• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Walmart anti-union employee video

Status
Not open for further replies.
I love my union and my federal job.

Edit: I had a thread about this a couple years ago. I had a bitch ass manager who set me up so she could fire me and hire her drinking buddy. Instead I was placed on administrative leave pending the result of an investigation by my union. I sat at home for months getting paid while my union did a very thorough investigation into the incident and the relationship between the new hire and my boss. I got paid overtime every week since I worked overtime before the incident. At the end, my union uncovered it all, put the beat down on my boss, got the new hire fired for being in the know, and I got to relocate to an office of my choosing with my seniority intact.

But yeah, fuck unions.
 
My wife is a teacher. I will be enjoying insane health benefits and her generous pension plan until I die. Not to mention her wage is damn good at $65K considering she only has 185 working days a year.
 
Link said:
This is an incredibly naive view. These days, you almost have to be a mercenary for hire - moving from company to company and using your experience as leverage - to get any meaningful raises. Staying at one place these days is the best way to have stagnant wages. Outside hires almost always get better salary offers than internal candidates, because companies know it's either accept their nominal offer, or stay stuck making what you currently do.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you definitely can't realistically make a career of staying at one place in retail.

I worked at a Lowe's for a few years after high school and one of the managers was always telling me about how he started at the company when he was my age and worked his way up, and if I applied myself I could be promoted and work in management too. He advised me a few times to drop out of school and make a career out of Lowe's (which I think was really just a veiled attempt to get my schedule more open).

He was a zone manager. If I had stayed at that store, my career path would have gone Loader (the position I was hired as) => Associate => Team Lead => Department Manager

at that point you have to be groomed to be a zone manager by serving as department manager for a few different departments, after which if you get the promotion to zone manager the managers for those departments answer to you.

The guy opened up one of his paychecks in the break room one time and threw it away in there. Someone dug it out of the trash and it turned out he was making about $17 an hour. I was shocked. Everyone working that position was middle age and most had been with the company for years.

I think the store manager made six figures, and maybe the managers just below him made more (there's a ridiculous number of managers in each store) but I guess it's one of those things where everyone just hopes/ expects that they'll eventually make it to the top.
 
ClayKavalier said:
Yeah, you definitely can't realistically make a career of staying at one place in retail.

I worked at a Lowe's for a few years after high school and one of the managers was always telling me about how he started at the company when he was my age and worked his way up, and if I applied myself I could be promoted and work in management too. He advised me a few times to drop out of school and make a career out of Lowe's (which I think was really just a veiled attempt to get my schedule more open).

He was a zone manager. If I had stayed at that store, my career path would have gone Loader (the position I was hired as) => Associate => Team Lead => Department Manager

at that point you have to be groomed to be a zone manager by serving as department manager for a few different departments, after which if you get the promotion to zone manager the managers for those departments answer to you.

The guy opened up one of his paychecks in the break room one time and threw it away in there. Someone dug it out of the trash and it turned out he was making about $17 an hour. I was shocked. Everyone working that position was middle age and most had been with the company for years.

I think the store manager made six figures, and maybe the managers just below him made more (there's a ridiculous number of managers in each store) but I guess it's one of those things where everyone just hopes/ expects that they'll eventually make it to the top.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, it's not just retail. I work in healthcare, and we lose nurses and medics all the time because they can make much more money bouncing from hospital to hospital.
 
Manmademan said:
I work in state government. We have about 7 or 8 different unions in the same building.

ALL of them are better off than the management and contract employees. Every. Damn. One. Anyone who tells you they're not a benefit is a liar, and I'm saying this AS management.



pretty much.
Click to expand...

My mom just retired with a nice pension because I convinced her to quit her hospital job and work for the state for the last couple decades of her career. She made almost triple what she was making in the (non-union) private sector, too.
She gets $3,500/month not counting SS and could have gotten almost twice that if she left the private sector earlier.
 
To be fair a union at Wal-Mart would mean giving up a valuable chunk of your paycheck for a dead end job where you don't really want the job security nor do any of the benefits really aid you. It's the same at almost all low level retail positions and I purposely did not apply at the union ones when I was a high schooler/in college.

There are a couple of awesome union shops in the retail space though that I did apply for later on.
 
