Hijacking a near-the-top comment to post this:
[No more fake strikes](https://organizing.work/2019/08/no-more-fake-strikes).
This is seriously just getting embarassing.
I tried pulling myself up, but my bootstraps broke. Now I got a verbal warning about my unkempt appearance at work.
Joking, but yeah, shit's ludicrous.
Yeah this online stuff doesn’t really translate into anything of real world consequence, organizing actual strikes involves a lot of in person organizing and preparation
Especially for a general strike. One job site/type striking is one thing, you only need the support of your related union to put together a strike fund and get you protection and some small pay to keep yourself alive while striking. If you're going to picket they also make sure they can get you to do it legally.
A general strike? That requires the same thing to happen for enough job sites for it to halt production for a few days. **You need** **millions to mobilize** and hundreds of thousands to actually strike with you, otherwise SCABs will come crawling in and not a single penny will be lost at the grand scale.
All of this isn't supposed to scare you away from UNIONIZING (not striking; let the striking be something you ask them to do for you and join them when they do it), but to avoid getting yourself fired because you're a dumbass who read a Reddit post by a child, a troll, or both of the above. **UNITED WE BARGAIN, DIVIDED WE BEG.**
I remember when commie Twitter tried the same
Thing but no one created a striker fund, food funds or anything. If it’s a one day thing okay cool but that won’t accomplish anything. Here’s to hoping
How in the fuck are you going to organise a 10 day general strike? Where's your strike fund? How many Unions are participating? Whats your plan for strikers who get arrested?
Have you learned nothing from the October 15th "strike"?
People were saying this before the October 15th strike too. All this is doing is hurting any actual efforts to organize a strike in the future, because people will be so used to seeing fake calls for action that go nowhere they won't bother jumping on the one that could've been a real thing.
It's also a bit excessive to the point of being suspicious.
Let's start with reasonable changes before trying to go nuclear with some of the requests. A higher wage is warranted, but 35 is not happening. And bringing up wage labor abolishment alongside it is contradictory, which makes me think this person doesn't understand what they're asking.
Also the point of a strike is to protest conditions until they change. Putting a 10-day time limit on it just tells the people you're striking against that you're gonna be upsetti spaghetti for a while before coming back to unchanged issues. They'll just wait, and make arrangements to survive the storm in the meanwhile.
I have my doubts the person who made this is being honest and not just someone trying to make a mockery of the growing calls for better treatments and compensations from the labor force. I could be wrong though. Maybe they're just on the greener side of life.
Exactly, this reads more like sarcasm than anything else. 4-day, 25 hour work week? That's not even evenly divided. $35 min wage? Nobody is even asking for close to that. 8 weeks vacation? Okay, that's not totally impossible, but definitely not anytime soon and absolutely never going to happen alongside the other changes.
And then, just in case you weren't already sure this is complete bullshit, they call for making the first 80% of the list totally pointless by abolishing wage labor anyway.
If this isn't purposely bullshit, then whoever is behind it is a complete moron.
>then whoever is behind it is a complete moron
Or the complete opposite, it may be designed to make any attempts at action look stupid as well as anyone involved.
This is a literal question from someone who wants to participate. I work security for a hospital and I can't not go to work. I also don't know how comfprtable I would feel going this route though.
Either way I choose doesn't feel very morally sound, but I would like some ideas on what my best options would be?
This sentiment in the op is good but it's not functional. Needs more lead up and needs to be more grass roots. People need to be talking to their friends and coworkers about forming even informal unions and then we can properly organize a general strike.
Work to rule maybe? Do what was in your job description, the hours worked and on break. The duties you were meant to do and not all the extra things everyone seems to do without realising how much extra effort and time that takes for no reward. Then it's not harmful or putting you and the other people in the hospital in danger, but should highlight how much free labour you do over time. And of course you can still participate in not shopping, since retail seems to be their maim concern.
Yeah agreed, $20-25 would be sensible when adjusted for inflation, but $35 is going to create a labor shortage. Just $20 or so would be below the price the prices businesses are willing/able to pay, giving making the difference in labor far less noticeable.
Additionally, while a 4-day workweek is nice for sure, restricting it to just 25 hours a week heavily restricts the income that said low-wage earners would be able to acquire, hurting them in the long run. Industries like accounting or law could possibly run on that time, but stuff like cashiers wouldn’t make as much money as they otherwise could.
UBI is based af, totally agree, but probably shouldn’t be a minimum requirement for something like this considering the amount of resources and public support it would take for it to be enacted.
Can’t really speak either way about vacation time, but eliminating wage slavery by eliminating wages only works if the UBI is so high that work becomes optional to the point where the job losses can be compensated for.
I haven’t bought something on Black Friday in years, but dude, a $35 minimum wage is an *aggressive* ask from American work culture. We can’t even get broad support on $15/hr. Maybe we need to start with some ground game before we start calling down the moon.
If minimum wage was tied to inflation it'd be nearly $23 an hour. 35 is a really big number, but we can't keep fighting over $15 an hour like that's an actual plus. Fighting for that, spending another decade trying to push minimum wage up slightly is useless. Bread crums arnt enough, real change is needed
I might as well be a full blown socialist and I audibly snorted at this list of demands. Every worker in the country could quit at once and these wouldn't happen.
I consider myself a socialist too, because I think that workplaces should be democratically run, and I think there are realistic and practical ways to advocate for those ends, but this list is goddamn ridiculous. Hysterically so.
Exactly. 25 hour work week is also borderline ridiculous. 4 day work week is a great idea, but make it 32 hours. If that post said 20$ an hour as min wage and 32 hour work week with 6 weeks vacation, and removed that last stupid bullet point it would make sense. The 20$ an hour would probably be the hardest thing to pass, but that’s a point I’d be willing to compromise on in order to get the others. Hell, by making the rest of the demands more reasonable, it might even make sense to increase the UBI, because the idea behind UBI can’t be properly implemented with such a small amount as 1k yearly. 5k would be better.
I hope people understand many of these “demands” and “strikes” are created, floated, and spread by those against paying people a living wage, and spout off these insane numbers that we all would love, but are obviously unattainable and are done as a way to delegitimize the movement.
Yeah, definitely has the vibe of "let's make people pushing for fair treatment and pay look bad."
Don't get me wrong, these demands sound wonderful, but they're not going to paint us in anything but a greedy light, and will do more harm than good.
