News

TODAY: The dam has never been more profitable, now that we've fired all the folks with their fingers in the little cracks.

THIS TIME NEXT YEAR: Oh no! The dam has failed! Please help us, we need bailouts!

"If only we had workers that cared! It's all their fault for not wanting to go the extra mile!"
- "What monsters would just abandon their family like this??"

I hate feeling like an expendable human resource. When I was laid off it was completely without advanced notice, they're never considerate enough to notify you two weeks in advance (like we are supposed to do).

It's not like the executive types are known for their empathy. I've seen the Chairman of the Board throw full on temper tantrums (and throwing stuff) at his subordinates. They have zero qualms laying us off if it means it increases this quarter's bottom line.

That’s why I quit recently with no notice. They asked and I said “you didn’t give one the last 4 rounds of layoffs, so why should I?”
I live in a country where the company or you need to notify the other 2-6 months in advance. You can only quiet earlier if it is mutual.
I recommend joining a Union so you can also have the safety benefits that we do.
- I live in a country (the US) where secondary and general strikes are illegal, so unions don’t have as much power.
In fairness, you usualy get severance that is more than 2 weeks, and you don't even have to go to work to collect it. That said, in like spain, I think they have to employ you until you find a new job or something.
- Lol, severance? Did you get lost and end up in the 50s?
- In addition to what was already written on the matter in this thread, if you don't have a residence permit, when you're fired without a prior notice you'll only have so much time to find another company to hire you. Otherwise it's a bye-bye and you can go fuck yourself in some other country. I wouldn't say that's something that can be easily beaten by a severance at least if it's not some astronomically huge one like a year of salary or more

Yup. Post-COVID, the rich were scared by the newly empowered worker who had just finally begun to understand their worth and power, and have declared war on the working class in retaliation. There's plenty of evidence for this by now; the pattern is obvious.

So real talk time, what are doing about it?

Why aren't the remaining workers walking out in protest? Why aren't sympathetic industries and collectives talking to all of these recently released labor force members and collectively organizing marches and strikes, encouraging workers to refuse to do labor until executives take massive paycuts?

What do we have to do, and why aren't we doing it?

And if you are somebody out there doing it, what do people like me have to do to get involved?

Yes! My thoughts exactly!
During the pandemic when this was all happening, it was a bright spot of optimism that things could finally begin to get better as people realized how much nonsense wasn't necessary.
But the propaganda machines were in full force pushing fabricated tales of people who "missed the energy of the office", and everything was about "getting back to normal" instead of making a new, better normal!
Heck I even saw edgy righties on places like iFunny getting all based saying "I can't believe we're being exploited like this! Jobs are such a scam."
It was beautiful.
Where did it go?! Why do we so easily forget??
Why aren't the remaining workers walking out in protest?
I fear homelessness.
What do we have to do, and why aren’t we doing it?
The list of worker protections needed for that kind of solidarity would take a book series to properly explain. The majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, meaning they can't walk out without losing everything. They would pretty much instantly lose their jobs, which is a huge deterance.
And culturally, the situation is fucked. The U.S. has a much workers solidarity as La Croix has taste. Nobody wants to be the first to stick their neck out for a general strike. Nobody takes the ideal of a general strike seriously. A third of the population is republicans, whom vehemently oppose unions and worker protections.
The culture, values, and worker protections of this country need to dramatically change. And I wish I had solutions.
- The list of worker protections needed for that kind of solidarity would take a book series to properly explain. The majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, meaning they can’t walk out without losing everything. They would pretty much instantly lose their jobs, which is a huge deterance.
  I mean I hear you, and I agree with all of that... But people are already losing their jobs without these safety nets anyway. This meme is in response not to just the general discontent, but specifically the trend of corporate layoffs despite record profits.
  We are already taking losses in the battle without ever actually stepping onto the battlefield, so what the hell do we have to lose?
What do we have to do, and why aren’t we doing it?
I guess nowadays it's harder for a mob to find, invade and loot a rich asshole's mansion, "take back what's owed"
I’m ready to talk about stuff you get banned for saying, and we need a lot more people. Only the billionaires and their heirs for now.

Unionization is the only possible answer.

USians can find relevant/local unions here.

Unionization is the ~~only possible answer.~~ first step towards abolishing capitalism
- 100%! First step to organize the required worker solidarity for further change.
You misspelled "guillotines"
- WhyNotBoth.jpg

The worst part is seeing all these people getting mad at their computers. Call me when y'all are ready to drag them out of their houses and roast them, I'll wait for you to catch up.

Says someone, mad at their computer, also not doing anything about it.
That's not a solution. If I had to stop using every scummy corpo stuff, I'd have to live in a forest. We need reforms and laws. And abolish the wall street.
- I am not condoning violence.
  That being said, it is becoming less and less likely that solutions which benefit the population at large are reached peacefully. The exact same people benefitting from the current situation are the ones in control of those reforms and laws.
So what have you done so far?
- Write a witty Lemmy msg
Look, I'm not going to say violence is never the answer. History is full of examples to contrary. But it feels like there's a lot of steps we haven't taken before getting to that point. And no, I'm not talking about voting. We need to get serious about collective striking efforts. So I hope you'll answer not just the call for pitchforks when it comes, but also the one for picket lines when it comes first.

