Picket Line, Day 3:
“The bosses tried to get our white-collar coworkers to scab. But I couldn’t be happier to tell you that they have chosen SOLIDARITY instead! And have engaged in a TOTAL WORK STOPPAGE! That’s right, since they took over not ONE CAR has come off the assembly line!”
Inside the plant as the entire line of salaried workers try desperately to perform material labor they are untrained for:
0–this-is-harder-than-looks in 15 seconds.
But wait, how could they possibly do that, surely those white collar jobs are just as important and if you take people off of them everything will fall apart just as much, otherwise it would be ridiculous to pay those white collar workers more for much easier jobs than the factory workers
Joking aside, I do accounting work for a large company. There are weeks where I genuinely work 40 a week, but…far more frequently I never come close. It can sometimes be stressful, but again, far more often it carries little to no stress. Working retail in college was more stressful on the day to day, and I got paid orders of magnitude less (not to mention, I had to actually be ‘working’ for every second I was on the clock, even if it was just cleaning up the check out isle in front of my register).
I am considered one of the more productive and knowledgeable people in my group.
There are certainly exceptions, but white collar work is largely a joke, an exercise in bureaucratic nothingness.
I think the justification is that the white color jobs (things like r&d/engineering) can be more flexible in their deliverables. While physical product not being created is a quantifiable drop in revenue.
It’s definitely hurts the company to do it, but as a temporary solution, it can be molded around. Keep in mind, those white collar employees are still collecting white collar paychecks.
“Sure thing boss!”
🧱 ____________________ 🚜 💨
🧱___________🚜 💨
🧱 ____🚜💨 🤸♂️
🧱 _🚜💨____🧘♂️
💥___________🧘♂️
Has this ever worked?
Has this ever not ended in the destruction of several million dollars in delicate equipment?
Don’t be mean the people making these decisions are business majors they’re trying their best.
Any half decent business major knows this is a terrible idea. They’re thinking with their stubbornness and greed, not their academic background
How hard could it be, it’s unskilled labor that anyone could do, after all, the rates they’re being paid were decided by the free market, which is infallible. They’re being paid less, so their work is easy and anyone who is paid more could do it with ease. Ever heard of “meritocracy”?
every time i have seen this story, within like 36 hours of it supposedly happening, management returns to the table with massive concessions.
it’s the panic move. everybody knows that work and responsibilities are always pushed down. disorganized workers are always getting a superior’s responsibilities fobbed off on them. the majority of times, whenever i have needed a superior to cover a simple task for me as a one-off due to an unforeseen situation–ranging from an environment of agricultural labor all the way up into the lofty halls of the academy–the manager/owner/superior fucks it up. they don’t pay attention when shown, they don’t take notes, they fail basic time management and just completely flake on doing the thing.
either they are incompetent to the tasking or the know that if they handle it well, they will be asked to do it again. people don’t rise up in organizations without learning strategies of sidestepping work or at least how to insist on better compensation and then manipulate others into getting it done.
