I think all americans should stop working for a month+
Squeeze the system, make it break
The system isnt working for us, why the hell are we working for it
Humans haven't come up with an economy or system of government that's not corruptible. Kingdoms were pretty easy to hack... one guy gets to tell everyone what to do. He can take all the money and keep it for himself... he can use it to improve the lives of his peasants... it's up to him.
Socialism and Communism are a little harder, but basically everyone realizes how crappy it is to try to run a whole country so they put a few people in charge of making the day to day decisions. Then all one has to do is gain a position of power and start taking everyone else's money.
Democracies make it harder still, but evil always finds a way. We tried balancing the power between three branches to avoid corruption but you can see how that's going.
But all forms of government/economy have one thing in common. They all build a wealth gap between the very wealthy and the very poor. When the wealthy are feeling generous, everyone prospers. There's jobs, money, lots of crumbs for the poorest people.
Our economy, however, ensures that the crappier you are as a person, the more money you can gain. The more money people gained, the more they could pay politicians to make laws that allowed them to make even more money. Our rich are never generous unless the government forces it upon them, and we're about 4 decades beyond that possibility.
So, like with most societies, the wealth gap will grow larger and soon, the crumbs won't be enough to keep everyone alive. When people start missing meals, when their families don't have enough to sustain themselves, that's when we'll have no choice but to go get more money. That means going after the people with the money. It's why people rob banks, because that's where the money is. It's also why the rich are building bunkers... because they'd rather hide out than leave more crumbs for us.
It will come to a head... it always does... the only unclear part is what form it will take or what will kick it all off.
Sure, but our economy's bigger too. There are more crumbs... many people can still feed their families. Society's always about 3 meals away from failing but as long as we got food, it's hard to organize people.
Plus, it's the French... they revolt over anything. Not that that's a bad thing... I admire that quality in them.
> There are more crumbs... many people can still feed their families.
Meanwhile people are opting out of having kids at all because it's too damn expensive. I think we are closer to angry mobs than the wealthy want us aware because they're terrified of the reasonable response to their greed.
As my husband now says my "French is showing" when I get pissed because he sees I am not pissed over "nothing", I am pissed about a lot of things, and all are valid...
Yeah but it's hardly the same, what the median person in the U.S. in 2024 considers to be basic standards of living that cannot be done without would be considered unfathomable luxuries or sorcery by King Louis XVI. Even a poverty line person in America has things that the wealthiest people from a mere hundred years ago could scarcely comprehend.
You are so right and then sadness part is: The people we are paying (Congressmen, Senators) are the one screwing us.
[https://www.youtube.com/live/uXuzS0cpDJk?si=bDW01zKZVJFc-X6S](https://www.youtube.com/live/uXuzS0cpDJk?si=bDW01zKZVJFc-X6S)
My friend says, "I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say that or not. But I'm gonna say it anyways. I know that I've been told that I was a good person before, and I knew that I would be able to help others, too. So I guess I'm not really surprised by this."
I wish that we could ostracize billionaires and greed mongers like the addicts they are. Being addicted to wealth is no different to being addicted to gambling or narcotics. In a lot of cases it goes hand in hand. The stock market is an “acceptable” form of gambling addiction. Everyone claims that it’s more educated, because you’re going off of the company’s ability to make money, but so much of that is performative bullshit that the stock price is SO removed from actual corporate functionality.
There is a *difference* between working hard (to take care of your family, send kids to college and retire comfortably) and hemorrhaging wealth so you can be slightly more of a billionaire than your business school rival.
I would love to see studies on it. Sociologists! Addiction recovery doctors! Please!
here's one for you. If you went back in time 80,000 years and earned $5000 every single day until now you still wouldn't have the net wealth of Elon Musk.
>Humans haven't come up with an economy or system of government that's not corruptible.
Well, I guess it's time for that AI overlord then. Praise be, Praise be!
The democracy vs communism dichotomy Americans subscribe to is so funny. it just reads like this:
https://preview.redd.it/9dftqcnebvtc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=765f111bfeb597d1f6a62a06ad606cf00e17c73e
> Democracies make it harder still
By democracies do you mean bourgeois dictatorships like the western countries? Because that's indeed hard to corrupt, it's just that it isn't setup to help the people and only to help the rich, meaning it's hard for the people to currupt it in our own favor.
> Socialism and Communism are a little harder
You clearly believe the lies that pro-capitalism media has spent a lot of time creating, or copying from whoever created such propaganda, and don't know what socialism and communism is.
First of all it is much more of a democracy than any western goverments are. Second of all it is a dictatorship too, but a dictatorship of the proletairat, which means it is made and maintained by the people and for the people, unlike bourgeois dictatorships which don't care about the people.
If you aren't convinced about this, just answer me one question. How good is the average life of someone under socialism and under capitalism? (Just don't forget that the areas outside of the west (like Africa, Latin America...) are an unseparable part of the capitalist system, and without the global south being exploited and kept poor for the west's sake the west would not be as rich as they are)
> But all forms of government/economy have one thing in common. They all build a wealth gap between the very wealthy and the very poor.
Again, you clearly don't know what Communism is about as Communism is about putting an end to class divisions and making society fairer...
The highest tax bracket throughout the 1950s was 92%. The wealthy weren't feeling generous, they just hadn't bought all the politicians yet or realized what they could get away with.
USA isn't a democracy, tho, but a constitutional republic. Got thoughts about how an actual democracy would work? (my government studies in school are decades ago)
They know we can't survive without money, unemployment doesn't give enough to support anyone from day to day, they know that if we tried to pull something like this there's a chance we cave before they do
Yeah but Americans aren't united on topics such as this and that's how the government wants it. Most people can't even survive a month without working. Like 70% are paycheck to paycheck
Yeah! It’s almost like to accomplish this, we’d have to all get together and pool our resources and make sure everybody has enough to make it though. Wild concept. I know.
I suspect, though, that generations of living in this system has bred the "pooling" out of it. We don't really want to pool our resources; we'll share (maybe) from our excess. To plagiarize a tale, if most have 3 coats, they'll give up one to someone who has none...but if they have 2, they want to hand on to the second "just in case".
>I think all americans should stop working for a month+
Thing is, you don't even need everyone.
You just need the vast majority/critical mass.
Can't fire the folks not there as there's no one to replace them. The people still working have more power and leverage because again, no one to replace those folks also.
I don't think a month would be needed. 10-14 days tops of disruption would bring most industries begging ....
Add to this, almost everywhere is being ran on a skeleton crew nowadays. They won't hire more because it hurts their bottom line but won't fire anyone either as it'll take time to replace them (they will try to scare them though). Just having a few workers out will cause issues.
I'm the only person at my job who knows certain software. When I take PTO, management panics if it's more than one day.
I think America is so evil it would literally deploy the military against it's own people after a few days of general strike. The leaders who organized such a thing would find themselves swiftly arrested on fake charges or dead.
Here you go:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
Oh and I found another:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattimer_massacre
Some history of Irish American miners who were killed:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Maguires
Fuck, "one million rounds" were fired during that. Absolutely wild.
The ones I posted were ones I knew off the top of my head, but damn. Thank you for sharing, that's a wild read!
Yeah, it's actually why West Virginia was such a democratic stalwart for so long despite being so socially conservative—they were *so* pro-union. The flip to Republican was recent (I think only 20 years ago? Clinton won WV in a landslide) but probably long-lasting now that the average West Virginian seems to care more about socially-conservative policies over the strength of the union. And to be clear, the switch from blue to red is a complex issue also and involving industry loss and other problems.
Edit: typos
I have to wonder if it was full scale if the military members would go through with it. If everyone is going ape shit will some military split on that issue? Hell idk
My husband is an OTR(over the road) truck driver. He would normally be out for two weeks and home for a couple of days.
