birdboy2000: No more deluded by reaction/on tyrants only we'll make war

Some digimon fanboy (

birdboy2000) wrote,
@ 2008-05-01 00:45:00

No more deluded by reaction/on tyrants only we'll make war
122 years ago today, 300k-500k workers across America began a general strike for the eight-hour day. Three days later, it ended in bloodshed in Chicago, with cops and anarchists ruining everything.

In 1888, the Second Internationale proclaimed May 1 international workers' day to commemorate the labor struggle. The holiday has seldom been observed in the US to begin with, and its declined even more in this age when even the far left is not red, but green.

The world remembers. The US, for the most part, has forgotten. The 40-hour week is increasingly illusory, the labor movement is struggling worldwide, working-class democrats are voting for an architect of NAFTA from Wal-Mart's board of directors, while republicans are yelling at people to work longer hours - if you get foreclosed, just get a second job. And it's not just the US - it seems like workers are taking a beating from neoliberalism all around the world, although they're beginning to push back and seem to have made great strides in Latin America.

Even here, things are beginning to look up, if just a little - the day won't pass unlamented, like it did when I was younger - although it's a bit discouraging that most of the ones protesting are first-generation immigrants from countries which remember Haymarket. (Yeah, I know, the working class has no borders. Doesn't stop illegal immigrants and citizens from blaming each other that big business is ripping them off - we've completely lost that spirit of solidarity in this country. And, despite the herculean efforts of the various tiny leftist and anarchist parties, doesn't mean we'll make significant inroads.)

That said... I haven't forgotten.

Happy international workers' day, everyone! Go to your local protests! Wave the red flag! ~~Overthrow your bourgeoise masters!~~ :D (I say, although I'm making up for procrastination on end-of-year assignments today... it shouldn't take eight hours, at least. Yay for being a student.)

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lyarrah
2008-05-01 02:37 pm UTC (link)

(Sorry, needed to add)

See, for me, a 50+ hour work week is often just a fact of life. As long as I'm being paid for it, I don't quite mind working that much. I don't really have anything else to do with my time, and I'm young and unskilled so it's a little hard to get jobs that allow otherwise. Hell, I lived for three months with 60-65 hours a week... The only time I've ever felt I was working too much was the two weeks I worked 85 and 92 hours respectively - now THAT sucked. But, since I don't have a family to take care of, and I found time to sleep and eat and shower, I think 60 or even 70 hours a week is acceptable, if that's what you have to do to support your lifestyle. My sister and I could definitely survive on 30 hours a week each, at minimum wage, but that would mean giving up the internet and eating out - so we work more to support our chosen lifestyle of playing video games and going to the movies. If someone wants to live in a big house and have a new car and a big screen TV and four kids, well, they damn well better work hard enough to support all that.

And then there's a couple of my friends who complain when they have to work over 20 hours a week, but expect to have a more extravagant lifestyle than I do... *shakes her head* Until I start my new job next week, I'm still technically on "poverty" wages - just over 15k a year. And yet I'm fine on this, and bought a new computer, and am able to still go to two of the six anime conventions I'd like to each year, despite it. (What cracks me up is that everyone says that teachers get paid horribly (I was being informed of such since I plan to be one), but that their mean salary is 38k and median is 35k... That's... a lot, to me. I couldn't support a family of four on it, probably, unless we were in a bit of a small place, but I could support myself and my spouse or one child, easily and comfortably. People just want too much nowadays. They go outside their means. The reason why the labor standard has changed again is because there's now a standard of being in debt constantly.

/rant

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birdboy2000
2008-05-01 05:53 pm UTC (link)

You say people want too much, yet... where are the ones who are fighting for it? People live outside their means, but they're often borrowing for things which wouldn't *be* outside their means if we had a good labor movement - instead of organizing unions, they just borrow money and hope they won't get crushed by debt. (And when they *stop* borrowing we get an economic crisis, but that's another matter.) I haven't looked at the data, but I get the sense that in this day and age, 40-hour weeks would still more than enough to support an otaku lifestyle if the upper class wasn't taking such a huge slice of the pie and if the government wasn't so strongly on the side of business interests.

(I say this, but 15K a year is more than I can imagine... albeit less than my tuition and maybe not enough to live off of around here. Never found a job, only seriously looked once, failed. You might be in an industry I wouldn't think of working at, sure, and I'm hardly grade-A hiring material as I am now... but at the same time there's also the fact that it'd sure be easier to find a job or get better pay if people only worked 40-hour weeks.)

