#working class

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Just what is going on here we may never know, but sometimes half the fun of these old photographs is

Just what is going on here we may never know, but sometimes half the fun of these old photographs is making up our own captions to interpret the long-lost intentions of whoever directed the scene!


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“Even if the outward and visible manifestations of class were not as conspicuous as they do in fact remain, it would still be quite unwarranted to interpret this as evidence of the erosion, let alone the dissolution, of class divisions which are firmly rooted in the system of ownership of advanced capitalist societies. To achieve their dissolution or even their serious erosion would take rather more than working-class access to refrigerators, television sets, cars… and more even than death taxes, progressive taxation, and a host of other measures denounced and deplored by the rich as ruinous and crippling, yet which have had no radical impact upon economic inequality–not very surprisingly since this system of ownership operates on the principle that ‘to him who hath shall be given,’ and provides ample opportunities for wealth to beget more wealth.”

— Ralph Miliband

In the small Ahwa near the meeting of Shari’ Mobtadayan and el-Qasr el-Ainy you can become part of the furniture.

The chairs are recklessly stacked on top of one another, propped up by the sturdy steel body of the smouldering coal store.  They are anxious for a customer of their own to come and put them to use so that they no longer feel like the odd piece of rubbish which Nasser - the owner - throws to the street, not caring when or by whom it will be swept up.  They stand there, idle.  Boasting to each other about who they have served here yet at the same time quietly pondering the fidelity of their masters to their cause.  By the wall, the odd couple are glad of their freedom.  The relative comfort of their silk upholstery guarantees them a place in society even without the need for their subjugation.  Their superiority, you would think, would distress the commoners; but despite their angst they are still able to find a sense of validity by clinging to the newly-laid ceramic floor, lightly littered by the odd leaf of tobacco and stray bottle cap.  They have lived a good life, the stains of which are visible in the small cracks lining the rim of their torsos; just as the first unwanted wrinkle claims its place on the face of the middle-aged mother.  They resist growing old.  Of course, they still have half of their lives ahead of them - but these wrinkles are the first frosts of their winter.  No longer will they receive the same lustful looks from the fatigued Kiosk owner, impatient for respite from his dull routine.  The journalist, sporting his custom-made suit will search for a younger, more attractive model to which to dedicate his custom.  Yes, these chairs have seen the best of their lives.  Their heyday now but a distant nostalgia which they are not quite prepared to fully surrender to the past.

Arrogantly looking on, two rows of shisha pipes are secure in their places.  Nasser - albeit through necessity - tends to their every need as though they were his daughters.  After every use their lungs are cleared and new water poured in; their long, carefully made-up limbs sinuously wrapped around their bodies.  They are the reason for the Ahwa’s existence.  Old men come, coughing and spluttering, craving their next fix; and although the pipes may not be in the correct mental disposition to be used, they are aware that they have no choice in the matter and must therefore desensitise themselves to every unwelcome touch, each insensitive drag on their delicate and dainty parts so that the customer leaves satisfied and wanting to return.  They may rather be purchased directly from their mass-produced workshops of the souq, for one faithful owner to proudly display them on some far-off mantelpiece as a loving souvenir of the east; but they are here, part of a well-oiled system of exploitation, their ornate beauty and individual temperaments overlooked, condemned to slavery in this brutal bordello of testosterone and vice.

 Les Temps modernes. Collage - 307Vincent Cann production. My collectionWebsite : vincentcann.comFol

Les Temps modernes. Collage - 307

Vincent Cann production. My collection

Website : vincentcann.com

Follow me on Instagram&Facebook


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 “May Day. Long live the holiday of the working people of all countries!”Ivanov Sergey I

“May Day. Long live the holiday of the working people of all countries!”
Ivanov Sergey Ivanovich
Soviet Union
1920 


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 “The 1st of May Before - The 1st of May in the Future” De Arbeidthe Netherlands 1900

“The 1st of May Before - The 1st of May in the Future”
De Arbeid
the Netherlands 
1900


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Female welder on the job, 1960s

Don’t believe corporate America’s “labor shortage” bullshit. This is an unofficial general strike.


