Unions - Tumblr Posts
Does tumblr know about the animation union yaoi yet
Hi Mr. Gaiman, I've seen a few tweets and posts about not crossing the picket line for the WGA strike but nothing actually explaining what that entails for this strike? Is it not watching streaming services since that's one of the main issues? All tv? TV and movies? only new stuff or reruns too?
No, it's to not cross the picket lines literally. If there's a writers guild picket in place, you don't cross it. (But you can always join it -- especially if you are in LA or NYC.)
The WGA hasn't called for a boycott of streaming services or TV or anything like that, and until and unless they do I wouldn't push for that.
What the WGA would like is for people to make their support for the writers clear and loud -- write to the networks you watch on and tell them to treat their writers fairly, post your support on every social media outlet you can. Let the producers know that public opinion is against them.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfW1AnaClipVqr5Ur9AIZYgGRquOShhtM5Jtum9hIulf_8dGA/viewform
Animation is a labor. It’s tedious on the body and takes up a lot of physical time, it’s a skill that takes years to perfect into the industry standard, in an industry that’s constantly changing. Artist should be paid fairly and treated fairly.
Artists shouldn’t have to worry about injuring their bodies due to time constraints and impossible amounts of work, for a wage that doesn’t bring food on the table or medical care in the long run. Art is created in stable environments.
If you wanna help, sign this petition!
“Culture Workers Education Center (CWEC) is a platform for workers to gather, learn, and organize to address urgent issues such as living wages, industry policy, and equity in the cultural workplace. We support arts workers and freelancers in solidarity with the service industry at large,” (from the website).
https://hyperallergic.com/758098/that-moment-when-you-win-your-museums-union-election/
Hey, listen: We’re not gonna get anywhere with this “socialism” stuff unless we can establish solidarity networks that provide real, tangible aid. And I do mean “tangible” in the sense of “you can fill up a box with it.”
Back in the old-timey days, when we didn’t have things like a minimum wage or government assistance, folks didn’t think twice about paying union dues every month out of their meager paychecks. And in those days, when it was a regular, everyday occurrence for union people to get beat up or outright murdered for their union-ing, the unions still managed to win a lot of their fights. Reason for all that? The bigger part of them union dues I mentioned *went into a strike fund*.
Time on a picket line means time off the clock. And as for me, in this economy, if I go a week without a check, my family don’t eat. I go two weeks without a check, and we’re homeless. And them’s the brakes.
Ask a community organiser: can you organise with Fran Drescher as president of SAG-AFTRA even though she's an antivaxxer? On broad based organising versus issue based organising.
I think "they don't even have X" is one of those memes that's actually funnier in its original context than in anything that's been done with it subsequently. Like, in its original context, this is a joke about a man who has lived his entire adult life alone in a swamp cold-reading the atmosphere of a corporate workplace and deciding that appealing to the receptionist's sense of working-class solidarity is going to get him in the door, and it fucking works.
September 11, 2024 - British Trade Unions voted to demand an immediate arms embargo on Israel, following the calls from Palestinian trades unions calling for international solidarity from unions all over the world.
Now let's see if they will actually give this demand any teeth by refusing to handle any shipments of goods to Israel, or to work with any Israeli companies and instituions, or that this will remain in essence a strongly worded letter. [link]
Solarpunk is not archievable under Capitalism
Okay, let me make one thing very clear: We will never have a Solarpunk future as long as we live under capitalism. Again and again I will find people, who have fallen in love with the idea of Solarpunk, but are unwilling to consider any alternative to capitalism. So, please, let me quickly explain what that just is not gonna work out that way. There will be no Solarpunk under capitalism. Because the incentives of capitalism are opposing anything that Solarpunk stands for.
So let me please run over a few core points.
What is capitalism?
One issue that a lot of people do seem to have is understanding what capitalism even is. The defining attribute of capitalism is that "the means of production" (e.g. the things needed to create things) are privately owned and as such the private owners will decide both what gets created through it and who will get a share in any profits created through them. The ultimate goal in this is, to generate as large as a profit as possible, ideally more and more profit with every year. In real terms this means, that most of those means of productions in the way of companies and the like are owned mostly by shareholders, that is investors who have bought part of the company.
While capitalism gets generally thaught in schools with this entire idea of the free market, that... actually is not the central aspect of capitalism. I would even go so far to argue something else...
The market is actually not free and cannot be free
The idea of the free market is, that prices are controlled by the concept of supply and demand, with the buyer in the end deciding on whether they want to spend their money on something and being able to use that power to also enact control on the supplier.