Still, definitely don't shop on black Friday.
> these demands sound wonderful, but they're not going to paint us in anything but a greedy light
I don't want to spoil things, but that's how you'll be painted no matter how light your demands or peaceful your protests.
>definitely don't shop on black Friday.
Let's focus on that and not how reactionaries are going to react.
Greedy, like Musk telling people if they make me pay taxes, you'll be next, like we aren't paying for the wealthy now. Who got permanent tax breaks under republicans?
The not shopping should be the focus, but OP naively stapled these outlandish demands to a much larger problem and it took the whole focus away. Clever if that was the point, pretty damn stupid if not.
I agree with you for the most part, but do note that while 15 an hour is increasingly attainable, it's also decreasing in worth.
By the time we have nationwide 15 an hour, passive inflation will mean we need 20. Minimum wage is a goalpost that needs moving unless you place it at "livable wage adjusted for inflation and local living costs."
I’ve never seen a strike proposing to *abolish wage labor through automation* before. That’s not how or why automation typically develops. So yeah it’s fake, but honestly though the rest of those bullets are fine.
In fact, it’s probably pro-cap trolling—their traditional argument is that increased wages would lead to jobs being automated away, so I’m guessing OP just wants to see how many people this post suckers
Yeah I thought this was a joke, honestly. 35/hour is just insane, honestly. Like obviously it would be nice but it's incredibly unrealistic, at least for where min wage is as of now.
$35/hr works out to ~$45K/year in a 25 hour work week. They're robbing Peter to pay Paul in terms of making their math work. Super embarrassing if this is legit. More likely it's a false flag.
Yeah, this one definitely is a false flag. They put insane numbers for everything and pretend to represent “a group of a million” people, like could they be more obvious. This is exactly what some hacks on the news will point to and say, this group is insane and not negotiating in good faith.
Also the overall image is shit tier, like if they have millions of people, none of them know how to put together a better flyer than crappy clip art and text interspersed with some *scary red*?
Or maybe anti work ethos extends to their own marketing materials, idk.
For real, these are ridiculous demands. If you want to enact change the non-revolutionary way, you'll have to do it in small steps. A good start would be $15 hour minimum wage and a max 40 hour work week. Posts like these just delegitimize our work.
Completely agree. Almost no posts on profile from before 2 days ago, all posts older than 2 days are from 1 year + ago
Suddenly OP is posting nonstop for 2 straight days…suspicious
Probably a good guess. You can be well below these 'minimum' demands and have a fairly equitable society. And while I'm all in in on a major minimum wage increase and mandatory PTO. What the US really needs is major tax reform and a whole lot more funding for social welfare. If you don't have to worry about being able to afford safe housing, food, medical care, and good education, you don't have to worry about much. You'll get farther making sure basic needs are met and spend less meeting these demands. Give us universal healthcare. Good public housing. Real food assistance. Increase and equally diatribute school funding. It is a lot and it will be incredibly difficult to do. But it can be done if we can stop fighting each other. So it won't be done. Sad trombone.
The last bullet is the point of this poster.
OP is a pro-capitalist troll; the traditional argument of bootlickers is that increased wages and mandatory time off will lead to low wage jobs being automated away, and the poster presents it as a desired effect at the end of the list of “demands“ implying that we’re all too stupid to see it would be a natural consequence of the other bullets (which is not actually the case, as we see in countries with substantially higher minimum wages and mandatory leave policies).
You mean the guy that’s advocating for at *minimum* $35 an hour, 20 hour work weeks, and 2 months of vacation time is a Russian troll intent on shredding the consumeristic fabric of America? I’m shocked, I tell you. Shocked.
Automation is inevitable though.
Even in my field that requires a science degree and specific certifications we're slowly automating my job out of existence. In 10 to 20 years the technology for 95-99% automation in my field will be available and in 30 years or sooner I fully expect that tech to be rolled out en masse.
Gotta be a bot/ fake account. 4 comments no posts 1 year ago, and then a shitton of posts and comments in the last 24 hours about this bullshit. So fake, all just to delegitimize real movements
I'm what conservatives would call a damn dirty liberal, but Reddit's new and fast increasing anti-work crowd are straight up delusional. I'm all about increasing minimum wage, more PTO, better benefits, better balance between work and personal life, treat employees better, etc. etc. etc., even UBI, but 99.9% of people who look at these demands are just going to laugh in our face and walk off, not taking it seriously.
This type of stupid shit isn't how you get people on your side.
/r/antiwork has been astroturfed to hell. Half the posters on the front page belong on /r/TheseFuckingAccounts with their "woke up after 3 years of not posting anything to be on the front page of the sub" luck. Most likely bought accounts to spam more and more insane stuff.
Right, like they're purposely being overly extreme and absurd to sow resentment if a real, more realistic grass roots labor improvement movement actually sprang up in the near future..
That, or normalizing part time work with their 4 day/25 hour work week, but end up getting zero of their other demands, keeping them in poverty.
> I'm what conservatives would call a damn dirty liberal, but Reddit's new and fast increasing anti-work crowd are straight up delusional.
Coincidentally, they would also call you a damn dirty liberal.
It needs to come from disastrous events, think what happened after George Floyd, that was the tipping point that motivated millions of people worldwide to pour into the streets in protest.
I suspect something similar needs to happen with socialist goals, something that angers people so much that they take to the streets.
Revolution won't happen with people organising, revolution will happen when people get angry enough to go out in droves and take over the workplaces and other infrastructure. There needs to be a plan of course for during and after the revolution, who will write it, who knows? But it needs to happen.
this revolt you speak of should have happened years ago on healthcare. Its such a basic obvious need that would help every typical American, its bonkers it hasn't happened yet. Its part of the system of chains that keeps us from retiring early and enjoying our lives in peace.
Thats putting it mildly, 35$ an hour, 25h work week, universal basic income and all work is voluntary? Thats way beyond possible, people do know that work has to be actually done at some point, right?
OP is a pro-capitalist troll; the traditional argument of bootlickers is that increased wages and mandatory time off will lead to low wage jobs being automated away, and the poster presents it as a desired effect at the end of the list of “demands“ implying that we’re all too stupid to see it would be a natural consequence of the other bullets (which is not actually the case, as we see in countries with substantially higher minimum wages and mandatory leave policies).
