I know this couple who contracted COVID during the pandemic but refused to report it and take sick days. He - because his workplace was offering bonuses for employees who weren’t taking sick days (don’t remember if it was monthly or annually) and he didn’t want to miss on that. She - because she already took all her sick days as PTO, without actually being sick.
I can’t help but wonder if that’s really what sick days are supposed to be…
Perhaps Americans need to learn to call them wellness days and not place some arbitrarily low limit for amount of days on them. Ten or twelve to start a year seems reasonable. Americans are bizarre.
The Americans that are in power here. Sure. Why do you guys insist on pretending that we approve of it? Unless you’ve personally gone out and solved at least one injustice in your country then you really can’t talk. Shit is hard and a lot of us are trying.
Unless you’ve personally gone out and solved at least one injustice in your country then you really can’t talk.
Lol because that’s how injustices ever get solved: by one guy.
Man, I’m an American but this “you need to be a guy who personally solved government” take is so American it’s rolling coal in a F-150 with a tattered flag flying from it while blasting rounds from two ar-15s.
I mean… Isn’t that literally what they’re doing when they generalize all of us as being ok with this bullshit? The person I replied to. Yeah, it is. So why come at me if that really bothers you? Kinda hypocritical
Isn’t that literally what they’re doing when they generalize all of us as being ok with this bullshit?
No, not really. You not understanding the difference is also pretty American.
In some other countries, the people actually do address problems with the laws and make reforms. One of the main reasons we cannot is because our country is run by oligarchs and/or kleptocrats.
Having industry write government policy isn’t a universal, and shouldn’t be expected knowledge about a country that brands itself as a “democracy”. In fact, many of our own citizens don’t even know the reality of how this country runs.
So, people outside of the American system don’t know how difficult it is for “the people” (as a group) to actually wield power within it, especially if they have bought any of our propaganda about us being #1 at democracy or whatever.
They likely weren’t calling for some “rugged individual” / Superman character to fix the government. Such notions are laughable within some other countries. Instead, a lot of countries have successful protest, voting, and labor groups that help shape policy. The US just hasn’t meaningfully worked that way in a long time (though I’ve been pretty happy with recent developments in labor organization).
I appreciate the insult right at the top there. Lets me just save time and move on after two sentences so thanks for that at least.
I don’t know what’s insulting about that but I’m glad I saved you a brain wrinkle. 🫡
Edit: I’d like someone to explain to me the online phenomenon whereby people who roll around being gruff assholes are also permitted by the audience to be pearl clutchers who faint at the slightest perceived insult two posts later.
Yes, but also setting the norm where it should be is something. We should expect these things. If your business is screwed because one employee calls off with an hour notice, you don’t have enough redundancy. And this isn’t just menial positions either. If Elon gets horribly sick, they postpone or have someone stand in for him. That should apply all the way down the company.
You can save on labor in the short term. You’ll pay for it another way long term, either by losing overly stressed staff or by having someone too critical call in sick at a bad time.
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That’s true except a lot of managers have zero power over how many people they’re allowed to hire. So, again, setting norms isn’t something that we can just do. As individuals, we’re hobbled by the wealthy/corporations/government (which are all the same thing at this point of we’re being real) at just about every turn. If they don’t like something they just pay lobbyists and it goes away. To the detriment of the average US citizen yet we still manage to get dunked on constantly as if we’re not getting dragged through the wringer. As if we’re just ok with everything.
You’re taking this too personally. Setting norms isn’t something done by a manager and is absolutely just public perception. Happens in middle school constantly. Kids come in with a new, unusual haircut. First kid in earshot brands it as cool or lame. The norm is set.
This isn’t much more than saying American PTO policies are shit. That’s not an attack on you. It’s an attack on people who are okay with the status quo.
You can save on labor in the short term. You’ll pay for it another way long term, either by losing overly stressed staff or by having someone too critical call in sick at a bad time.
Or anything else. Perhaps they’re involved in a car accident and cannot get into work even if they’re not injured, perhaps someone critical dies unexpectedly, or they get head-hunted by another company and leave without giving you warning since they obviously don’t need the reference.
So many bad things can happen when you only have a single point of failure. Companies will pay for multiple internet lines but refuse to hire additional staff. One of those things is not like the other.
Actually we’re from one of these few countries that don’t happen to be the US.
Florida?
What the he’ll are people doing that they get sick so often? I’ve used 3 in the last 8 years and one of those was a funeral. Granted I can work from home when I have a cold or whatever but I have coworkers who seem like they’re out every other week.
congratulations, your immune system doesn’t suck.
between migraines and colds, I’m down to just 1 sick day left. that’s despite wearing a mask, washing my hands, etc. the last cold just laid me out for a week. migraines (which at less than 3 a year are too rare for the Dr to give me meds) come with visual sparkles that make working on a computer pretty impossible. most cold meds also make me incredibly sleepy, so I can try to work through it - or I can sleep and get better faster. this was a bad year. last year I barely needed sick days, hopefully next year will be more like last year. Masks help. work from home, avoiding the public, helps. but my immune system is just kinda crap, so I just work through what I can, and call in sick when I can’t.
