his corporate power completely misread the room, and his comments didn't demoralize the writers. Instead, they inspired the actors to go on strike, too.

But how have the writers stayed out since May Day? How have the actors stayed out for 69 days since their strike started on Bastille Day? We can thank the studios for that! As it turns out, the studios have devoted so much energy to rendering creative workers as precarious as possible, hiring as little as they can getting away with and using punishing overtime as a substitute for adequate staffing that they've eliminated all the workers who can't survive on side-hustles and savings for six or seven months at a time.

But even for those layoff-hardened workers, long strikes are brutal, and of course, all the affiliated trades, from costumers to grips, are feeling the pain. The strike fund only goes so far, and non-striking, affected workers don't even get that. That's why I've been donating regularly to the Entertainment Community Fund, which helps all affected workers out with cash transfers (I just gave them another $500):

https://secure2.convio.net/afa/site/Donation2?df_id=8117&8117.donation=form1&mfc_pref=T

As hot labor summer is revealed as a turning point – not just a season – long strikes will become the norm. Bosses still don't believe in worker power, and until they get their minds right, they're going to keep on trying to starve their workforces back inside. To get a sense of how long workers will have to hold out, just consider the Warrior Met strike, where Alabama coal-miners stayed out for 23 months:

https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/warrior-met-strike-union/

As Kim Kelly explained to Adam Conover in the latest Factually podcast, the Alabama coal strikers didn't get anywhere near the attention that the Hollywood strikers have enjoyed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvyMHf7Yg0Q

(To learn more about the untold story of worker organizing, from prison unions to the key role that people of color and women played in labor history, check out Kelly's book, "Fight Like Hell," now in paperback:)

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Fight-Like-Hell/Kim-Kelly/9781982171063

Which brings me to the UAW strike. This is an historic strike, the first time that the UAW has struck all of the Big Three automakers at once. Past autoworkers' strikes have marked turning points for all American workers. The 1945/46 GM strike established employers' duty to cover worker pensions, health care, and cost of living allowances. The GM strike created the American middle-class:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-09-18-uaw-strikes-built-american-middle-class/

The Big Three are fighting for all the marbles here. They are refusing to allow unions to organize EV factories. Given that no more internal combustion cars will be in production in just a few short years, that's tantamount to eliminating auto unions altogether. The automakers are flush with cash, including billions in public subsidies from multiple bailouts, along with billions more from greedflation price-gouging. A long siege is inevitable, as the decimillionaires running these companies earn their pay by starving out their workers:

https://www.businessinsider.com/general-motors-ceo-mary-barra-salary-auto-workers-strike-uaw-2023-9

The UAW knows this, of course, and their new leadership – helmed by the union's radical president Shawn Fain – has a plan. UAW workers are engaged in tactical striking, shutting down key parts of the supply chain on a rolling basis, making the 90-day strike fund stretch much farther:

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-09-18-labors-militant-creativity/

In this project, they are greatly aided by Big Car's own relentless pursuit of profit. The automakers – like every monopolized, financialized sector – have stripped all the buffers and slack out of their operations. Inventory on hand is kept to a bare minimum. Inputs are sourced from the cheapest bidder, and they're brought to the factory by the lowest-cost option. Resiliency – spare parts, backup machinery – is forever at war with profits, and profits have won and won and won, leaving auto production in a brittle, and easily shattered state.

This is especially true for staffing. Automakers are violently allergic to hiring workers, because new workers get benefits and workplace protection. Instead, the car companies routinely offer "voluntary" overtime to their existing workforce. By refusing this overtime, workers can kneecap production, without striking.

