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Rail companies are getting the blame here, but the real problem is that paid leave isn't a statutory employment right protected by law. Here in the UK full time
by mjbeswick 4y ago
Rail companies are getting the blame here, but the real problem is that paid leave isn't a statutory employment right protected by law. Here in the UK full time employees are entitled to 28 day paid annual leave, although I have work for companies which offer more, while pay is seperate.
- forgetfreeman 4y agoAnd yet you'd have a really tough time finding a white collar gig where paid leave wasn't a bog-standard part of the package. So nah, rail companies are getting caught out because they are absolutely fucking around with this.
- smileysteve 4y agoGlares in "startup" "untracked pto" where it's white collar and paid leave isn't guaranteed but for the power of the worker.
- coffeebeqn 4y agoI take at least a month of unlimited. Many people just assume the world will end if they take a week off
- forgetfreeman 4y agolaughs in SV dweebs chasing IPO payouts are a rounding error compared to the rest of the white collar environment Anyone silly enough to sign up for that treadmill is welcome to whatever comes their way, good or bad.
- willyt 4y agoYes but now they can't change because the first one to do this becomes uncompetitive, the only way to introduce this in a fair way that otherwise maintains market competition is to introduce a rule that applies to all the companies in the market that says you must offer paid sick leave. Edit: A more extreme example; there is a rule that says airlines mustn't make pilots work more than a certain number of hours without a rest period. This rule applies to all airlines. This rule was introduced to reduce the number of planes crashed by tired pilots.
- FateOfNations 4y agoAll of the Class 1 railroads are involved in the same bargaining process with the unions. Whatever change to sick day practices happens will apply to all of them.
- LadyCailin 4y agoApparently according to this article, it’s a monopoly, so no, they would t be less competitive.
- forgetfreeman 4y agoDo they become uncompetitive or do they suddenly attract all the top talent in their industry because of their new compensation offerings?
- bestcoder69 4y agoAnother possible causal factor is just that labor is weak in the US, and thus is unable to win sick days from their employers AND is unable to convince congress to pass universal sick days either. If that’s the case (I’m biased to say yes) these rail workers really need to strike. Voting for blues obviously isn’t cutting it.
- mjbeswick 4y agoIt's seem like such a far reaching issue that I'm surprised it hasn't triggered a general strike.
- sillystuff 4y agoA general strike is illegal in the United States. The US government, under the control of wealthy capitalists, has ensured that capital's interests are protected in law to the detriment of the workers who actually create value. > Among the practices prohibited by the Taft–Hartley act are jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns. The amendments also allowed states to enact right-to-work laws banning union shops. Labor in the US is weak by design. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act
- notch656a 4y agoI would support eliminating both the anti-general strike and anti-collusion laws. It seems unfair to ban collusion by capital but not by labor.
- dpkirchner 4y ago> A general strike is illegal in the United States. What're they going to do, imprison the masses? Illegal doesn't mean much without realistic consequences.
- 4y ago
- Workaccount2 4y agoThe rail workers have 4? 5? weeks of paid leave already. The issue at hand is "sick days" i.e. days off on short or no notice.
- orwin 4y agoThey don't have weekends. They have 90 days off, while the average worker have 104, without paid leave.
- tomrod 4y agoThe right systems term for this is system slack. There isn't enough system slack built into the PSR models to account for real life needs.
- thatfrenchguy 4y agoYes, which are clearly important ones: you don’t want someone with an infectious disease to come to work because otherwise they couldn’t pay their mortgage.
- stephen_g 4y agoYeah, coming from a country with strong labour laws, it's mind boggling that this is legal in the US. I think the realist view has to be that the market ain't ever going to fix it, companies are always going to try to get away with as much as they can, and the people have to force the Government to bring in minimum standards.
- inferiorhuman 4y agoYeah, coming from a country with strong labour laws, it's mind boggling that this is legal in the US. As an American I'm not surprised, but I am disappointed. Certainly Biden looks like a fucking jackass. Currently the Zodiac Killer is bemoaning Biden's anti-worker sentiment. Obviously Cruz is wholly incapable of doing anything with a modicum of integrity but if the republicans run with this through the 2024 election cycle and they get someone with savvy on the ticket (like good ol' governor death sentence) things could get dicey for the democrats. Legal or not it sure seems like the democrats are trying real hard to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
- biztos 4y agoI’m also American and I have no idea what you mean about the Zodiac Killer[0]. Is that a nickname for some politician you don’t like, or is an actual serial killer complaining about the president and it’s relevant because… I guess because we weren’t expecting to hear from him? Help an expat out here! [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer
- krapp 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Cruz%E2%80%93Zodiac_Killer_meme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Cruz%E2%80%93Zodiac_Killer...
- robertlagrant 4y agoThere's no market for natural monopolies.
- 4y ago
- ransom1538 4y agoFor context: UK software developers are paid 50% less than US developers. I would rather keep my money.
- coffeebeqn 4y agoSoftware developers also get all those benefits. Whenever people talk about how terrible working in the US is- almost none of that applies to software. You get plenty of time off, sick days are a non issue, work remote if you don’t feel like going in, health care insurance is free/cheap and good, etc
- notch656a 4y agoWhat? I had to work for a decade until I had anything close to the benefits offered by default in EU or UK, and even then I had to take a lower paying position to work for a company that offered decent work/life balance. Even still, I think I had 2 days off when my child was born before I ran out of paid "sick" days and had to go to work.
- kvandy 4y agoI live on the east coast of the US and have only been to the UK twice, but I was blown away at the efficiency and relative cleanliness of the London and surrounding area rail systems.
- SV_BubbleTime 4y agoLots of things change when your country is an island the size of Mississippi.
- thfuran 4y agoIt gets more expensive to import the materials to make railways?