#corporate employee welfare

[townpostin]

Linde India Signs New Salary Agreement with Workers Union

Employees to receive Rs 5,800 monthly gross salary hike and enhanced benefits Linde India and Indian Oxygen Workers Union reach a new 3.5-year salary agreement, boosting employee compensation and benefits. JAMSHEDPUR – Linde India and the Indian Oxygen Workers Union have signed a new salary agreement, significantly increasing employee compensation and benefits over a 3.5-year period. The…

[alwaysbewoke]

[binah-beloved]

Binah who takes a hit for you when a particularly vicious Abnormality breaches. and while you fret and worry over her injuries, she simply hugs you without saying a word, like she's trying to shield you from the world

of course, she doesn't mention it after. but you're grateful nonetheless

[kunosoura]

deus ex has more cohesive themes, released in a complete state without major problems, and is a landmark of immersive sim game design. But C2077 lets you play as a katana wielding dickgirl. So it’s hard to say which is better

[magnetothemagnificent]

Anyway, "Scrooge" should actually mean "wealthy capitalist who doesn't care about the lives and welfare of their workers, even on Christmas", not "person who happens not to like Christmas".

The overly cheerful corporate ads spreading "Christmas cheer" and then making their employees work overtime without pay during the holiday season are the actual Scrooges, not people who just don't like Christmas for one reason or another.

[simply-ivanka]

Kamala Harris’s ‘Joyful’ War on Entrepreneurs

When Democrats talk about boosting the middle class, what they mean is government employees.

By Allysia Finley Wall Street Journal

Americans who tuned in to Kamala Harris’s coronation last week heard from plenty of celebrities, labor leaders and politicians. Missing from the “joyous” celebration, however, were entrepreneurs who generate middle-class jobs.

No surprise. Cheered on by the crowd, Democrats took turns whacking “oligarchs” and “corporate monopolists.” By the time Ms. Harris took the stage, the pinatas’ pickings had been splattered around. This is what Democrats plan to do if they win: destroy wealth creators so they can spread the booty among their own.

Corporate greed is “the one true enemy,” United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain proclaimed. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders insisted the party “must take on Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Tech, and all the other corporate monopolists whose greed is denying progress for working people.” Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey railed against “greedflation” and accused corporations of “extorting families.”

Barack Obama lambasted Donald Trump and his “well-heeled donors.” “For them, one group’s gains is necessarily another group’s loss,” Mr. Obama said. “For them, freedom means that the powerful can do pretty much what they please, whether it’s fire workers trying to organize a union or put poison in our rivers or avoid paying taxes like everybody else has to do.”

Democrats treat wealth as a zero-sum game, and so Mr. Obama’s straw men are rich. They get richer by making everyone else poorer—and taking away from the well-off is the only way to enhance the lives of the poor and middle class. Hence, the left’s plans to raise taxes on “billionaires” and businesses to finance more welfare.

It isn’t enough that the top 1% of earners already pay 45.8% of federal income tax, which funds government services and welfare for the bottom half. As for poisoning rivers, perhaps Mr. Obama forgot that his own Environmental Protection Agency caused the 2015 Gold King Mine disaster, which spilled toxic waste into Colorado’s Animas River.

Quoting Abraham Lincoln, the former president invoked “the better angels of our nature” even as he appealed to America’s darker angels. His speech brought to mind a recent homily by my local parish priest about the dangers of class warfare and envy, one of the seven deadly sins.

Success, the priest explained, isn’t a zero-sum game. When a businessman succeeds, he creates jobs that help the poor. Envying and tearing down the successful makes everyone poorer. Rather than plunder the wealthy, society should celebrate success and try to help everyone prosper.

Democrats derisively refer to such ideas as “trickle-down economics.” They denounce and diminish business success, and claim the wealthy have profited from greed and government support. Who can forget Mr. Obama’s line in 2012 that “if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that”?

Rather than try to make it easier for businesses to succeed—say, by reducing taxes or easing regulations—Democrats want to do the opposite. They call for “leveling the playing field” and “growing the middle class out,” euphemisms for taxing success so government can hand out money. But government doesn’t create wealth. People do.

While business success isn’t zero-sum, government growth can be. Its expansion makes it more difficult for business to thrive. The result is fewer jobs, lower wages and less tax revenue, which finances essential public services such as law enforcement and the “safety net” for the indigent.

