When I was a kid growing up in Middle America (I'm in my 50s now), it seemed like people really cared about these types of labor issues. I remember most adults took interest in the working conditions at the local auto plant, even if they didn't work there. Now, it feels like, at best, people just don't care ("Pfff. I don't work there, why should I care?"), or at worst, people blame workers ("Bunch of lazy bums!", "Be grateful you have a job at all!", "Should've gone to college!") I'm sure there's a list of reasons for this shift in attitude, but I can tell you that it's real, and kinda depressing.
I'm almost 50 and I've bounced between white collar and blue collar work, union and nonunion, during my professional career. It is indeed depressing and was never more palpable, IME, than in academia of all places. Thomas Frank wrote a great book on this shift in Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?
IMHO, two things: (1) The gradual destruction of labor unions. When I was a kid, labor unions were strong, seemed like every adult was part of one. And there existed a "brotherhood" amongst the various unions. When one union went on strike, the other unions would wholeheartedly support them. And (2), pro-business bias in reporting (don't wanna upset PepsiCo, a massive sponsor!). Here's a great example: https://www.google.com/search?q=frito-lay+strike+site:foxnew... . Nothing about the Frito-Lay strike. Fox News is the ONLY news source in Middle America. I don't feel like other major sources are much better; they've got sponsors to please, too.
While I understand your point about the popularity of Fox News in middle America, it's a big stretch to conclude that it's the only source. People have to start taking responsibility for which sources they read, listen to, and trust. There's nothing stopping these people from showing a bit of initiative and reading a broader range of news sources. Well, nothing except their passivity and desire to be spoon-fed news and opinion that correlates with their pre-constructed worldview.
Basic rate with 2% raises for the next two years. Frito Lay execs must be puzzled why the plebs aren't throwing themselves at the gate for such a great deal.
Yes that’s what the company said, the same company the appears to be over working employees in unsafe working conditions, so it shouldn’t come as a shock the company statement is bellied by the fact the employees are still on strike and the union is still negotiating.
Yes, an offer under duress isn’t a real offer. It’s an attempt to not lose more.
This reminds me of a rape case where the girl asked the guy to use a condom. Getting raped was going to happen. She wanted to at least not get AIDS. In court, he argued it wasn’t rape because she asked him to use a condom, therefore consented. The court of course wasn’t having it.
This is not the kind of thing that should require striking. The whole point of government is strength in numbers; protecting small groups of people from being abused.
I'm not optimistic, but I really am hoping that we can get our capitalism better regulated some day. At this point, it's not even really capitalism: there's no real competition, and the investments on short term gains are drying up. The field's of opportunity have been ransacked by short cons. Nothing left to do but invest keeping the short cons out.
This is what happens when we let CEOs pretend to be gods who establish a directive for all subordinate management to achieve unattainable goals. They then become sociopaths and psychotically treat people like garbage.
This comes back around to how general labor places "can't find anyone." Well in the words of Bill Engvall: "Here's your sign..."
I don't think this is on CEOs. I grew up pretty poor and now make very good money. However, if someone was always sheltered they are so disconnected from reality they have no idea what is a livable wage. It is capitalism that creates this dynamic, not CEOs or business owners.
This is why governments have minimum wage. Not sure if this is still the case but walmart was helping emoployees get on food stamps....tax payers were literally funding mcdonalds and walmart workers.
The bottom of the work force does not have much negotiating power.
I'm surprised that none of the workers have decided to take it out on the managerial or executive level at the company. Might as well take a few of the people who made you want to commit suicide with you.
Suicide is a literal term here since a line worker died literally on the production line and they just had them MOVE THE BODY instead of stopping work.
Also being forced working during and after a fire in the factory that was filled with smoke.
A lot of people have a really shitty negotiating position. They're barely literate, living paycheck to paycheck and raising children. Are you really choosing your job when your options are super limited and you don't have the means to invest in yourself?
This. HN skews towards professionals and people with decent negotiating power.
Many people scrape paycheck to paycheck all their life. First, it is kids and housing, then as they age health. Plus, once you are 50 and all you did was factory work or gig work....your negotiating position is "I will do anything to get to the retirement".
Yep. And even if everybody met whatever arbitrary "diligent/hardworking/intelligent" line that the commenter you're replying to requires in order to treat people like fucking human beings there still wouldn't be enough jobs paying a livable wage to employ everyone. Their line of argument is naive at best.
>barely literate, living paycheck to paycheck and raising children
How about we focus on the issue that we're paying people working 40 hours a week, every week, for months on end not making enough money to reasonably survive?
not sure about their motivation, but they made a good point. We need to educate poor working class that there is a shortage of labor so they can ask for more. For capitalists, you can view this as quickly snapping labor costs to actual values. It is an efficiency boost.
This is quite the paternalist view of working class people — is this not a concerted effort by working class professionals, asking for more? Considering the frequent remoteness of factory locations and the costs (monetary, social, etc) of moving elsewhere, striking for better conditions seems like a pretty educated decision, one which reflects an intimate understanding of the multiplicative effects of collective bargaining.
W/R/T the top-level comment: to frame coercive forces (isolation, geography, exploitation, and so on) as matters purely of individual choices speaks to a deep rejection of systems thinking that’s both
a. unproductive in a conversation about labor practices resulting from intricate and brutal edifices of human suffering, and
b. misses the point of collective action, which has over the course of multiple centuries chipped away at the brutality of said edifices, strike by strike.
Do you genuinely believe suicide can occur when initiated by an otherwise mentally and physically healthy adult? I feel like people like you tend to think suicide is a type of taboo and thoughts of it automatically get you classified as "mentally ill". Not advocating for suicide, of course, just trying to understand others' perspective. If that's true then you shouldn't keep saying "mentally ill" to imply there is an independent cause, you can just say anyone who is thinking about suicide is just suicidal and that is bad in itself. Because right now it sounds like doublespeak.
Thinking about suicide does not make one suicidal. There are plenty of times where I think “I’d rather be dead” but have no urge to actually act on it. This is far different from thinking “I’d rather be dead, let me start preparing.”
Another thing is we're extrapolating small tidbits of news to the general population. Just because Frito-Lay workers are striking does not indicate any general trends. In order to deduce anything - we need to look at broader statistical data. There must be some name for this phenomenon where we hear a news story and we immediately generalize it.
Anecdotally, I know several friends (with arts background) that have found jobs now and really well paying ones (galleries). The arts business hasn't seen a boom like this before. There is so much cash in the economy, thanks to printing $18 trillion last year.
The last few paragraphs are quoting the company. My experience of labor disputes is that companies are often less than honest when engaged in them. I wouldn't trust their self reported records in this case.
But also, it wouldn't be very surprising if the union drove a weaker bargain than the workers wanted. A lot of unions have gotten pretty toothless.
> The plant, which is one of 30 in the U.S., employs about 850 people. Yet, officials said, only about 20 — approximately 2% — averaged over 60 hours per week.
> "Our records indicate 19 employees worked 84 hours in a given work week in 2021, with 16 of those as a result of employees volunteering for overtime and only 3 being required to work," the company said on Monday.
That's not even the normal qualified/hedging language, that's pretty cut and dry.