He - because his workplace was offering bonuses for employees who weren’t taking sick days
Good god is that illegal in Europe. Employees are entitled to sick pay if they’re sick, if no reason other than to ensure they don’t come into the office and get everyone else ill as well. Also employees are actually required to take holiday pay, last year I got called into a meeting and got told I had to take more holidays because I wasn’t taking enough.
She - because she already took all her sick days as PTO, without actually being sick.
Again illegal in Europe, PTO and sick pay are independent of each other. There’s no limit on the number of sick days you can have, although if you go beyond a certain number you do require a doctor’s note, but as long as you have that you’re golden. In theory this is abusable, but because everyone gets PTO anyway, and actually get a decent number of days, there isn’t really the incentive to do that.
It’s bizarre the way the United States operates.
Also employees are actually required to take holiday pay, last year I got called into a meeting and got told I had to take more holidays because I wasn’t taking enough.
Huh. Similar thing in post-Soviet with vacations. If you are not taking vacations for too long, employer will get nervous, if you are not taking vacations for two years, employer required to send you to vacation no matter what.
Also what is holiday pay? Quick search says that it is extra pay for working during holidays. Well, here holidays are non-working days, so working during them counts as overtime.
Overtime is 1.5x the hourly wage in the U.S. This is federal law.
Holiday pay is usually 2-2.5x the hourly wage if the company requires people to work on set holidays. If it’s a day off, then it’s paid as PTO. This is not required by federal law but some states have requirements.
Shitty companies that view employees as costs, don’t pay Holiday pay. Around 20% of the workforce.
Good companies that view employees as assets have policies to keep employees. Like my companies most recent e-mail about the holiday schedule.
We will be closed from December 25th to January 1st. This is considered holiday pay and will not be deducted from your PTO.
Fo some reason have zero issues with recruiting good staff and keeping them.
Huh. I always assumed holiday pay was also 1.5x. I haven’t had many chances to earn it. I’m pretty sure it was at my last job. I haven’t found out about my current job yet.
In the US for every employer I’ve seen, holiday pay is usually 8 hours of straight time (assuming you have an 8 hour shift) plus 1.5x for the hours you worked. So if you worked your normal 8 hour shift you get 2.5x pay. But it’s not. If you worked less then 8 you get 8 hours straight plus 1.5x the hours you worked. It’s also common that if you worked 40 hours before the holiday that straight time becomes overtime. Usually only applies to Thanksgiving/black friday. And occasionally Christmas when it falls towards the end of the week.
Needless to say this varies among employers. If you have a union you likely get double or even triple time for hours worked on a holiday, but likely still the same straight time pay for the day itself. Legally the company doesn’t have to pay anything extra for holidays for time not worked.
Here regular overtime is at least 1.5x for under 2 hours, 2x for over.
Holiday time paid at least 2x or 1x if employee chooses to add day to PTO(which in practice I never heard anyone did).
Both are in federal law too.
Also what is holiday pay?
It’s literally you just being paid even though you’re not working. Employers are required to do it in Europe. The pay is the same rate as if you were working but it’s got a different name for tax purposes so companies can differentiate between employees being compensated for working and employees just being paid to be off.
Also you have what are called “unsociable working hours compensation” Which means nights, and weekends. And “unsociable working dates compensation” which means national holidays.
Unsociable working hours is usually 1.5x base rate, and unsocial working dates is 2x base rate. So a night shift over the Christmas period would be both so it would be 2.5x base rate. So in other words if you work for 1 hour, you get paid as if you’d worked 2 hours 30 minutes.
The United States operates a different system and companies can get out of it sometimes which isn’t really possible in Europe.
Employees are entitled to sick pay if they’re sick, if no reason other than to ensure they don’t come into the office and get everyone else ill as well.
Two jobs ago (in the States) my employer was extremely stingy with any paid time away from work.
I got six days. Total. (Not counting holidays.)
Six days for any and all purposes that one might need to not be in the office.
They even had the gall to say they offered sick days, “because you can use your PTO to stay home when you’re sick”.
Fuck that.
I came to work no matter how sick I was. I knew exactly how much I made in a day, and as soon as my boss or anyone else would complain about how I shouldn’t be there, I’d ask them if they were willing to pay me my daily wage to go home. Because I only got six days, so fuck me if I was going to use any of them for anything other than my own enjoyment. If I was sick, I was miserable and less productive anyway, might as well get paid for that, and not burn any of my precious PTO.
On one occasion, I was so sick my boss actually agreed to send me home and pay the rest of my day without taking PTO…but of course the stingy bastard couldn’t just give people more sick days.
And how much of their workplace ended up sick because of that?
My coworker refuses to “waste” any days he has unless they’re for a vacation… This selfish p.o.s has gotten me sick 3 times in the last year alone, one of the times I missed Christmas with my family because of him… So I have to waste my time so that he can have more paid vacations…
Is he the selfish one or is it the companies fault for having a shit PTO policy?
