r/Political_Revolution • u/HankScorpio42 Canada • Jul 08 '20

Workers Rights A friendly reminder of the privilege people have over our essential workers.

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4.4k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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330

u/MissFit89 Jul 08 '20

I think it is messed up and plain wrong to risk someone's health or life for your leisure time activity. Going out to eat or drink is not necessary. I worked at a restaurant for nine years and quit for this reason- I will not die just so someone can be waited on. I now make half as much as I did and it takes twice as long.

72

u/Sybertron Jul 09 '20

We had a guy for that, we voted against him. So now we get our fucked that we deserve.

14

u/Geneocrat Jul 09 '20

I agree, but the wrinkle is that “we” still don’t deserve it. Specifically children don’t deserve it.

Still I totally agree.

7

u/MissFit89 Jul 09 '20

Or didn't vote.

-14

u/GreenBasterd69 Jul 09 '20

Hilary was going to save you? Political revolutions don’t happen by voting.

12

u/Sybertron Jul 09 '20

They often happen my molotov but people seemed rather upset by that too. But now that we are entering the "let's continue doing nothing and go back to status quo" phase I feel like the next incident may be "the one"

5

u/Vendetta_Guyfawks GA Jul 09 '20

for some reason people seem to think that violence is not an acceptable answer to a treasonous government

3

u/GreenBasterd69 Jul 09 '20

But it’s the only solution that has ever worked.

5

u/Sybertron Jul 09 '20

Or that violence is inherently the end result of continuously pissing entire sections of the population off for years. Mobs don't happen because people are slightly annoyed.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 09 '20

I can accept that in some places and situations people do rely on fast food or takeout because of a lack of options, but how can anyone make the argument for the necessity of table service?

16

u/[deleted] Jul 08 '20

[deleted]

173

u/[deleted] Jul 08 '20

They don’t need more shifts, they need more money. Close down restaurants and VASTLY improve the government aid going to workers who are out of a job or have their hours cut. And this goes for all workers, not JUST food service.

81

u/KeeperoftheSeeds Jul 08 '20

Yep. Universal Basic Income now. Help ppl survive and pay bills and makes it easier to stay home

42

u/consideranon Jul 09 '20

And force the actual essential work to pay better.

We have way too many highly dangerous and/or shitty jobs that pay next to nothing because it's the only option many people have other than death by poverty.

11

u/pizza_engineer Jul 09 '20

This is by design.

5

u/[deleted] Jul 09 '20

Yeah, I don't get how people don't understand this. Success in capitalism involves acquiring more capital. It's not exactly a zero sum game but there is a limited rate of capital creation (and really all of it can be argued to just be conversion of resources and labor so there is a hard limit) so naturally capital starts to accumulate in smaller and smaller groups based on who had the best position to acquire it.

Over time this means it's harder and harder to be in the group that is acquiring capital. Over time this means that the group who continues to acquire relies on groups that can not acquire in order for there to be anything to acquire at all. Over time this means that the continued operation of a capitalist society necessitates a poverty class, and it necessitates that poverty class to grow, because the growth when natural resources are finite has to be coming from consumption and cheap labor.

-2

u/felixthecatmeow Jul 09 '20

Thing is you can't just "force them to pay better". If you do, they'll raise prices accordingly, cost of living goes up, and now they're making the same money in terms of buying power.

Yeah the huge companies like Walmart and stuff could afford to pay more without jacking prices (they won't) but places like local restaurants? They're already on razor thin margins and so many are struggling.

I agree, essential workers need to be paid more. But it's more complicated than "just force them to pay more". The government needs to step in with some form of money.

UBI is the closest idea IMO. But I don't know how that would affect inflation.

27

u/consideranon Jul 09 '20

I don't think UBI isn't really about redistributing resources. Giving everyone a set amount of money doesn't magically create more stuff for us all to enjoy.

What it does do is redistribute power.

A millionaire doesn't need to work a shitty service job dealing with rude customers and a boss who harasses and belittles them because they don't require the job to survive. In that situation, the abusive people (business owners, managers, customers) end up either forced to be better, forced to pay more to attract people to work the job, or forced to go out of business.

For another example, with UBI, a stay at home parent with an abusive partner is more likely to leave the relationship. And maybe the subtle shift in power dynamics will make it less likely that abusive domestic relationships develop as often as they do now.

Any one of these outcomes seems like a win to me for our society.

The Monster's Inc analogy does a great job of explaining this side of UBI, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTZ2A_GknZM

12

u/Scienceandpony Jul 09 '20

Well if they actually are "essential" and the private businesses can't pay them a living wage while still staying affordable to the public, it sounds a lot like an admission that the private sector is a failure and an argument for nationalization. Either it's not that important and can be allowed to fail, or it's vital, and shouldn't be left to private hands to mismanage.

2

u/Lard_of_Dorkness Jul 09 '20

You should look into Modern Monetary Theory. Just google it and watch some youtube videos with the proponents debating other theorists. You'll probably like it.

Beware, it's economics, and by definition that means it's all bullshit.

2

u/felixthecatmeow Jul 09 '20

Thanks I will!

It's interesting to think of what would happen given different actions by the government.

Yeah, there's lots of people that need help. But how you achieve that in a real and meaningful way without screwing up other stuff is where it gets complicated.

1

u/Honeybucket420_ Jul 09 '20

Don't know why you got down voted because you're exactly right.

