@rbreich THIS THIS THIS People are tired of being exploited. When being “employed” for pennies is basically the same as being unemployed, why work?

@rbreich
Amen.

@rbreich

The worst nightmare of the oligarch class is everyone suddenly demanding more money and not letting up.

This is why professional sports exist, and the glut of banal, mind numbing TV and movies; to pacify the rabble.

@rbreich hello

@rbreich
Exactly this.
If you work full time, you should be able to put a roof over your head and food on the table. Period.

@rbreich

@rbreich True. Also workers died from covid, many more have long covid and are unable to work. Some people retired to avoid dying from covid.

@rbreich #truth

@rbreich no, it's that everyone got spoiled by the unemployment handouts & now expect the govt to swoop in & save them. There are "FOR HIRE" signs ALL OVER w/ $15-20 per hour & benefits & bonuses, so no it's not about exploitation; it's about laziness & entitlement. Just because a couple bad eggs-Amazon/Walmart-doesn't mean it drives the economy. Before the pandemic ppl actually worked & worked hard 2 succeed, but not anymore; they expect everything 2 B handed 2 them w/o working 4 it

@rbreich Amen to that.

@rbreich Non exploit. Work for It…!

@rbreich I left being an instructor at a major research university to run my own business out of a car because good jobs are so scarce and high rents so common. In other words, I have chosen to live extremely in order to avoid being exploited, like I was being exploited by my former employer, who had me teaching almost 800 (aggressively subpar and mostly aggressive) business students per semester. What an actual nightmare.

We want better. Anyone actually thinking wants better.

@rbreich

No one wants to pay for work anymore.
No one wants to work for jerks anymore.
No one wants two works anymore.
No one wants to be hurt anymore.

It's more than bad poetry.
It's just the labor economy.
It may be hard, but we can try.
Let's build the just economy.

@rbreich

@rbreich they are literally killing us. treating humans worse than machines, not even allowing us to be repaired.

@rbreich This is the perfect moment to share this story. True story, this man was asked by his boss to make a delivery while a hurricane was coming in Florida. He gave in to his boss, and on the bridge, a wave took his life. Start your own side hustle, or whatever, but realize the boss doesn't care about you. I never forgot this story.

@rbreich
THIS!

@rbreich 100% agree with you.

@rbreich
nailed it 🔨🔨🔨🔨

@rbreich I very much wanted to return to my electro mechanical #assembly line job at Lam Research. I have severe #asthma and was ordered back to work when #delta was just on the rise. I refused because they are not requiring #vaccination. Lam said I quit and tried to stop my #unemployment during #covid ; they always said we were a family. I treat stray dogs better than that. Now I make a quarter what I did. Covid broke my life.

@rbreich Exactly. The "no one wants to work" trope is elitist, classist, and cruel.

@rbreich .. I once read Das Kapital. All KM ever said was that exploiting the working class to become wealthy is morally wrong, and he is more prescient than ever. 75% of workers in this country live paycheck to paycheck, and the stock market is owned by a tiny minority who often inherited that wealth. Mary Walton is exactly whom Karl had in mind. (Mary doesn't create good jobs, she destroys them.) Oh, and contrary to what bimbo Jordan Peterson says, Marx didn't have a violent bone in his body.

@rbreich

They're being willfully obtuse. They know full well they're not offering anything even remotely in line with reality.

@rbreich Amen Bobby 🤕

@rbreich I just worked a full day in the midst of a stomach bug because I get so little PTO I don’t want to waste it when I’m sick.

@rbreich *raises hand* uhm... I don't want to work anymore...

@rbreich
I'm not even old enough to be legally employed, and I agree with this statement.

@rbreich I did my PhD in Hegel so Marx was sitting on my shoulder a lot of the time... but, I swear, it took years to come around to the idea of capitalism as fetish. But holy cats, I'm there now.

@rbreich Central Banks: Oh, no. We should raise the interest so more people will get unemployed and desperate! It's the only way to get the economy back to full exploitation!

@rbreich exactly 👏👏

@rbreich We can curb exploitation by teaching people how to calculate the value of their own labor. Easier said than done but it still important if we want to move toward a more union positive society.

If one doesn't know how to effectively bargain for themselves how can we collectively bargain at all?

@rbreich 👍

Here's an interesting way of explaining why inequality is inevitable is capitalism American-style. Would love to get your thoughts on this @rbreich .
https://pudding.cool/2022/12/yard-sale/

@rbreich I mean, that too. But also I'm pretty tired of working tbh.

(Also, thanks to Covid, a lot of people who'd like to work are no longer able to.)

@rbreich Just lazy people who don't want to work? Or maybe the reason a lot of millennials and gen z people are disappearing from the work force is that many of them are using the internet to start businesses. Retail stores and fast food chains are disappointed now that they can't mistreat and underpay workers and still be entitled to their time.

@rbreich that is the truth. but just raising the min wage doesnt really fix anything. We need to start taxing the rich again. We need the progressive tax again with the highest level being above 51% or there is no way solve the concentration of wealth problem.

@rbreich I don't believe this to be true. People are content to be exploited as long as the plutocrats throw them a decent hunk off the carcass. The go-slow isn't about exploitation, it's about property prices, inflation, and covid-era habits.

I'll believe people resent exploitation when I see concerted attacks on the world's common enemy (the wealthy and the landlord/rentier class), in whatever form might create real fear (mass rent/wage strikes, physical attacks on mansions, etc).