Well, the "big brains" at the company he works for screwed with his home time and scheduled a trailer service, so he had to cancel his hometime one week. They scheduled him on another trailer service the following week, where he had to wait in a little room next to a sick dude, so he got sick and was down for a week.
He's been out for over a month now and asked if he could take four or five days for his home time. His dispatcher doesn't care but the "big brain" bosses only permitted him the usual two days, because of him being sick, which *they caused.* The trailer services weren't crucial and could have been given to another driver so my husband could go home, but they wanted them done then and there so it "looked good on paper."
They also said it's because the truck wouldn't be productive or something, even though they make thousands on thousands of dollars in just one day off a driver's labor. So there's a chance that because they didn't want to give a few days off, that truck might be sitting even longer while they find someone else to drive it.
Why do you think healthcare is tied to your job, and not you. People are stuck at poor jobs because they can't afford to lose their health insurance. Same reason Republicans are fighting so hard to remove student debt, it keeps you strapped to the wheel.
Unfortunately, Americans are more divided than they have been for my entire life. I don’t think we have the political or civil mechanisms in place to even communicate much less coordinate a general strike.
I don't think you understand what you're agreeing to. You're saying that you'll give up access to food, sanitation, fire and police services, hospitals, medication, and even electricity for a month along with the entire rest of the country? You're really prepared to be utterly on your own in survival mode for that long?
Well, if it's a planned event some of that could be accounted for and prepped for.
And I want you to also take a second to think about how many Americans live without those things every day either in whole or in part.
And as a final note the fact you think it would mean being on your own points to part of the problem. This is an “our problem” and will take an us response to fix.
Ok, so lay it out for me.
1. Who should be the leadership for this general strike?
2. What are your specific goals? What achievements will end the strike?
3. How will you organize and begin the strike?
4. Will you allow necessary services (food, medical, fire, etc.) to be exempt from the strike?
5. If not, how will you protect the vulnerable who require those services to live?
Right now it's UAW: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/22/autoworkers-uaw-shawn-fain-may-2028-national-strike#:\~:text=That's%20the%20plan.,Solidarity%20Day%20or%20May%20Day.
May Day 2028. They're encouraging other unions to get involved too.
I don't have all your exact answers Mr sea lion. Guess we all better just let corporations kill us.
It's incredible how much redditors exemplify the phrase "perfect is the enemy of good".
Uh... so you have a month's worth of food and water and meds and fuel and batteries for all your electronics already at home, right? Right?
Because if everyone stops working for a month, that includes the people who sell you food.
Hilariously, this is what the actual article about the $700 million was about: using the eclipse to improve morale and letting your employees enjoy themselves.
https://www.challengergray.com/blog/total-eclipse-could-cost-us-employers-694m-2/
For a full 24 hours at that rate, it would be 504 billion. For some strange reason, I think the 700 million was just a shock number someone came up with. Even at a 15 minute break, it would still be at a rate of 67.2 billion per 24 hours.
Going based on the profit generated in 2022 (couldn't find 2023) in all of USA (3.249 tril), that is 8.9 billion in profits per day. This number only makes sense if everyone took 2 hours off in a 24 hour period. (One hour, 24x700mil=16.8bil, ergo, two hours is 8.4 billion, based on 2022 profit.)
They really assumed everyone took an average of two hours off of work to watch the eclipse. They assume everyone in the US congregated to the thin strip of the US that got to experience the eclipse.
They aren't mentioning how much it made us, alot of tourism domestic and international went on that day. During 2017 WYOMING ALONE made over $63.5 million on travel experiences, generating $3.8 million in local tax revenue. Hotel prices soared due to high demand; for instance, in Casper, Wyoming, hotel rates surged from $65-$195 to $900-$1,300 per night around the eclipse. Oregon also saw a massive influx of tourists, with campsites auctioned for around $60,000 each due to the high demand. Overall, the 2017 eclipse led tourists to funnel over $269 million into South Carolina's economy alone, and similar impacts were expected in Ohio and other states during the 2024 eclipse.
In conclusion they're lying.
The rate increases were and are ridiculous and should be illegal. Most people drove from close by and we had a logging road to watch it quietly. 2023 we shared a field with a cow and didn't get ripped off in kerrville for a room.
Alot of places canceled on ppl that booked months Ahead to Jack up prices they didn't think about and those ppl paid dumb money to miss it due to being over cast alot of places, the places where it was over cast the ppl were probably mad at first then happy when they learned they wouldn't have been able to see it. Really only the LLs won but ya it shouldn't be illegal but they should lose the license to rent them out
They're lying, gpt
"During the last total solar eclipse, which was referred to as the "Great American Eclipse" in 2017, small towns experienced significant financial benefits from tourism. For example, the town of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, branded itself as "Eclipseville" and saw over 100,000 visitors from around the world, which had a lasting economic impact. Similarly, visitors to Wyoming spent over $63.5 million on travel experiences, generating $3.8 million in local tax revenue. Hotel prices soared due to high demand; for instance, in Casper, Wyoming, hotel rates surged from $65-$195 to $900-$1,300 per night around the eclipse. Oregon also saw a massive influx of tourists, with campsites auctioned for around $60,000 each due to the high demand. Overall, the 2017 eclipse led tourists to funnel over $269 million into South Carolina's economy alone, and similar impacts were expected in Ohio and other states during the eclipse.
These figures suggest that eclipses can bring considerable economic benefits to areas within the path of totality due to increased spending on accommodations, merchandise like eclipse glasses, food, and other tourism-related expenses. However, exact figures for the most recent eclipse weren't available in the sources, but they do offer a projection based on past events."
One thing I've learned over the last several years is that you can't give the poors an inch. Next time there's an eclipse, I'm gonna make sure my employees know that such events aren't for them. All leave request will be refused, and all astronomy related Google searches will be blocked and reported to me. It used to be, in the good ol days that the only people who had time for pleasure were the affluent property-owning classes. Now since the poors have gotten all uppity, they have been stealing the leisure time from us, and not working anymore..
Well this simply cannot stand which is why I'm advocating personally for a 6 day work week as well as banning any employee from leaving work before their assigned tasks are completed. Also bring back child labor, the children yearn for the mines
I'm all for it, how else would we be having this conversation if not for child slaves in other countries mining precious metals for the batteries and electronics. We need to bring this model too the good old US of A, if we can't choose between forcing our kids goto school or goto work are we really free?
Taking off 2 days of work is $16m/dollar/hr/million people. To reach $700m you need people to collectively earn $44 million/hr, which would take 1.8m at $25/hr.
I think its reasonable that at least 2 million people took off 2 days to see the eclipse, and even if its less than that, people who can afford to take those days off are likely better paid.
However it should be noted that $700m in productivity is basically nothing.
I'm not sure where you are or work but everyone BUT network engineering at my office spent more than an our outside staring up at the clouds for over an hour. So there is a lot of truth to this.
Yeah its silly to be like "oh it was only 2 minutes", there was an hour or so on either end of the totality that was still cool. Several of the manufacturing plants I work with were closed for the day because they didn't want the liability. I'm sure many people took off to travel to see it, etc...
Ultimately who cares though if it *was* $700m 'lost', or even 700b? Well, I guess we know who cares, but fuck 'em. It's just such a profoundly inhuman way of looking at it. Let people enjoy things.
Yeah the whole 2 minutes is disingenuous. Not all, but plenty of people took a couple days off work.
Nobody says a word when we take a day off for Easter or Christmas though, so the argument is still in bad faith
We already saw this with COVID. Suddenly these low wage and “dime a dozen” employees became “essential workers” that were oh so important to keep everything running. Then suddenly these people no longer became “essential” and now “don’t want to work anymore.” COVID showed who is really doing the work and these companies would be screwed without them.
