Antiwork

Labor Market (tm)

Nobody gets to arbitrarily determine what somebody is worth. It cracks me up when the soft hands crowd gets all up in arms about "what people are charging". No shit that profitability may be increased by suppressing wages. But it cuts both ways. Nobody "deserves" a certain pay.

A Fortune 500 CFO customer of mine is calling in "The Patagonia Vest Recession". Lumburg is coming for the "low performers". But don't worry, I hear construction and railroads are hiring.

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RR workers salaries are comparable to what most blue collar salaries were like in the 50's and the economy did just fine. The marginal income tax rate was as high as 90% and the economy did just fine. Since then the corporations and their employees in Congress and the WH have engineered a stunning transrer of wealth from workers to the bosses, in the name of protecting us from "socialism".

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Boom! I try and say the same thing but it come out like a rant with spittle coming out my mouth. Basically, we've traded wages for profits behind the smoke screen off the bottom 90% fighting amongst ourselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe9x8pmj3Vc

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Originally Posted by old goat

There was a time when blue collar workers could make a decent living, when American families could do ok on one income if they chose to, when we didn't have so many people with 12 figure net worth. We could go on and on about the causes.

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Well, a giant war changed the economy in a significant way for about 20 years. Then someone invented containerized shipping.

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Originally Posted by I Skied Bandini Mountain

Well, a giant war changed the economy in a significant way for about 20 years. Then someone invented containerized shipping.

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That, and the Depression before it, and the war before that. Piketty, in Capital in the 21st Century, points out that the 50's were an anomaly. But still they show that capitalist economies can run without huge income disparities.

Historically, rents (actual rents of farmland in the past, capital gains nowadays) are 5%, while economic growth--which determines wages--is about 2%, which means that the income and wealth gaps will continue to increase unless governments act (Piketty advocates a global wealth tax) or until revolution, of which we got a little taste on Jan 6. (There's no law that says revolution has to actually benefit the people who make it.)

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Originally Posted by jono

For better and worse, that's exactly the kind of problem the (non-train) engineers love to solve so the talent of the operator isn't required. As you know--it's why Boeing kept that third seat for a dog in case one of you uppity pilots started touching stuff!

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That's the commuter seat (my back will never be the same)

Yeah, it's my understanding that managing the slack has been somewhat? largely? completely? automated.

O yeah the 1950s. When a family of four lived in a 980 sq ft house, drove a deathtrap car, and the dad had to drink heavily due to the extreme physical pain inflicted by his awesome job. And that's if you were white and upper middle class. Elsewhere subsistence level poverty was rampant, everybody was being poisoned by leaded gasoline fumes and society enforced an extreme level of conformity (often violently.) And that's in the "best" country in the world. Worldwide the percentage of the population living on the edge of starvation was many times what it is now.

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Originally Posted by jono

I did read that. The benefit for labor comes in toast's post. I'm a little bit familiar with that side of it, even though it wasn't fully detailed in the article. The reason ownership is willing to make the concessions they do is that the union contracts create barriers to entry that help the owners capitalize on their monopoly, at society's expense.

For example, railroads could have self-driving cars. They pretty much do already. If the rails were broken up and deregulated in the same way that AT&T once was we could see systems implemented that could manage smaller trains more efficiently, including passenger trains, rail-ferries and road/rail hybrid vehicles that linked into (and took direction from) a computerized system. Or imagine your own innovation--the barrier to most any of them is 0% technology and 100% human, with the laws and contracts making up the majority of the obstacles.

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I'm all for busting up monopolies.

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Originally Posted by RoooR

O yeah the 1950s. When a family of four lived in a 980 sq ft house, drove a deathtrap car, and the dad had to drink heavily due to the extreme physical pain inflicted by his awesome job. And that's if you were white and upper middle class. Elsewhere subsistence level poverty was rampant, everybody was being poisoned by leaded gasoline fumes and society enforced an extreme level of conformity (often violently.) And that's in the "best" country in the world. Worldwide the percentage of the population living on the edge of starvation was many times what it is now.

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Yeah, there’s been economic and technological progress. I don’t think the progress was driven by rising income inequality.

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Originally Posted by Ted Striker

That's the commuter seat (my back will never be the same)

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That's what they told you. But there's a reason that seat is cramped. In the hallways they admitted it in hushed tones:

"We used to need 3 seats for the pilot, co-pilot and navigator. Then we made better avionics and got rid of the navigator. But we still need 3 seats for the pilot, the co-pilot and the dog. The pilot to fly, the co-pilot to back up the pilot, and the dog to bite them if they touch anything!"

I just noticed home depot is open on the 1st. Probably other big stores are open tomorrow. Fucking bullshit. No wonder it's hard to find staff.

It’s New Years Day, unless you’re a Kardashian most people don’t give a shit and likely enjoy getting paid double time.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

New Year’s Day opening shift sucks, but Christmas Eve is way worse, IMO.

"Cat Fan was in bed last November, recovering from major abdominal surgery, when her phone started blowing up.

Facebook's parent company, Meta, had just announced a first round of layoffs: 11,000 employees, about 13% of the company, would lose their jobs.

Fan, a mother of three, had been a recruiting manager for Meta for almost five years.

But in the midst of a medical leave, she suddenly found herself without a job. Her layoff notification came while she was still on pain medications, in and out of sleep.

"By the time I woke up and checked my laptop, [I] was already fully locked out," she says."

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/05/11679...ok-google-fmla

I'm a cat fan, too.

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Originally Posted by Foggy_Goggles

Labor Market (tm)

Nobody gets to arbitrarily determine what somebody is worth...

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That's literally what corporate consolidation has done. The power was all on the demand side and the system is so stacked against the lowly employee that when the supply side finally gets to have a little bit of sway, we call it inflation.