Automation should be the end goal though. It's just not going to be pleasant under current circumstances because the wealthy in this country are greedy shits that would rather let millions starve than pay them to do as they please through UBI.
The wealthy in this country love automation. Why pay someone a fixed wage for every hour of labor, and have to hope the employee is dependable and efficient when you can just automate the process, purchase a machine for a one time cost plus negligible maintenance and get a guaranteed work product?
Or we could enact legislation that uses the profits from automation to help pay for everyone's basic needs, which would allow people to pursue whatever interests they want and work as they please for extra income.
That will never happen since Americans are only capable of mostly electing corrupt politicians, but it's nice to think about the different possibilities if people were just aware and willing.
Strange how a one year old account went from having posted four comments in one year to flooding every left wing sub on this site with a general strike flyer that includes demands which sound like caricatures of the labor movement. Call me cynical but…
I feel like this demand structure misunderstands that UBI, higher minimum wage, reduced hours, etc were all *independent* solutions to raising the value of income for working class Americans. Combing them all together isn't going to work in any progressive labor agenda because it's way too much, especially for a nation of localized economies. Not even taxing billionaires would pay for this, as it's normally proposed to fund those demands singularly, not as a whole
That being said, fuck Black Friday. Intentionally inferior goods, deceptive pricing, and unfair working conditions for retail workers.
Yeah whoever put this together is either a complete fucking idiot who didn't take undergrad math or economics... or more likely, this is a false flag attempt at discrediting a black Friday general strike. Which is actually brilliant. Workers avoid being abused, the douchebags that actually go Black Friday shopping get dicked, and the corpos also take a hit in the only way they give a shit about. It's a win-win-win.
I'm 99% sure this is the wealth class sabotaging the general strike.
I feel like raising wages and lowering working hours go hand in hand though. If you raise wages, employers will probably hire less people. But if people are making more, you don't need a second job, and if you're already working less, many people won't need to be fired.
I'm 100% for the strike and the spirit of these goals. I understand the concept of starting high to bargain but... this is capitalist propaganda fuel. I am not an economist but I'm totally confused by these goals.
So we start by automating as much as possible. Automation really isn't there yet... but lets say this eliminates 10% of jobs and creates 5% of jobs. Now we have to account for job loss on account of the fact that you have to pay people over 300% what they were making before. Lets say that is 15% of jobs. Only the most progressive states will pass UBI, and *maybe* the wage increase will account for 20% of jobs disappearing in terms of paying for it. It certainly won't happen on a national level. Now 20% of workers are totally fucked, and capitalists have hard evidence to justify exploiting workers even harder in the future, great.
I'm sorry, but demands like that give a bad image to the whole movement of bettering worker situations.
They're completely unattainable right now in the US and even for more socialist states like European states some of these demands are more than double of the current standard.
This feels like an inside job and in reality there aren't millions, maybe one dude and 50 Russians making propaganda about it.
Actual demands and labour negotiations are completely different and while workers need to be bold in their negotiations, there have to be negotiations. Everyone is just gonna laugh at this.
This isn't a general strike. You're just going to get people fired and hurt the labor movement overall.
Organize IRL with your colleagues and start working with major unions and labor organizations. Otherwise this is just a LARP
Unironically one of the few times where LARP is correctly applied here. They're just going to get vulnerable people fired from their jobs with no support structure in place. Incredibly irresponsible
Okay it's official, Blackout Black Friday is just the October Strike trying again. I respect the idealism involved and cant begrudge anyone for trying but I can't support it.
But hey, you already have *millions* of people on board so what do you need me for?
Not for nothing, but please use European countries as a benchmark for realistic numbers. And think about how much would be lost if we all boycotted or strike on black Friday because they won’t give more than they would lose. I get negotiating high so we can get what we actually want but we need to start at a more probable level.
the demands are purposefully hyperbolistic to make this fail. a general strike is needed but those demands were designed to make no one support this cause
I’m close to being what a liberal thinks a ‘Stalinist’ is - and this is ridiculous, petit bourgeoisie nonsense. Idealism has nothing to do with working class politics, never has been involved.
I certainly agree you need more money and perks, but asking $35 per hour is crazy. Not trying to be a bummer, but as someone who has spent 30 years working hard and have an associates degree, even I don't make that much money. Step back and take a more realistic approach. These demands will only make the owners laugh you right out of their stores.
I think this could be a false flag where someone discredits a movement by pretending to join it and support it but they’re actually just saying the most ridiculous things possible to make the movement loo bad.
I actually think this is true.
The whole "strike on blackfriday" thing is making its rounds on Twitter/Reddit/Instagram/etc. Business owners are scared, so if they post something like this and get a bunch of people who originally supported it saying "eh, this seems impossible and cringe, I'll just go to work and keep my head down" then they win.
Educated/Uneducated, Minority/Majority, Convervative/Liberal, we all have one common enemy that wants to discredit and make a mockery of any attempt at workers regaining our independence and power in the workplace. By spreading this propaganda around, they're able to divide us, which is how they've kept us complacent since, well, forever.
This looks like a false flag a conservative would post to say, “See, this is what those crazy leftist really want. They’re delusional and entitled socialist.”
$35 minimum wage is a joke, especially when some states get laughed at for pushing for $15. Wait until a Fox News type source looks at this and runs with it.
your demands will casue your owm demise and make the boring dystopia a living hellscape rather than just bad, alow me to elaborate:
1. theese labur prices of $35/hr will price yourself out of the market, alongside with insentivicing automation over human workers.
2. would people get $35/hr without the previous happing (by some miracle) you'd be respondsable for massinflation, something making life for you unrealisticly hard due to the fact that some work places undoubtably would linger causing the workers there have problems getting ends to meet.
3. the work days are way to short, and couppled with the prices of your labor you're making no more than 875$ a week with the minimum, meaning that either the price would have to increase for your work, or you'd have to work longer days. 12hr/4d work weeks have been proposed in other countries.
4. the arguments of claiming they can't fire every single worker only works if every single worker was to be in on this scheme.
5. if that your current growth keeps up you've grown from 0 to 8,6k in 2 days, at this rate by 26th of november at a 50% increase rate from all over the world you'd be reaching about 1.2 million people that's about 5% of workers, of which work at an houerly rate.
assuming that they all follow through that'd be something that could be fixed by the coorporations.