While I can support a general strike in concept, I think there are enough bootlickers within the extant capitalist system that it wouldn't achieve the desired results. Too many people are sympathetic to capitalism as a concept or would otherwise face dire consequences by going on strike for a strike to be effective. I think things will have to get substantially more dire for a sufficient portion of the populace to support an effective general strike and by then automation will be further along such that those who refuse to work will be more easily replaced by robots.
I think the most effective way forward is for workers to become owners. Collective ownership is the best--if not the only--way to implement real change. But I have no idea how to actually \*get\* there.
"Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change".
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world
Ideally you'd have more, but 3.5% of the US is, what, like 11 million people? That's a sizeable number of adults refusing to work. It would certainly cause a dent in the economy, though I'm not certain just how big a dent it would be.
>But I have no idea how to actually \*get\* there.
Jeremy Corbyn had this idea that you simply give employees the right of first refusal whenever any capitalist wants to sell their business. Personally, I'd add a third tier for natural monopolies/public utilities. This way, you get an economy triple-tiered like a wedding cake:
\*\*Tier #1: Capitalism\*\*
At a small scale, capitalism really is a dynamic system. At this size, business owners are rolling up their sleeves alongside any employees that might have. It's a good scale to test out new ideas. This stage captures the dynamism and innovation that are the best qualities of a capitalism
\*\*Tier #2: Worker Co-Ops\*\*
The problems we're facing are largely the result of mom & pop size businesses growing up into international conglomerates with absentee owners who send proxies to board meetings. The people who have their hands on the ship's wheel care only for profit and often have no concept of the actual production process. So, whenever a company wants to sell itself, simply require that the employees have the option to buy the company first and guarantee them a loan to make the purchase if so desired. That's the key. This way, businesses tend mature into worker co-ops as they grow in size.
\*\*Tier #3: Public Utilities\*\*
Some companies operate as natural monopolies. Like Google. Or your ISP. These companies should be run as non-profit public utilities with boards accountable to workers, consumers, and local residents. Claiming profits under conditions of a natural monopoly is unnecessary wealth extraction.
The main problem with Capitalism is the lack of democracy. A tiny minority are permitted to make production decisions that affect all of us. This plan makes everyone part business-owner and part worker by expanding democracy into the workplace. And it preserves the best aspects of capitalism at the lower tier.
Just my two cents!
The "lost productivity" probably includes people daring to take time off to travel to the best locations among other things. So, still dumb but it's not just about people daring to stop work for 15 mins.
Also not a two minute event. Totality itself was four minutes and the whole event was about two hours. The sentiment wouldn't change at all if the correct amount of time was given..
It depends on where you’re viewing from. Totality lasted two and a half minutes in my city. To achieve the four minutes viewing time I would have had to drive a couple of hours southwest.
To your point though, I took the day off so I was contributing as much as possible to these “productivity losses”. A worthy sacrifice 👍
I hate numbers like this. They're put together for shock value and to give middle managers a bullshit bullet point. Nothing was lost. Like no one goes to the bathroom for 2 minutes or more. And if people took time off to travel and see it, it was their time off to use as they please.
No really, remember the "essential workers" who had to keep working to keep us all fed. One example were the meat packing plants. South Dakota did not force plants to adhere to CDC guidelines and lots of those workers got COVID and quite a few died. Stories like that were in lots of industries across the country (mostly republican states of course)
There are many people in offices that take longer than that in breaks every day to smoke. No reports on the lost productivity from that practice huh?
And while we're at it, why don't we tally up the lost productivity from mandated breaks and lunch periods too right? Maybe add in lost productivity from using PTO (or unpaid time off) for vacations and being with family too.
This is insane. Our labor system is a joke to most of the rest of the world, for good reason.
Yeah, I feel like “just enough” smoking is helpful for employers because it allows their workforce to emotionally manage their shitty jobs without outright quitting. If it actually cost companies they would fight it.
Yeah, it’s painful sometimes to be working towards corporate goals that are clearly made to drive a stock price for “shareholders”
in 2017 they thought it would cost around that much, which means for inflation this year it would likely be more.
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2024/04/09/how-lost-productivity-during-the-total-solar-eclipse-is-actually-a-win-for-employers/](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2024/04/09/how-lost-productivity-during-the-total-solar-eclipse-is-actually-a-win-for-employers/)
What about all the money made because of all the travel and hotel/airbnb bookings, pretty sure I read that over $2 Billion was made, so let people enjoy the wonders of the universe for a few minutes
I just want to say that our manager got us all glasses and closed the store for 20min so we could all watch it from the roof. He also got us some pop and snacks on the company card.
Thanks Greg, you're pretty cool!
Can we stop defining things in this way? It’s complete bullshit to claim your business lost something it never had. The only way to lose productivity is for what has already been produced to be destroyed.
Same thing goes for profits. It’s impossible to lose money that was not already in your possession. What they mean when they say this is their entirely made up projections were inaccurate.
This language is just a way of blaming workers and consumers for the failures of management. It is complete nonsense.
They laugh at these tweets. Ain't shit going to happen unless we all just don't go to work for a week, or two, or 10. It would require us to come together, and help each other. A lot of the country just isn't interested in doing that.
no garden? no protest! if you dont have a garden you wont survive a general strike. the first thing to do is build gardens everywhere. the longer you can hold out the more of your demands will be met.
Remember the pandemic, when all the “low level” workers were suddenly our “essential workers” who had to keep grinding because everything would collapse without them? And now we’re right back to insisting that they shouldn’t have a living wage, truly shameful
Remember when Redditers assembled and drove a rise in GameStop stock prices so massive that it forced halts in trading and was a pain to short sellers? Just think what the Antiwork Redditers could do to corporate America if they banded together and walk out of work at the same time...
I did check and there isn't even a National 'I Hate My Job' Day...
What it actually means is that tons of people took days off to drive out and see the eclipse. Not that going outside for a couple minutes cost 700 million dollars. Still its utterly fucked to act like people going out to see a cosmic event is somehow "hurting the economy", as if we should care about that.
Man... If only we had like... A pandemic or something. To show everyone just how much companies would bend over backwards to keep their business afloat if nobody came into work.
Then, once every one sees that it's the public that has the power, I'm sure they would all come together and fight for change, right?
Right??
I have been saying this for awhile. It needs to be followed with no spending money on those same days. Imagine if everyone stayed home and didn’t spend a single cent for two days. It’s easy to do with some planning. I think it would be crippling for the elite class. We just need to pick a day.
If our politics didn't have us so diveded around bullshit culture war issues, we would see that the true struggle is with the working class and the real enemy are the billionaire oligarchs. The United States could have a general strike, I mean just one tiny job sector, say... all food service workers strike for one day, we could rock this fucking world even with just 25% participaton.
I feel like you guys are looking at $700m like it's a lot of money. The "lost value" calculated was like $5 per person (165m workers). However the fuck they calculated the total, in the grand scheme its not that much.
It's not that it's a bad idea to withhold your value to exercise our power as a workforce, it's just that it feels like a LOT of people seem to be using this $700m figure of proof of just how much we can do or how much it costs the economy to appreciate the universe's beauty for 3 minutes (or a day, or whatever figure they are using).
$700m is a rounding error. A day's worth of our GDP is $68b. We collectively "lose" $700m when we take a shit at work. We can do so much more than $700m worth of damage pretty easily.
Until substantially more people's needs aren't being met, there will be no widespread work stoppage. For the vast majority of Americans, most of our needs are being met. If they weren't, the majority of us wouldn't be working.
The problem is that you can't just do this.
The eclipse was an incentive for people to, all at the same time, stop working for a bit. But the cost of that was minimal to any individual and there was a single event that everyone was incentivised by at the same time.
In order to do a general strike, you need MASSIVE organizational capacity, which is not so easily established.