I didn't think too highly of unions either until recently. I was more than annoyed that it cost more to not join the union than to join it, but after watching them bargain contracts recently, i'm pretty glad. Without the bargaining, the University, which already has a lot of shady practices, would be significantly worse and we wouldn't be making a living wage.
 
godofcookery said:
yea crap! i knew i recognized her from somewhere.

wonder if she was in SAG-AFTRA when filming this? :)
Click to expand...

The Target version has a 2 actors in it, both in the union, when one of them was asked about it he said this
9HAc1zD.png


young turks video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTPx1Lh7ZuQ
 
jwk94 said:
lol that would be funny. Man, aren't they required to state that the people in the video are actors?
Click to expand...

Not sure, I think they used to use Actors for these in my early days at Best Buy, seemed obvious to me, but I can't recall if they have to state that or not. I know later on they transitioned to using store employees for promo stuff, not sure about the union videos though.

Corran Horn said:
The Target version has a 2 actors in it, both in the union, when one of them was asked about it he said this
http://i.imgur.com/9HAc1zD.png

young turks video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTPx1Lh7ZuQ
Click to expand...

yeaaa, I understand that, a job is a job. I wasn't worried about it at that level, just thought it was funny to point out. I'm not so divorced from the reality, I understand that needing a paycheck as an actor can mean you have to say shit you may or may not believe in.
 
Problem with collective bargaining is that not everyone is on the same level. Collective bargaining is a way to assume that everyone doing the same job is as good as everyone else doing it. It's never the case.

I'm pretty much like the other guy that said in this thread at he can negociate for himself. I have never been in a union and will probably never be. My boss offered me a bonus and a raise last year when I told her I was looking for other opportunities to get a better paycheck and better benefits. If you want a raise, never go in and ask directly for a raise. It's the wrong way to do it.

People need to realize that if you play the game where your boss thinks you're scared of losing your job, you will always be treated as disposable. Deliver on the job and then act like you are happy to have this job but you don't NEED it. Employees think they don't have any power over their bosses because they act like they don't. Start acting like you are on top of things and you'll see that your boss will do A LOT to keep you.

Of course, you have to be good at what you do.
 
Dennis said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXnFrscB-6w

The purpose of this seems to be to humiliate workers. I doubt Walmart executives would be seen dead doing this shit.
Click to expand...

When I was in high school we did similar things at K Mart(my 1st job). It's done before the store opens usually after a meeting/pep talk.

Believe it or not, it was pretty fun. If you were shy you didn't have to do it. Having a silly moment before a long day was refreshing.
 
godofcookery said:
yea crap! i knew i recognized her from somewhere.

wonder if she was in SAG-AFTRA when filming this? :)
Click to expand...

Depends on what state she filmed it in. California forces all actors to join SAG after their first Union Job, where as in Texas it's optional. I've been "SAG-Eligible" for 20 years but have not joined because I'm in a work for hire state. Yay Texas!
 
Link said:
Unfortunately, it's not just retail. I work in healthcare, and we lose nurses and medics all the time because they can make much more money bouncing from hospital to hospital.
Click to expand...

Yeah, definitely. My mom works in health care and talks about that.

And bizarrely, bouncing between hospitals/ firms/ whatever can be more stable than being promoted within a company, especially if you work retail. For example several managers at the Lowe's I worked at had ridiculous commutes but they either needed experience before being promoted (for example higher-level managers within a store are usually trained at another location before returning with their new title) or there was no opportunity at their old store so they commuted in order to move up.

I know at least two, the Operations Manager, and some other manager, can't remember all of the titles, had commutes over an hour each way.

I grew up in an extremely small town so bouncing between stores may not have been an option, but if they lived in a city it would have been way more convenient to move around between different chains, they could have had a similar career path without moving or commuting.
 
Kozak said:
I'm a Union delegate.

In my experience, the people who have the most issues with Unions or think they don't "work", are the people who will sit around, do nothing and expect things to come their way and if they don't, its the Unions fault.

A Union is exactly what its name suggests yet so many people seem to think the Union is this thing you pay for that will protect you but requires no involvement on your behalf.

How can a Union have any strength without unity?
Click to expand...

Hrrrm? You must be referring to US based Unions, I know they work a bit differently, because the construction Unions in Aus are the complete opposite of what you are saying.

Union members are the ones sitting around all day doing nothing and expecting to be paid far and above the average wage while expecting everything to come their way while being protected by the Union to do so.
 
B-Dubs said:
They're also the reason your job pays what it does and you have whatever benefits you happen to have.
Click to expand...

