Just Your Friendly Union Rep

My coworker broke her foot today because of an unsafe wobbly cart combined with a poorly maintained ramp.

Our union rep (when contacted) came over and had a quick less than 10min chat with the supervisor. After that chat?

1. My coworker was given admin time to go get X-rays as opposed to needing to use sick time.

2. The Union rep helped her successfully fill out the worker's comp forms so she doesn't have to pay for it

3. They're getting rid of that cart

4. All carts are being re-routed to the front entrance until the ramp is fixed

5. She's going to work at home for the next month while her foot heals.

EEOC’s Website

EEOC Frequently Asked Questions

Employee Rights and Responsibilities

Employer Rights and Responsibilities

They’ve successfully convinced us that the unions are the greedy monsters. For so many years, the companies have painted unions as “we want you to pay janitors three million dollars a year and if you don’t we’ll set your stores on fire”. 

But it’s more like “We want you to take an almost imperceptible fraction of your bountiful profits and use it to make your employees’ live marginally better, and maybe give them medical benefits, y’know, so they don’t die”.

Big companies did not stop hiring ten year olds to work in coal mines because they just woke up one day and said “my god, we’re monsters”. They did it because their workers stood together and said “really, enough of this crap”.

Companies are not going to give people raises unless it’s economically necessary that they do so. Anything they can do to lower their expenses, and raise their profits, they are going to do. And no one person can stop them.

Just another reminder that Walmart Germany was a spectacular fail because of ver.di (which is a national service trade union that has it’s control over almost all trade and service companies in Germany) among other things.

Like, ver.di essentially came up to the CEO of Walmart Germany and was like “Hi, welcome, we wish you the best and that we can work together well :)” and the dude was like “hahaha no” and tried to pull the american concept here so ver.di pulled out a list of all the breaches of german law that Walmart was doing (underpaying workers, trying to avoid paying health care by using part-timers, trying to be open for more than 80 hours per week, firing people on short notice without warning or exit payments, etc) and long story short, they got some massive hefty fines for it. They also set up a list of demands for the workers and organized national strikes to push them through, making the employees of 85 hypermarkets neatly stand in front of the store doors with signs, whistles and chants (and certainly not the “Wallmart! Wallmart!” chant). In the end, that plus other things caused them to bail after 9 years with a gigantic loss (almost a billion just from sales) from one of the best retail markets in the world.

So all those issues like “no healthcare” or “work full-time and need food stamps” or “work on sundays and holidays” and shit? Unions are there to set their foot down against that for you. They are there to keep you safe from the corps wrath while fighting for your rights.

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This staff will let you use some of our magic to see it and patch it up. We'll talk you through the process. It'll all be okay, don't worry. This happens a lot more often than you might think.

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The fact that most people spend significant parts of their weekends or mornings actively dreading going into work...like, do we realize how staggeringly unhealthy that is? how many people have been living under this giant weight of anxiety for most of their lives and just don't realize it? how many people have woken up and thought "I can't do this today", knowing that their only real choice is to figure out a way to do it so they have enough money to keep going? How many people are actively ignoring the demands of their bodies for a break?

and the worst part is that this is up to us. we let bosses and corporations do this to us. today's work weeks and wages and benefits and time off (or lack thereof) aren't designed out of necessity. they exist to increase your bosses' profit.

we don't need work weeks that are designed around maximum production with the bare minimum of time off businesses can get away with giving you. we don't need back-breakingly long hours, or artificially early school mornings, or wage slavery.

sometimes it seems like we've just, universally decided as a population that overworking oneself, ignoring your own needs for rest, and pushing through conditions that are detrimental to our mental and physical health to make money for someone else is...okay.

It doesn't have to be this way.

i know because i wrote a cursed showerfam fanfic

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