Just following on from this: https://lemmy.nz/post/1134134

Ex-Tesla employee reveals shocking details on worker conditions: 'You get fired on the spot.'

I'm curious about how far this goes.

You can't get fired on the spot in NZ, unless you like, shot someone or set the building on fire or something really bad.

But it seems that in the US, there's little to no protections for employees when their bosses are dickheads?

Also, any personal stories of getting fired on the spot?

  • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
    ·
    1 year ago

    It was still a constant fight but, union membership was at 23.3%, annual strikes and work stoppages were measured in hundreds, wages increased proportionally to productivity gained through technology, and executive salaries were 5-10x average workers'.

    Reagan, who had benefitted from membership in the Screen Actors Guild, launched a political war against unions and labor rights, starting with the firing of 11k striking air traffic controllers who he banned from working for the Federal government (a ban only lifted in 1993) and dissolved their union (a fun sidenote to this being that PATCO were the only union that endorsed Reagan and a final "fuck you" cherry on top was the renaming of the DC airport to Reagan National). This showed business that, at least under a GOP government, strikebreaking was again allowed.

    All that precipitated rapid decline in union membership for workers in the US, leading to a cycle of increased share of wealth to the top, which was used to buy more legislation to erode labor's power and roll back protections, which increased the share of wealth to the top...ad infinitum. Now, union membership is 11.3%, exec pay is 400x that of workers, and compensation has completely decoupled from productivity and stagnated.

    • AOCapitulator [they/them, she/her]
      ·
      1 year ago

      And a reminder that Biden, supported by the dems including “good” politicians like AOC (lol) smashed the rail strike just this year

      It’s bad folks

      • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
        ·
        1 year ago

        This exactly. Breaking that strike was pure betrayal and clearly showed that, while more left than others in the Democratic party, she's still going to go to bat for business over workers.

        • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
          ·
          1 year ago

          “Preventing us from exerting our right to strike as union workers, Congress has imposed this contract which was voted down by most of the freight rail workers in the United States,” said freight conductor Nick Wurst

          Looks like that's a "no".

    • SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml
      ·
      1 year ago

      Uhh that hurts to read. Because I imagine the unions must have otherwise made up for the lack of a legal safety net