For the first time in years, American workers have enough bargaining leverage to demand better working conditions and higher wages – and are refusing to work until they get them.

Here’s where that leverage comes from. After a year and a half of the pandemic, consumers have pent-up demand for all sorts of goods and services. But employers are finding it hard to fill positions to meet that demand. 

The most recent jobs report showed the number of job openings at a record high. The share of people working or looking for work has dropped to a near-record low 61.6 percent. In August, 4.3 million Americans quit their jobs, the highest quit rate since 2000.

Republicans have been claiming for months that people aren’t getting back to work because of federal unemployment benefits. Rubbish. 

The number of people working or looking for work dropped in September – after the extra benefits ran out on Labor Day.

The reluctance of people to work doesn’t have anything to do with unemployment benefits. It has everything to do with workers being fed up.

Some have retired early. Others have found ways to make ends meet other than a job they hate. Many just don’t want to return to backbreaking or mind-numbing low-wage jobs. 

In the wake of so much hardship, illness and death, peoples’ priorities have shifted.

The media and most economists measure the economy’s success by the number of jobs it creates, while ignoring the quality of those jobs. Just look at the media coverage of the September jobs report: The New York Times emphasized “weak” job growth. For CNN, it was “another disappointment.” 

But when I was Secretary of Labor, I met with working people all over the country who complained that their jobs paid too little and had few benefits, or were unsafe, or required unwieldy hours. Many said their employers treated them badly.

With the pandemic, it’s even worse. That’s why, in addition to all the people who aren’t returning to work, we’re also seeing dozens of organized strikes around the country – 10,000 John Deere workers, 1,400 Kellogg workers, over 1,000 Alabama coal miners, and thousands of others.

Not to mention the unauthorized strikes and walkouts since the pandemic began, like the mostly Black sanitation workers in Pittsburgh or the Amazon warehouse workers in Staten Island.

In order to lure workers back, employers are now raising wages and offering other incentives. Average earnings rose 19 cents an hour in September and are up more than $1 an hour over the last year. But clearly, that’s not enough to get workers back.

Corporate America is trying to frame this as a “labor shortage.” 

But what’s really happening is more accurately described as a living-wage shortage, a hazard pay shortage, a childcare shortage, a paid sick leave shortage, and a health care shortage.

Unless these shortages are rectified, this unofficial general strike will continue.
I say it’s about time.

dotterelly:

justsomeantifas:

dat-eyebrows:

whencartoonsruletheworld:

whencartoonsruletheworld:

whencartoonsruletheworld:

heartattackmedication:

Boss Baby Bezos is at it again! Amazon opened a union busting website for people to report workers unions, so lets do the world a favor and waste Jeff’s time, money, and life energy (I hope) by spamming his website with bogus reports.

Eat shit, Jeff.

Y’ALL THEY DON’T HAVE A WORD LIMIT

I JUST SENT THEM THE ENTIRE BEE MOVIE SCRIPT

update: did you guys know all of les mis is online for free

did you know it takes roughly 5-10 dedicated minutes of clicking and holding to copypaste the entire thing

take a wild guess what i sent our old pal jeff 

UPDATE update:

That’s all fun and good but I guarentee their systems are filtering out spam.

According to what other people have suggested, include keywords which will make sure your submission gets through, and avoid keywords that might filter it.

Expletives are probably filtered, as well as major meme keywords like “Shrek”, “meme”, “Script”, “Bee”, “Furry”, “Fanfiction”, “Gay”, also “Bezos” is probably filtered too I bet.