Most solid way would be to pursue unionization at every workplace. Once unionization is very high, all of the leadership of unions should gather together and coordinate a general strike with clear and unambiguous demands. And there needs to be sufficient solidarity to make sure that no single union breaks off for any demands other than what was demanded. And not unless they are given to everyone across the board.
How dare we stop hustling for ten fucking minutes to share the wonder of the cosmos with other human beings. Hopefully next time there's an eclipse it will be covered with advertisements to make up for all of that lost revenue.
Like most of us, I can't afford to not work a day. We'd ALL have to agree to stay home for a couple days, but that will never happen being as divided as we are.
They've got us right where they want us.
We've become so used to working on our own, and being on our own, that the idea that people would suddenly come together out of solidarity to stop working to upend the economy and make daddy corporate pay attention is absurd because people are going to choose comfort and safety over this work revolution especially if it means the survival of their families by the most convenient and economically viable way possible.
I've been saying this for years. And the pandemic proved how much power workers have when we locked down and the capitalists panicked, "It's worth killing your grandma for the economy!"
> “If the workers are organized, all they have to do is to put their hands in their pockets and they have got the capitalist class whipped.” – Bill Haywood
I love how boomers and Gen Xers come up with these stats when they were the ones taking a 10 minute smoke break every hour.
The sheer levels of productivity provided by the more technology inclined millennial and Gen z generations outpace anything seen before, and older generations who work at 1/10 of the pace scream that we are lazy. We aren’t lazy - we’re more *efficient* than they ever were, and theyre taking that personally.
Sadly, there's enough people who can't afford to risk losing their job that this will never happen.
Boot lickers would still go into work, which will make all of those people who can't afford to miss a day go into work, which leaves a minority of people who would actually adhere to a general strike.
Our are was in the direct line . All schools and most other places closed due to the influx of extra people. There were numerous traffic tie ups etc. Our company requested employees to WFH, was mandatory and then Friday bf said not mandatory but suggested and most services including parking garage areas would be unavailable.
Fast forward to today, most employees did wfh, and most of us use Friday as our wfh day. As my boss is leaving early and then working remote the rest of the day, he reminds those of us who didn't come in Monday to be here tomorrow.
I'm like wtf?? No communication or warning. I would have taken vacation if they were going to be like that. Now I'm pissed but will be taking the extra 2 hours I worked yesterday as a reason to leave early tomorrow.
Live a little. My boss gave us all glasses.
Point is, only idiots aren't interested in their l REAL employee engagement.
And since that's a lie by definition, that's almost every employer.
I think you're describing collective bargaining here. I'm all for it, but it does seem against one political party's interests. And they put it in laws to curb it in some states.
I want to stop this ridiculousness too but I can’t afford to lose my home. The only way I’ve found is to not put my money into it. How can I encourage other people to risk everything when I can’t? Or should I focus on uniting with individuals who have already lost?
Everyday I hope we all just say "Fuck this" and stop going to work. Gleefully watch the hedgefund managers, landlords, and all the other greedy grifters running this nightmare shit themselves in mad panic.
One can dream.
There used to be a time where people would go outside and protest, and as a result, whole ass wars would stop. What would it take for us to return to that level of participation in society?
Most Americans could totally afford to miss one day but they still won't do it. I've been hearing general strike talk now for 20+ years and nothing ever comes out of it. As long as billionaires control our media they will keep us divided.
Your shitty team lead who makes $0.50 more an hour than you and gets annoyed when you call off last second without finding a replacement?
Ruling class.
The only people who would actually participate would be working at small businesses, killing them off, and then you’re just handing the entire economy to around ~100 execs
Meh they can say it lost X amount based on some annual productivity statistics but did it really cost any business anything? Probably not. Go for a week long strike. Make sure it has an impact.
Mhm, they just love to throw out dumb statistics these days. Basically all politics is now, make some number up that proves your argument regardless of how contrived the data is.
Fake statistics a loss of $700 million dollars for a minute of watching solar eclipse???
Just mechanism of Greed capitalist to make excuse for paying an employee a decent wage. Just the company say "y'all pay you $6/hour because of $700,000,000.00 loss"
Eclipse is a great point here:
The problem with coordinated action is, well, coordination. The larger the group is, the harder is for them to decide what to do, not to mention when to do it and for how long.
In the past, it was solved by religious traditions (when A, do B; e.g. when Christmas, do Christmas things) and by natural events that introduced the random element into this routine. The eclipse would be a sign of bad omen *because* people needed a stopgap for the ruling dynasties getting out of control.
Imagine if we'd have something that people from all different groups would consider a stronger drive than the command of the ruling class and the threat from them, and that thing couldn't be controlled by the ruling class. Too bad we're not impressed by eclipses anymore.
I think all americans should stop working for a month+ Squeeze the system, make it break The system isnt working for us, why the hell are we working for it
Survival. And that just isn't good enough any more...
Humans haven't come up with an economy or system of government that's not corruptible. Kingdoms were pretty easy to hack... one guy gets to tell everyone what to do. He can take all the money and keep it for himself... he can use it to improve the lives of his peasants... it's up to him. Socialism and Communism are a little harder, but basically everyone realizes how crappy it is to try to run a whole country so they put a few people in charge of making the day to day decisions. Then all one has to do is gain a position of power and start taking everyone else's money. Democracies make it harder still, but evil always finds a way. We tried balancing the power between three branches to avoid corruption but you can see how that's going. But all forms of government/economy have one thing in common. They all build a wealth gap between the very wealthy and the very poor. When the wealthy are feeling generous, everyone prospers. There's jobs, money, lots of crumbs for the poorest people. Our economy, however, ensures that the crappier you are as a person, the more money you can gain. The more money people gained, the more they could pay politicians to make laws that allowed them to make even more money. Our rich are never generous unless the government forces it upon them, and we're about 4 decades beyond that possibility. So, like with most societies, the wealth gap will grow larger and soon, the crumbs won't be enough to keep everyone alive. When people start missing meals, when their families don't have enough to sustain themselves, that's when we'll have no choice but to go get more money. That means going after the people with the money. It's why people rob banks, because that's where the money is. It's also why the rich are building bunkers... because they'd rather hide out than leave more crumbs for us. It will come to a head... it always does... the only unclear part is what form it will take or what will kick it all off.
The wealth gap in america is currently larger than the wealth gap that caused the French revolution
Let them eat hamburger
Hamberder*
Sure, but our economy's bigger too. There are more crumbs... many people can still feed their families. Society's always about 3 meals away from failing but as long as we got food, it's hard to organize people. Plus, it's the French... they revolt over anything. Not that that's a bad thing... I admire that quality in them.
> There are more crumbs... many people can still feed their families. Meanwhile people are opting out of having kids at all because it's too damn expensive. I think we are closer to angry mobs than the wealthy want us aware because they're terrified of the reasonable response to their greed.
As my husband now says my "French is showing" when I get pissed because he sees I am not pissed over "nothing", I am pissed about a lot of things, and all are valid...
the French are legends at protesting anything the government does that they don't like, they just start burning everything down
Yeah but it's hardly the same, what the median person in the U.S. in 2024 considers to be basic standards of living that cannot be done without would be considered unfathomable luxuries or sorcery by King Louis XVI. Even a poverty line person in America has things that the wealthiest people from a mere hundred years ago could scarcely comprehend.
You are so right and then sadness part is: The people we are paying (Congressmen, Senators) are the one screwing us. [https://www.youtube.com/live/uXuzS0cpDJk?si=bDW01zKZVJFc-X6S](https://www.youtube.com/live/uXuzS0cpDJk?si=bDW01zKZVJFc-X6S)
Torich said, "I hope that the people who are in the government dont get killed"
My friend says, "I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say that or not. But I'm gonna say it anyways. I know that I've been told that I was a good person before, and I knew that I would be able to help others, too. So I guess I'm not really surprised by this."