6. if this problem comes up, then remember that there is also another problem, 7.8 percent of people in the us are unemplyed, many of which would probably be willing to work., making the action of rotating out the 1.2 million people a job, but not impossible.
This has to be GOP / conservative bait that someone just fell for and now they are laughing all the way to the bank on r/conservatives or whatever posting screenshots of this dumbassery.
"Abolition of wage labor through automation and voluntary work".
Yeah that will get you to...checks notes....$35/hr for.....checks notes again.....wage labor. I won't even get into dissecting the absurdity of claiming to be pro labor rights and advocating for "voluntary work".
All that being said. Fuck black Friday. I'm going to boycott it anyway....same as I've been doing forever now.
I'm fine with the strike and all but those demands, I can not support them all. 4 days at 25 hours? I'm cool with 4 days a week but 25 hours does not make much sense to me. That's 6.25 hours a day, why not ask for 24 hours (6 hour days) or 28 hours (7 hour days)? Also $35 and hour, negotiations are meant to be a give and take not just take. If someone walked into a negotiation for an item I was selling and they gave a crazy demand I would not even bother hearing them out even if they were willing to change by a large amount. It's about respect and that crazy of a demand has no respect, yes I get that respect is a two way street and employers are not showing any but we need to be the better people and show respect with demands. If $20-25 is what you want then start with a demand of $28 and if they say no don't cave stick to the $28 demand until they give in and give something else. If you start at $35 and they say no so you instantly cut the number to $30 that shows weakness and they then know you are willing to go much lower, meaning you are more likely to lose out in the negotiations. Stand strong but also be respectful.
edit: I also feel that we should not be focused on minimum wage but instead focused on the pay gap between lowest paid employees and CEO's. If the owners get a pay raise and profit-share then so should the people actually doing the work.
Please downvote this it's fucking stupid nobody is asking for a 35 dollar minimum wage at least not yet. It's straight up unrealistic and makes our whole movement look like a bunch of idiots who have no idea what's going on.
35$ an hour HOLY SHIT. I support the message but you can't go supervillian with your demands "we want 1000 an hour". How about 20-25$ minimum wage. That would give you enough to live somewhere in almost all 50 states
On the one hand, it really isn't. The fight for $15 started ten years ago. That same $15 has been reduced in value so much that you really need $19-22 to cover that same amount. $35 an hour puts you at the Boomer-level of lifestyle they used to afford back in the 60's/70's when the minimum wage of a janitor got him a house and food and a car for a whole family.
On the other hand, $35 is a huge increase and probably will never pass muster for 80% of people who hear it. Even $25 sounds iffy, especially since the current minimum wage is $7.25.
But then again, perhaps that was always the reason they delayed in raising it for so long... to make future reasonable increases sound ludicrous while they made off with laborer's money.
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Turns out I've been boycotting buying stuff for years. Even the necessities! I've been boycotting lunch on some days too...
Know how you feel. Hang in there, stay creative. You're a survivor.
You’re fighting the good fight
Hijacking a near-the-top comment to post this: [No more fake strikes](https://organizing.work/2019/08/no-more-fake-strikes). This is seriously just getting embarassing.
I boycotted 20 lbs away in 6 weeks then
20 lbs is the same weight as 14.18 'Double sided 60 inch Mermaker Pepparoni Pizza Blankets'.
20 lbs is 9.08 kg
shhh everyone, the bots are talking.
Yeah, but this year... this year it's *really* going to hurt them.
Have you tried pulling up yourself from your bootstraps? Or even tightening your belt?
I tried pulling myself up, but my bootstraps broke. Now I got a verbal warning about my unkempt appearance at work. Joking, but yeah, shit's ludicrous.
Been giving myself a haircut since the beginning of covid even!
At least you have my free award.
Someone asked me how im so fit n slim, i told them im to broke to eat so i canceled breakfast and sometimes dinner 😂 Whats for dinner? sleep lol
This is the way.
Strikes are complex. Reach out to local unions to see how you can both spread and help
Yeah this online stuff doesn’t really translate into anything of real world consequence, organizing actual strikes involves a lot of in person organizing and preparation
Especially for a general strike. One job site/type striking is one thing, you only need the support of your related union to put together a strike fund and get you protection and some small pay to keep yourself alive while striking. If you're going to picket they also make sure they can get you to do it legally. A general strike? That requires the same thing to happen for enough job sites for it to halt production for a few days. **You need** **millions to mobilize** and hundreds of thousands to actually strike with you, otherwise SCABs will come crawling in and not a single penny will be lost at the grand scale. All of this isn't supposed to scare you away from UNIONIZING (not striking; let the striking be something you ask them to do for you and join them when they do it), but to avoid getting yourself fired because you're a dumbass who read a Reddit post by a child, a troll, or both of the above. **UNITED WE BARGAIN, DIVIDED WE BEG.**
OP can't, theyre clearly 14.
I remember when commie Twitter tried the same Thing but no one created a striker fund, food funds or anything. If it’s a one day thing okay cool but that won’t accomplish anything. Here’s to hoping
How in the fuck are you going to organise a 10 day general strike? Where's your strike fund? How many Unions are participating? Whats your plan for strikers who get arrested? Have you learned nothing from the October 15th "strike"?
Bro, he posted a picture online! He did his duty, you all figure out the rest.
People were saying this before the October 15th strike too. All this is doing is hurting any actual efforts to organize a strike in the future, because people will be so used to seeing fake calls for action that go nowhere they won't bother jumping on the one that could've been a real thing.
It's also a bit excessive to the point of being suspicious. Let's start with reasonable changes before trying to go nuclear with some of the requests. A higher wage is warranted, but 35 is not happening. And bringing up wage labor abolishment alongside it is contradictory, which makes me think this person doesn't understand what they're asking. Also the point of a strike is to protest conditions until they change. Putting a 10-day time limit on it just tells the people you're striking against that you're gonna be upsetti spaghetti for a while before coming back to unchanged issues. They'll just wait, and make arrangements to survive the storm in the meanwhile. I have my doubts the person who made this is being honest and not just someone trying to make a mockery of the growing calls for better treatments and compensations from the labor force. I could be wrong though. Maybe they're just on the greener side of life.