You should recontextualize that for them: “when you come in sick, you are reaching in to my wallet and taking the money I should be owed, and may need, for stuff like ‘oops my entire gallbladder needs to be taken out or else I’ll die’. All because you want to be teacher’s pet: you should be handing money out like its candy (through cashapp or venmo or whatever) when you come in sick, because that’s only fair, and paying the company money from all the productivity lost by making everyone else sick. If you don’t have that money to hand out, maybe you shouldn’t be coming in sick.”
Or, y’know, if they’re so gung-ho about everyone having shared misery: maybe it’s time to advocate for a union.
That would work on someone who gave a shit. This guy cares only about #1. He laughs about the times he was thrown in prison in Guatemala for telling his superiors to fuck off when they asked him to do his job when he was in their military lol
Sounds like it’s time to form a union with everybody else to force him to stop endangering everybody else’s wallet then lol
This starts in school with awards for perfect attendance
Whoa what, is that a US thing or something?
It’s fairly common in the US to have award ceremonies at the end of the school year, and perfect attendance is an award that’s usually given.
Really sums it up tbh. No one gets through school without needing a sick day, but they offer children a worthless piece of paper for being obedient enough to risk everyone else’s health.
Dont know about other kids, but seems like I had strep throat and conjunctivitis at least twice a year. Thankfully I did NOT have perfect attendance.
Maybe its an award for children with especially strong immune systems? Cool.
I had serious respiratory immune issues (technically still do) and I actually got in “trouble” with the principal once for missing too many days. He basically tried to intimidate me to admit I was slacking off and skipping out. I laughed and suggested he call my dad and his tone immediately changed.
This was in Canada too. That principal was a worthless sack of turd. He stood in the middle of the hallways between classes and tried to impose this grumpy, mean, “hard ass” attitude.
btw, some of the federal funding that public schools receive is tied to attendance. so in addition to whatever cultural pressures are in operation in schools, they REALLY want students there every day for financial reasons as well.
Yeah, well fuck them. I used up my one week’s worth of sick days and all of my PTO and am now on FMLA because I’m dealing with an illness that is causing me to miss work. What the fuck am I supposed to do? They told me to go on FMLA.
I had to use FMLA leave a couple years back when I was out for a planned surgery that took about 4-6 weeks to recover from.
Technically, I think FMLA really only ensures you’ll have a job to return to. They legally cannot fire you or lay you off if you’re on FMLA.
FMLA doesn’t offer any paid time off, though, so most employers require you to use your accrued time off (both sick time and vacation time) concurrently with your FMLA leave. Once that runs out, you stop getting paid.
Yep. I’m not getting paid anymore but I won’t be fired. Ain’t America grand?
the idea that sick days somehow impose a financial burden of the company is a blatant lie of criminal proportions. It is a justification for wage theft
people should use all of their sick days
Why do you even have an allocation of sick days? It’s not really a concept anywhere I’ve worked (in the UK).
I’m in the US and I get 3 paid sick days a year. Anything more and I don’t get paid PLUS I get a point. After 8 points I lose my job. We come to work sick unless we are in the hospital.
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My last job had no sick days. I would get no pay for the day and a point, and at 6 points you’re gone.
The job I have now ALSO has no sick days, but at least the attendance policy is so lax I can literally skip 2/3 shifts and stay employed. Still no pay, but it’s a bit less shitty than my last job.
The bar is so fucking low I don’t think ground penetrating radar could find it.
Might be worth checking the flowchart to see if you’re eligible for FMLA leave. If you are and they’re denying you sick leave The Department of Labor would love to hear about it – they don’t screw around.
I read FMLA as Fuck My Life America.
(Not American)
That is fucking insane. The burden for everyone who gets sincerely sick and is horrible fucked. Its just sad.
If Americans knew what workers rights were they’d be very angry to realise they have none.
No, we have worker’s rights – not enough, but you do have rights. Federal and state labor law covers a surprisingly broad number of topics.
Shitty employers want you to think you don’t have rights, because they want to continue to illegally exploit you.
Like to have some more of those rights? Consider joining a union.
Look up what you could have and tell me if it actually compares.
Most Americans still have their hears shoved so far up their asses that they think all of Europe is a freedomless third world region where the governments silence all criticism and doctors still use leeches or something. Just completely delusional and in denial.
Of course most Americans haven’t even left their own state, never mind gone to Europe to experience it themselves.
Most Americans still have their hears shoved so far up their asses that they think all of Europe is a freedomless third world region where the governments silence all criticism and doctors still use leeches or something. Just completely delusional and in denial.
do you actually believe this or are you just trolling
Its pretty hyperbolic, but I know people that aren’t far from thinking this way.
This isn’t the argument you think it is.
US and UK reading levels are within margin of error
Australia has worse literacy than the US/UK
https://www.stylemanual.gov.au/accessible-and-inclusive-content/literacy-and-access
The literacy map in that article is really interesting. .