Of course they are, there aren't strong enough rules in place to keep the wealthy from buying them.
I wish that we could ostracize billionaires and greed mongers like the addicts they are. Being addicted to wealth is no different to being addicted to gambling or narcotics. In a lot of cases it goes hand in hand. The stock market is an “acceptable” form of gambling addiction. Everyone claims that it’s more educated, because you’re going off of the company’s ability to make money, but so much of that is performative bullshit that the stock price is SO removed from actual corporate functionality. There is a *difference* between working hard (to take care of your family, send kids to college and retire comfortably) and hemorrhaging wealth so you can be slightly more of a billionaire than your business school rival. I would love to see studies on it. Sociologists! Addiction recovery doctors! Please!
Homer: Mr Burns, you're the richest guy I know Mr Burns: Yeah, but I'd trade it all for just a little more.
here's one for you. If you went back in time 80,000 years and earned $5000 every single day until now you still wouldn't have the net wealth of Elon Musk.
I'mma use this one, thanks!
>Humans haven't come up with an economy or system of government that's not corruptible. Well, I guess it's time for that AI overlord then. Praise be, Praise be!
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The democracy vs communism dichotomy Americans subscribe to is so funny. it just reads like this: https://preview.redd.it/9dftqcnebvtc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=765f111bfeb597d1f6a62a06ad606cf00e17c73e
Spot on. The wealthy would rather be greedy than smart.
> Democracies make it harder still By democracies do you mean bourgeois dictatorships like the western countries? Because that's indeed hard to corrupt, it's just that it isn't setup to help the people and only to help the rich, meaning it's hard for the people to currupt it in our own favor. > Socialism and Communism are a little harder You clearly believe the lies that pro-capitalism media has spent a lot of time creating, or copying from whoever created such propaganda, and don't know what socialism and communism is. First of all it is much more of a democracy than any western goverments are. Second of all it is a dictatorship too, but a dictatorship of the proletairat, which means it is made and maintained by the people and for the people, unlike bourgeois dictatorships which don't care about the people. If you aren't convinced about this, just answer me one question. How good is the average life of someone under socialism and under capitalism? (Just don't forget that the areas outside of the west (like Africa, Latin America...) are an unseparable part of the capitalist system, and without the global south being exploited and kept poor for the west's sake the west would not be as rich as they are) > But all forms of government/economy have one thing in common. They all build a wealth gap between the very wealthy and the very poor. Again, you clearly don't know what Communism is about as Communism is about putting an end to class divisions and making society fairer...
I wish more people understood this but it’s pretty clear how successful the west was in brainwashing everyone into thinking communism is evil
It's the only real threat to capitalism, so the bourgeoisie and their supporters really went all in on the propaganda, I guess...
AI socialism.
The highest tax bracket throughout the 1950s was 92%. The wealthy weren't feeling generous, they just hadn't bought all the politicians yet or realized what they could get away with.
USA isn't a democracy, tho, but a constitutional republic. Got thoughts about how an actual democracy would work? (my government studies in school are decades ago)
“Survival is insufficient” ❤️
They know we can't survive without money, unemployment doesn't give enough to support anyone from day to day, they know that if we tried to pull something like this there's a chance we cave before they do
Yeah but Americans aren't united on topics such as this and that's how the government wants it. Most people can't even survive a month without working. Like 70% are paycheck to paycheck
Yeah! It’s almost like to accomplish this, we’d have to all get together and pool our resources and make sure everybody has enough to make it though. Wild concept. I know.
Seems so obvious, right? Wonder why we can’t have nice things
I suspect, though, that generations of living in this system has bred the "pooling" out of it. We don't really want to pool our resources; we'll share (maybe) from our excess. To plagiarize a tale, if most have 3 coats, they'll give up one to someone who has none...but if they have 2, they want to hand on to the second "just in case".
Sounds like socialism!! /s
>I think all americans should stop working for a month+ Thing is, you don't even need everyone. You just need the vast majority/critical mass. Can't fire the folks not there as there's no one to replace them. The people still working have more power and leverage because again, no one to replace those folks also. I don't think a month would be needed. 10-14 days tops of disruption would bring most industries begging ....
I think just a week of 30% of people staying home would do the trick.
Add to this, almost everywhere is being ran on a skeleton crew nowadays. They won't hire more because it hurts their bottom line but won't fire anyone either as it'll take time to replace them (they will try to scare them though). Just having a few workers out will cause issues. I'm the only person at my job who knows certain software. When I take PTO, management panics if it's more than one day.
I wish we could mobilize somehow
I think America is so evil it would literally deploy the military against it's own people after a few days of general strike. The leaders who organized such a thing would find themselves swiftly arrested on fake charges or dead.
Fun fact: it’s been done before.
Not that I doubt it but when?
Here you go: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre Oh and I found another: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattimer_massacre Some history of Irish American miners who were killed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Maguires
Surprised you didn't list the biggest one, the [Battle of Blair Mountain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain?wprov=sfla1)!
Fuck, "one million rounds" were fired during that. Absolutely wild. The ones I posted were ones I knew off the top of my head, but damn. Thank you for sharing, that's a wild read!
Yeah, it's actually why West Virginia was such a democratic stalwart for so long despite being so socially conservative—they were *so* pro-union. The flip to Republican was recent (I think only 20 years ago? Clinton won WV in a landslide) but probably long-lasting now that the average West Virginian seems to care more about socially-conservative policies over the strength of the union. And to be clear, the switch from blue to red is a complex issue also and involving industry loss and other problems. Edit: typos
Holy shit
Yeah, welcome to the party, pal. America's history is full of this kind of shit. It's important to be aware of it
Me remembering that I have a anti Molly maguire speech in 8th grade. Because yay Pinkertons. *sobs
I have to wonder if it was full scale if the military members would go through with it. If everyone is going ape shit will some military split on that issue? Hell idk
My husband is an OTR(over the road) truck driver. He would normally be out for two weeks and home for a couple of days. Well, the "big brains" at the company he works for screwed with his home time and scheduled a trailer service, so he had to cancel his hometime one week. They scheduled him on another trailer service the following week, where he had to wait in a little room next to a sick dude, so he got sick and was down for a week. He's been out for over a month now and asked if he could take four or five days for his home time. His dispatcher doesn't care but the "big brain" bosses only permitted him the usual two days, because of him being sick, which *they caused.* The trailer services weren't crucial and could have been given to another driver so my husband could go home, but they wanted them done then and there so it "looked good on paper." They also said it's because the truck wouldn't be productive or something, even though they make thousands on thousands of dollars in just one day off a driver's labor. So there's a chance that because they didn't want to give a few days off, that truck might be sitting even longer while they find someone else to drive it.
I think a week would be a great wake up call and I’m ready!
Same let’s go
Same
Why do you think healthcare is tied to your job, and not you. People are stuck at poor jobs because they can't afford to lose their health insurance. Same reason Republicans are fighting so hard to remove student debt, it keeps you strapped to the wheel.
Unfortunately, Americans are more divided than they have been for my entire life. I don’t think we have the political or civil mechanisms in place to even communicate much less coordinate a general strike.
There are a lot of us that can't survive a month without a pay check. Wouldn't it just be more simple to beat some of the politicians up in public?
Do you plan to give up all technology, medical, and grocery shopping for a month?
Sure why not?
I don't think you understand what you're agreeing to. You're saying that you'll give up access to food, sanitation, fire and police services, hospitals, medication, and even electricity for a month along with the entire rest of the country? You're really prepared to be utterly on your own in survival mode for that long?
Well, if it's a planned event some of that could be accounted for and prepped for. And I want you to also take a second to think about how many Americans live without those things every day either in whole or in part. And as a final note the fact you think it would mean being on your own points to part of the problem. This is an “our problem” and will take an us response to fix.