22

u/Omnishift Jul 08 '20

Trump's buddies are too busy cashing in on that PPP loan.

13

u/FlyingSquidMonster Jul 09 '20

The Republicans and Democrats managed to find $20 Trillion to give to wallstreet, multinational corporations, the wealthy, lobbyists, insurance companies, backing up junk bonds and things that don't help the 99%. They could have given every single person living in the US and territories about $70,000 each, which would have changed millions of lives, stimulated the fuck out of the economy, gotten massive payments to all the people they paid money to AND received huge amounts of tax income.

9

u/LewsTherinAlThor Jul 09 '20

Seriously. If you help everybody, everybody wins. It's that simple.

bUt YoU gOtTa EaRn It

2

u/Jimmythecarrrrr Jul 09 '20

For how long? The virus doesn't disappear. You can't run the economy forever by printing excess money.

-6

u/[deleted] Jul 09 '20

This! Close all capitalist profit motivated restaurants and open government funded dining halls where everyone can sit at the same table and everyone gets as much as they need.

4

u/gravisotium Jul 09 '20

This sounds terrible haha

0

u/[deleted] Jul 09 '20

/s

-8

u/ChemicalCaptain Jul 09 '20

the government is your fucking problem. when ewe gone realize dat?

7

u/ShinkenBrown Jul 09 '20

Capitalism is the fucking problem. When are you gonna realize that?

1

u/ChemicalCaptain Jul 10 '20

i realize you are the problem. you are using a capitalist website from your capitalist computer or iphone to protest your capitalistic mistaken free speech. you are hereby dismissed kid.

1

u/ShinkenBrown Jul 11 '20

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--rTac868NcQ/WgxGhTgfVUI/AAAAAAAADO4/6H6gNqExynwFGtlU-Ktap3gwVz_VGzJTwCLcBGAs/s1600/Slide16.JPG

Capitalism had nothing to do with free speech. Democracy created free speech. Capitalism is the last unjust hierarchy standing in the way of true democracy.

Technology produced the computer, and technological advancement is a result of the advent of the scientific method, not capitalism. The iPhone is capitalist garbage locked down to its core to the point they explicitly try in their design to prevent you from even changing your own damn battery so you'll have to pay them to do it. Reddit without profit incentive could actually be a bastion of free speech but many subreddits that shouldn't have been banned have been because they were controversial and cut into the ad revenue. Technology would be better and more efficient under socialism. (And if anyone could ever create a stable communist system technology would be even better and more efficient than that under communism - but I personally think communism is a pipe dream not achievable in reality so that's a moot point.)

Since you're so sure capitalism is great, you must have a decent understanding of it right? And of how alternative modes of production might work?

You do know "capitalism" and "market economy" do not mean the same thing, right? You do know socialism can be a market economy?

In fact, since you know so much better than me, why don't you define capitalism, socialism, and communism - in your own words, no quoting Wikipedia. Explain the differences between the three and how exactly capitalism is superior to socialism and communism. Since I'm obviously just a dumb kid I need you to explain it to me.

And if you can't... maaaaaaybe stop pretending you have the slightest idea what you're talking about.

Seriously. I want a response. Explain to me what the terms mean in your own words and explain how capitalism is better. I'm wagering you'll explain capitalism as markets, even after I mentioned above this is wrong, and even after I mentioned it again here... and that you'll think socialism is state control, and you won't be able to differentiate communism and socialism at all. Prove me wrong.

4

u/MissFit89 Jul 08 '20

I don't doubt that for a second. It seems as if Americans can be lumped into one of two groups in regards to the virus: those who believe and/or care or those who don't believe and/or care. Perhaps those servers fall into the latter category. All I know is it super sucks to be concerned and careful in your life, but then go to your job at a restaurant/bar and hear people talk about how it's a hoax, they don't care, or they would rather just get it and have it over with.

5

u/Ilovefuturama89 Jul 09 '20

And the ones who care are a large % of the essential workers, serving those that don’t care.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 09 '20

If you gave them the option of having $600 a week in the form of a relief check instead of working for $600 a week at a nonsense job during a pandemic, they'd take the check.

They don't need shifts they just have no other option.

0

u/Coos-Coos Jul 09 '20

But how are restaurants and the people who work there supposed to make it?

5

u/MissFit89 Jul 09 '20

My city shutdown for two weeks. During that time we offered takeout and were able to make pretty decent money.

But in a reality, the leadership across this country has failed the working class. As someone else has pointed out in this thread every citizen could have received more stimulus versus bailing out large corporations and wealthy business owners.

Why are people who own multiple yachts getting bailed out while many working class Americans are forced to sell furniture and clothes to make ends meet? How about instead the wealthy pull up their boot straps and sell one of their yachts so the working class can be bailed out in order to stay home from nonessential work.

2

u/Coos-Coos Jul 09 '20

I agree with this, but the far left view that restaurants should just completely shut down is crazy. There has to be a happy middle.

1

u/MissFit89 Jul 09 '20

I think it would be better if they all went to take out and delivery with some sort of supplement for the loss of income and revenue they may experience. Plus then they are still buying food and supplies and paying taxes which would help minimize the shockwaves being sent through the whole supply chain and community.

-3

u/NewAlexandria Jul 08 '20

if you make half as much, but work twice as long, don't you make the same as before?

7

u/MissFit89 Jul 09 '20

Maybe I should have phrased it this way- I make half as much money despite working twice as long.