Keywords that are hypothetically more likely to get your post noticed: “Pamphlets”, “Unions” and “Unionization”, “Capitalism”, “Wages”, “Profit”, “Labor”, “Workers”, “Emails”, “Rights”, etc. Things that would be mentioned in union emails or pamphlets. Also, use keywords that identify you as an actual employee: “Warehouse”, “Company”, “Employee”, “Coworker”, “Shift”, “On Break”, etc.

So, sentences like these will help increase legidimacy: “Another employee in the warehouse has been handing out pamphlets on unionization and talking about workers rights.” or “I’m getting emails from someone in the warehouse about labor laws and criticizing the company’s wages.”

Use things like U(state letters)(number) in the tagline and at the start. Make the name and email seem legit. Flood their systems with useless info.

So say you get past filters. Someone’s gonna read your submission, and you want to get them going. Have a strong, in-character intro and conclusion, since those will be skimmed first. Include your misleading content in the body of your submission, and try to hide it well. For instance:

yes, again, your memes and jokes arent going to be as helpful. please actually waste THEIR time. not YOUR time.

If you still want to copy paste something, I wouldn’t be surprised if you could source unionisation pamphlets from the industrial revolution and just copy paste them? Probably have a lot of the keywords you need in them.

I still very much plan on submitting better ones, but I really just wanted to let out some steam. Amazon literally let a family friend of mine die in front of everyone working and when another friend, who witnessed the first get her skull crushed, had a panic attack and stress fall which cracked a vertebrae, they fired her.

Jeff Bezos is a cunt.

bitchesgetriches: thefingerfuckingfemalefury:between-stars-and-waves:thesagexoe:afronerdism:

bitchesgetriches:

thefingerfuckingfemalefury:

between-stars-and-waves:

thesagexoe:

afronerdism:

flexico-burress:

niggazinmoscow:

cheat code

This will work, I used to be a recruiter. Recruiters don’t got time to read every single resume they see, they look for keywords, find what they want, Call and do a preliminary interview. That’s it lol

This is amazing

Omg!!!

Boosting this!

AMAZING :D

I will remember this tip!

I have no idea if this works at all, but I don’t see how it could hurt. I’m all about resume cheat codes. Here’s some more advice:

How to Write a Resume so You Actually Have a Prayer of Getting Hired

How to Write a Cover Letter like You Actually Want the Job 


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Let’s take a photographic look at the working class of the Edwardian era.Let’s take a photographic look at the working class of the Edwardian era.Let’s take a photographic look at the working class of the Edwardian era.Let’s take a photographic look at the working class of the Edwardian era.Let’s take a photographic look at the working class of the Edwardian era.

Let’s take a photographic look at the working class of the Edwardian era.


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working class
As workers become more productive, they should be rewarded with wage raises. Since we’re not s

As workers become more productive, they should be rewarded with wage raises. Since we’re not seeing this in America, we need #wageratio legislation. Sign the petition https://www.causes.com/campaigns/77701-tie-companys-workers-highest-earnings-to-lowest-salaries


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Iowa Caucuses & Primaries

Friends,

We would like to thank you all for supporting our fight for fair wages. Tomorrow is the Iowa Caucus, and other primaries are soon afterwards. We would like to endorse Bernie Sanders for president, as we believe that his policies are the best for the working people of America. Although he is losing the race for the Democratic nomination, Bernie consistently is improving his base of support, and is only 3% behind in Iowa. If all of us go to the polls and vote for Bernie, our strength in numbers (over 1000) can get him closer to being the next president of the United States.

Regards,

B.H.

skywker:

headspace-hotel:

orangecitrusring:

perditionsflames:

somethingusefulfromflorida:

unashamedly-enthusiastic:

guerrillatech:

When I mentioned taking a day off to move house, my manager asked who I went with for my mortgage

When I told him I was renting he asked “why don’t you just borrow ten grand or so off your parents for a mortgage deposit?”

Sir, we lead very different lives

Have you considered being born into wealth? You should try it some time. It’s not hard. I was born into wealth all by myself!