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lyarrah
2008-05-01 09:32 pm UTC (link)

What industry am I in? Fast food. I'm a Crew Leader (Read: Assistant Manager duties without the pay) at a Sonic Drive in. I work 36-40 hours a week - 6-7 hours a day, 6 days a week - and earn $8 and hour. I only JUST got that raise a month ago, after eight months at the local minimum wage - 7.02 an hour. And minimum wage full time still produces 14k a year. The Nationwide minimum wage of 5.85 only produces 11,700, which I WOULD say is probably not enough to live off of, except that I survived from March-December of last year on just shy of 7,000.

The monthly costs for my two bedroom apartment run about 870 for rent, another 300 for cable, electric, and water, and another 300 for the three of us living here. Gas is a good $150 a month for each of us that has a car by now. I'm paying $50 a month on school, $75 on my computer, $40 on my half the phone plan, and $80 a month for car insurance. That's about 885 a month. After tax, I make around 975 a month - that still leaves me with nearly $100 to spend on fast food, movies, and to save for conventions. After tax, our household of three makes around 2900 a month (or 47k a year before tax) and we do JUST FINE. Granted, I couldn't afford a new car right now, and I kind of need one, but guess what? I'm just going to have to wait until my computer gets paid off.

I don't blame the upper class for the fact I can't afford a car, though. I blame the fact I bought a new computer. Do I wish I was being paid more? Hell yeah! And I will be, very soon - I start a new job towards the end of the month that'll be paying me 28k a year. But I had to work hard to get to that job - I've got three years of customer service and almost a full one of manager training under my belt. None of which I went to school for.

Put simply, I'm only 20, almost 21, and I've had to work for every cent I've ever spent. I was only 10 when I started mowing lawns for money - first my parents, and then by the time I was 16, twelve total - six weekly, six bi-weekly. At an average of $25 a lawn (they were big lawns) I was earning $900 a month, tax-free. About $50 of that would go back out to gas and trash bags for the mower and wire for the trimmer, and when I was 14, I bought a new mower, but in a state where I can mow from April-October, I was making over $6000 a year anyway. So from ages 15-18 I worked about 25 hours a week for half the year for about $225 a week, or about $9 an hour. 6k a year.

I worked various temporary computer jobs for the first year after I left high school, doing anything from updating databases to printing labels to editing online advertisements, and that - which required no formal training! My only qualifications were that I could type 40wpm and knew my way around Word and Excel - paid an average of $10 an hour. I only actually got to work about 1/3 of the time, though, because of the nature of the Temp agency, but when you're going to school full time, that's a reasonable price to pay. So age 18, I worked 40 hours a week, one third the year, for $10 an hour/$400 a week... $7k a year.

for the last two years, I worked two different retail jobs, a job as a busser at a restarant, and this job at sonic - most of which at the same time. The worst paid the minimum wage of (at the time) 6.85, the best, $8. In the end, I wound up making around 11k over the course of the year, from working anywhere from 20-80 hours a week. 11k, again, with NO FORMAL TRAINING.

And now I'm moving up to 28k a year, without having to have a single semester of college for it. (My college has been essentially wasted, because I went to art school.) I'm going to be an assistant manager, working from 40-50 hours a week, at a Japanese Food restaurant. It's a place I love, an environment I love, and the people are all super friendly. I enjoy any job where I get to help people, I enjoy being able to work with others, and I'm good with money. Three years out of high school, I'm not even 21 yet, and I'm here already. And how exactly is The Man bringing me down?

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lyarrah
2008-05-01 09:32 pm UTC (link)

(continued, because I ran out of room)

(To put it in perspective: The average 1 bedroom apartment here costs $550 a month. Figure $60 cell phone, $75 internet and cable TV, $75 electric, $30 water, $100 food per person, and $200 gas and insurance per car each month... 40 hours a week takes $9 an hour (I've factored in tax) to pay for all that... or, if you forgo a car (bus passes are $75 a month) and Cable TV, 7.80 will do. And less if you have two people there, as the extra person only adds to food cost and maybe about 10-15% on electric and water.)

Meanwhile, my parents earn 86k a year - more than I could possibly imagine needing without a family of 6 or so - and are spiraling into debt. They have their 375k five-bedroom house, their 38k truck, their 22k car, three vacations a year, a new computer, a new flat screen TV, a newly remodeled kitchen and soon dining room, professional lawn cutters, brand new washer and dryer, the list goes on. I know a certain amount (I'd say 5-6k) a year goes to gifts for us kids and the grandkids (I'm the youngest of three - the other two are in their thirties) but somehow, my parents still burn through over 50,000 a year after tax, even after those gifts. How?

(Assuming 4200 a month income after tax)
House payment: 2150
Car payments: 160 & 89
Remodeling Loan: 85
Electric: 250
Water: 80
Gas: $400 (Dad drives to work every day in his 12MPG truck)
Insurance: $120 (cheaper because they're older)
Food: $400 (mom will almost ONLY buy organic type foods)
Credit Cards: Whatever's left (around $500)... and then they put anything else they want on their cards! like dinner out twice a month, new clothes, a new bike, the computer... It's just a mess.

