#worker quarters

[johbeil]

Workers' housing

near an early 20th century factory. Piazzola sul Brenta, Veneto, Italy. Leica R5 with 50 mm Summilux on expired Polaroid HighDefinition film.

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

From Cuba to Louisiana: Two paths after slavery’s end

By Gregory E. Williams

This author visited Havana as part of the U.S. Friends Against Homophobia and Transphobia delegation in May 2023. Being from southern Louisiana, this author was struck by how much the old city looked like the New Orleans French Quarter. The architecture is similar – Spanish colonial. But there was one tremendous difference. The beautiful old houses were being used as homes. Colonial mansions were transformed into the headquarters of democratic mass organizations like the Federation of Cuban Women and the National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX). There were no homeless people. New Orleans’ French Quarter used to be residential, but today is an adult Disneyland. Very few people can afford to live there, and tourist shops and short-term rentals take up the historic buildings. Contrasting Cuba and the U.S. South – and U.S. society generally – shows what happens for the common people when the exploiting classes are expropriated vs. what happens when they are not. 

[monpalace]

ALSO!!! MAJ!!! WE’RE THE SAME AGE NOW :DDDDDD!!!!

i hope senior citizenship treats you well 😁

[cealtrachs]

I do think that leftists from upper class backgrounds should pay a mandatory fee before lecturing others on socialism/socialist thought. Until you’re willing to part with your own generational wealth, I’m going to assume that you’re only trying to utilize the same paternalism and self indulgence that you’ve enjoyed for for your entire life, under a radical facade.

[timechange]

MCFLY JULY ‘24 — manure truck driver.

NOVEMBER 9, 1955

Most days, Lemuel Hackett enjoyed his job.

It was always nice to meet the farmers and gardeners who would turn a waste product into something that would make the world a little more beautiful and that would help the flowers and the vegetables and the trees grow. Now, it wasn’t the most glamorous thing in the world, mind, but it was uneventful, paid fine enough, and he was always home for dinner with his family.

Yes, there were worse things, he thinks as he waits patiently for the stoplight.

Then he’s suddenly rear-ended and a cry tears itself from his throat.

His first thought is to the wellbeing of whoever hit him and he rushes out, only to find that Tannen nuisance and his band of cronies covered in a quarter of Mr. Jones’ daily inventory.

“Now, see here, Tannen,” Lemuel says sternly, hands on hips, once he makes sure they’re unharmed. “If you’re fixin’ to go careerin’ around town in that newfangled death trap ‘a yours, you’re gonna hafta deal with the consequences. I expect Mr. Jones’ll wanna recoup his losses from this little incident, so’s I’d suggest you save up your pocket change.”

[vaquerovulgar]

when talking about the whole submersible implosion thing, can people be careful not to discredit search and rescue as a whole? its totally possible to both address migrant safety and random freak accidents at the same time. they are not mutually exclusive. i would much rather live in a society that spends millions doing search and rescue for dumbasses who likely deserve to die, than live in a society in which emergency services can openly choose who to save and let die based on perceived cost, class, identity, or morals.

[skyborneveggie]

.

[deus-ex-mona]

me when the bacteria c o l o n i s e s

[coockie8]

Just learned that the raise my company offers for becoming the next level above where I am, which would give me at least double the workload, is, at most, 5%, which is about $0.75.

This same company also requires all of it's employees to undergo an exam and an interview for the chance to get promoted.

For, max, $0.75.

And they wonder why they can't get people to move up in the company.

[confinesofmy]

hey does anyone else never need to check their blindspot on the interstate or highways because they're hyper aware of every single car surrounding them from the moment they get on the road to the moment they get off or am i some sort of freak

[theamazingannie]

Anyone who doesn’t think fast food workers deserve to be paid more should be required to work a third shift weekend shift with a skeleton crew the night of a big concert while being one of the only places in town that’s open after midnight

[thewingedwolf]

when u tell someone who hasn’t had to apply for a job in a while “the interview process is like 6 weeks atp” they don’t believe you but a lot of employers will wait like 2 weeks to follow up, and they always need to do multiple rounds of interviews which takes a week for each round, and then there’s two more weeks of dead silence before you hear back. sometimes you’ll apply for something in january and they will call you up in the summer like “hey you still want the job” it’s crazy. they’re out here putting desk clerks through two phone interviews and two in persons at two different locations. they make the pages interview TWICE and they also have to do TWO sorting tests!! that job pays well below minimum wage, it’s a job meant for retirees and high school students why do you interview them like it requires a mlis

[lenaoxton]

i rlly kno im poor and old when i get excited that ppl be leaving their receipts at the self checkout and i get to do the surveys for the $100 gift card raffles lmaooo

[mollyjames]

Even in food service, there is the demand for exponential growth. Each store has a profit target you're expected to hit every quarter. Each quarter the target gets bigger and bigger. The only way to make sure you hit or exceed that target is to increase sales or cut costs. Sales can only go so far though, so at a certain point there is the understandable temptation (not justifiable, but understandable) for your manager to start cutting hours. Once they do, your location has entered a Death Spiral.