Mr. Trump’s appeal in 2016 partly stemmed from slow economic growth during Mr. Obama’s presidency. The Republican promised to make all Americans richer by liberating businesses from government’s shackles. Mr. Trump’s deregulation and tax cuts worked: Average real wages increased nearly 70% faster during his first three years than during Mr. Obama’s presidency.

Yet most Americans have become poorer under Mr. Biden, as government spending has fueled inflation, which has eroded wages. Job growth has become increasingly concentrated in sectors that depend on government spending. When Democrats talk about boosting the middle class, they mean the class of government workers.

Government, education, healthcare and social assistance account for more than 60% of the new jobs added in the last year. In the 17 states where Democrats boast a “trifecta”—control of the governorship and both legislative chambers—the share is 98%. In the 23 states with Republican trifectas, it’s 47%.

Likewise, average wage growth since the start of the pandemic has been lower in high-tax states such as Illinois (13.6%), New York (14.4%) and California (17.2%) than in low-tax Florida (22.5%), Texas (23.3%) and South Dakota (26.9%). If middle-class Americans want to get richer, they ought to move to Miami, Dallas or Sioux Falls.

“As long as we look to legislation to cure poverty, or to abolish special privilege,” Henry Ford once observed, “we are going to see poverty spread and special privilege grow.” That’s the joyous future Americans can expect during a Harris presidency.

Appeared in the August 26, 2024, print edition as 'Kamala Harris’s ‘Joyful’ War on Entrepreneurs'.

[blackbackedjackal]

I'm not mad I'm just disappointed because if you spent two seconds to think about how fur and leather alone has deep ties to human culture and our understanding and appreciation of the natural world it's honestly really beautiful and just feels so strange to me that people who say they love nature want to divorce themselves from it.

Like yes, capitalism bad. I don't agree with the way that animals are treated as products to the point where blatant animal cruelty is excused by mega corporations. I want places like that to be held accountable and made to follow higher welfare standards for the animals they raise and the underpaid employees out there working in sometimes awful and very unsafe conditions.

But if you're simultaneously ignoring the culture of African leathermaking or the beautiful leather and wool textiles crafted by Indigenous artisans or the ways that ancient humans appreciated the animals they killed for meat and clothing by telling stories and making art depicted on the skins of the animals they took, that's what bothers me.

So many people are willing to just attack vulnerable communities instead of learning about thier culture and how animal products were used traditionally and today. There are better ways to raise animals for products sustainably and humanely and many of these communities have spoken very loudly about it but are yelled over by people who just want to be right or don't want to listen or just don't care.

So yes, I will continue to speak my mind and educate myself because if nothing else I wanna be the start of the change I wanna see in the world. I love animals and I love learning the history of humans and our relationships to animals. I want to be able to appreciate them in the ways we always have. With respect to the natural world and understanding that we're also a part of it.

[anarcho-smarmyism]

the outrage at shoplifters is so hysterical and hypocritical of a moral panic because um...since when did ripping off a retail store become a widely-recognized social taboo? get real. we've all seen someone throw a fit to get a discount on something that hadn't actually been discounted, or scream about a fictitious flaw in a product to get it for free, or intentionally damage something in an attempt to get it discounted. we've all heard people brag about getting free food from a restaurant by lying and saying they found hair in their meal or boasting about how they don't tip (ofc they never tell their waiters they don't plan to tip before their services have been provided, lol). on top of that, the employees whose time you're deliberately wasting are being paid for their time, meaning there's less time to do their actual job (not to mention the jobs of the 3 additional employees that Should be working this shift, but aren't bc the owner is too cheap to fully staff their own damn store), meaning the company also loses money on labor when ppl pull this shit.

it's not about the company losing profit, it just isn't. it's socially acceptable to rip off Target so long as the process involves being verbally abusive to low-wage workers, as long as it's being done by a person who can easily afford to spend the next 3 hours of their time bitching and moaning and on hold with corporate HR to lie about said workers. it's just like how poor people on welfare are lazy degenerates ruining everything for everyone while rich people get government bailouts in the billions of dollars as a matter of course. same circus different clowns.

[reachartwork]

Re: ' ...we need to fight against the social system that makes it so that advancement in technology and labour-saving devices lead to layoffs'

^ I feel like this is the biggest issue with the growing use of AI and anyone who argues about the artistic merits of image/language generators et al is missing the forest for the trees. As someone who works in a profession that is constantly threatened with "you'll all be replaced with computers in a year" it's definitely my biggest concern.

The best solution would be mass socialized welfare and a UBI so that getting laid off isn't a death sentence, but that seems kind of impossible atm.