Enter "Eight and Skate," a campaign among UAW workers to clock out after their eight hour shift. As Keith Brower Brown writes for Labor Notes, the UAW organizers are telling workers that "It’s crossing an unofficial picket line to work overtime. It’s helping out the company":

https://labornotes.org/2023/09/work-extra-during-strike-auto-workers-say-eight-and-skate

Eight and Skate has already started to work; the Buffalo Ford plant can no longer run its normal weekend shifts because workers are refusing to put in voluntary overtime. Of course, bosses will strike back: the next step will be forced overtime, which will lead to the unsafe conditions that unionized workers are contractually obliged to call paid work-stoppages over, shutting down operations without touching the strike fund.

What's more, car bosses can't just halt safety stoppages or change the rules on overtime; per the UAW's last contract, bosses are required to bargain on changes to overtime rules:

https://uaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Working-Without-Contract-FAQ-FINAL-2.pdf

Car bosses have become lazily dependent on overtime. At GM's "highly profitable" SUV factory in Arlington, TX, normal production runs a six-days, 24 hours per day. Workers typically work five eight-hour days and nine hours on Saturdays. That's been the status quo for 11 years, but when bosses circulated the usual overtime signup sheet last week, every worker wrote "a big fat NO" next to their names.

Writing for The American Prospect, David Dayen points out that this overtime addiction puts a new complexion on the much-hyped workerpocalypse that EVs will supposedly bring about. EVs are much simpler to build than conventional cars, the argument goes, so a US transition to EVs will throw many autoworkers out of work:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-09-20-big-threes-labor-shortages-uaw/

But the reality is that most autoworkers are doing one and a half jobs already. Reducing the "workforce" by a third could leave all these workers with their existing jobs, and the 40-hour workweek that their forebears fought for at GM inn 1945/46. Add to that the additional workers needed to make batteries, build and maintain charging infrastructure, and so on, and there's no reason to think that EVs will weaken autoworker power.

And as Dayen points out, this overtime addiction isn't limited to cars. It's also endemic to the entertainment industry, where writers' "mini rooms" and other forms of chronic understaffing are used to keep workforces at a skeleton crew, even when the overtime costs more than hiring new workers.

Bosses call themselves job creators, but they have a relentless drive to destroy jobs. If there's one thing bosses hate, it's paying workers – hence all the hype about AI and automation. The stories about looming AI-driven mass unemployment are fairy tales, but they're tailor made for financiers who get alarming, life-threatening priapism at the though of firing us all and replacing us with shell-scripts:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/09/autocomplete-worshippers/#the-real-ai-was-the-corporations-that-we-fought-along-the-way

This is why Republican "workerism" rings so hollow. Trump's GOP talks a big game about protecting "workers" (by which they mean anglo men) from immigrants and "woke captialism," but they have nothing to say about protecting workers from bosses and bankers who see every dime a worker gets as misappropriated from their dividend.

Unsurprisingly, conservative message-discipline sucks. As Luke Savage writes in Jacobin, for every mealymouthed Josh Hawley mouthing talking points that "support workers" by blaming China and Joe Biden for the Big Three's greed, there's a Tim Scott, saying the quiet part aloud:

https://jacobin.com/2023/09/republicans-uaw-strike-hawley-trump-scott/

Quoth Senator Scott: "I think Ronald Reagan gave us a great example when federal employees decided they were going to strike. He said, you strike, you’re fired. Simple concept to me. To the extent that we can use that once again, absolutely":

https://twitter.com/American_Bridge/status/1704136706574741988

The GOP's workerism is a tissue-thin fake. They can never and will never support real worker power. That creates an opportunity for Biden and Democrats to seize:

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

Reversing two generations of anti-worker politics is a marathon, not a sprint. The strikes are going to run for months, even years. Every worker will be called upon to support their striking siblings, every day. We can do it. Solidarity now. Solidarity forever.

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/2023/09/21/eight-and-skate/#strike-to-rule

[cloverr-overr]

shitty mha doodles w the headcanon generator pt 2 :33

[clemensiadovecotes]

The underrated BIG 3!