I started at slightly more than minimum wage and the only benefits I get have been perks Disney has given its cast members since the the 1950s pre Union. The union does jack shit for us other than sticking their hands in our pay checks.
 
TAJ said:
My mom just retired with a nice pension because I convinced her to quit her hospital job and work for the state for the last couple decades of her career. She made almost triple what she was making in the (non-union) private sector, too.
She gets $3,500/month not counting SS and could have gotten almost twice that if she left the private sector earlier.
Click to expand...

The best example I have here to illustrate my point is this:

Around the time when the economy went into the toilet, the state ran into a lot of trouble. Funds evaporated, and of course raising taxes or finding new revenue is nearly impossible.
So, cuts came rolling in pretty much everywhere across all sectors.

Management employees across the state saw their salaries frozen. No raises for anyone, regardless of where you worked, or how good your "negotiating" skills were.

Union employees were protected from this sort of thing explicitly by their labor contract, and continued to receive their contractual increases. This went on for about 7 years- so long in fact that the state was not only having significant problems convincing anyone to take a management position, but management employees were actually taking DEMOTIONS to get into union protected positions, as their subordinates were outearning them across the board.
 
Hellraizah said:
Problem with collective bargaining is that not everyone is on the same level. Collective bargaining is a way to assume that everyone doing the same job is as good as everyone else doing it. It's never the case.

I'm pretty much like the other guy that said in this thread at he can negociate for himself. I have never been in a union and will probably never be. My boss offered me a bonus and a raise last year when I told her I was looking for other opportunities to get a better paycheck and better benefits. If you want a raise, never go in and ask directly for a raise. It's the wrong way to do it.

People need to realize that if you play the game where your boss thinks you're scared of losing your job, you will always be treated as disposable. Deliver on the job and then act like you are happy to have this job but you don't NEED it. Employees think they don't have any power over their bosses because they act like they don't. Start acting like you are on top of things and you'll see that your boss will do A LOT to keep you.

Of course, you have to be good at what you do.
Click to expand...

Why should everyone be skilled at some Game of Thrones BS just to get a fair wage for their job?
 
Hellraizah said:
Problem with collective bargaining is that not everyone is on the same level. Collective bargaining is a way to assume that everyone doing the same job is as good as everyone else doing it. It's never the case.

I'm pretty much like the other guy that said in this thread at he can negociate for himself. I have never been in a union and will probably never be. My boss offered me a bonus and a raise last year when I told her I was looking for other opportunities to get a better paycheck and better benefits. If you want a raise, never go in and ask directly for a raise. It's the wrong way to do it.

People need to realize that if you play the game where your boss thinks you're scared of losing your job, you will always be treated as disposable. Deliver on the job and then act like you are happy to have this job but you don't NEED it. Employees think they don't have any power over their bosses because they act like they don't. Start acting like you are on top of things and you'll see that your boss will do A LOT to keep you.

Of course, you have to be good at what you do.
Click to expand...

And some people just want a steady job without having to play a "game" for it like you apparently have to.

I fully support unions helping people keep their job when upper management with more power can fuck you over for no good reason other than they just can like Coins pointed out in his post above:
Coins said:
I love my union and my federal job.

Edit: I had a thread about this a couple years ago. I had a bitch ass manager who set me up so she could fire me and hire her drinking buddy. Instead I was placed on administrative leave pending the result of an investigation by my union. I sat at home for months getting paid while my union did a very thorough investigation into the incident and the relationship between the new hire and my boss. I got paid overtime every week since I worked overtime before the incident. At the end, my union uncovered it all, put the beat down on my boss, got the new hire fired for being in the know, and I got to relocate to an office of my choosing with my seniority intact.

But yeah, fuck unions.
Click to expand...
 
Hellraizah said:
Problem with collective bargaining is that not everyone is on the same level. Collective bargaining is a way to assume that everyone doing the same job is as good as everyone else doing it. It's never the case.

I'm pretty much like the other guy that said in this thread at he can negociate for himself. I have never been in a union and will probably never be. My boss offered me a bonus and a raise last year when I told her I was looking for other opportunities to get a better paycheck and better benefits. If you want a raise, never go in and ask directly for a raise. It's the wrong way to do it.

People need to realize that if you play the game where your boss thinks you're scared of losing your job, you will always be treated as disposable. Deliver on the job and then act like you are happy to have this job but you don't NEED it. Employees think they don't have any power over their bosses because they act like they don't. Start acting like you are on top of things and you'll see that your boss will do A LOT to keep you.