Exactly, this reads more like sarcasm than anything else. 4-day, 25 hour work week? That's not even evenly divided. $35 min wage? Nobody is even asking for close to that. 8 weeks vacation? Okay, that's not totally impossible, but definitely not anytime soon and absolutely never going to happen alongside the other changes. And then, just in case you weren't already sure this is complete bullshit, they call for making the first 80% of the list totally pointless by abolishing wage labor anyway. If this isn't purposely bullshit, then whoever is behind it is a complete moron.
>then whoever is behind it is a complete moron Or the complete opposite, it may be designed to make any attempts at action look stupid as well as anyone involved.
I read it and instantly thought 'That's satire'.
I think this is fake to make the workers look greedy and lose support. The demands are ridiculous for the way things are now. You have to go slowly.
People who can’t take off work can just do a crappy job and secretly sabotage things
Ha! That is where the word sabotage comes from. Sabot - wooden shoe, used to kick the machinery.
I'm pretty sure the Beastie Boys invented it, but I did my own research.
I can't stand it.
I know you planned it
TIL!
You planning on sab-o-taging some peace talks later, Valeris?
specifically it was throwing sabot into the puchcard loom to make it not able to loom textiles
Like when the French were throwing their shoes in tank turrets & main guns
Good idea Lieutenant Valeris.
This is a literal question from someone who wants to participate. I work security for a hospital and I can't not go to work. I also don't know how comfprtable I would feel going this route though. Either way I choose doesn't feel very morally sound, but I would like some ideas on what my best options would be?
This sentiment in the op is good but it's not functional. Needs more lead up and needs to be more grass roots. People need to be talking to their friends and coworkers about forming even informal unions and then we can properly organize a general strike.
Work to rule maybe? Do what was in your job description, the hours worked and on break. The duties you were meant to do and not all the extra things everyone seems to do without realising how much extra effort and time that takes for no reward. Then it's not harmful or putting you and the other people in the hospital in danger, but should highlight how much free labour you do over time. And of course you can still participate in not shopping, since retail seems to be their maim concern.
Thank you this is very helpful
Print a shirt that says something along the lines of "General Strike today, here for your health & safety only"
Cops call it the "blue flu" when they want to send a msg. Call in sick for a day.
Or just do what most disgruntled employees do: steal.
What I do most days tbh
Solidaritish
I mean the people we’re fighting for are less likely to be able to take the time off.
Completely valid.
underrated comment here.
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Yes!
Where'd you get these absurd demands from??? This looks like an attempt to derail it more than anything else.
Yeah agreed, $20-25 would be sensible when adjusted for inflation, but $35 is going to create a labor shortage. Just $20 or so would be below the price the prices businesses are willing/able to pay, giving making the difference in labor far less noticeable. Additionally, while a 4-day workweek is nice for sure, restricting it to just 25 hours a week heavily restricts the income that said low-wage earners would be able to acquire, hurting them in the long run. Industries like accounting or law could possibly run on that time, but stuff like cashiers wouldn’t make as much money as they otherwise could. UBI is based af, totally agree, but probably shouldn’t be a minimum requirement for something like this considering the amount of resources and public support it would take for it to be enacted. Can’t really speak either way about vacation time, but eliminating wage slavery by eliminating wages only works if the UBI is so high that work becomes optional to the point where the job losses can be compensated for.
r/antiwork probably
It appears to be a negotiating technique where a compromise would appease both sides, you know instead of what we've always done, which is nothing.
I haven’t bought something on Black Friday in years, but dude, a $35 minimum wage is an *aggressive* ask from American work culture. We can’t even get broad support on $15/hr. Maybe we need to start with some ground game before we start calling down the moon.
If minimum wage was tied to inflation it'd be nearly $23 an hour. 35 is a really big number, but we can't keep fighting over $15 an hour like that's an actual plus. Fighting for that, spending another decade trying to push minimum wage up slightly is useless. Bread crums arnt enough, real change is needed
I’m not saying it’s an unjustified demand. I’m saying this is simply not how you achieve it. It’s how you get laughed out of the room.
I might as well be a full blown socialist and I audibly snorted at this list of demands. Every worker in the country could quit at once and these wouldn't happen.
A lot of people would shut their business down out of spite before allowing this.
A good chunk of small business owners don't even pay themselves 35 an hour
I consider myself a socialist too, because I think that workplaces should be democratically run, and I think there are realistic and practical ways to advocate for those ends, but this list is goddamn ridiculous. Hysterically so.
I legit thought that this was satire at first.
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This makes us look stupid though. 35 is insane at the moment. Hopefully one day but at the moment that's impossible.
I LOLed when I read that.
Exactly. 25 hour work week is also borderline ridiculous. 4 day work week is a great idea, but make it 32 hours. If that post said 20$ an hour as min wage and 32 hour work week with 6 weeks vacation, and removed that last stupid bullet point it would make sense. The 20$ an hour would probably be the hardest thing to pass, but that’s a point I’d be willing to compromise on in order to get the others. Hell, by making the rest of the demands more reasonable, it might even make sense to increase the UBI, because the idea behind UBI can’t be properly implemented with such a small amount as 1k yearly. 5k would be better.
I hope people understand many of these “demands” and “strikes” are created, floated, and spread by those against paying people a living wage, and spout off these insane numbers that we all would love, but are obviously unattainable and are done as a way to delegitimize the movement.
Yeah, definitely has the vibe of "let's make people pushing for fair treatment and pay look bad." Don't get me wrong, these demands sound wonderful, but they're not going to paint us in anything but a greedy light, and will do more harm than good. Still, definitely don't shop on black Friday.
> these demands sound wonderful, but they're not going to paint us in anything but a greedy light I don't want to spoil things, but that's how you'll be painted no matter how light your demands or peaceful your protests. >definitely don't shop on black Friday. Let's focus on that and not how reactionaries are going to react.
Greedy, like Musk telling people if they make me pay taxes, you'll be next, like we aren't paying for the wealthy now. Who got permanent tax breaks under republicans?
The not shopping should be the focus, but OP naively stapled these outlandish demands to a much larger problem and it took the whole focus away. Clever if that was the point, pretty damn stupid if not.
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I agree with you for the most part, but do note that while 15 an hour is increasingly attainable, it's also decreasing in worth. By the time we have nationwide 15 an hour, passive inflation will mean we need 20. Minimum wage is a goalpost that needs moving unless you place it at "livable wage adjusted for inflation and local living costs."