However... that is actually not what is happening. Because it turns out that the end consumer has little influence, because they are actually not actively participating in the market. The market mainly is something that is happening between multimillionaires. It is their demand (or the lack thereoff) that is the influence. Investors, mainly. Which is logical. In a system, where the power to buy is deciding, the person who can spend multiple millions is gonna have a lot more power, than the person who has twenty bucks to their name.
Hence: 99% of all people are not participating in anything resembling a free market, and the remaining 1% are not interested in such a system.
Money under capitalism
One thing everyone needs to understand is, that for the most part money under capitalism is a very theoretical concept. It might be real for the average joe, who for the most part will not have more than maybe ten grand to their name, but it is not real to multi millionaires, let alone billionairs. Something that is going to be thrown around a lot is the concept of "net worth". But what you need to realize is that this net worth is not real money. It does not exist. It is the estimated worth of stuff these people own. Maybe houses and land, maybe private jets, maybe shares in companies and other things. These people's power and literal worth is tied to them being able theoretically able to sell these assets for money.
In fact a lot of these very rich people do not even have a lot of liquid money. So money they can spend. In fact there are quite a few billionairs who do not even own a million in liquidated money. The money they use in everyday life they borrow from banks, while putting their assets up as a security.
Why capitalism won't abolish fossil fuels
Understanding this makes it quite easy to understand why the capitalists cannot have fossil fuels ending. Because a lot of them own millions, at times billions in fossil fuel related assets. They might own a coal mine, or a fracking station, or maybe an offshore rig, or a power plant burning fossil fuels. At times they have 50% or more of their net worth bound in assets like this. If we stopped using fossil fuels, all those assets would become useless from one day to the next. Hence it is not in the interest of these very rich people to have that happen.
But it goes further than that, because politicians cannot have that happen either. Because the entire economy is build around these assets existing and being used as leverage and security for other investments.
Why capitalism won't build walkable cities and infrastructure
The same goes very much for the entire infrastructure. Another thing a lot of people have invested a lot of money into is cars. Not physical cars they own, but cars manufacturing. So, if we were building walkable cities with bikelanes and public transportation, a lot less people would buy cars, those manufactoring factories becoming worthless and hence once more money... just vanishing, that would otherwise be further invested.
Furthermore, even stuff like investing into EVs is a touch call to get to happen, because the investors (whose theoretical and not real money is tied to those manufacturers) want to see dividents at the end of the quartal. And if the manufactuerer invested into changing their factories to build EVs for a while profits would go down due to that investment. Hence, capitalism encourages them not doing that.
Why capitalism won't create sustainable goods
A lot of people will decry the fact that these days all goods you buy will break within two years, while that old washing machine your grandparents bought in 1962 is still running smoothly. To which I say: "Obviously. Because they want to make profits. Hence, selling you the same product every two years is more profitable."
If you wonder: "But wasn't that the same in 1962?" I will answer: "Yes. But in 1962 the market was still growing." See, with the post war economic boom more and more people got more divestable income they could spend. So a lot of companies could expect to win new costumers. But now the market is saturated. There is not a person who could use a washing machine, who does not have one. Hence, that thing needs to break, so they can sell another one.
The market incentive is against making sustainable, enduring products, that can be repaired. They would rather have you throw your clothing, your smartphone and your laptop away every two years.
Why workers will always be exploited under capitalism
One other central thing one has to realize about capitalism is that due to the privitization of the means of production the workers in a capitalist system will always be exploited. Because they own nothing, not even their own work. Any profit the company makes is value that has in the end been created by the workers within the company. (Please note, that everyone who does not own their work and cannot decide what happens to the value created by it is a worker. No matter whether they have a blue collar or a white collar job.)
That is also, why there is the saying: All profit is unpaid wages.
Under capitalism the profits will get divided up under the shareholders (aka the investors), while many of the workers do not even have enough money to just... live. Hence, good living standards for everyone are explicitly once more against the incentives of capitalism.
Why there won't be social justice under capitalism
Racism, sexism and also the current rise of queermisia are all a result of capitalism and have everything to do with capitalist incentives. Because the capitalists, so the people who own the means of production, profit from this discrimination. This is for two reasons.
For once having marginalized people creates groups that are easier exploitable. Due to discrimination these people will have a harder time finding a job and living quarters, making them more desperate and more likely to take badly paid jobs. Making it easier to exploit them for the profit of the capitalists.