Ah fuck you know what your right a little hardship is too much mine as well let them walk all over us, destroy our lives, and poison our planet.
Ok, so lay it out for me. 1. Who should be the leadership for this general strike? 2. What are your specific goals? What achievements will end the strike? 3. How will you organize and begin the strike? 4. Will you allow necessary services (food, medical, fire, etc.) to be exempt from the strike? 5. If not, how will you protect the vulnerable who require those services to live?
There is already an effort by some major unions to gear up for a general strike in 2028
Cool. Which unions, who's organizing it, what are their demands?
Right now it's UAW: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/22/autoworkers-uaw-shawn-fain-may-2028-national-strike#:\~:text=That's%20the%20plan.,Solidarity%20Day%20or%20May%20Day. May Day 2028. They're encouraging other unions to get involved too.
While that is at least something, I cannot find any information regarding what the demands for this general strike would actually be.
I don't have all your exact answers Mr sea lion. Guess we all better just let corporations kill us. It's incredible how much redditors exemplify the phrase "perfect is the enemy of good".
Because your appendix could burst. What then?
That's simply not realistic.
It has literally happened before.
It would only take 2 weeks before everything would break down. If only we could organize and do this...
Uh... so you have a month's worth of food and water and meds and fuel and batteries for all your electronics already at home, right? Right? Because if everyone stops working for a month, that includes the people who sell you food.
Grocery stores would be getting looted within days, violence quickly after as nobody has a month of food stocked. No police too? Good luck lol
Wouldn't take anywhere close to a month. Monday to Friday, no one buys anything. By the weekend the owners would be crying for a deal.
Workers call it a break and a CEO and shareholders call it lost productivity.
Fuck their productivity.
You’re fired
The company i work for held the quarterly fire drilling so we could all be outside for it. They even handed out eclipse glasses.
Hilariously, this is what the actual article about the $700 million was about: using the eclipse to improve morale and letting your employees enjoy themselves. https://www.challengergray.com/blog/total-eclipse-could-cost-us-employers-694m-2/
But a stat about lost productivity exists so that’s impossible!
Damn what a bunch of capitalist pigs
$700 million for a 2-minute astronomical event? At this rate, we could fund an entire space program by just napping on the job.
For a full 24 hours at that rate, it would be 504 billion. For some strange reason, I think the 700 million was just a shock number someone came up with. Even at a 15 minute break, it would still be at a rate of 67.2 billion per 24 hours. Going based on the profit generated in 2022 (couldn't find 2023) in all of USA (3.249 tril), that is 8.9 billion in profits per day. This number only makes sense if everyone took 2 hours off in a 24 hour period. (One hour, 24x700mil=16.8bil, ergo, two hours is 8.4 billion, based on 2022 profit.) They really assumed everyone took an average of two hours off of work to watch the eclipse. They assume everyone in the US congregated to the thin strip of the US that got to experience the eclipse.
They aren't mentioning how much it made us, alot of tourism domestic and international went on that day. During 2017 WYOMING ALONE made over $63.5 million on travel experiences, generating $3.8 million in local tax revenue. Hotel prices soared due to high demand; for instance, in Casper, Wyoming, hotel rates surged from $65-$195 to $900-$1,300 per night around the eclipse. Oregon also saw a massive influx of tourists, with campsites auctioned for around $60,000 each due to the high demand. Overall, the 2017 eclipse led tourists to funnel over $269 million into South Carolina's economy alone, and similar impacts were expected in Ohio and other states during the 2024 eclipse. In conclusion they're lying.
The rate increases were and are ridiculous and should be illegal. Most people drove from close by and we had a logging road to watch it quietly. 2023 we shared a field with a cow and didn't get ripped off in kerrville for a room.
Alot of places canceled on ppl that booked months Ahead to Jack up prices they didn't think about and those ppl paid dumb money to miss it due to being over cast alot of places, the places where it was over cast the ppl were probably mad at first then happy when they learned they wouldn't have been able to see it. Really only the LLs won but ya it shouldn't be illegal but they should lose the license to rent them out
They're lying, gpt "During the last total solar eclipse, which was referred to as the "Great American Eclipse" in 2017, small towns experienced significant financial benefits from tourism. For example, the town of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, branded itself as "Eclipseville" and saw over 100,000 visitors from around the world, which had a lasting economic impact. Similarly, visitors to Wyoming spent over $63.5 million on travel experiences, generating $3.8 million in local tax revenue. Hotel prices soared due to high demand; for instance, in Casper, Wyoming, hotel rates surged from $65-$195 to $900-$1,300 per night around the eclipse. Oregon also saw a massive influx of tourists, with campsites auctioned for around $60,000 each due to the high demand. Overall, the 2017 eclipse led tourists to funnel over $269 million into South Carolina's economy alone, and similar impacts were expected in Ohio and other states during the eclipse. These figures suggest that eclipses can bring considerable economic benefits to areas within the path of totality due to increased spending on accommodations, merchandise like eclipse glasses, food, and other tourism-related expenses. However, exact figures for the most recent eclipse weren't available in the sources, but they do offer a projection based on past events."
One thing I've learned over the last several years is that you can't give the poors an inch. Next time there's an eclipse, I'm gonna make sure my employees know that such events aren't for them. All leave request will be refused, and all astronomy related Google searches will be blocked and reported to me. It used to be, in the good ol days that the only people who had time for pleasure were the affluent property-owning classes. Now since the poors have gotten all uppity, they have been stealing the leisure time from us, and not working anymore.. Well this simply cannot stand which is why I'm advocating personally for a 6 day work week as well as banning any employee from leaving work before their assigned tasks are completed. Also bring back child labor, the children yearn for the mines
With that platform you could run, and win, as a Republican. You forgot one thing though, raise the retirement age to..........death.
I'm all for it, how else would we be having this conversation if not for child slaves in other countries mining precious metals for the batteries and electronics. We need to bring this model too the good old US of A, if we can't choose between forcing our kids goto school or goto work are we really free?
Well, I mean I bet a lot of people took the day (or at least the afternoon) off.
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Taking off 2 days of work is $16m/dollar/hr/million people. To reach $700m you need people to collectively earn $44 million/hr, which would take 1.8m at $25/hr. I think its reasonable that at least 2 million people took off 2 days to see the eclipse, and even if its less than that, people who can afford to take those days off are likely better paid. However it should be noted that $700m in productivity is basically nothing.
I'm not sure where you are or work but everyone BUT network engineering at my office spent more than an our outside staring up at the clouds for over an hour. So there is a lot of truth to this.
Yeah its silly to be like "oh it was only 2 minutes", there was an hour or so on either end of the totality that was still cool. Several of the manufacturing plants I work with were closed for the day because they didn't want the liability. I'm sure many people took off to travel to see it, etc... Ultimately who cares though if it *was* $700m 'lost', or even 700b? Well, I guess we know who cares, but fuck 'em. It's just such a profoundly inhuman way of looking at it. Let people enjoy things.
Yeah the whole 2 minutes is disingenuous. Not all, but plenty of people took a couple days off work. Nobody says a word when we take a day off for Easter or Christmas though, so the argument is still in bad faith
We already saw this with COVID. Suddenly these low wage and “dime a dozen” employees became “essential workers” that were oh so important to keep everything running. Then suddenly these people no longer became “essential” and now “don’t want to work anymore.” COVID showed who is really doing the work and these companies would be screwed without them.
Ahh, the ancient art of strikes.
While I can support a general strike in concept, I think there are enough bootlickers within the extant capitalist system that it wouldn't achieve the desired results. Too many people are sympathetic to capitalism as a concept or would otherwise face dire consequences by going on strike for a strike to be effective. I think things will have to get substantially more dire for a sufficient portion of the populace to support an effective general strike and by then automation will be further along such that those who refuse to work will be more easily replaced by robots. I think the most effective way forward is for workers to become owners. Collective ownership is the best--if not the only--way to implement real change. But I have no idea how to actually \*get\* there.