The thing about the Death Spiral is it is nearly impossible to escape. It starts innocuous enough, with a few hours getting shaved off every week. And true enough at first you probably didn't need those hours. They were the slack, the extra hands that helped distribute the work and made it easier on everyone. You might not even notice they're gone. Maybe the morning rush is a little harder to handle, maybe there isn't as much time to chat as there used to be. But on the whole nothing has changed. You're still hitting your sales quota and, hey, everyone seems to be working a little harder. That's good, right?

Then the next quarter rolls around. You exceeded your quota. Upper management is very excited. But now your new quota is even higher than it would have been if you had simply performed to expectations. You raise prices a bit, push more expensive drinks, and sure, cut a few more hours. Bit by bit the slack gets tighter. The fat gets trimmed. All because continual growth, continual improvement, is not just demanded, but expected.

The endgame of the Death Spiral is the expectation that every worker will operate at 100% efficacy 100% of of the time, and that nothing will go wrong ever. It never reaches this point, as any food service worker will tell you, shit goes wrong. Service gets worse, you lose a few customers, and you miss your quota. This is the point of no return, because the only way to solve the problem is to add more hours. But there's no way upper management will approve spending more money. On a failing store? Don't be ridiculous. Maybe get those numbers up and we'll consider adding hours back. But the only way to get those numbers up is with no hours. It's a Catch-22. You're trapped. Slowly, inevitably, the store fails, and then closes.

The Death Spiral is a doomed strategy, but it is the one corporations push in response to investor pressure. It tricks workers into more work for the promise of relief later, if they do well and succeed, not realizing they'll only be asked to do even more next time. So how do you fight it? Know your worth. Don't let anyone give you more work without some kind of kickback. Don't fool yourself into thinking that being indispensable will lead to a reward later.

But the best defense? Join a union.

[townpostin]

Tatanagar Railway Quarters in Dire Need of Repair

Half-Century-Old Housing Units Pose Risk to Resident Employees Prolonged neglect of 2100 railway quarters sparks concerns over safety and living conditions, prompting calls for urgent renovation. JAMSHEDPUR – The railway quarters housing Tatanagar railway employees have fallen into a state of severe disrepair, raising serious safety concerns for residents. Built approximately 50 years ago, the…

[mockiatoh]

My biggest frustration with the left has always been the inability/unwillingness to work on making progress inside of the system while advocating for greater change.

I remember the first time I came to this realization.

I was nineteen, pregnant. We couldn’t afford to heat the house because we couldn’t afford the deposit to turn the gas on. It was miserably cold. The duplex we were renting was old and rickety and drafty. The window frames were messed up and there were cracks you could stick your finger through that were open to the elements.

Just, like, to give you an idea where we were financially. And this was better than we’d been doing before!

Anyway, I had recently started going to DSA meetings. And that month, they were talking about how a moderate democrat had successfully gotten a small increase in WIC benefits monthly. It came out to, like, $10 a month.

The members talking—mostly male, almost all doing decent—were scornful. The democrat should have pushed harder and gotten more, refused to accept anything until everyone else caved to their demands. I remember sitting there, quietly drinking the latte in the smallest size they had that I had bought with scrounged quarters, listening. Wishing it wasn’t held in an indie coffee shop because it was a luxury I really couldn’t afford, but it would be rude not to. Enjoying the coffee anyway.

I was one of the lucky ones who was getting that additional $10 a month through WIC. Even more exciting, we were now getting a voucher for the farmers’ market. I casually mentioned that WIC recipients would now be getting farmers’ market vouchers, too.

The guy who organized the meetings was a hard worker, passionate guy. Did something in tech.

He was like, “That’s the thing! These people don’t want farmers market vouchers. They want—” and he went on to describe a bunch of pie in the sky desires. That, yeah, sounded good.

But one. I was one of those people! A lot if the tamiles were super excited about it, myself included.

I had never been to a farmers’ market before. I tried arugula for the first time, a piece pulled from a bunch by the grower as he explained the flavor difference. I hadn’t known before then that different lettuce greens had different flavors, that it was more than just the texture and shape. I tried pesto, which delighted me. Goat cheese. I got three full pounds of strawberries for two dollars, since they were closing soon and the old man selling the berries got a kick out of me.

Anyway. It was like, you have a decent life. Not great but decent! The things that are life changing for me, for us… you already have.

The ten dollars at the grocery store made the difference between a meal of broken-noodles-with-some-half-horrible-pantry-scraps and a meal. It kept me full and healthy! And the additional farmers’ market voucher was world changing for me.

The democrat who worked for those things barely got them through. And it was means tested to hell and back. They weren’t able to get everything they wanted. But what they got made such a huge difference for me, for people like me.