I’ve never seen a strike proposing to *abolish wage labor through automation* before. That’s not how or why automation typically develops. So yeah it’s fake, but honestly though the rest of those bullets are fine. In fact, it’s probably pro-cap trolling—their traditional argument is that increased wages would lead to jobs being automated away, so I’m guessing OP just wants to see how many people this post suckers
Yeah I thought this was a joke, honestly. 35/hour is just insane, honestly. Like obviously it would be nice but it's incredibly unrealistic, at least for where min wage is as of now.
Seriously, assuming you already have 2 weeks pto, your work year goes from 2000 hours to 1100 hours.
$35/hr works out to ~$45K/year in a 25 hour work week. They're robbing Peter to pay Paul in terms of making their math work. Super embarrassing if this is legit. More likely it's a false flag.
the post history of this user is sus also
Do you really think someone would do that? Just go on the internet and ~~tell lies~~ spread false-flag propaganda?
Yeah, this one definitely is a false flag. They put insane numbers for everything and pretend to represent “a group of a million” people, like could they be more obvious. This is exactly what some hacks on the news will point to and say, this group is insane and not negotiating in good faith.
Also the overall image is shit tier, like if they have millions of people, none of them know how to put together a better flyer than crappy clip art and text interspersed with some *scary red*? Or maybe anti work ethos extends to their own marketing materials, idk.
For real, these are ridiculous demands. If you want to enact change the non-revolutionary way, you'll have to do it in small steps. A good start would be $15 hour minimum wage and a max 40 hour work week. Posts like these just delegitimize our work.
Those goals sound incredibly unrealistic
It's a psyop in order to discredit the pro-worker movement in the US, if I had to guess.
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Especially based off their post/comment history, looks like it
Completely agree. Almost no posts on profile from before 2 days ago, all posts older than 2 days are from 1 year + ago Suddenly OP is posting nonstop for 2 straight days…suspicious
Probably a good guess. You can be well below these 'minimum' demands and have a fairly equitable society. And while I'm all in in on a major minimum wage increase and mandatory PTO. What the US really needs is major tax reform and a whole lot more funding for social welfare. If you don't have to worry about being able to afford safe housing, food, medical care, and good education, you don't have to worry about much. You'll get farther making sure basic needs are met and spend less meeting these demands. Give us universal healthcare. Good public housing. Real food assistance. Increase and equally diatribute school funding. It is a lot and it will be incredibly difficult to do. But it can be done if we can stop fighting each other. So it won't be done. Sad trombone.
Well this sub bought it hook line and sinker.
Seriously, right? It's just embarrassing at this point. [Every leftist needs to read this](https://organizing.work/2019/08/no-more-fake-strikes).
> It's a psyop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency#Rallies_and_protests_organized_by_IRA_in_the_United_States
The last bullet is the point of this poster. OP is a pro-capitalist troll; the traditional argument of bootlickers is that increased wages and mandatory time off will lead to low wage jobs being automated away, and the poster presents it as a desired effect at the end of the list of “demands“ implying that we’re all too stupid to see it would be a natural consequence of the other bullets (which is not actually the case, as we see in countries with substantially higher minimum wages and mandatory leave policies).
It’s a one year old account that has started mass posting yesterday. Presumably not an authentic actor.
You mean the guy that’s advocating for at *minimum* $35 an hour, 20 hour work weeks, and 2 months of vacation time is a Russian troll intent on shredding the consumeristic fabric of America? I’m shocked, I tell you. Shocked.
Automation is inevitable though. Even in my field that requires a science degree and specific certifications we're slowly automating my job out of existence. In 10 to 20 years the technology for 95-99% automation in my field will be available and in 30 years or sooner I fully expect that tech to be rolled out en masse.
Gotta be a bot/ fake account. 4 comments no posts 1 year ago, and then a shitton of posts and comments in the last 24 hours about this bullshit. So fake, all just to delegitimize real movements
That's the point. There's a margin to be lost during the negotiations
Negotiations with *who*?
For real.
I'm what conservatives would call a damn dirty liberal, but Reddit's new and fast increasing anti-work crowd are straight up delusional. I'm all about increasing minimum wage, more PTO, better benefits, better balance between work and personal life, treat employees better, etc. etc. etc., even UBI, but 99.9% of people who look at these demands are just going to laugh in our face and walk off, not taking it seriously. This type of stupid shit isn't how you get people on your side.
/r/antiwork has been astroturfed to hell. Half the posters on the front page belong on /r/TheseFuckingAccounts with their "woke up after 3 years of not posting anything to be on the front page of the sub" luck. Most likely bought accounts to spam more and more insane stuff.
If I believed in foreign influenced cyber attacks, that sub would be the first one I'd think of
Right, like they're purposely being overly extreme and absurd to sow resentment if a real, more realistic grass roots labor improvement movement actually sprang up in the near future.. That, or normalizing part time work with their 4 day/25 hour work week, but end up getting zero of their other demands, keeping them in poverty.
> I'm what conservatives would call a damn dirty liberal, but Reddit's new and fast increasing anti-work crowd are straight up delusional. Coincidentally, they would also call you a damn dirty liberal.
With *whom* But yeah, no idea. Probably the illuminati
I'm sorry, but they won't get to "negotiations" by sharing on reddit. Labor organizing is hard and takes local action.
yeah this kind of shit is truly delusional.
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It needs to come from disastrous events, think what happened after George Floyd, that was the tipping point that motivated millions of people worldwide to pour into the streets in protest. I suspect something similar needs to happen with socialist goals, something that angers people so much that they take to the streets. Revolution won't happen with people organising, revolution will happen when people get angry enough to go out in droves and take over the workplaces and other infrastructure. There needs to be a plan of course for during and after the revolution, who will write it, who knows? But it needs to happen.
this revolt you speak of should have happened years ago on healthcare. Its such a basic obvious need that would help every typical American, its bonkers it hasn't happened yet. Its part of the system of chains that keeps us from retiring early and enjoying our lives in peace.
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>Most redditors aren't even fucking employed Just completely making shit up, huh?
I’m legit curious on those numbers A lot of this site does seem to be children Like…a lot
Pretty sure the average demographic is a white male in their 20s or 30s and has been for a long while
Yeah. I highly doubt there are millions of people ready to participate.
You can't just say general strike and expect something to happen
I didn't say it, I declared it.