I feel like they’ve kind of been undermined and a bit underused in the show and in the manga especially Nejire, I love them all so much and what they mean to each other🥹

[purpleshadow-star]

Grover was really out here finding and collecting Big Three kids like they were Pokémon. He really said, "gotta catch em all," and he did.

[bluespring864]

Andy telling us what he'd want the big four polycule to look like ;-)

[W]hat all gay tennis fans want to know, of course, is which one of his “Big Three” opponents does he most fancy.

So I ask him to rank Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic in order of Snog, Marry and Avoid.

Murray throws his head back and emits a real belly laugh.

“Oh God! I’m not going to give you an avoid!” (He is nothing if not diplomatic.)

“Can I have an alternative to avoid?” he pleads, “or I’ll get crucified by whoever I pick!”

Eventually he comes up with his answer.

“I would marry Roger… and then I would have to snog the other two. I know it’s a cop-out but I’m not avoiding anyone!”

from this 2020 interview with Pride Life

[angiedaine]

Man the trio. Half and half, pomeranian, broccoli. The✨️BIG THREE✨️

Artist: @frulleboi

[kit00ily]

Nejire Hado sketch by Horikoshi

“I stream the My Hero Academia anime MV almost every day. I'm a little late, but thank you for your hard work on the 7th season of the anime! And thank you for the 8th season! I'm looking forward to it!” - H

[jeliseinsights]

🥵18 + Astro Observations 😋🔥

My very first post!🙈🥰

12h Mars can get addicted to or consumed by their sex drive when h0rny

Ex. Like when they get turned on, they consumed by the feeling ** If Mars is in Air sign, they can get addicted to/consumed by foreplay or s3x dreamz

Libra placements are such fake innocents LMAOOO😭

IMO Air signs can be just as or freakier than Scorpio placements

Here’s why: Scorpio placements bring intense passion, but Air Signs are more open-minded. Air signs would probably be more willing to try different positions, toys, roleplay etc.

Taurus placements are HOT🥵

Aries Venus CAN be selfish in the act🙄

VERY passionate, but can limit or skip foreplay, especially masculines Like once THEY’RE ready, then they are ready, regardless of whether or not YOU are also turned on and ready

Capricorn placements🤝 Aiming to impress/Win/Succeed😉

Pisces placements can literally put you in a trance with their s3x

Especially if you also have Pisces placements

Sag placements SCREAM fun, like s3x with them is just fun lmaooo😭

[po1sonous-l0ve]

Feeling a bit angsty today, you guys know what that means.

So do you guys know the song Army Dreamers by Kate Bush?

Does it not match up with the Big Three boys?

"What could he do? Should've been a rockstar. But he didn't have the money for a guitar."

Percy coded? He so should have had a normal life and I can imagine him playing guitar in a band in someone's basement, but due to him and Sally's situation, they didn't have money to spare.

"What could he do? Should've been a politician. But he never got a proper education."

If we look at the timeline, Nico was ten when Percy and Thalia picked him up. That means he never even made it to middle school, and I doubt the Lotus Casino would have taught him anything except for how to play video games. He is shown to be a great diplomat throughout the series, and could have been a politician in the mortal world had it not been for his lack of education.

"What could he do? Should've been a father. But he never even made it to his twenties."

Jason Grace. Self explanatory. He could have been the greatest dad of all time, but he didn't even reach 18.

[loverln]

i know we’re all very focused on katsuki today, but dear lord the bond between the big three is breaking my heart. i love them so much.

[parcai]

leash the lightning + wind.

thinking abt thalia tied to zeus, and jason to beryl. congrats to the new cast 🥳 lance reddick's voice is!!!

[cupidocanela]

idk if someone enjoys this kind of stuff, but here’s my astrology headcannons for the boys

[speedyartist30]

“Whenever I'd get curious and try to learn about others, I'd wind up driving them away. But then... you asked me that. I got... to learn so much about you two here. And now... I'm all the stronger for it.“ - Nejire Hado

In my style ⚡️