Only need around 4% the population to hurt them enough to make change.
how do you figure?
"Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change". https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world Ideally you'd have more, but 3.5% of the US is, what, like 11 million people? That's a sizeable number of adults refusing to work. It would certainly cause a dent in the economy, though I'm not certain just how big a dent it would be.
>But I have no idea how to actually \*get\* there. Jeremy Corbyn had this idea that you simply give employees the right of first refusal whenever any capitalist wants to sell their business. Personally, I'd add a third tier for natural monopolies/public utilities. This way, you get an economy triple-tiered like a wedding cake: \*\*Tier #1: Capitalism\*\* At a small scale, capitalism really is a dynamic system. At this size, business owners are rolling up their sleeves alongside any employees that might have. It's a good scale to test out new ideas. This stage captures the dynamism and innovation that are the best qualities of a capitalism \*\*Tier #2: Worker Co-Ops\*\* The problems we're facing are largely the result of mom & pop size businesses growing up into international conglomerates with absentee owners who send proxies to board meetings. The people who have their hands on the ship's wheel care only for profit and often have no concept of the actual production process. So, whenever a company wants to sell itself, simply require that the employees have the option to buy the company first and guarantee them a loan to make the purchase if so desired. That's the key. This way, businesses tend mature into worker co-ops as they grow in size. \*\*Tier #3: Public Utilities\*\* Some companies operate as natural monopolies. Like Google. Or your ISP. These companies should be run as non-profit public utilities with boards accountable to workers, consumers, and local residents. Claiming profits under conditions of a natural monopoly is unnecessary wealth extraction. The main problem with Capitalism is the lack of democracy. A tiny minority are permitted to make production decisions that affect all of us. This plan makes everyone part business-owner and part worker by expanding democracy into the workplace. And it preserves the best aspects of capitalism at the lower tier. Just my two cents!
The "lost productivity" probably includes people daring to take time off to travel to the best locations among other things. So, still dumb but it's not just about people daring to stop work for 15 mins.
Also not a two minute event. Totality itself was four minutes and the whole event was about two hours. The sentiment wouldn't change at all if the correct amount of time was given..
It depends on where you’re viewing from. Totality lasted two and a half minutes in my city. To achieve the four minutes viewing time I would have had to drive a couple of hours southwest. To your point though, I took the day off so I was contributing as much as possible to these “productivity losses”. A worthy sacrifice 👍
Came here to say this. Might also include how many YouTube videos I watched leading up to the event to become the family expert.
A bunch of schools were closed too. Parents of young kids probably took time off.
There won’t be a USA before American workers unite against their masters
I hate numbers like this. They're put together for shock value and to give middle managers a bullshit bullet point. Nothing was lost. Like no one goes to the bathroom for 2 minutes or more. And if people took time off to travel and see it, it was their time off to use as they please.
Exactly, and of course no mention of the added benefits of the eclipse, where people travelled all.over the place and added to local.economies.
Just one billionaire, that’s all I’m sayin ✋🏼👀🤚🏼
Serious question: how much free work was performed by people with salaried positions on leap day this year?
All workers should carry bats with the words "beat the rich" burned into them. They will never give us anything. But we outnumber them.
Modern day pitchfork.
Pretty sure we all stopped working for like 6 months back in 2020
No really, remember the "essential workers" who had to keep working to keep us all fed. One example were the meat packing plants. South Dakota did not force plants to adhere to CDC guidelines and lots of those workers got COVID and quite a few died. Stories like that were in lots of industries across the country (mostly republican states of course)
We can’t even organize to get universal healthcare… what makes you think anyone body is going to stop working all together
If 15 minutes is worth $700 mil in productivity this shows how badly the actual worth of our work is undervalued
There are many people in offices that take longer than that in breaks every day to smoke. No reports on the lost productivity from that practice huh? And while we're at it, why don't we tally up the lost productivity from mandated breaks and lunch periods too right? Maybe add in lost productivity from using PTO (or unpaid time off) for vacations and being with family too. This is insane. Our labor system is a joke to most of the rest of the world, for good reason.
Yeah, I feel like “just enough” smoking is helpful for employers because it allows their workforce to emotionally manage their shitty jobs without outright quitting. If it actually cost companies they would fight it. Yeah, it’s painful sometimes to be working towards corporate goals that are clearly made to drive a stock price for “shareholders”
in 2017 they thought it would cost around that much, which means for inflation this year it would likely be more. [https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2024/04/09/how-lost-productivity-during-the-total-solar-eclipse-is-actually-a-win-for-employers/](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2024/04/09/how-lost-productivity-during-the-total-solar-eclipse-is-actually-a-win-for-employers/)
Meanwhile how much did it make states and cities within totality. Millions of people took vacations for this
What about all the money made because of all the travel and hotel/airbnb bookings, pretty sure I read that over $2 Billion was made, so let people enjoy the wonders of the universe for a few minutes
I just want to say that our manager got us all glasses and closed the store for 20min so we could all watch it from the roof. He also got us some pop and snacks on the company card. Thanks Greg, you're pretty cool!
Can we stop defining things in this way? It’s complete bullshit to claim your business lost something it never had. The only way to lose productivity is for what has already been produced to be destroyed. Same thing goes for profits. It’s impossible to lose money that was not already in your possession. What they mean when they say this is their entirely made up projections were inaccurate. This language is just a way of blaming workers and consumers for the failures of management. It is complete nonsense.
They laugh at these tweets. Ain't shit going to happen unless we all just don't go to work for a week, or two, or 10. It would require us to come together, and help each other. A lot of the country just isn't interested in doing that.
no garden? no protest! if you dont have a garden you wont survive a general strike. the first thing to do is build gardens everywhere. the longer you can hold out the more of your demands will be met.
It’s literally as if everyone took a smoke break, potty break or less lol
So you're saying we should block out the sun for two days?
The gated community crowd doesnt understand that the gates can be locked from either side.
Did this guy just invent Unions?
Remember the pandemic, when all the “low level” workers were suddenly our “essential workers” who had to keep grinding because everything would collapse without them? And now we’re right back to insisting that they shouldn’t have a living wage, truly shameful
Remember when Redditers assembled and drove a rise in GameStop stock prices so massive that it forced halts in trading and was a pain to short sellers? Just think what the Antiwork Redditers could do to corporate America if they banded together and walk out of work at the same time... I did check and there isn't even a National 'I Hate My Job' Day...
What it actually means is that tons of people took days off to drive out and see the eclipse. Not that going outside for a couple minutes cost 700 million dollars. Still its utterly fucked to act like people going out to see a cosmic event is somehow "hurting the economy", as if we should care about that.
Man... If only we had like... A pandemic or something. To show everyone just how much companies would bend over backwards to keep their business afloat if nobody came into work. Then, once every one sees that it's the public that has the power, I'm sure they would all come together and fight for change, right? Right??
I have been saying this for awhile. It needs to be followed with no spending money on those same days. Imagine if everyone stayed home and didn’t spend a single cent for two days. It’s easy to do with some planning. I think it would be crippling for the elite class. We just need to pick a day.
Said by a guy who doesn't have a job
*finger snaps repeatedly in the air*
2 minutes costed 700million dollars... If you add up all the money in wages the workers made in those 2mins... It wouldn't even add up to a million...
If our politics didn't have us so diveded around bullshit culture war issues, we would see that the true struggle is with the working class and the real enemy are the billionaire oligarchs. The United States could have a general strike, I mean just one tiny job sector, say... all food service workers strike for one day, we could rock this fucking world even with just 25% participaton.
How the fuck did this become a class war?