@rbreich Who the fuck WANTS to work? No one has ever applied for a regular job and been like "oh fuck yeah I can't wait to do data entry for a bank, it's been my dream."

People are offering their labor in exchange for wages, and they're getting tired of capitalists acting like the peasants should be thankful that generous businesses are deigning to bestow a pittance upon them.

@rbreich I'm about there myself. My boss can be a bit toxic. High expectations with no reality check. She doesn't want to hear excuses- but when key people quit and the work load is high- there's going to be excuses.

@rbreich yeah 🤔 it’s market forces, if no one wants to work for low wages & little or no benefits while having crazy demands maybe it’s the employers that have to change to meet the market, isn’t that the way it’s supposed to work? Big nah, those with money will tilt the pinpall machine again because rules aren’t supposed to apply to the ones in power

@rbreich There was a good piece from @onthemedia about how this narrative and others are just replayed over and over. Tale as old as...the 1890s.

@rbreich
‘In war ... the strong make slaves of the weak, and in peace the rich make slaves of the poor. We must work to live, and they give us such mean wages that we die. We toil for them all day long, and they heap up gold in their coffers, and our children fade away before their time, and the faces of those we love become hard and evil. ... We have chains, though no eye beholds them; and are slaves, though men call us free.’ Oscar Wilde, “The Young King” 1891

@rbreich

@rbreich turns out, very, very few humans who don't have to work for money lie in bed all day. Virtually everybody wants to work at something. They often don't want to work at profit for someone else. And that's understandable.

@rbreich Isn’t exploitation the reason for hiring someone? No one will hire someone just to break even.

@rbreich Exactly the truth for sure!

@rbreich modern day labor exploitation is now embodied by the salaried office worker. Pay them a flat salary, then give them more work than can possibly be completed in a 40hr work week. Employees work 50hrs per week to be successful at their job and no one pays any overtime.

@rbreich Why work for $15/hr at McDonald's when one can make $20-25 per hour delivering McDonald's?

Many of bosses claim "We offer competitive pay!" Perhaps it's competitive with the exact same job at other places, but they fail to realize workers can change fields quite easily. Employers are competing with the entire job market, not just their own little corner of it. They need to wake up & pay better.

I'd leave gig work & go back to traditional employment if the pay was better.

@rbreich BINGO. Whenever someone I know says that, I always point out, well nobody wants to work a terrible job where they get verbally abused all day for no money. That usually gets the point across.

@rbreich consequence of becoming "woke", I say good, good for us. 😀

@rbreich Or: A lot of people died or are sick or have family members who died. That impacted the work force.

@rbreich Also, people say this as if most folk are just able to say, "nope, no more, I'll just live on my trust fund." People have to work to live. Exploitation is often a part of that. Those same folk don't recognize that a pandemic killed many and made many more invalids.

@rbreich also, no one wants to work *for you* anymore. For some folks it might be about the boss instead of the money.

@rbreich Or people are realising that their time is worth more than a pittance

@rbreich no one ever wanted to work we were all forced to

@rbreich
Child care alone can cost more than some people take home.
+ Transportation costs
+ Uniforms or clothing
+ Lunches/incidentals
W/few holidays or vacation days.

@rbreich 🎯

@rbreich and those of us who have worked our ******** off for 45+ years would like some quality time and rest please !

@rbreich I may be wrong, but speaking for myself, I've never had a problem with any employer; the problem I've always experienced is that so very much of what I earn is taken in a multitude of taxes, both overt and hidden. I roughly estimate of the wealth I'm being paid, about 70% to 80%, all told, goes in tax. Income taxes, social security taxes (here the employer pays a *lot*), sales taxes, corporation taxes (which simply lead to higher prices for goods and services, which I buy), and so on.

@rbreich exploited, abused, treated like sh*t or working with tin pot little dictators.

@rbreich This is one that everyone seems to be struggling with. I believe we are seeing the boomer effect in a big way. Many financial people seem to have a hard time determining if unemployment is low because of lack of participation or lack of availability.

@rbreich the hardest thing for me to understand is how so many people clearly support progressive positions - yet relatively few get elected.

I don't know a single working person who doesn't feel some kind of agreement with this sentiment. And the polling and data seem to back it up.

At the same time, Millennials & Gen-Z are now a far larger portion of the population than older, more conservative generations. Yet we will haven't reached the tipping point.

What more will it take?

@rbreich
And it's not just about the Pay. It's the hours away from our families, the insufficient holiday leave, tyranny of exhausting monthly targets, staff forums that bosses attend but fail to make any requested changes however small the request, the blatant discrimination of who gets promoted, the long commute . . .And So On
#JoinATradeUnion

@rbreich
Many friends of mine, pre official retirement age, who have enough financially have also had enough of incompetence and corruption above. They, like me, want to connect with nature, family and friends rather than contribute to further unsustainable growth on a finite planet. Their continued input to their community and wider society gives me a glimmer of hope.

@rbreich companies are now bringing in people on visas to exploit. If Americans ask for better conditions, they hire foreign workers.

@rbreich this is the most salient point I've seen all year.

@rbreich amen

@rbreich Happy holidays Prof. Reich I hope you have lots of joy and family around you this holiday season. 🎄🎄🎄🎄

@rbreich If you work for someone else, you're being exploited. Work for yourself.

@rbreich Pretty much.