I once visited a coworkers house and a cleaning service van pulled into her neighbors driveway. She said ‘They’re using THAT maid service now? How cliche! What service do you use?’ I felt like I’d somehow been transported to another dimension.

One time I was working at a thrift store as a cashier and talking with this dude about how expensive living and school were, and he looked at me and was like “Just go over to Europe, school is free there. Have your accountant write it off as a business expense so you won’t have to pay taxes on it” and I was just so fucking baffled I couldn’t speak

the skiing is by far the least batshit thing on this thread

Rich people are so wildly out of touch with how working class people live their lives.

I was discussing with a coworker what our plans were to move some money around to avoid the penalty for not having a minimum of $1,500 in our bank accounts. Our boss who was within earshot looked at us with disbelief and asked “You guys don’t have fifteen hundred in your account already?” like sir, you write our checks, you of all people should know we can’t live the worry-free life off $13 an hour.

Man working in the Sirsjöberg iron mine, 1926, Sweden.

Man working in the Sirsjöberg iron mine, 1926, Sweden.


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Fox News hosted a town hall with Bernie Sanders on Monday, and I decided to watch it. Here are my impressions and takeaways:

Audience Reception on the Issues

The town hall took place in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, described by Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum as an industrial town with a closed steel plant that voted for Obama and then voted for Trump. These are swing voters who Bernie Sanders should appeal to on issues like trade and workers’ rights. And, to be certain, when NAFTA, CAFTA, and TPP were brought up, the audience sided strongly with Sanders.

But on other issues, even though this town hall aired on Fox News, the audience was often very supportive. This might have best been illustrated by one of the most interesting moments of the town hall: Bret Baier asks the crowd how many of them have private work-provided health insurance, by a show of hands. Many hands raise. When asking the crowd whether they would want Medicare for All, more hands shoot up, some people stand, and some vocalize their support, as well. This is, I’m sure, not what Baier was expecting, because one of the arguments used against universal healthcare, often framed disingenuously, is that people want to keep their private insurance. The audience responded very positively to the idea of having stable, ongoing coverage.

Later, I was surprised by how loudly the crowd applauded the following comment:

“The American people, I think, are ready to deal with justice in America. That is what we’re fighting for. And that’s economic justice, social justice, environmental justice, racial justice.”

Even though this was a Fox News town hall with attendees who appeared to be mostly white, the audience got really excited and loud when Sanders brought up racial justice. From that point through the end of the town hall, it was fairly clear that the majority of those in attendance supported most if not all of what he had to say. Viewers could hear Bernie chants here and there, particularly in the second half of the telecast. Towards the end of the town hall, one of the hosts was booed for asking if Bernie supported prisoners having voting rights for his own political benefit. When he was given an opportunity to provide a closing remark, he and the audience engaged in some call and response, and he was sent off with repeated chants of Bernie.

The message

The case Bernie Sanders made was for a politics and a movement for the working class. He’s advocating for a positive agenda that benefits all workers. In many ways, he appealed to liberal Democrats: he proactively discussed climate change, he discussed suppressing black people’s voting rights, advocated for universal healthcare, challenged the demonization of immigrants, and he didn’t criticize other Democrats when given a chance while criticizing Fox News. But he also advocated for policies further to the left of Democratic Party dogma: he criticized the military industrial complex and the Pentagon for refusing to do an audit and for wasting incalculable amounts of money, he called on us to “rid the world of nuclear weapons,” he said it’s not anti-Semitic to criticize Israel, and he brought up poverty over a handful of times, even mentioning childhood poverty. And that’s where the strength of Bernie’s campaign lies: appealing to the shrinking middle class on standard Democratic issues while also appealing to the poor and working classes of all ethnicities, and he was particularly effective in advocating for inclusive class-based politics and policy, even on Fox News.