Looking around places I’ve lived, and frequent, Many were in the 60% for level 3 literacy (much higher than average). But the countries around them were often below average sub 40%. Cities seem to be an exception and seem to have very low level 3 numbers.
i mean… i would like to go to europe, but where on earth do i find the time off work and the money to do it?
that americans are not better traveled is not entirely the fault of their attitudes. it’s easier for your average european to travel internationally for a number if reasons, both practical and systemic.
edit - for many americans, international travel is a privilege.
You’re right, it is a great privilege. I’ve never left the U.S. either. But I’m also not a fucking dumbass MURICAMAN that thinks a $5000 bill for a broken arm and 3 sick days a year is something to be grateful for.
I’m able to see that my country is super fucked up and that mlst of Europe seem to do most things better.
This is because, so far, it’s up to the state’s to regulate, if they even do.
Ex: in Colorado, the minimum PTO is 48 hours per year.
This is an American misapprehension. Even in your most worker friendly states you have extremely sub-par workers rights for a first world country.
But it’s also a misunderstanding of how the US is governed and regulated. It’s setup more like Europe than people realize.
And yes, we’re fully aware of how much most of us are getting screwed on worker’s rights for time off. People in other countries don’t think we’re aware but we are. The question becomes, how do you fight for more rights? Our politicians absolutely suck. That’s the main issue. The two party system doesn’t work but we can’t agree what to do about it.
Strike, fight, bleed, die.
We have ours because us and our ancestors already fought and died against our oppressors to get them.
You have two choices, die for your overlords, or die for your rights.
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I work in Spain, we don’t have sick days. If the doctor says we are not apt to work, we take a leave intil the doctor says so. Indefinitely. No maximum. As long as the doctor says.
This limit thing is so weird. Yeah, you can use them as vacation of you are healthy but that’s an abuse and then when you need them you will be vulnerable without days. It’s better to have infinite days, to be used only when you are actually sick, as stated by your doctor.
Indefinitely. No maximum. As long as the doctor says
I work in Spain, happen to be on sick leave/disability, and that’s not exactly correct:
- The doctor can only authorize 365 days of paid sick leave
- After that, you get back to your company’s health insurer (“mutua”) who has 180 days of paid sick leave to either:
- Treat you until you’re healed (or claim you’re healed) and put you back to work (if you refuse, you get fired)
- Grant you permanent disability
If the insurer decides that you’re healed, you can’t go back onto a sick leave for the same reason for… I think it’s 6 months.
Right right, if your leave is longer than a year the permanent inability (incapacidad permanente, diferente a una discapacidad) cards pop up, since chances are you will never be able to be able to return to the same work you did, like an ernia for a driver and so on.
In any case, people taking a year long leave is kind of rare and it’s practically limitless compared to the 2-30 days the other mentioned countries get.
Good luck with your situation.
(edit - i live in the us) i can purchase extra insurance for short-term and for long-term sick leave.
right now, i have ten days of paid time off for whatever reason per year (no explicit sick leave) and i pay about $650 a month for insurance which covers very little for myself and my kids until i have spent at least $6000 on any one of us or $15000 for all of us together. i make about $50k a year before tax and insurance.
and our compensation package (paid time off and insurance) is considered pretty good for my area.
i could buy better insurance and short and long term leave, but this would cost about half of what i make. unfortunately, half of what i make already goes to rent.
Eh, doesn’t those depend on how often I get sick? That’s the idea, no? A doctor signs me off being unable to work?
No. If you have paid time off it is part of your compensation package. A better way to look at it is if you work 52 weeks a year and your employment includes a week of PTO, then you are effectively due 53 weeks of pay and any time you take off is subtracted from that number.
Where I work (not California) this time is “use it or lose it” so no. Our comp is 52 weeks a year and we can take up to 3 weeks (not consecutive) of that off for whatever if scheduled or unscheduled for sickness. 1 week if you are new.
Still yes. The point is that PTO is part of your compensation package. If you don’t use it you are not receiving that compensation. Put it another way: if part of your compensation package is a company vehicle (just like everyone else in the company) but you work from home, are you going to consider that fair compensation?
Yes I understand that. Just wanted to point out that most places don’t pay out unused PTO. Unless required by law.
Oh for sure, which is why it should be.
A doctor? Signs off? What?
Here specifically it’s three days off (each time, not total) and then you need to get an official doctor declaration to stay home longer (which makes sense, if you’ve been sick for several days you should see a doctor anyway, and it’s free, so why not).
And if the doctor says you’re too sick to work, even if it’s due to your mental health then you’re off for as long as they say, with a compensation scheme that involves both your company and the government dealing with the cost for certain periods and so on.
In countries that do not exploit workers, if the doctor writes you a sick leave, you are at sick leave for that time. If doctor writes you 6 months, you can be away 6 months with full pay. In general company pays some initial weeks, and the system pays the rest.
So there is no max or min.