Of course, you have to be good at what you do.
Click to expand...

The funny thing is that if you compare the data, it ends up being that even the best performers in their class end up earning more with unions than without.

Funny how leverage works, doesn't it.

Man God said:
To be fair a union at Wal-Mart would mean giving up a valuable chunk of your paycheck for a dead end job where you don't really want the job security nor do any of the benefits really aid you. It's the same at almost all low level retail positions and I purposely did not apply at the union ones when I was a high schooler/in college.

There are a couple of awesome union shops in the retail space though that I did apply for later on.
Click to expand...

Livable wage would be a nice thing, though.
 
Barsinister said:
I actually did ask for more than they offered initially. When the conditions of the job no longer were satisfying, I left and got a job that pays more. When that job started to stagnate, I just left that one and am just starting a new one that pays even better. I have a mortgage and one kid still at home.

Instead of bootstraps, I would argue that one is responsible for one's own livelihood. I forge my own destiny, so can anyone else.
Click to expand...

Basically "Fuck you got mine". Wow.

Not everyone has your luck when it comes to finding jobs. You got lucky, nothing more. Plenty of people work very hard trying to get jobs and come up empty handed.
 
Not having unions in Australia would have been utter shit for job security and I'm glad they are going strong for us.

Also what name is Juanita...the hell happened to names like Jane or Charlotte.
 
HowZatOZ said:
Not having unions in Australia would have been utter shit for job security and I'm glad they are going strong for us.

Also what name is Juanita...the hell happened to names like Jane or Charlotte.
Click to expand...

Whats wrong with Juanita? Not anglo enough for you?
 
The strong emphasis against unions in the US has always baffled me. I'm in the union here in Austria and I'm gladly paying for it every month. It's crazy how much assistance in almost every regard they offer.
 
Unions are only neccesary if government regulation cant provide the neccessary protection for the wel being of the workforce

So yeah... unions are pretty much still a good thing here for the most part

:/
 
Valnen said:
Basically "Fuck you got mine". Wow.

Not everyone has your luck when it comes to finding jobs. You got lucky, nothing more. Plenty of people work very hard trying to get jobs and come up empty handed.
Click to expand...

I would like for you to think I'm saying,"I got mine and you can get yours too!" I am a very charitable person. Oh, and leaving jobs had nothing to do with pay, I left because the work no longer was fulfilling.

I really would like to think that I have marketable skills that are in demand and pay well. Maybe I am lucky, but I don't always feel that way. I work hard every day.
 
Barsinister said:
I actually did ask for more than they offered initially. When the conditions of the job no longer were satisfying, I left and got a job that pays more. When that job started to stagnate, I just left that one and am just starting a new one that pays even better. I have a mortgage and one kid still at home.

Instead of bootstraps, I would argue that one is responsible for one's own livelihood. I forge my own destiny, so can anyone else.

edit:I am living "this incredibly naïve view".
Click to expand...

So..let me get this straight.

No bootstraps. Yet, bootstraps. Even a dose of free will "you get what you have" nonsense, too. Great ideas: too bad we have a system that is about getting away with exploiting the humanity of the individual. Let's get one fact out of the way; if you make less than $20, you are already making sub-minimum wage. Too many people are caught under that and all they have is opportunities in that domain. That's not even considering how costs are always rising against the stagnant sub-wage, making what they make worth less and less, nor the problem of automation being more economical to replace those jobs faster than ones on the higher spectrum. Your ideas of moving on and getting something else is, quite literally, an option for a minority, so it should not be held as the central argument on what people can do. It's precisely created and cultivated the problem we have here.

One should not be held responsible for their livelihood in a system that is systemically uninterested in even the survival of individuals (or worse, even the biosphere...), but paper and money above the survival of people. "Making yourself" in a cancerous system is still making yourself in a dying, dangerous, and insoluble model of society. We should be interested in making a baseline income for all people, employed or otherwise, or we risk ruin. Fuck, we're already in ruins, but people are too shitbrained about it to really acknowledge we are a failed society.

The first way we move there is educate people that the idea of "you are worth what you work" is as logical as being a flat earthist. Otherwise we're caught with solutions like yours to the problems we face; we don't get actual solutions to the problems we've made, but a kind of kicking the can down the road. Good on you for being able to find better, but do not think for a single moment this is given to most people. That thinking has no ground.
 