How would you feel about regulations on corporations replacing workers with AI tools similar to those applied to corporations seeking to hire foreign workers? I.e. in the Alien and Immigration Act Section 1182 (n) Labor Condition Application? (Page 174 https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2022-title8/pdf/USCODE-2022-title8-chap12-subchapII-partII-sec1182.pdf)

This would require a company to apply for and substantiate the necessity of AI tools in opposition to actual employees, along with other conditions and regulations.

Hopefully this would prevent a Duolingo situation and mitigate fears of worker replacement.

/end_rant/

Sorry for any formatting issues, typing on mobile.

i think this is a much better idea of a solution than "just outlaw ai" or "just smash all the computers"

[decolonize-the-everything]

obviously rainbow capitalism is still capitalism and it’s still bad, but is it me or are there some really alarming trends of corporations abandoning LGBTQIA+ acknowledgement in the face of fascist nationalist threats in this day and age? like the US is a corporate run oligarchy and at the end of the day, they only care about identity politics when it affects their income.

i work for a corporation founded by white gay men, and this is a corporation who refused to acknowledge pride last year for the first time in the companies brief existence, and according to my district supervisor it was “to make the brand more accessible to a broader demographic”

when roe v wade was overturned, we saw a few corporate employment welfare programs supporting employees in need of an abortion the resources to travel, but in no way are there going to be any corporations providing protections for queer employees who work in a state that’s trying to eradicate them

(i’m also withholding the name of the company because I cannot afford to lose this job)

**also sorry to send you such a corporation focused ask, i hate how consumer driven the US is, hate that I have to participate in it just to be able to afford to eat

You're right.

You're absolutely right. You're so right that it's scary.

When companies don't want our queer money anymore that means the hate against us is louder. It means they'd rather cater to the people who hate us because theres more in that.

In light of this it will be a very, very quiet rest of the year. It's literally PRIDE month and if I wasn't queer I probably wouldn't know. Businesses are silent as the fucking grave this year.

That to say (not at you, anon, but in general) if you've ever considered yourself an ally or activist or supporter for queer rights then now is the time to show it. I mean its always been the time but like...now it's DEFINITELY the time.

I understand a lot of millennials and Gen z-ers are put off by shallow shows of support (like posts and reblogs). But sometimes that stuff is crucial. The public, your peers, and the bigots closing on us need to see that we have support and any harm will be met with twice the support and protection and force.

Literally just share a post reminding people you support trans rights or equal marriage or minors on HRT or drag shows. Do it weekly, monthly, w/e. But enough. Enough that your support isn't a question. Enough that people start to feel less comfortable hating us.

[godslush]

TokeiWoman.EXE

A central NetNavi for a large corporation, who oversees all scheduling and finances across multiple subsidiary companies. Very little is known about her other than she is not owned by an individual Operator, instead being owned by her 'company', and seems to have very little autonomy… but with nobody issuing orders, who knows what transpires when no eyes are on the code…

Tokei has two forms. Most will first encounter her ‘Combat Projection’, an aggressive, dual-blade wielding monstrosity upholding security in her region.

Instead of being a time stopper, her Combat Projection enforces a metronome on her board; combat with her and any minions/viruses occurs "on the beat" (akin to Crypt of the Necrodancer), with the background and floor pulsing to indicate the timing.

Instead of a catchy dance beat, the music would be... much more foreboding.

Her own attacks are strong but telegraphed with zones, and she's invulnerable except on beat-based intervals (and the window of opportunity changes every round, indicated by her markings’ color shifting). However, her gimmick is balanced by her Projection having low HP (akin to a slightly stronger Virus), though it can be resummoned when destroyed after taking some time to recharge.

The nature of her primary attacks involve throwing her clock-hand blades out, which linger on her opponents’ side of the board as a damaging tile. They can then either be dropped to create ‘ice’ tile zones, or recalled to do returning trajectory damage on the way back.

Tokei’s ‘true’ NetNavi form is much more subdued, quietly toiling away at a computer, chained to a desk in the center of her drive. She clearly doesn’t want to be there, but as far as she knows, she has no other choice.

Tokei is not housed in a PET, but instead runs from within a gargantuan supercomputer array at the heart of her owner corporation. It’s necessary for not only analyzing and crunching massive amounts of data, but also to make moral and ethics calls when it comes to managing things like sick leave, time off, and other intra-company HR decisions for thousands of employees per day.