Also in many countries if you are in your paid vacation, and you get sick, you move for sick leave, and those days do not count as used vacation.
I’m always amazed by how Americans in particular (sorry if you’re not, I’m assuming) tend to go from one end of the spectrum to the other without any middle stops in common sense land. I once had a US friend go straight from “we have bad health care” to “we need a violent revolution” with no consideration to… you know, maybe good health care?
I mean, from my perspective it seems pretty obvious that you should only take as many sick days as you need, but you should take all the ones you need, to an unlimited total amount.
Like, that seems so simple. It’s how it’s always worked in the multiple countries I’ve lived in. You’re sick? You call in sick. You need to be off for multiple days? You ask your doctor to officially declare that you’re sick. The company is taking a hit? The government covers your wages during your long term sickness.
This works. We know this works. It’s obvious this works.
We don’t believe that the government will let us have good Healthcare without revolution at this point. One side violently opposes it and the other dangles it like a carrot on a stick for votes, with no intention of actually providing it because if they actually improved things somewhat they’d lose a precious bargaining chip. This song and dance has been going on for as long as I’ve been alive. We’re losing hope here.
Then we aren’t getting it because you no money deserve anything once you’re a terrorist. We need to do something constructive, not kill people.
Historically speaking, the most successful leaps forward have come about via methods that were branded as “terrorism” while they were happening. If we had restricted ourselves exclusively to what you call “constructive”, we would have never freed ourselves from the shackles of monarchy, or in the case of the American Civil War, the much more literal shackles of, well, shackles. Violence should be a last resort, but keeping off the table entirely is just naive.
Now, this? This is a crucial difference. As I was saying before, the foundational revolultionary myth of the US is a lot, and it sure looks like it sets the stage.
I mean, that statement is absurd on the face of it, seeing how… you know, the UK exists and it’s ostensibly a democracy (a social democracy, even, by some definitions) and so are all the other colonial powers and a lot of the independent colonies, major liberal revolution or not.
It makes no sense, but you still said it as a fact. It’s still bipartisan enough that you didn’t picture it in your head as a bit of conservative historical fantasy mythmaking, you put it out there as a verifiable thing you can just say. The opposite notion is naive, even.
That must leave a mark, right? The indoctrination and warped perspective of the relationship with government, progress and change that mindset must give you HAS to be a part of this.
the american population, however, is deadlocked in their opposed visions of what progress looks like, and leadership is not strong enough to do much more than continue to consolidate and protect their own power and authority.
again, change at the lower bars you have proposed is very difficult indeed, and requires shared vision that is very hard to come by here. it doesn’t help people to feel change can be obtained through current systems or non-violent strikes that a) financial constraints are so much harder to overcome than in previous decades (i.e. trying to strike could mean inability to feed or house yourself or to afford needed medical care) and b) what change we managed in recent decades has been rolled back (roe v. wade) or is under attack (civil rights).
i hate that my comment is so negative and i don’t want to discourage any fellow americans from trying to create positive change. i’m just sharing my own voice and why it’s hard to imagine success short of revolution. i feel like advocacy and voting are all i can really do right now, and they are honestly not very effective.
See? But that’s the thought process that I find baffling. Because I can’t find an American who doesn’t claim to be dissatisfied, so… how do you land in that mix of conformism, where you don’t think you can take political action of any sort to address it, but also extremism, where you think the logical endgame is full on armed conflict?
How do you massage a whole continent-sized country’s psyche into just sitting there and taking it right up until the point where you start shooting people? I’m not even French and even I can see the glaring hole full of mass protesting right in the middle of that crap.
And hey, not to spoil any big secrets, but the US is literally the only democracy that hasn’t rewritten its constitution fundamentally since its creation. You guys know that’s allowed, right? Go argue for a proportional system or a parliamentary system or something. I mean, you guys could try doing something at all before deciding that it’s full-on purge time.
We are protesting. So far we’ve been at best ignored, and at worst…
You’ve probably seen what our police are like.
Okay, so, I’m going to ramble a lot because this is something that causes me a lot of anxiety and stress, but I’ll try and explain this, there are a lot of Americans who support better practices and would happily vote for politicians who claim to support them, and then often do, but the politicians often go back on their word, or at the very least, are stopped by the rest of their party or the opposing team (yes, team). Why do politicians go back on their word, or only attempt to follow through when the vote is stacked against them? Because often the things that will improve the lives of Americans are things that will go against corporate interests. Don’t be fooled, Democrats are bought and paid for by corporations too, the things the implement are usually things that will have little to no corporate cost. However, the moment you start talking about things like higher corporate taxes, taxes on the rich, public healthcare, etc, they act like they have no idea what you’re talking about. They basically serve the purpose of not being Republicans, while the Republicans serve the purpose of not being Democrats.