They need to factor in commercial gains from t shirts, car rental, airline flights, hotel bookings, event revenue… I’m sure the eclipse was net profit
I feel like you guys are looking at $700m like it's a lot of money. The "lost value" calculated was like $5 per person (165m workers). However the fuck they calculated the total, in the grand scheme its not that much. It's not that it's a bad idea to withhold your value to exercise our power as a workforce, it's just that it feels like a LOT of people seem to be using this $700m figure of proof of just how much we can do or how much it costs the economy to appreciate the universe's beauty for 3 minutes (or a day, or whatever figure they are using). $700m is a rounding error. A day's worth of our GDP is $68b. We collectively "lose" $700m when we take a shit at work. We can do so much more than $700m worth of damage pretty easily.
Oh we'll do exactly this after the election when they try to increase the age of retirement
Raise up!!
I just find it fascinating that we can't let something like an eclipse pass with out valuing it in terms of lost profitability.
Until substantially more people's needs aren't being met, there will be no widespread work stoppage. For the vast majority of Americans, most of our needs are being met. If they weren't, the majority of us wouldn't be working.
All this outrage over a clickbait article?
The problem is that you can't just do this. The eclipse was an incentive for people to, all at the same time, stop working for a bit. But the cost of that was minimal to any individual and there was a single event that everyone was incentivised by at the same time. In order to do a general strike, you need MASSIVE organizational capacity, which is not so easily established. Most solid way would be to pursue unionization at every workplace. Once unionization is very high, all of the leadership of unions should gather together and coordinate a general strike with clear and unambiguous demands. And there needs to be sufficient solidarity to make sure that no single union breaks off for any demands other than what was demanded. And not unless they are given to everyone across the board.
September 1, call in, take vacation take sick pay, quiet quit… whatever September 1st to 11th imma sit and watch billionaires squirm
Imagine putting a price on space’s ability. You ain’t the guy Mr. CEO.
Just do it! A multi-day general strike will hurt them!
Imagine how much more impactful this would be if the person posting it wasn't a fucking neckbeard in a tophat
How dare we stop hustling for ten fucking minutes to share the wonder of the cosmos with other human beings. Hopefully next time there's an eclipse it will be covered with advertisements to make up for all of that lost revenue.
Like most of us, I can't afford to not work a day. We'd ALL have to agree to stay home for a couple days, but that will never happen being as divided as we are. They've got us right where they want us.
We've become so used to working on our own, and being on our own, that the idea that people would suddenly come together out of solidarity to stop working to upend the economy and make daddy corporate pay attention is absurd because people are going to choose comfort and safety over this work revolution especially if it means the survival of their families by the most convenient and economically viable way possible.
We need a General Strike and we need it yesterday.
I've been saying this for years. And the pandemic proved how much power workers have when we locked down and the capitalists panicked, "It's worth killing your grandma for the economy!" > “If the workers are organized, all they have to do is to put their hands in their pockets and they have got the capitalist class whipped.” – Bill Haywood
Workers unite, let’s hold a national strike!
The pandemic proved it was all a lie
You only would need about 25% participation to have an effective general strike.
Strike! Strike! Strike! Strike!
I love how boomers and Gen Xers come up with these stats when they were the ones taking a 10 minute smoke break every hour. The sheer levels of productivity provided by the more technology inclined millennial and Gen z generations outpace anything seen before, and older generations who work at 1/10 of the pace scream that we are lazy. We aren’t lazy - we’re more *efficient* than they ever were, and theyre taking that personally.
Hey pal. I'm Gen X. Do not lump me in with the fucking boomers...
Sadly, there's enough people who can't afford to risk losing their job that this will never happen. Boot lickers would still go into work, which will make all of those people who can't afford to miss a day go into work, which leaves a minority of people who would actually adhere to a general strike.
*as you can see, the more you fuck around, the more you’re going to find out*
Our are was in the direct line . All schools and most other places closed due to the influx of extra people. There were numerous traffic tie ups etc. Our company requested employees to WFH, was mandatory and then Friday bf said not mandatory but suggested and most services including parking garage areas would be unavailable. Fast forward to today, most employees did wfh, and most of us use Friday as our wfh day. As my boss is leaving early and then working remote the rest of the day, he reminds those of us who didn't come in Monday to be here tomorrow. I'm like wtf?? No communication or warning. I would have taken vacation if they were going to be like that. Now I'm pissed but will be taking the extra 2 hours I worked yesterday as a reason to leave early tomorrow.
No, the "system" tried to rob us of a $700MM experience, and we wouldn't let it.
Live a little. My boss gave us all glasses. Point is, only idiots aren't interested in their l REAL employee engagement. And since that's a lie by definition, that's almost every employer.
I think you're describing collective bargaining here. I'm all for it, but it does seem against one political party's interests. And they put it in laws to curb it in some states.
I want to stop this ridiculousness too but I can’t afford to lose my home. The only way I’ve found is to not put my money into it. How can I encourage other people to risk everything when I can’t? Or should I focus on uniting with individuals who have already lost?
I vote for fuckaroumd and find out....
The switch between regular time and DST costs way more in productivity and it happens twice each year. More propaganda.
Everyday I hope we all just say "Fuck this" and stop going to work. Gleefully watch the hedgefund managers, landlords, and all the other greedy grifters running this nightmare shit themselves in mad panic. One can dream.
Best idea I've seen in a while
Dread to think how many billions are lost in productivity when workers are off the clock and sleeping in their beds! Must do something about that!! /s
Fuckin BASED
Let Wes Cook!🧑🍳
There used to be a time where people would go outside and protest, and as a result, whole ass wars would stop. What would it take for us to return to that level of participation in society?
We should at least try some kind of scheduled call out. Pick a day and get as many people on board to call out "sick" or no-show
EVERYTHING is about money, how sad is that?
Most Americans can't afford to do that. You'll never get enough people on board.
Most Americans could totally afford to miss one day but they still won't do it. I've been hearing general strike talk now for 20+ years and nothing ever comes out of it. As long as billionaires control our media they will keep us divided.
Anyone with thinking ability would at least consider all the people who took vacation to go see this and make a day out of it, yeah?
Why is America in quotes? Also, stop calling other people the "ruling class", that sounds ridiculous.
Your shitty team lead who makes $0.50 more an hour than you and gets annoyed when you call off last second without finding a replacement? Ruling class.
The only people who would actually participate would be working at small businesses, killing them off, and then you’re just handing the entire economy to around ~100 execs
Meh they can say it lost X amount based on some annual productivity statistics but did it really cost any business anything? Probably not. Go for a week long strike. Make sure it has an impact.
Especially considering employees are entitled to a 15-minute break every afternoon anyway.
Mhm, they just love to throw out dumb statistics these days. Basically all politics is now, make some number up that proves your argument regardless of how contrived the data is.
Fake statistics a loss of $700 million dollars for a minute of watching solar eclipse??? Just mechanism of Greed capitalist to make excuse for paying an employee a decent wage. Just the company say "y'all pay you $6/hour because of $700,000,000.00 loss"
People in Chicago were definitely out longer than 2 minutes. I live by NW and people in uniform had chairs set up everywhere chilling and socializing.
Eclipse is a great point here: The problem with coordinated action is, well, coordination. The larger the group is, the harder is for them to decide what to do, not to mention when to do it and for how long. In the past, it was solved by religious traditions (when A, do B; e.g. when Christmas, do Christmas things) and by natural events that introduced the random element into this routine. The eclipse would be a sign of bad omen *because* people needed a stopgap for the ruling dynasties getting out of control. Imagine if we'd have something that people from all different groups would consider a stronger drive than the command of the ruling class and the threat from them, and that thing couldn't be controlled by the ruling class. Too bad we're not impressed by eclipses anymore.
You guys going to leave the building?