Tokei’s ‘zone’ exists in an Overclocked state, where everything appears to move normally but is in fact moving at hyper-speed, causing the outside world to appear to move very slowly. This is what allows her to do so much work in a seemingly short amount of time. However, it has two downsides; it disables Operator-to-Navi communications, alongside causing other NetNavis to run out of energy and burn out very quickly while anywhere near her online presence when she’s working; she can avert this by ‘freezing’ them in a sort of stasis, to preserve them until they can be appropriately retrieved. The only reason she is able to function at those speeds without running out of energy or otherwise overheating is due to her ‘core’ body being plugged into the system for power and coolant.

This comes with the caveat that she is almost if not completely powerless outside of her domain.

Though stuck in a draconian job, especially when it comes to things like time-off requests and raises and employee welfare, Tokei will always put employees first over management and bottom-line, and the reason she gets away with it is that she insisted and eventually proved that having happier employees is better for the companies than keeping them unmotivated and wanting to quit. Despite her cold exterior, she's very much "The people who do the most work deserve to be happy." Wishful thinking on her part, but it keeps her going.

=================================

A funney idea along the lines of SlashGirl.EXE. I changed it from Tokay to Tokei and removed the more obvious gecko parallels because Tokay herself has significant narrative importance outside of MM, so I wanted to make it more concrete that the Navi is separate (just inspired).

I'd started thumbnailing designs a while back on my Twitter priv, but decided to give it a big overhaul, especially after seeing ClockMan.EXE and noting the similarities to my older passes.

Her 'tick tock' rhythm mechanic and broken clock/hourglass details (plus the 'noose' clock hand necktie) are all very evocative of a "your time is running out" death motif, but her also working in finances just makes her a big "death and taxes" joke at the end of the day.

[townpostin]

Tata Steel UISL Hosts Successful Blood Donation Camp in Jamshedpur

175 units collected from employees; MD and JSU President praise initiative Tata Steel UISL organized a blood donation camp at Jamshedpur Blood Centre, collecting 175 units from employees to support local healthcare needs. JAMSHEDPUR – Tata Steel UISL effectively conducted a blood donation camp at the Jamshedpur Blood Centre, which resulted in the collection of 175 units from employees. An…

[lebuc]

havens

* no matter what occupies our normal doings,

no matter the bleed into our lives, …the news from distant places;

no matter the stance taken on hot-button issues of the day

as well as

the relatively cooler but more certain core of what we hold near & dear;

we all crave our havens

some safe space where we rest literally & figuratively,

a place our soul knows as home & so acts - in its full expression

however similar or contrary to our public manners & mores.

like a venn diagram

our haven within often intersects with others', but

sometimes it may not as well, which is okay too,

just another venn…

the art of living populates the world

with havens here, there, everywhere, when not scurrying & scrambling

to maintain a pace & place dictated by corporate types exerting,

making their own profitable havens -

& employees' welfare only secondarily, tertiarily, or not at all.

the yin i'm in leads me to nudge my venn

a mite closer to your'n, if'n you too are so disposed & my accent affectation * is not too off-puttin' this stanza; once linked,

we can segue into some real talk, perhaps - in our haven's native tongue. * 12/23 - lebuc - havens * ...been binge watchin' classic Westerns on cable.

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

According to “Mass Animal Deaths Heat up Fight To Permanently Halt SeaWorld Operations” by Inside the Magic, bird conservation organizations are literally begging SeaWorld to stop their fireworks shows because of how many native birds they’re killing. But go ahead keep acting like their rescue operations justify all the harm/trauma they caused to the wild cetaceans they captured and the wildlife they continue to put in harm’s way in the name of human entertainment. Using ur large platform to assuage ppl’s guilt about spending their money at seaworld *directly* perpetuates this harm. I don’t know how you call yourself a proponent of animal welfare and then support this mega corporation that puts profits above all else

Hi there it seems like you think that I support corporate SeaWorld and all the decisions it makes. I am against a lot of things that SeaWorld does.

This includes: setting off fireworks, building roller coasters instead of updating animal habitats and the cruel layoffs that they inflicted on their employees during COVID.

I agree with the letter put forward, San Diego Audubon did a great job documenting the very real impacts of fireworks on seabirds. Firework events like the 4th of July and New Years Eve are extremely stressful for all animals - as detailed in the letter there were also illegal fireworks along with the firework shows in the City of San Diego and SeaWorld.

SeaWorld stopping their fireworks shows in favour of something potentially less impactful like a drone show would be a great start, but fireworks shows - legal or illegal, would continue regardless. Whether that would reduce the impact or not remains to be seen, but I think SeaWorld should stop their firework shows.