Okay, but at least Democrats aren’t running headlong towards fascism, right? Yes, however now you have the issue where many states have the votes rigged in favor of one party, typically republican. I live in a state that should have a significantly higher number of democrat representatives, both in the state and federal legislature. However, because the voting districts are gerrymandered to hell, it means Republicans get a significant advantage. Then, you have the issue where republicans are intentionally making kids idiots because they know it increases the chances of them being future republicans. You have the problem where your only choices are the politicians the Democrats or Republicans put in front of you.
You could try and start a new party, but remember that for every vote you capture, that’s possibly one less vote going to the only major party who doesn’t want a 4th Reich; because you probably won’t be capturing any republican votes. You have to be certain that you’re going to capture enough votes to beat the Republicans and the Democrats, otherwise the Republicans will probably win and try their damnedest to implement Project 2025. To steal a phrase, “if you’re going to kill the king, you’d better not miss”. Everything has to go right, which means it won’t.
So protest, right? Well, that only kinda works. The moment a protest runs into corporate interests, it hits a brick wall. You can be sure that every corporation will immediately start funnelling money into shady political groups who’ll use it to spread FUD and manufacture bad actors so the protest loses public appeal. You can try and upgrade the protest to a riot and commit property damage, but that’ll only make you look bad and you’ll struggle to find support from people. That means the likelyhood of a protest going well and having any real effect is pretty slim.
So… What else can you do at that point? These people have more money than God. Something like the top 40 richest people in the world have enough money that they could likely completely and permanently fix many of humanity’s global issues, and still have billions to play with. Yet they don’t.
Well, you can ban political contributions.
Over here you have a hard limit on how much money private citizens and corpos can contribute, no donation can be anonymous. You can’t even sell merch or collect cash donations if you’re a political party.
But a more interesting point you made is the perception of protests. You picture them as… well, US protests. You get a cute little march with people giving cops flowers and then it escalates to “riot”, which is already on the other end of the going straight to violence spectrum I find so weird.
The escalation point of a protest in my mind is a strike (which, weirdly, your relatively rich media people just successfully and very publicly did, and are still doing). The next step after that is a general strike.
Sure, I hear that there is likely not enough public support for that in the US. You seem to see that as part of the system that prevents nonviolent action from being useful, but surely the lack of support discards the option of violent action as well, right? When you talk violent or revolutionary acts you also need public support. If people aren’t willing to put real pressure in other ways you’re also not going to round up the capitalists using sticks and handguns any time soon.
I’m not surprised at the sense of powerlessness, I’m surprised by how the notion that violence solves the powerlessness is so prevalent.
Someone already addressed your comment about political contributions, but…
But a more interesting point you made is the perception of protests. You picture them as… well, US protests. You get a cute little march with people giving cops flowers and then it escalates to “riot”, which is already on the other end of the going straight to violence spectrum I find so weird.
Because anything in the US that isn’t giving cops flowers gets escalated by cops and bad actors. Stick a few people in the crowd with molotovs and now the cops have an excuse to start swinging batons and shooting people with beanbags.
The escalation point of a protest in my mind is a strike (which, weirdly, your relatively rich media people just successfully and very publicly did, and are still doing). The next step after that is a general strike.
A lot of people don’t have the money to strike right now. Additionally, corporations have a lot of sway with local governments and sometimes building managers/landlords. They’re comfortable and entertained enough that it doesn’t feel urgent enough to risk being jailed, fired, and possibly evicted; and they don’t have the money to risk everything going south (and it probably would). I’ve seen other people make this comparison, so you mighta heard it before, but it’s like boiling a frog. If you do it slow enough, the frog won’t realize it’s dying. It’s honestly dystopian as fuck.
Sure, I hear that there is likely not enough public support for that in the US. You seem to see that as part of the system that prevents nonviolent action from being useful, but surely the lack of support discards the option of violent action as well, right? When you talk violent or revolutionary acts you also need public support. If people aren’t willing to put real pressure in other ways you’re also not going to round up the capitalists using sticks and handguns any time soon.
I think part of the hope is that if you go straight to violence, it’ll put pressure on people to pick a side, effectively shaking the fence or knocking them out of their “frog daze” to make them wake up to the reality they’re slowly being boiled alive.
Another part is that it might give them hope that they can actually change things, motivating them to join the cause. When you watch protests regularly escalate to violence because of cops or suspected plants while resulting in little to no improvement, you become jaded and hopeless. Look at how much effort it took to get states to start taking cop brutality seriously; and that was something a majority of Americans probably agreed was a huge issue that needed to be addressed sooner rather than later. Yet it took a hell of a lot of effort and a mini rebellion, and we still have issues in many states with police brutality.
Finally, violence against your oppressors, or the thought of it, gives you a feeling of power. When you feel powerless for long enough, the thought of finally having enough power to destroy the people responsible for the state of the world is, quite frankly, intoxicating.
These aren’t the only reasons people might have for wanting violence, I’m sure America’s culture of rebellion and violence is another part of it, but I think those are probably some of the more common reasons.
Political violence as a power fantasy does ring true to me. This entire thread has been a mix of “but there’s nothing we can do”, which seems pretty obviously less true than the average American seems to think, and “violent revolt would be needed”, also probably not true.