That's what I mean by living beyond your means. I'm more than happy on my meager pay rate, and can survive happily, even buying a game or a couple manga each month (though I have to *gasp* choose! heaven forbid!).

I'm know there's some people in this country who can't make ends meet, but I only have sympathy for those who aren't lazy and who don't blow any money on drugs, cigarettes, or alcohol, and haven't done anything stupid to get themselves thrown into jail. There are places in the world where people survive (I'm not sure I'd call it living, but they survive) on less than $2 a day. Once all of Africa is making our Federal Minimum Wage of 5.85 an hour, THEN I'll be concerned about The Man bringing me down. Until then, I'll just go work a little harder.

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birdboy2000
2008-05-01 11:48 pm UTC (link)

Divide and conquer. They're screwing over the third world harder (much, much harder- although they also have plenty of problems which can't be blamed on the boots of international capitalism) than they're screwing over the first. Paying the workers in one's own country well detracts a ton from solidarity, after all. The struggle is the same, the enemies are the same, they're still ripping us off if by a lesser amount, our foreign policy is still more often than not geared towards *keeping* people working on $2 a day... don't they cover this in socialism 101? XP

If you love your job to begin with and are financially stable, fine. I get the sense that if your industry was unionized you'd be able to get more - it generally works that way, although for all I know your employer has profit margins low enough that it's more likely to bankrupt the company - and the internet/electric/water bills would certainly be lower(although I don't know to what degree) if we nationalized the ones which are private sector where you live, but if you're happy, good for you.

(Spiralling into debt is a greedy/stupid/shortsighted thing to do, but I don't see how it relates to the labor struggle.)

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jpec07
2008-05-02 12:46 am UTC (link)

So here are two problems I'm seeing (Lyra was bragging about her rant, and I can't avoid a good argument/debate, and so had to throw in my $.02).

1. You openly admitted to having never worked before. Ergo, you have no perspective on which to base your claims other than simple theory. I hate to say it, but theory almost never applies perfectly into reality.

2. Ah the union, formed at the onset of the second wave of the industrial revolution when labor conditions began to get worse and worse. Back then, workers had something to complain about. A 13-year-old girl would be forced to work 80+ hours a week in stifling conditions where she'd hardly be able to breathe, where water would not be provided, and where if she misplaced her hand or foot, she could lose it--or worse. These are the conditions that the original union-formers faced. Life-threatening work prevailed, and there were no job safety laws. People were risking their lives on a daily basis just to carve out a living. Back then, there was a legitimate reason to complain and form unions. And many of them are still around. Look at the Writers' Guild that upset the American public with their strike. They were being wronged and stood up for themselves. Now should part-time labor be unionizing? Absolutely not. Part time labor is humane, pays well enough, and doesn't have enough consistency among employees for operable unionization. When you get into full-time jobs and stable careers? Yeah, that's when unionization should happen.

That is all. ^_^

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birdboy2000
2008-05-02 01:07 am UTC (link)

1. Yeah, not perfectly. But not everyone in the may day parades around the world has held a job, either, and worker/student coalitions have often been a large part of the historic left.

(That said, I freely admit to having no idea what I'm talking about for a sizable chunk of this.)

2. Yes, and these struggles should be commemorated today - that's half the point of the holiday I'm bemoaning the loss of in OP.

But at the same time, the celebrations are protests as often as not, and the need for unions in this age shouldn't be forgotten. When unions lost their power, the pendulum swung back - not back to gilded age levels, sure - we've had technological advances, and the ruling class knows trying to bring back those conditions here would result in nasty resistance - but we're being pressured to compete internationally with countries where it's little better than in those days, and while the internet alone means this is a better time period to live in than the '70s, the Gini coefficient doesn't lie about the growth of inequality these days. (And I'm annoyed by the lack of international solidarity as much as anything in this country, too.)

I don't agree with the idea that if a job isn't starving the workers, the workers shouldn't unionize. There's a legitimate point about lack of consistency which might be something which can't be worked around, but I don't see why humanely treated, well-paid workers shouldn't unionize - yeah, they need to be reasonable and not bankrupt their bosses with their demands, but why shouldn't the workers strive for the best share they can get?

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	lyarrah 2008-05-01 09:35 pm UTC (link)
	tldr; (or P.S.) Don't make claims about things until you've looked at the numbers :D a 40 hour week CAN support an otaku lifestyle... just... not one that involves more than two or three conventions a year, and you have to sacrifice things like fast food along the way. After all I afforded a 360 last year.) (Reply to this)(Parent)

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