The problem is, it is a corporate company that wants to give people want they want so they buy tickets. Guests like fireworks. People expect fireworks on the 4th of July, NYE ect. I personally think we need to evolve as a society and move away from fireworks in general but that’s not a popular opinion.

Now, to your point about impact on wild whale populations, there is certainly not enough data to conclude that populations were unable to recover from the captures.

You can see with this graph that the Southern Residents were able to recover their numbers after the capture periods, but unfortunately populations continued to decline due to other factors. This includes anthropogenic causes like boat traffic and decreasing food supply with increasing dam building and more efficient fishing methods to take more Chinook Salmon from the orcas. And ongoing effects of bioaccumulation of toxins like PCBs and DDTs.

Some scientists argue that the population decrease from capture resulted in less competition and increased survival rate. Others say that the impacts are still being felt today. There’s not exactly a consensus on it because it’s hard to measure the effects.

While I disagree with corporate SeaWorld and a lot of decisions they make, I will continue to support the work of SeaWorld’s team of marine mammal specialists and veterinarians. And support accredited facilities that are able to create positive welfare states for their animals, even if the conditions aren’t perfect. I have no issue with animals entertaining people as long as the animals have agency and choice and show positive welfare states.

Whether you like it or not SeaWorld just have more money and resources than most other facilities simply due to their ability to appeal to a wide demographic (including people who like fireworks) - that sells tickets. And yeah a portion of that goes to CEO salaries and stakeholders (not nearly enough goes to the workers). But having that luxury of that much money means getting high end diagnostic equipment, paying for medications, antibiotics, scans, developing new technologies to assist in rehab and rescue work, pay staff to work in shifts for standing in the stranding pool to hold up a baby dolphin.

That’s why they’re usually in the front lines of rescue work, often collaborating with other rescues. Because their resources are invaluable to the rescue and rehabilitation of marine animals.

These resources are also giving scientists the ability to collect baseline data and compare to wild populations - and develop technologies and test these with animals in human care before using it in field work.

I disagree with a black and white approach to animal welfare and find it to be detrimental in the long term. Welfare is an evolving state that is always in flux and depends on a variety of factors.

SeaWorld’s fireworks contributed to seabird deaths - but not acknowledging that even if SeaWorld stopped their fireworks, there would continue to be fireworks on the 4th of July that would continue to cause bird deaths isn’t helpful to protecting seabirds.

SeaWorld have rescued, rehabbed and released or provided a permanent home for over 40,000 animals. It was funded by the same company that also put on fireworks shows. The two facts can exist side by side. A company can cause harm while also creating positive change.

The reality of capitalism is that to rescue animals you need to have the resources to do so. People visit SeaWorld to ride roller coasters and ignore the animals (which I can never understand) - yet it is the ability to appeal to a wide demographic that makes money and that money is what can be used for incredibly important conservation and rescue projects.

However, I would still say all of that wouldn’t matter if the welfare of the animals in their care was extremely poor. Which, based on their ability to achieve multiple levels of high standard accreditation like AZA and other signs of positive welfare in basic observation , doesn’t seem to be the case.

I encourage anyone to try to take a more nuanced approach to animal welfare and never just accept something at face value. And if you don’t like SeaWorld, that’s okay! There’s a lot of ethical discussions to be had. But I can only convey the experience and knowledge that I have in both research, hands on practical cetacean welfare experience and general experience and understanding of how marine mammal facilities operate.

[kp777]

By Jessica Corbett

Common Dreams

July 16, 2024

"Let's see which politicians are for unions and which ones are all talk," said the Texas Democrat.

As former U.S. President Donald Trump's new running mate and a union leader's speech spark discussions about the Republican Party and organized labor, one Democratic congressman on Tuesday suggested a test to see who is actually pro-worker.

Rep. Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat with a history of advocating for workers, called for holding a vote on the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act when his colleagues in Congress return to Capitol Hill next week.

"If Republicans wanna talk like they're pro-worker, then let's have a vote on the PRO Act next week," Casar said on social media. "Let's see which politicians are for unions and which ones are all talk. Dems are ready to vote, how about you guys?"

Introduced by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the PRO Act "expands various labor protections related to employees' rights to organize and collectively bargain in the workplace." The vast majority of its co-sponsors are Democrats.

"Dems are ready to vote, how about you guys?"