There seem to be two intertwined fantasies: powerlessness as a balm for maybe a bit of class guilt, and a power fantasy of becoming a radical revolutionary once shit hits the fan. “Yeah, I could do something now, but it’s futile, so I better carry on. But just you wait because when the revolution comes I’m so there”, and so on.
That I can wrap my head around and seems to fit best with the stuff above. I mean, it’s a pretty universal feeling, I think. It’s definitely not US-exclusive, but you guys are really good at it, and it compounds with a bunch of other things that got mentioned in this thread, too.
Well, you can ban political contributions.
Chicken and egg problem. In order to ban political contributions, you would need to elect enough polititans who will vote for that against the corporate interests mentioned. Not just a majority if polititians either.
Because the high court has decided that political contributions are “speech”, it would take a constitutional amendment to end them. That means 2/3 of both the upper and lower houses. Then, it has to get a majority in 3/4 of the state legislatures as well before actually taking effect.
For reference, in the last 41 years it hasn’t been possible to do that for an amendment saying women have the same rights as men, something that runs into far less corporate opposition than ending
briberypolitical contributions.Yeah, no, your constitutional system is broken beyond repair.
That’s not up for debate. Like I said above, every other democracy has done a new Constitution or a full on rework at some point. Americans are pretty unique in getting hung up on their foundational moment like that.
I mean, SC precedent can be altered eventually, but even the really obviously flawed design of the court in general is a constitutional issue with obvious improvements available.
But again, a new Constitution seems like a much lower bar than… you know, The Revolution.
I’m American and it’s never made much sense to me, either.
Afaik it’s fundementally 5 forces.
- Severe distrust of the established institutions, including the democratic process.
- Long-drawn, multi-generational unrest ever since late globalization and the decline of unions.
- Anti-labor propaganda and institutional complacency.
- Increased alienation and in-fighting among the population. Got much worse ever since the MAGA repubs cropped up. We’re fighting against 40-50% of the population for basic shit. (Have you seen our paralyzed congress?)
Finally, this unwillingness to be the first to bite the bullet. Inevitably, the first people to start off these grassroots movements are going to get the shortest end of the stick. They are people sacrificing their free time and economic security for a movement that begs others to do the same.
It’s a massive risk.
FWIW, I do recognize all of those from the outside looking in.
I also recognize that you have so few protections that action is riskier than it is here, where protesting can’t be legally retaliated against and there are actual labor protections in place that make effecting change easier. Which in turn is part of the expectation that the government should proactively help you when you need it.
But still, it does seem like there should be a middle point somewhere where you get rid at least of point one and you tip over point three, right? That seems like it’d happen way before stuff gets really violent.
But then, culturally you guys fantasize about violently confronting the government since day one, which I guess is what happens when your foundational myth is also a colonial-revolutionary myth.
It is pretty messed up, though.
Because if we try to change anything, we run the (very high) risk of losing our jobs, then our homes, and ending up on the streets. If you have a way to get over 300 million people all on the same page for a general strike, who are all willing to risk losing their income, please let me know.
I mean… as the other guy says below, if you’re considering revolution surely a general strike is a notch below that level of commitment.
But also, I’ve lived through multiple general strikes. I don’t know what to tell you, a party and a bunch of unions called for them, people followed them at will. Some changed stuff, others didn’t. Nobody lost their jobs or homes, among other things because it’s illegal to retalliate against a strike. Because, you know, we had strikes about that.
We’re not even a particularly old democracy, we were an outright fascist country less than a century ago. My dad remembers running away from fascist police when he was in college. I don’t know what to tell you.
a party and a bunch of unions called for them
In the US there are only two parties of any real significance. General strike is something neither of them would ever call for. Only about 10.1% of US workers have a union.
Nobody lost their jobs or homes, among other things because it’s illegal to retalliate against a strike.
In the US, strike retaliation, while technically illegal, is very rarely enforced. When it is, the penalty is … they have to undo the thing they did and were penalized for. No fine, no concession, no additional monitoring, and there was always the (very good) chance they’d get away with it.
Sadly, in a country where guns are common and unions aren’t, armed revolt is just more imaginable than a general strike.
well said, thank you.
Part of the problem for major reforms is that large areas of empty land have more power than the will of the people to get things through the Senate.
I don’t think this really addresses the question. Revolution provides even more of an economic disruption?
Keep in mind the OP is not an American. They don’t have the context.
Did you just say the government pays regular citizens?? Where I come from that’s communism. Governments are only supposed to pay corporations like the good lord intended.
Well, no, they do. They pay your boss to pay you. Or they pay you instead of your boss. Either way your boss gets stuff, so… yay capitalism?
A common tactic for startups is to offer “unlimited days off” knowing that people won’t take days off.