Barsinister said:
I would like for you to think I'm saying,"I got mine and you can get yours too!" I am a very charitable person. Oh, and leaving jobs had nothing to do with pay, I left because the work no longer was fulfilling.

I really would like to think that I have marketable skills that are in demand and pay well. Maybe I am lucky, but I don't always feel that way. I work hard every day.
Click to expand...

Why, exactly, would you leave money on the table?
Not having organized negotiating is like not haggling in a car dealership. Sure, you can do that. Dealer will appreciate, i'm sure. For yourself, though, it's a damn stupid idea.
 
Unions are strange. They in theory have the best of intentions, but many times the union organizers can fall to corruption just as easily as the corporations they are "protecting" their members from. Also Unions can stifle innovation, because it crams more people in the middle. That can raise people that were previously at the bottom, but now the innovators and better skilled employees are being rewarded no more than the ones that are no more than collecting a check. That situation could lead to lower performance overall, as there is less significant reward for individuals. Though I suppose the hope there would be that those that are brought up in pay and benefits thanks to a union would see a parallel improvement in their performance, that seems idealistic at best.

Edit: I only speak from my own experience and from I have seen as well. I worked one job that had a union and the people there were the biggest check collectors I have ever worked with and they all felt protected, but in the wrong sense of the word.
 
Foffy said:
So..let me get this straight.

No bootstraps. Yet, bootstraps. Even a dose of free will "you get what you have" nonsense, too. Great ideas: too bad we have a system that is about getting away with exploiting the humanity of the individual. Let's get one fact out of the way; if you make less than $20, you are already making sub-minimum wage. Too many people are caught under that and all they have is opportunities in that domain. That's not even considering how costs are always rising against the stagnant sub-wage, making what they make worth less and less, nor the problem of automation being more economical to replace those jobs faster than ones on the higher spectrum. Your ideas of moving on and getting something else is, quite literally, an option for a minority, so it should not be held as the central argument on what people can do. It's precisely created and cultivated the problem we have here.

One should not be held responsible for their livelihood in a system that is systemically uninterested in even the survival of individuals (or worse, even the biosphere...), but paper and money above the survival of people. "Making yourself" in a cancerous system is still making yourself in a dying, dangerous, and insoluble model of society. We should be interested in making a baseline income for all people, employed or otherwise, or we risk ruin. Fuck, we're already in ruins, but people are too shitbrained about it to really acknowledge we are a failed society.

The first way we move there is educate people that the idea of "you are worth what you work" is as logical as being a flat earthist. Otherwise we're caught with solutions like yours to the problems we face; we don't get actual solutions to the problems we've made, but a kind of kicking the can down the road. Good on you for being able to find better, but do not think for a single moment this is given to most people. That thinking has no ground.
Click to expand...

I really am having a hard time with this reductionist "bootstraps" line of thinking. All I am reading is you saying socialism is the solution. It can't be mate, not everyone has the same skills in everything. I am constantly impressed with the knowledge and creativity just on this one message board. Lots of people showing off their own particular skills and accomplishments. Even the guy on here who rewrote the bible put a lot of effort into something he was mocked for.

There was an Albert Brooks movie called "Defending your Life" that I saw many years ago on a date with my future wife that changed my way of thinking about the world. In the movie, Albert dies in a car accident and goes to the afterlife where his former life is put on trial to see if he can "move on" into the universe. There is one scene where they show him talking to his wife before he goes to negotiate a salary for a new job. He is adamant that he will only accept a certain wage, nothing less. When the time comes to actually negotiate, he take the first offer that is less than he swore he would take. The prosecutor asks him why he thought so less of himself that he would not stand firm and only take what he wanted. Albert makes excuses and the movie continues.

I don't know if I wrote that out in a comprehensible way, but it was affecting to me. And it's just a stupid comedy movie. I guess it made me take more risks in my own life, not settle. I've been in movies and cleaned toilets, done a lot of different things. Everything I've done shapes who I am and how I relate to people around me. Sorry for so much text but it really comes from a place of honesty and I wish everyone here well. There have been so many suicide threads on here lately, it's heartbreaking.
 