What the town hall achieved

First,he looks like the front-runner and a leader. He was criticized by the center and the Democratic Party for appearing on Fox News, and he was criticized by some of my compatriots on the left for platforming Fox News. I see the merit in the latter argument, but Fox News is mainstream and has been for a long time. I’d be concerned if he went on Tucker Carlson, but that’s not what this was. That said, being a leader means making choices you think will be beneficial even when the decision is unpopular. Effective leadership also means walking the walk: Bernie Sanders is about working class politics; refusing to go on Fox News does, to some extent, leave out a platform where some of the working class goes for news–even if the outlet itself is a horrible news source. Trump won the votes of some Americans who voted for Obama; failing to try to bring those voters back into the fold would be political malpractice.

Finally,Sanders effectively demonstrated that he can take on Trump. At multiple times during the broadcast, he spoke directly to Trump: when he brought up his support for staying out of Syria and Yemen and ending endless warfare, he called on Trump to sign the measure he introduced to end America’s support for Yemen. He also went after Trump’s hypocrisy of refusing to cut Medicare on the campaign trail but then proposing budgets that support Medicare and other social insurance programs. At multiple times during the town hall, he positively contrasted himself with Trump. Democrats and many independents–and some Republicans–want to envision a candidate who can emerge victorious against Trump. Bernie’s performance could help some of those voters envision that.

Was his appearance effective?

Press coverage suggests it was. Here’s a sampling of headlines:

  1. “Bernie Sanders may have just set the model for 2020 Democrats with his Fox News town hall” -The News-Times
  2. “Sanders takes on Fox” - and emerges triumphant -Politico
  3. “Bernie Sanders Beat Fox News on Its Own Turf” -Spin
  4. “How wide is Bernie Sanders appeal? This cheering Fox News audience is a clue” -The Guardian
  5. “Bernie Sanders Shines on Fox News” -The National Review
  6. “Bernie’s victorious Fox News town hall” -Vice
  7. “Bernie Sanders on Fox News is Most-Watched Town Hall of 2019″ -The Wrap

What could he have done better?

The first ten minutes of this town hall were particularly combative, and I think that largely stems from the initial focus on Bernie’s tax returns, which revealed him to be a millionaire, and possibly his desire to ensure that he articulated clearly that he is not on board with Fox News as a media organization. While the line of questioning about why Sanders wouldn’t just send his tax cut from Trump back–even though he voted against the bill–is completely asinine, I would like to see him come up with a better answer to what he’s doing with his newfound wealth. Ultimately, though, I think this is a debate of minimal consequence. You can certainly support policies that benefit the 99% without actually being in the 99%. Sanders, as he pointed out, also supports taxing himself at a higher level. And I think most people can draw a distinction between the Clintons, Donald Trump, Jeff Bezos, and others and how they generated their wealth versus how Bernie made his. And, not to forget, the very real degree of separation in their wealth.

And while I think that Bernie has improved on his messaging around foreign policy and developed a better vision of what that would look like, he didn’t proactively bring up foreign policy in the first half of the event. Mostly, I’d like to see him connect what’s happening at the border with our foreign policy. He said that people are desperate and “fleeing violence and misery in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala.” This is true. He said we need more immigration judges. That’s also true. But he needs to then say that we need to stop intervening in the affairs of these countries and using diplomacy to support stability and economic growth throughout the Americas by supporting workers’ movements at home and abroad.

Final Thoughts

If you know me or were aware of my blog during the 2016 election, you know that I was a strong Sanders supporter and that I volunteered for his campaign. Over the past few years, my political views have shifted more to the left, and I’ve developed more criticisms of Sanders. In spite of that, I did come away from this town hall reminded of the appeal of the Sanders campaign: one that could represent a shift towards an inclusive working class policy focus and movement building, and away from a divisive Red State/Blue State paradigm.

I haven’t made any kind of endorsements for 2020 because, again, it’s too early, and there are many candidates running who will be out of the race a year from now. However, it was difficult not to come away from viewing the town hall with some combination of familiarity and inspiration. One could say I was feeling the Bern…

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