Best part for them is that because you don’t have specific days to take off they don’t have to pay you for them when you quit.
because I am a big gobshite, I always mention this. They ask for feedback about benefits in most companies, I always say, “yeah you say unlimited time off but I’m not allowed to take 365 consecutive days?”
two separate companies have changed it to “flexible time off” because of my inability to keep my trap shut
I don’t know if that’s reality though. Part of my new job’s compensation package that I negotiated in was unlimited days off. I’ve already taken a vacation I wouldn’t have been able to with my previous job. I know better than to abuse the privilege but the trade off of not getting it paid out on exit is already worth it for me.
I get 5% extra per year saved of sick leave on my pension, up to 2 years, adjusted to percent of the year left of sick leave. But my job is fun and people tend to want to work.
Yes, I’m in the USA. The company just can’t understand why their retention of younger talent is so low. Honestly this use to be a premier job in my area, but has been watered down to average or below. Can’t wait to retire and have this mess in my rearview mirror.
My work recently changed their policy, we get 48 hours sick time a year. If you use it it’s counted as an occurrence against you. Three occurrences in a rolling year and you’re put on disciplinary action.
Here’s your new benefit …but you better not use it.
You can’t make shit like that up.
You guys hiring? That must be a fun one when prospective new hires get the benefits package information.
That’s probably not something they’d be willing to share with you until you’re hired, similar to salary I’m guessing.
What? Are you saying that people aren’t informed of their salary or benefits package until they’re actually hired?
A lot of jobs these days will actually list compensation packages on the job descriptions.
Man, it makes me sad when I hear shit like this. Guessing you’re from the US?
In this thread: Americans bragging that not only have they never used a sick day, they used their lunchbreak to go back and wrestle the bear for their severed arm which they then reattached with staples they paid for themselves so they could put in a full afternoon of work.
I’m in this comment…
A friend was working for a pool construction company and I really wanted the job so when they finally took me on I pretty much immediately had a piece of rebar go through my calf. I asked the homeowner for some duct tape and kept working… Lol it was my first day and I wanted the job.
Obviously I didn’t get called back… Seen as a liability I suppose lol
“Muh dividends!”
Typical “back in my day” garbage. Why would you even want people to come in and spread their sickness? Wouldn’t that cause even more lost production time?
…not if everyone is afraid to use sick days / lose wages / repercussions from management / yadda yadda yadda
Regardless of whether they are present or not, if their productivity is down the drain because they can’t focus or are in pain, inefficiency rises, output and profits fall.
What kind of company doesn’t insure against sickness of their employees? When I mentioned I was sick a lot, my boss at the time laughed and told me the company gets an insurance payment if I’m out, so not to worry. Fyi, I’m in Europe.
This is not common in small/medium size businesses (no clue about large ones).
Usually there will be a life insurance policy, but that’s just in the case of death
Aha, well it’s fortune 500
Wall street is the psychotic, insatiable, dehumanizing tail that wags the dog, one petulant tantrum-a-minute to the next, and the next, and the next… perpetually.
God forbid anyone in a corporate position of power try and do anything that isn’t indecent and corrosively myopic, else the stampeding Dow Jones zombies go on a goddamned short-selling rampage.But then people have been saying this for ages now, and still here we are.
EDIT: added “insatiable”
I remember a story about a CEO who decided to pay ALL of his employees well. As I remember, all of his middle management left in a huff because they no longer had their higher earnings to hold over their subordinates and feel superior, all of his friends ostracized him and he essentially became a pariah.
Yeah, Dan Price, just went to look it up. Apparently, he had to resign after some allegations against him, which turned out to be false. Something smells off about a man paying employees fairly suddenly getting trumped-up charges that never got properly investigated before being referred to the prosecutor’s office literally the day after he announces the pay stuff.
https://fortune.com/2023/04/19/gravity-payments-dan-price-assault-charges-are-dropped/
He resigned because someone that has part ownership in the company sued him.
The lawsuit was basically “you’re not acting in a way that is best for the shareholders”
Or in other words “you’re paying the employees more and me less, so I’m mad at you for treating them well”
Thanks for the clarification.
Interestingly enough, I just put forth the argument in another thread that dismantling the stock market would address a lot of systemic problems. I’m glad it’s not just my own thinking.
The stock market should be abolished entirely. The driving force behind big business and government decisions should be humanity, not money.
Absolutely!
Reality. <> This Comment.
The idea of public ownership and profit sharing is not a bad thing. It’s the closest thing we have to the democratization of our economy.
Private companies are way more dangerous and have virtually noone to answer to.
only problem is that ownership is not widely or fairly distributed.
The boot has now been completely incorporated in the throat.
People being put on PIPs or straight up fired because they used sick leave for a few days and proved it with a doctors note is wild.
“You better improve your sickness prevention plan… or else”
America is something else entirely.
Yeah, even the mindset that you being sick is your personal problem. If you get sick, you should be able to be away as long as you need, without being worried that you become homeless.
Send help
Have you tried pulling a little harder on your bootstraps?
Bootstraps made in USA…and broke! Reaffirming call for support.
I’m an older worker. I have no qualms about using all my sick days.
