Does the US have zero employee protection laws??
Does the US have zero employee protection laws??
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?
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Basically the case, yes. It varies state by state and there are some federal laws but, the enforcement is lacking to say the least and funding tends to be gutted to make it worse. Effectively, since Reagan, there's been an unending attack on labor rights and regulations. Currently, multiple states are passing laws to bring back child labor and workers who try to unionize are getting axed with no real repercussions.
Oh, yes I heard about the child labour thing. That's so fucked.
Got a source on the child labour thing? Not doubting you, but as a non-American I'm confused as to how the hell youse aren't in open revolt.
EDIT: Responding individually later. In short, fuck. In long, thanks all for sending me those links, I'm gonna go wash my eyes out with bleach and attempt to un-know all that I now know
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labor_laws_in_the_United_States
By 2023, states such as New Jersey and Arkansas had loosened child labor restrictions following the lessening of the COVID-19 pandemic severity, with violations increasing nationwide as a tight labor market increased worker demand. Modifications included lowering the age in which children could work certain jobs, expanding the number of and timing of hours they could be required to work, often to include school time, and shielding businesses from civil liability for work-related injuries, illnesses, or deaths sustained by such workers.
Why there are no revolt? Brainwashing. Child labor is part of glorious capitalism, worker's rights is hideous communism.
You likely won't see this on the coasts, where riots would definitely occur, but throughout the middle of the country all kinds of wild shit can happen and we're so disconnected from each other at this point that it basically feels like it's happening in another country.
The union is weak is how it's being got away with is my take on it.
Yeah... Others really beat me to it. It's pretty fucked up.
Copied from the last link: "As of June, legislators have proposed at least 19 child labor rollbacks over the past two years. Of those, seven have been signed into law in five states (Arkansas, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, and New Jersey). Most of the legislation has been authored and advanced by Republican lawmakers. However, Democrats in New Jersey played an integral role in passing a 2022 law that increases the number of hours children can work, and Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declined to veto a pair of laws enacted in 2022—one to lower the minimum age for working at a liquor store and another the age to serve alcohol."
https://abc7chicago.com/child-labor-laws-work-permit-wisconsin/13673003/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/mississippi-poultry-plant-teen-dies
What was it like before Regan?
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.
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
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.
She was doing what the unions wanted
Do you disagree?
what could you possibly be talking about
“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".
Uhh that hurts to read. Because I imagine the unions must have otherwise made up for the lack of a legal safety net