Didn’t Microsoft just report massive profits after reporting they played off tons of people? Maybe it was in reverse order, but they knew they had massive profits at the same time they were laying off tons of people.

Laying off a lot of people does wonders for the end of year report...
Yes, and also months after Bobby Kotick left, taking a $300M severance package with him.
The Microsoft layoffs were a bit different because it was cutting redundant positions after the Actiblizzard merger.
Stuff like middle/upper management mostly I would bet, the company I worked for did a similar lay off after an acquisition not long ago.
- Didn't they cancel a game that's been in development for over 5 years and lay off the whole team? That's not exactly redundant positions.
  From what I know of recent video game company layoffs, it's mostly been the cancellation of an in-development game in order to get rid of all the employees working on it.

This is basically why the French Revolution happened

Sharpen the guillotines.

Nah, make them blunt
- Sharp, blunt, don't matter as long as they solve wealth inequality
- Naw. Guillotines are quite difficult to move around and set up.
  Executioner’s axes, and a block of wood will do the same job and is much more portable.

It's pretty crazy how much they can raise employees salary by getting rid of ceo pay.

If the company had 1000 workers, they could each get a 30k raise.

Nvidia gave their engineers stock options that would years later net them millions. That caused a lot of their senior and experienced staff to either retire early or just stop putting in extra hours and now people are writing articles like "is paying your employees well a bad thing?"
- That's slavery with extra steps.
- And that’s based on one employee who joined after stock gains going to the press and not any actual evidence or standby from the company

Ain't capitalism grand?

Boeing!

What do you expect him to do? Not partake in the season's festivities?

Reminder that at 30m/year it takes them 1000years to earn 30billion which is a fraction of Bezos/Musk wealth

You will see this trend with Ai more and more, expected 40% lost of jobs worldwide due to the Ai implememtation. Google former Ai head of departement claims.

😔

You will see this trend with Ai more and more, expected 40% lost of jobs worldwide due to the Ai implememtation. Google former Ai head of departement claims.

😔

I can relate. Im also a jealous fucking man and hate it being rubbed into my face.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...

You serious?

For real though. Yes the CEO can get a pay cut, but that is unlikely to save more than a few individuals. The costs of labour are just that high, often the highest of all costs a company has. That's why laying off staff, although terrible, is the best way to save money for a company.

I agree that CEOs earn waaaaay to much for what they actually do, but cutting that is not the magic solution people imagine it is.

Even the famous pay cut by Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo was accompanied by other cost saving measures in the company, and only because Japanese law demands that layoffs be the last thing a company does.

I agree that CEOs earn waaaaay to much for what they actually do, but
No but required. It sounds like you agree. Some of us are just more mad about it.
It would have been a better post without the "y'all are stupid" laughter at the very start (though it might probably have been downvoted even then, but maybe less, for whatever that is worth). I agree with the business part of what you wrote.

Cool comic but is it necessary that we see corpo and ceo bad posts every day? I didnt know this is boringdystopia. Lets either coordinate strikes or not talk about it at all.

Not talk about it at all? That's kinda... Stupid. That's stupid.
- Fine… maybe I should have said not talk about it every day?
Yes
Leftist propaganda is kind of our thing on lemmy. That's not a complaint, I love it
- I dont mind leftist truth. Its not propaganda.
  I just found an article about the large problem of leftist extremism published by the german „verfassungsschutz“ that proclaimed that extreme left violence is a huge problem. They cited an attack on three people on 2020, one doxxing and one attack with „buckets of color“ on the doxxed peoples cars.
  I wondered: if leftist violence is such a problem, maybe my opinion that a lot more fascist hate crimes must be committed regularly is false?
  Turns out, 20967 violent fascist crimes were commited in germany in 2022, which is 57 per day.
  I‘m not against doing something about this. I just dont want to talk about it all day. I went to a large anti fascist event with 15k people. Lets do something.
If you want strikes, you gotta talk about it more. The people on the other side pump out as much propaganda as they can.
Until it changes, yes.
Talking about it is the pathway to coordinated strikes.
- I think for many it is the path to depression and away from action. If you want people to understand why, then okay, but not every day.
  But getting people on the street or to action needs more and better impulses imho.
Even when it grates a bit on me, this is the kind of thing that affects a lot of people’s lives. Many of their daily stresses would be reduced with job security and reduced wealth disparity.
- you‘re preaching to the choir mate. I totally get why we need to get rid of megacorps, ceos and such. But its depressing to see it, not activating. People need to do things not k*ll themselves because they are hopeless.
  make comics about doing justice to those responsible. Make comics about opening a coop or how to start a local gift economy or something.
  Not in the best mood today but I hope you get my point.
If it’s upvoted it just means people like it. Not much you can do about it.
I get a bit annoyed by the constant preaching to the choir too, but the post score tells me I’m definitely in the minority and I just ignore it and move on. Not everything has to fit my taste.
- I agree. Thanks for elaborating.
I enjoy the cartoons, but the comments inciting violence on them are just moronic.
Edit, not top post anymore, so removed that bit.