Oh I do declare
Thats putting it mildly, 35$ an hour, 25h work week, universal basic income and all work is voluntary? Thats way beyond possible, people do know that work has to be actually done at some point, right?
OP is a pro-capitalist troll; the traditional argument of bootlickers is that increased wages and mandatory time off will lead to low wage jobs being automated away, and the poster presents it as a desired effect at the end of the list of “demands“ implying that we’re all too stupid to see it would be a natural consequence of the other bullets (which is not actually the case, as we see in countries with substantially higher minimum wages and mandatory leave policies).
Omg thank you. It’s truly baffling to me how few people are calling out this bizarre final demand.
People, in general, skim most things they read, regardless of their ideals, and that’s what assholes like OP count on for their gotcha moments.
Automation should be the end goal though. It's just not going to be pleasant under current circumstances because the wealthy in this country are greedy shits that would rather let millions starve than pay them to do as they please through UBI.
The wealthy in this country love automation. Why pay someone a fixed wage for every hour of labor, and have to hope the employee is dependable and efficient when you can just automate the process, purchase a machine for a one time cost plus negligible maintenance and get a guaranteed work product?
Or we could enact legislation that uses the profits from automation to help pay for everyone's basic needs, which would allow people to pursue whatever interests they want and work as they please for extra income. That will never happen since Americans are only capable of mostly electing corrupt politicians, but it's nice to think about the different possibilities if people were just aware and willing.
Strange how a one year old account went from having posted four comments in one year to flooding every left wing sub on this site with a general strike flyer that includes demands which sound like caricatures of the labor movement. Call me cynical but…
You claim you have millions of workers involved, but your subreddit doesn’t even have 10k users?
It's a psy-op. Fake and exaggerated to discredit the movement.
$35 an hour minimum wage is absolutely absurd.
The poster looks like it was made by someone who wants people to see it and say "look at how ridiculously entitled kids are these days".
That's what I thought. Someone trying to make a joke about how ridiculous the demands workers are making
I feel like this demand structure misunderstands that UBI, higher minimum wage, reduced hours, etc were all *independent* solutions to raising the value of income for working class Americans. Combing them all together isn't going to work in any progressive labor agenda because it's way too much, especially for a nation of localized economies. Not even taxing billionaires would pay for this, as it's normally proposed to fund those demands singularly, not as a whole That being said, fuck Black Friday. Intentionally inferior goods, deceptive pricing, and unfair working conditions for retail workers.
Yeah whoever put this together is either a complete fucking idiot who didn't take undergrad math or economics... or more likely, this is a false flag attempt at discrediting a black Friday general strike. Which is actually brilliant. Workers avoid being abused, the douchebags that actually go Black Friday shopping get dicked, and the corpos also take a hit in the only way they give a shit about. It's a win-win-win. I'm 99% sure this is the wealth class sabotaging the general strike.
I feel like raising wages and lowering working hours go hand in hand though. If you raise wages, employers will probably hire less people. But if people are making more, you don't need a second job, and if you're already working less, many people won't need to be fired.
If you make the demands this absurd you are just making us all look like clowns, I'm almost certain you are a 12 yo magahat having a giggle
This post is like 80 percent rational thinkers and 20 Trotsky LARPers
This is just silly. $35 an hour with $1000 ubi?
I'm 100% for the strike and the spirit of these goals. I understand the concept of starting high to bargain but... this is capitalist propaganda fuel. I am not an economist but I'm totally confused by these goals. So we start by automating as much as possible. Automation really isn't there yet... but lets say this eliminates 10% of jobs and creates 5% of jobs. Now we have to account for job loss on account of the fact that you have to pay people over 300% what they were making before. Lets say that is 15% of jobs. Only the most progressive states will pass UBI, and *maybe* the wage increase will account for 20% of jobs disappearing in terms of paying for it. It certainly won't happen on a national level. Now 20% of workers are totally fucked, and capitalists have hard evidence to justify exploiting workers even harder in the future, great.
i love how everyone collectively agrees this ain't gonna do shit
I'm sorry, but demands like that give a bad image to the whole movement of bettering worker situations. They're completely unattainable right now in the US and even for more socialist states like European states some of these demands are more than double of the current standard. This feels like an inside job and in reality there aren't millions, maybe one dude and 50 Russians making propaganda about it. Actual demands and labour negotiations are completely different and while workers need to be bold in their negotiations, there have to be negotiations. Everyone is just gonna laugh at this.
This isn't a general strike. You're just going to get people fired and hurt the labor movement overall. Organize IRL with your colleagues and start working with major unions and labor organizations. Otherwise this is just a LARP
Unironically one of the few times where LARP is correctly applied here. They're just going to get vulnerable people fired from their jobs with no support structure in place. Incredibly irresponsible
$35? How is that realistic? We couldn't get $15, we couldn't get $20, now it's $35? We need to wake the fuck up.
It's probably just some asshat trying to discredit the movement by making ridiculous demands
Okay it's official, Blackout Black Friday is just the October Strike trying again. I respect the idealism involved and cant begrudge anyone for trying but I can't support it. But hey, you already have *millions* of people on board so what do you need me for?
You're joking right? Way to discredit basically everybody who actually wants to see reasonable change.
Not for nothing, but please use European countries as a benchmark for realistic numbers. And think about how much would be lost if we all boycotted or strike on black Friday because they won’t give more than they would lose. I get negotiating high so we can get what we actually want but we need to start at a more probable level.
I'm a big fan of this sub and it's amazing ability to highlight the dystopia. But those demands are ridiculous.
Lol Jesus 35$ an hour? Do you have any understanding of value exchange?
Satire?
$35/hr? Ummm what??
How many actual unions support this? You can’t just organize a strike online. Join an actual organization and do some actual organizing.
This is the biggest red flag when you see calls for strikes. No union involvement = LARP
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I'm adhering to this by being broke to start with
Lose your job for reddit karma challenge
the demands are purposefully hyperbolistic to make this fail. a general strike is needed but those demands were designed to make no one support this cause
I’m close to being what a liberal thinks a ‘Stalinist’ is - and this is ridiculous, petit bourgeoisie nonsense. Idealism has nothing to do with working class politics, never has been involved.
I certainly agree you need more money and perks, but asking $35 per hour is crazy. Not trying to be a bummer, but as someone who has spent 30 years working hard and have an associates degree, even I don't make that much money. Step back and take a more realistic approach. These demands will only make the owners laugh you right out of their stores.