Eh, I have a hard time getting behind unions, at least for jobs like Walmart. I don't know about other fields.
My sister (and friends) have worked at grocery stores/supermarkets that were union. I worked at Walmart which was non-union. I was paid more, got more hours, got a yearly bonus, and was treated better by management.
When I think about how my sister was paid less, worked less, and had to pay union dues on top of that, it just doesn't really make any sense to me.
 
Good Job Bob said:
Haha yeah, the Walton family has your best interest at heart. No need to be pests and organize with your fellow workers.

cc5nkv4vaaayacx.jpg
Click to expand...

This chart again? The top 10% of household incomes in America is roughly $140-$150K. Household! Meaning more than one income can count to the number! EDIT: Digging for the top 10% distribution for individuals, it appears to be around $90K. Are these people the greedy enemy?

But let's keep pushing a narrative association of The Walton Family and other top .01% folk with doctors, lawyers, managers, dual-income households (teacher + cop for example), etc.
 
Barsinister said:
I really am having a hard time with this reductionist "bootstraps" line of thinking. All I am reading is you saying socialism is the solution. It can't be mate, not everyone has the same skills in everything. I am constantly impressed with the knowledge and creativity just on this one message board. Lots of people showing off their own particular skills and accomplishments. Even the guy on here who rewrote the bible put a lot of effort into something he was mocked for.

There was an Albert Brooks movie called "Defending your Life" that I saw many years ago on a date with my future wife that changed my way of thinking about the world. In the movie, Albert dies in a car accident and goes to the afterlife where his former life is put on trial to see if he can "move on" into the universe. There is one scene where they show him talking to his wife before he goes to negotiate a salary for a new job. He is adamant that he will only accept a certain wage, nothing less. When the time comes to actually negotiate, he take the first offer that is less than he swore he would take. The prosecutor asks him why he thought so less of himself that he would not stand firm and only take what he wanted. Albert makes excuses and the movie continues.

I don't know if I wrote that out in a comprehensible way, but it was affecting to me. And it's just a stupid comedy movie. I guess it made me take more risks in my own life, not settle. I've been in movies and cleaned toilets, done a lot of different things. Everything I've done shapes who I am and how I relate to people around me. Sorry for so much text but it really comes from a place of honesty and I wish everyone here well. There have been so many suicide threads on here lately, it's heartbreaking.
Click to expand...
Sorry, but...

4CQEqAZ.gif


Aside from trying to shape unions into "socialism" that only help undeserving people get jobs, you're disgustingly going to throw suicide into your argument? You were already on a course of nonsense, but that's just... wow.
 
Sakura said:
Eh, I have a hard time getting behind unions, at least for jobs like Walmart. I don't know about other fields.
My sister (and friends) have worked at grocery stores/supermarkets that were union. I worked at Walmart which was non-union. I was paid more, got more hours, got a yearly bonus, and was treated better by management.
When I think about how my sister was paid less, worked less, and had to pay union dues on top of that, it just doesn't really make any sense to me.
Click to expand...

Yea the one time I worked at a place with a union was a Supermarket. Perhaps that is just not the best place for a union, because retail and supermarkets can be a revolving door.
 
Barsinister said:
I really am having a hard time with this reductionist "bootstraps" line of thinking. All I am reading is you saying socialism is the solution. It can't be mate, not everyone has the same skills in everything. I am constantly impressed with the knowledge and creativity just on this one message board. Lots of people showing off their own particular skills and accomplishments. Even the guy on here who rewrote the bible put a lot of effort into something he was mocked for.

There was an Albert Brooks movie called "Defending your Life" that I saw many years ago on a date with my future wife that changed my way of thinking about the world. In the movie, Albert dies in a car accident and goes to the afterlife where his former life is put on trial to see if he can "move on" into the universe. There is one scene where they show him talking to his wife before he goes to negotiate a salary for a new job. He is adamant that he will only accept a certain wage, nothing less. When the time comes to actually negotiate, he take the first offer that is less than he swore he would take. The prosecutor asks him why he thought so less of himself that he would not stand firm and only take what he wanted. Albert makes excuses and the movie continues.

I don't know if I wrote that out in a comprehensible way, but it was affecting to me. And it's just a stupid comedy movie. I guess it made me take more risks in my own life, not settle. I've been in movies and cleaned toilets, done a lot of different things. Everything I've done shapes who I am and how I relate to people around me. Sorry for so much text but it really comes from a place of honesty and I wish everyone here well. There have been so many suicide threads on here lately, it's heartbreaking.
Click to expand...