Casar specifically called out House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who on Tuesday wrote for Compact Magazine about International Brotherhood of Teamsters general president Sean O'Brien's Monday night speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC), acknowledging that it "came as something of a shock."

Hawley called the speech "a watershed moment" and said that "Republicans have a chance to turn the corner on labor." He also took the opportunity to highlight some of his own positions, such as more sick days for rail workers. The senator left out that he has backed "right-to-work" laws that ban union security clauses in collective bargaining agreements and opposed the PRO Act.

O'Brien—who responded by saying that Hawley "is 100% on point"—had, as The Washington Post's Lauren Kaori Gurley put it, "showered praise" on the senator during his speech. The Teamsters leader also stressed the need for pro-worker reforms.

"Labor law must be reformed," O'Brien said. "Americans vote for a union but can never get a union contract. Companies fire workers who try to join unions and hide behind toothless laws that are meant to protect working people but are manipulated to benefit corporations. This is economic terrorism at its best. An individual cannot withstand such an assault. A fired worker cannot afford corporate delays and these greedy employers know it. There are no consequences for the company, only the worker."

He declared that "we need corporate welfare reform. Under our current system, massive companies like Amazon, Uber, Lyft, and Walmart take zero responsibilities for the workers they employ. These companies offer no real health insurance, no retirement benefits, no paid leave, relying on underfunded public assistance. And who foots the bill? The individual taxpayer. The biggest recipients of welfare in this country are corporations, and this is real corruption. We must put workers first."

O'Brien was invited to speak at the RNC by Trump, who on Monday secured enough delegates to become the Republican nominee and announced U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate—creating a ticket that Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, called "a corporate CEO's dream and a worker's nightmare."

Teamsters spokesperson Kara Deniz told the Post that the union leader requested to speak at the Democratic National Convention next month but has not yet received an invitation.

Unlike the Teamsters, several major labor groups endorsed Biden for reelection over a year ago. The Democrat describes himself as "the most pro-union President leading the most pro-union administration in American history"—and he has mostly avoided angering organized labor, other than working with Congress to block a national rail strike in December 2022.

Biden became the first sitting president in history to walk a picket line when he rallied with United Auto Workers members in September. The UAW endorsed him in January, when the group's president, Shawn Fain, sharply criticized Trump and warned that "rarely as a union do you get so clear of a choice between two candidates."

O'Brien struck a much different tone on Monday, praising the ex-president and "characterizing both parties as ambivalent about unions with room to improve," as Post reporter Jeff Stein pointed out on social media. In addition to Sanders, Stein highlighted, "there are 48 Senate sponsors of the PRO Act. They all caucus with the Democratic Party. Zero are Republicans."

Only Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.)—who ditched the Democratic Party shortly after the 2022 election—have joined with the chamber's Republicans to oppose the PRO Act. In the GOP-controlled House, the bill is backed by every Democrat but just three Republicans: Reps. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Ore.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), and Christopher Smith (N.J.).

"On June 21, 2023, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders passed the PRO Act 11-10," Warren Gunnels, the panel's majority staff director, noted Tuesday. "Every Democrat on the committee voted yes. Every Republican on the committee voted no."

Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) said, "To the Republicans at the RNC who want to appear to support American labor, here's an idea: Come join us to pass the PRO Act."

[kaurwreck]

do you think the port mafia grunts have a union?

I was raised in a state hostile culturally and politically to unions, and I'm in a field that's somewhat hostile to unionizing, so I admittedly know very little about American unions, much less Japanese unions.

What little I do know is that Japanese unions aren't like American unions in that during their height of influence, Japanese unions were more collaborative with and non-adversarial to employers than Americans expect from labor organizing. They functioned more like another HR, and strikes weren't generally a common tool.

Unions in Japan have changed over time and are more dynamic now, based on the very, very cursory Google search I just did. But they're also significantly less influential, and white collar workers in certain fields aren't super active participants.

All of this to say, I'm sure Mori Corporation has union organizers and reps who have positions within both the company and the Port Mafia, who collaborate closely with Chuuya on maintaining employee welfare and satisfaction.

(Chuuya, since Verlaine doesn't leave his depression hovel, Kouyou leads the torture squad, and Mori is the CEO with which the employees must negotiate.)

I also imagine Mori Corporation's directors and officers approach labor matters from the perspective that if you are attentive and provide for your employees, they won't feel the need to organize. It's how Mori and the executives approach Yokohama's informal economy, and it's their restitution for the Old Boss's transgressions.

That, or they've just made Gin their union rep, so the grunts are too afraid to try anything.