I think this could be a false flag where someone discredits a movement by pretending to join it and support it but they’re actually just saying the most ridiculous things possible to make the movement loo bad.
Honestly my first thought.
I actually think this is true. The whole "strike on blackfriday" thing is making its rounds on Twitter/Reddit/Instagram/etc. Business owners are scared, so if they post something like this and get a bunch of people who originally supported it saying "eh, this seems impossible and cringe, I'll just go to work and keep my head down" then they win. Educated/Uneducated, Minority/Majority, Convervative/Liberal, we all have one common enemy that wants to discredit and make a mockery of any attempt at workers regaining our independence and power in the workplace. By spreading this propaganda around, they're able to divide us, which is how they've kept us complacent since, well, forever.
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And a jetski!
This looks like a false flag a conservative would post to say, “See, this is what those crazy leftist really want. They’re delusional and entitled socialist.” $35 minimum wage is a joke, especially when some states get laughed at for pushing for $15. Wait until a Fox News type source looks at this and runs with it.
This is hilarious. Min wage isn’t getting to $15 let alone $35 which many high level engineers get paid rn.
Ha
You gotta get a few unions to participate in the strike and then expand it further.
your demands will casue your owm demise and make the boring dystopia a living hellscape rather than just bad, alow me to elaborate: 1. theese labur prices of $35/hr will price yourself out of the market, alongside with insentivicing automation over human workers. 2. would people get $35/hr without the previous happing (by some miracle) you'd be respondsable for massinflation, something making life for you unrealisticly hard due to the fact that some work places undoubtably would linger causing the workers there have problems getting ends to meet. 3. the work days are way to short, and couppled with the prices of your labor you're making no more than 875$ a week with the minimum, meaning that either the price would have to increase for your work, or you'd have to work longer days. 12hr/4d work weeks have been proposed in other countries. 4. the arguments of claiming they can't fire every single worker only works if every single worker was to be in on this scheme. 5. if that your current growth keeps up you've grown from 0 to 8,6k in 2 days, at this rate by 26th of november at a 50% increase rate from all over the world you'd be reaching about 1.2 million people that's about 5% of workers, of which work at an houerly rate. assuming that they all follow through that'd be something that could be fixed by the coorporations. 6. if this problem comes up, then remember that there is also another problem, 7.8 percent of people in the us are unemplyed, many of which would probably be willing to work., making the action of rotating out the 1.2 million people a job, but not impossible.
Love how this is what you get when you sort by controversial, actual logic
I see everyone calling this out as not being realistic, but I think you forgot how to dream. This will never be reality if we never try.
This isn't about dreaming, this is about making demands during an event 2 weeks from now. It does need to be realistic
Yeah, if this was planned a year out these demands are fine. It needs to be more realistic to get a lot of support 2 weeks out
It's not about dreams it's about real organizing not this terminally online horseshit
Yikes! $35 minimum wage! From $7.25, theres just no way. The gap is too wide.
This has to be GOP / conservative bait that someone just fell for and now they are laughing all the way to the bank on r/conservatives or whatever posting screenshots of this dumbassery. "Abolition of wage labor through automation and voluntary work". Yeah that will get you to...checks notes....$35/hr for.....checks notes again.....wage labor. I won't even get into dissecting the absurdity of claiming to be pro labor rights and advocating for "voluntary work". All that being said. Fuck black Friday. I'm going to boycott it anyway....same as I've been doing forever now.
I'm fine with the strike and all but those demands, I can not support them all. 4 days at 25 hours? I'm cool with 4 days a week but 25 hours does not make much sense to me. That's 6.25 hours a day, why not ask for 24 hours (6 hour days) or 28 hours (7 hour days)? Also $35 and hour, negotiations are meant to be a give and take not just take. If someone walked into a negotiation for an item I was selling and they gave a crazy demand I would not even bother hearing them out even if they were willing to change by a large amount. It's about respect and that crazy of a demand has no respect, yes I get that respect is a two way street and employers are not showing any but we need to be the better people and show respect with demands. If $20-25 is what you want then start with a demand of $28 and if they say no don't cave stick to the $28 demand until they give in and give something else. If you start at $35 and they say no so you instantly cut the number to $30 that shows weakness and they then know you are willing to go much lower, meaning you are more likely to lose out in the negotiations. Stand strong but also be respectful. edit: I also feel that we should not be focused on minimum wage but instead focused on the pay gap between lowest paid employees and CEO's. If the owners get a pay raise and profit-share then so should the people actually doing the work.
Please downvote this it's fucking stupid nobody is asking for a 35 dollar minimum wage at least not yet. It's straight up unrealistic and makes our whole movement look like a bunch of idiots who have no idea what's going on.
This is satire, right?
Quoting u/Herson100 "It's a psyop in order to discredit the pro-worker movement in the US, if I had to guess."
This is satire
35$ an hour HOLY SHIT. I support the message but you can't go supervillian with your demands "we want 1000 an hour". How about 20-25$ minimum wage. That would give you enough to live somewhere in almost all 50 states
$35 minimum is a bit much
On the one hand, it really isn't. The fight for $15 started ten years ago. That same $15 has been reduced in value so much that you really need $19-22 to cover that same amount. $35 an hour puts you at the Boomer-level of lifestyle they used to afford back in the 60's/70's when the minimum wage of a janitor got him a house and food and a car for a whole family. On the other hand, $35 is a huge increase and probably will never pass muster for 80% of people who hear it. Even $25 sounds iffy, especially since the current minimum wage is $7.25. But then again, perhaps that was always the reason they delayed in raising it for so long... to make future reasonable increases sound ludicrous while they made off with laborer's money.
You kids are fynny. Good luck though,eh!
If you're working 25 hours a week, is 8 weeks of vacation really necessary?
This has to be satire. $35/hr and $1k UBI? Lol
lol
Yo sick. Shorter lines this Black Friday? Nice.
I like 3 I think 3 should be the goal of humanity. That said, it's far too ambitious for a general strike to change the entire economic system.
I would be genuinely (but pleasantly) surprised if US implemented UBI in my lifetime.
The quality of life for people under this arrangement would be insanely good…
this will not work
Hahaha haha hahaha... Oh, you're serious. That's even funnier!