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Originally Posted by Mazderati

"Cat Fan was in bed last November, recovering from major abdominal surgery, when her phone started blowing up.

Facebook's parent company, Meta, had just announced a first round of layoffs: 11,000 employees, about 13% of the company, would lose their jobs.

Fan, a mother of three, had been a recruiting manager for Meta for almost five years.

But in the midst of a medical leave, she suddenly found herself without a job. Her layoff notification came while she was still on pain medications, in and out of sleep.

"By the time I woke up and checked my laptop, [I] was already fully locked out," she says."

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/05/11679...ok-google-fmla

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Someone told me they worked for Facebook in Austin for awhile and all they did was check their email in the morning then bounce for a hike. The idea that the market is somehow efficient or better than the government at allocating resources is a fucking joke. Sounds like a pretty sweet gig, though.
Any of you ever deal with Dell or AT&T or any number of IT "talent" middle man companies? It can be fucking ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by stuckathuntermtn

Someone told me they worked for Facebook in Austin for awhile and all they did was check their email in the morning then bounce for a hike...Sounds like a pretty sweet gig, though...

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Replace hiking with skiing or biking and that sounds like the job I'll be leaving in a couple weeks. Minus the Austin tech bro wage part.

Worst job I've had. Also the highest paying job I've had but In addition to wages I really need purpose and challenge. I don't want to be ignored by leadership or alternately told how great I am when myself and my coworkers are basically not doing jack shit.

I hit my breaking point this past summer and sent out some feelers to programs I was interested one Friday. By Monday I had a job offer from one of managers I reached out to.

Before the offer came in that weekend I watched Office Space which hit way too close to home.

https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/D4...Oog4O2BD-oOzeo

I start my new position next month. Yay me.

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Originally Posted by Mazderati

"Cat Fan was in bed last November, recovering from major abdominal surgery, when her phone started blowing up.

Facebook's parent company, Meta, had just announced a first round of layoffs: 11,000 employees, about 13% of the company, would lose their jobs.

Fan, a mother of three, had been a recruiting manager for Meta for almost five years.

But in the midst of a medical leave, she suddenly found herself without a job. Her layoff notification came while she was still on pain medications, in and out of sleep.

"By the time I woke up and checked my laptop, [I] was already fully locked out," she says."

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/05/11679...ok-google-fmla

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30+ years ago, I was laid off while out on a workers comp claim. While they still have to pay out on the claim until you are healthy, it's fully legal for them not to have a job for you to come back to. It just makes them assholes (or assholes in the case of that employer, at least).

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Originally Posted by chicken feathers

Replace hiking with skiing or biking and that sounds like the job I'll be leaving in a couple weeks. Minus the Austin tech bro wage part.

Worst job I've had. Also the highest paying job I've had but In addition to wages I really need purpose and challenge. I don't want to be ignored by leadership or alternately told how great I am when myself and my coworkers are basically not doing jack shit.

I hit my breaking point this past summer and sent out some feelers to programs I was interested one Friday. By Monday I had a job offer from one of managers I reached out to.

Before the offer came in that weekend I watched Office Space which hit way too close to home.

https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/D4...Oog4O2BD-oOzeo

I start my new position next month. Yay me.

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Come on, man, money for nothing? Why quit?

i want my mtv…

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Originally Posted by stuckathuntermtn

Come on, man, money for nothing? Why quit?

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Because the chicks are never actually free

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Originally Posted by stuckathuntermtn

Come on, man, money for nothing? Why quit?

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I had a job like that in my late 20s / early 30s. Was making middle $1xx,xxx salary. Occasionally got a small bonus, generally was actually working about 15-20 hours a week. But I just couldn’t enjoy it like I should have. I was constantly worried that I’d get laid off at some point or someone would find out I was skiing 4 days a week. In hindsight I should have milked that even more. I moved to start a new group and while it has been successful my work life balance has never been worse.

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Originally Posted by stuckathuntermtn

That's literally what corporate consolidation has done. The power was all on the demand side and the system is so stacked against the lowly employee that when the supply side finally gets to have a little bit of sway, we call it inflation.

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Pretty much. It has polluted peoples brain. Even in today's relatively high wage environment for contractors, too many people are willing to work for what someone else tells them the job pays. They need to learn from the piece rate Hispanics. Those dudes will bounce for any small price increase they get get.

Governments and municipalities are hilarious also. They keep the pay low, the benefits super high so they get unhealthy older people with lots of kids as staff. But they'll pay outside contractors top price?

So yeah, take the power back. The talked about impending recession is a reason to fight for money money not to sit on your hands and be thankful for what you got. The fact that big tech is kicking the laptop class in the nuts and that the top of the wealth scale is sounding the alarm that the asset bubble may burst ain't my problem.

Some of the biggest erosions to real wealth have come during periods of high inflation where groceries go up weeks and wages go up sometimes never.

But the kicker is you have to be willing to leave your job and you have to be willing to proactively tell this to the boss man. People struggle with this and don't like talking about money. Its totally cool to have a friendly conversation that says, "Hey Lumburg, I'm happy here but I come to work primarily for the money. I'm always looking to see what my options are and in seems Innotec is a bit behind the market. I'd like to talk about how I can get a raise".

You should always know what your path is too make more money. If your boss can't or won't help you develop that plan, your should have one foot (at least) out the door. But the other catch is your have to be of value AKA good at your job. This is where there is a disconnect and a skills gap.

Anyhoo...off to raise prices before I send out the next invoice.

Totally agree about employees needing some sort of growth path. After 14 years I’m currently on a paid work sabbatical… let’s see how long I can milk this. I do own a piece of the company but not enough for having helped build it (and once save it).

This thread has really stepped up its humble brag game.