No, I am saying sensible actions are what we need. A guaranteed income is one thing we need or else, quite frankly, we risk an economic depression via automation. This is not hyperbole, but truly understanding what models are available today will impact labor and remove human beings from big sectors as machines start entering more cognitive vocations. The arguments all but guarantee a quarter of the population being usurped, and only a quarter is needed for a depression. The spook is many comprehensive studies argue double that number, so almost half of human labor today can be impeded in our lifetimes.

If the socialism or anything under that banner is our way to avoid it, then call it what you wish. Our cancerous capitalism will not prevail for common people when that paradigm shift happens. In fact, it is capitalism that promotes the suffering and abuse of humanity today; why would outsourcing be viable? Very plainly, it's to take advantage of poorer people to work more for less. It's not to help those populations thrive, for we're just as quick to bring those jobs back domestically for the machines to do, which increases labor production at such a rate that hiring a person is a negative. We have a totally unsustainable system for people to live, for they're expected to be cogs in a machine, yet better cogs to make the machine run better are coming, and those cogs aren't human.

That's all just on the automation problem, which will be huge. That's not considering the problem of stagnating and garbage wages, and how companies are hellbent at amassing paper and metal over the tangible worthiness of living things, which our system has produced and continues to support. Our way of life guarantees this illogical way of life, and I am mainly interested in any model that makes more sense of our world. What we have as a social system with labor ought to be thrown out and put in the history books as yet another human failure, run with dogma and ignorance. Your anecdotal responses on how you improved yourself are not sustainable in this framework, let alone an option for most people. Can you at least see that?

Mind you, I didn't say anything about unions, for I think they're a mixed bag. Most of all, they work in the framework of our system, so I ultimately hold them as insoluble for the problems I cited earlier.
 
Man God said:
To be fair a union at Wal-Mart would mean giving up a valuable chunk of your paycheck for a dead end job where you don't really want the job security nor do any of the benefits really aid you. It's the same at almost all low level retail positions and I purposely did not apply at the union ones when I was a high schooler/in college.

There are a couple of awesome union shops in the retail space though that I did apply for later on.
Click to expand...

If all wal mart workers were unionized the dues would be next to nothing and the benefits would be incredible
 
Link said:
Sorry, but...

4CQEqAZ.gif


Aside from trying to shape unions into "socialism" that only help undeserving people get jobs, you're disgustingly going to throw suicide into your argument? You were already on a course of nonsense, but that's just... wow.
Click to expand...

I've really got to go to work, but I don't think I was replying to you. Did you just write "UNDESERVING PEOPLE". Does that mean like helping people who don't deserve the job get it anyway? I don't want to live in a world where that is possible. You seem like a smart and reasonable guy so I don't think my assessment of your message is correct.

Unions are a bit like socialism, at least to my way of thinking. If I go to work and every day I work and produce more than Tony. He makes more than me and Tony's been here longer and the union rules say seniority trumps production, that's wrong, at least in my worldview. I've been in union shops too.

I only mentioned the suicide thing as an aside, it was not part of my argument.
 
Barsinister said:
I've really got to go to work, but I don't think I was replying to you. Did you just write "UNDESERVING PEOPLE". Does that mean like helping people who don't deserve the job get it anyway? I don't want to live in a world where that is possible. You seem like a smart and reasonable guy so I don't think my assessment of your message is correct.

Unions are a bit like socialism, at least to my way of thinking. If I go to work and every day I work and produce more than Tony. He makes more than me and Tony's been here longer and the union rules say seniority trumps production, that's wrong, at least in my worldview. I've been in union shops too.

I only mentioned the suicide thing as an aside, it was not part of my argument.
Click to expand...

This isn't always true it depends on the contract. There can still be performance bonuses and similar things in Union jobs but the reason seniority rules are so widespread is its a tactic to divide the union. Blanket rules mean fair treatment for all.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Roblox employee's 'day in the life' video goes viral
2
61
825
Boss Mog replied
Advent of Code 2025 - The Elves Join the Union
0
246
JeTmAn81 replied
Music video reactions
15
500
Trilobit replied
Alan Ritchson : Update - Neighbor Confrontation Video Released
2 3 4 5
201
1K
midnightAI replied
Linus Tech Tips breaks silence after ex-employee’s resignation video goes viral. 'Spoiler linus acts like a donkey'.
News Drama  2 3
102
2K
TVexperto replied
Top Bottom