A workforce divided through prejudice and discrimination will have a harder time to band together in unions and strikes. The crux of the entire system si, that it is build on the exploitation of workers - but if the workers stopped working, the system would instantly collapse. Hence the power of strikes. So, dividing the workforce between white and non-white, between queer and straight, between abled and disabled makes it easier to stop them from banding together, as they are too busy quaralling amoung themselves.
Why we won't decolonize under capitalism
Colonialism has never ended. Even now a lot of natural ressources and companies in the former colonies are owned by western interest. And this will stay that way, because this way the extraction of wealth is cheaper - making it more profitable. Colonialism has never ended, it has only gotten more subtle - and as long as more money can be made through this system, it will not end.
There won't be Solarpunk under capitalism
It is not your fault, if you think that capitalism cannot end. You have been literally taught this for as long as you can think. You never have been given the information about what capitalism is and how it works. You have never been taught the alternative mechanisms and where and when they were implemented.
You probably look at Solarpunk and think: "Yeah, that... that looks neat. I want that." And here is the thing: I want that, too.
But I have studied economics. Literally. And I can tell you... it does not work. It will not create better living situations for everyone. It will not save the world. Because in the end the longterm goals are not compatible with a capitalistic system.
I know it is fucking scary to be told: "Yeah, change the world you know in massive ways - or the world will end." But... it is just how the things are standing.
You can start small, though. Join a local party. Join a union. Join a mutual aid network. Help repair things. Help people just deal. Our power lies in working together. That is, in the end, what will get us a better future.
he did SUCH a good job best speech I've seen so far
kamala's bestie being a close second
love to hear a union guy that just flatly says that rich people are the problem and bosses are scabs
https://youtu.be/bcEfOcEsbDc?si=4OTA8Mj_VrZenQ7I
"We'll form a union, and get the fair and equitable treatment we deserve!"
"Then we will get corrupt, and checkless, then the japanese will eat us alive!"
So one argument I have heard when talking about unions is the idea that unions are only needed by people who do manual labor, there are 2 things wrong with this statement
A large amount of blue collar workers in the US like Coal Miners, Factory Workers, and Lumber workers are not unionized, this is because of corporate greed destroying the strong unions in these sectors in the 60s and that makes the lives of these people so much worse because they often work in some of the lowest paying fields in the us.
Any workers can be mistreated by management. People like Baristas work in poor conditions for their mental health and are frequently paid low wages for their work. Unions are there to insure workers get compensation for their work in all fields not just ones that are dangerous.
After 146 days, the Writer's Strike has ended with a resounding success. Throughout constant attempts by the studios to threaten, gaslight, and otherwise divide the WGA, union members stood strong and kept fast in their demands. The result is a historic win guaranteeing not only pay increases and residual guarantees, but some of the first serious restrictions on the use of AI in a major industry.
This win is going to have a ripple effect not only throughout Hollywood but in all industries threatened by AI and wage reduction. Studio executives tried to insist that job replacement through AI is inevitable and wage increases for staff members is not financially viable. By refusing to give in for almost five long months, the writer's showed all of the US and frankly the world that that isn't true.
Organizing works. Unions work. Collective bargaining how we bring about a better future for ourselves and the next generation, and the WGA proved that today. Congratulations, Writer's Guild of America. #WGAstrong!!!
If I see ANYONE complain about their fav shows next season being delayed due to WGA and SAG strikes it's kill ON SIGHT. Is this show really good enough it's worth letting writers starve and lose their homes for the next season to come out? Being upset over this is valid. That's the point, to make us upset. But don't take the anger out on the people striking, take it out on the studios leaving them no other choice
Am being serious though: If you are in U.S. or U.K. join workers union if can as independent creator, book author, artist, freelancer, remote worker. Whatever.
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) is option.
Suggested Instruction: Read the links information, check requirements if any, become IWW member, pay small fee if have enough money to, get resources that provide, connect with IWW community, and organize local chapter.
Pete Seeger died Monday night at the age of 94. He was an amazing man who believed and demonstrated the political and social power of music. He (along with many others, both known and not) helped keep alive a tradition of union songs for a new generation of folks like me who don’t have the protection of unions and never got to know and understand their rich history.
Most importantly, he taught us (literally and figuratively) that anyone can sing a tune, anyone can learn to play a banjo, and that we can all be musicians. That we all are musicians.
He was a truly great man that will be missed.
Solidarity Summer is well and truly ramping up. AS IT FUCKING SHOULD.