List of progressive values

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Came across this in an article

• People who work full time shouldn't live in poverty
• Homelessness shouldn't exist in the richest country in the world
• Women deserve both equal rights and equal pay
• Corporations and rich people shouldn't be able to legally bribe politicians
• Trashing the planet for profit is wrong and must stop
• Every American should have world-class health care at little or no cost
• Free higher education (and quality public schools) unlock human potential which benefits the entire country
• Children should learn the true racial history of America so they can empathize with their peers who are still experiencing these problems and grow up to become well-informed adults
• Women should make their own medical decisions, not politicians
• Massively profitable industries, from oil, coal and gas to Walmart and Amazon, shouldn't get billions in subsidies and tax breaks
• Children shouldn't fear getting shot at school
• When Wall Street banksters steal from us all, and should be imprisoned instead of bailed out
• No CEO is worth $100,000 an hour ($20 million a year) or more

 

[sgtaylor5]

deleted

 

[User.45]

• Free Affordable higher education (and quality public schools) unlock human potential which benefits the entire country

1. You can't fix what's missed in primary and secondary education and that's where the investments have the best return
2. Higher education should be affordable. If it's free, people will waste resources messing around (coming from someone who got 300K worth of education for "free"). Tuitions 20-30 years ago were reasonable IMHO.

 

[Yoused]

Missed this one

• the "war on drugs" is a racist/otherist effort to dehumanize and punish people the RW considers "undesirables" and it needs to be kneecapped right now before it creates even more crime

I mean, the war is over. Drugs won. Can we not just concede defeat, pick up the pieces and try to get at the real problem?

 

[SuperMatt]

Every American should have world-class health care at little or no cost

I think it’s better to frame this as we should have it as a shared cost. It’s not free, but paying it through taxes and providing it to everybody regardless of their personal wealth is more humane and actually ends up much less expensive for society. Just look at other countries that pay far less per capita than America for healthcare, and have longer life expectancy… Canada is a good example.

 

[DT]

It's a shame that can't be titled: List of values all reasonable human beings should support

Sure, there's a little room in many of the ideas for a slightly left/right leaning implementation, but the general concepts create a better world (and obviously a better country). It's sad, that I already know the response to many of these, from a certain group of people, is "Get a job / Get a better job / You have plenty of options for escaping your economic situation".

 

[Herdfan]

It's a shame that can't be titled: List of values all reasonable human beings should support

Sure, there's a little room in many of the ideas for a slightly left/right leaning implementation, but the general concepts create a better world (and obviously a better country). It's sad, that I already know the response to many of these, from a certain group of people, is "Get a job / Get a better job / You have plenty of options for escaping your economic situation".

Came across this in an article

• People who work full time shouldn't live in poverty

The concept of a living wage is fine. I understand the push for it. But people are not equal. Some work hard, some don't. Should they be compensated the same?

 

[Cmaier]

The concept of a living wage is fine. I understand the push for it. But people are not equal. Some work hard, some don't. Should they be compensated the same?

Such a straw man.

If you work hard you make more. A living wage is a floor, not a ceiling.

 

[Herdfan]

Such a straw man.

If you work hard you make more. A living wage is a floor, not a ceiling.

In theory. But now add in unions with collectively bargained wages by job. So harder work does not result in more pay.

 

[Cmaier]

In theory. But now add in unions with collectively bargained wages by job. So harder work does not result in more pay.

I retired from IBEW Local #3 as a 4th year apprentice at age 18, and my dad was in that same union all his life. I assure you harder work does equal more pay. Hard workers get all the overtime hours. People who don’t work hard get kicked off jobs. I can’t imagine anyone who has been in a union saying such a thing - seems like some weird right-wing talking point by someone who has only ever earned a salary.

 

[SuperMatt]

In theory. But now add in unions with collectively bargained wages by job. So harder work does not result in more pay.

This is utter , pushed heavily by corporations for many decades. The devotees of the GOP buy it hook, line, and sinker. It’s incredible to me how the GOP has managed to convince working class people that unions are a bad thing. The party is clearly not full of the best and brightest. Just look at how many died because they didn’t want to take a life-saving vaccine.

When companies pulled manufacturing out of America, they all blamed the unions. The fact is, they moved production to countries where labor was far below the minimum wage in America. How were people stupid enough to believe it was the unions’ fault? I’ll never understand that. The billionaire class of today was made possible by the off-shoring of manufacturing decades ago.

And this disconnect still continues today. People voted for Trump because he promised to restore manufacturing jobs. He immediately gave a huge tax break to billionaires, with zero requirement that they move manufacturing back to America to get it. And people still voted for him in 2020 despite that? Baffling.

 

[Herdfan]

I retired from IBEW Local #3 as a 4th year apprentice at age 18, and my dad was in that same union all his life. I assure you harder work does equal more pay. Hard workers get all the overtime hours. People who don’t work hard get kicked off jobs. I can’t imagine anyone who has been in a union saying such a thing - seems like some weird right-wing talking point by someone who has only ever earned a salary.

I was actually a Teamster in college.

What I remember most was getting some propaganda letter about why union members shouldn't drink Coors beer. It wasn't safe because they didn't pasteurize it and all they did was filter it.

It wasn't a couple of months before unionized Miller came out with Miller Genuine Draft - it was also cold-filtered and not pasteurized. How could one be safe and the other not? Figured out right then it wasn't about safety and was all about Coors being bad because they weren't unionized.

It was a great job though.

 

[DT]

The concept of a living wage is fine. I understand the push for it. But people are not equal. Some work hard, some don't. Should they be compensated the same?

That's in the hands of the company/employer. "A job" should have a much higher baseline, if you don't perform at the required level, you have no job, i.e., living wage in no way suggests a free ride. In fact, historical analysis of this, shows it's the exact opposite, improved wages often result in improved performance, better retention, you know, all the things employers actually desire.

 

[SuperMatt]

That's in the hands of the company/employer. "A job" should have a much higher baseline, if you don't perform at the required level, you have no job, i.e., living wage in no way suggests a free ride. In fact, historical analysis of this, shows it's the exact opposite, improved wages often result in improved performance, better retention, you know, all the things employers actually desire.

Lots of people have the mentality of “that guy over there is making more than me and I work harder” - even if they don’t really know who is or isn’t working harder objectively. I see it in workplaces all the time. On annual surveys where I work, multiple people invariably write “My group is working harder than this other group” and then the leadership brings out the chart showing all the work everybody is doing and there’s very little difference from group to group... often times the complainers were actually working less than those they accused of not pulling their weight.

Fear, envy, racial animus, culture wars, etc... these are the ingredients in the GOP recipe for getting voters.

 

[SuperMatt]

Here is a recent example of an attempt at unionization. It shows how laws and court decisions have given almost all the power to companies and made it nearly impossible to organize a union. You think you can just unionize if you have a majority of workers? Think again, think endless legal fights, etc...

Opinion | I’m a Longtime Union Organizer. But I Had Never Seen Anything Like This. (Published 2022)

After a spate of deaths, a group of health care workers in Oregon decided that to save lives, they needed a union.

www.nytimes.com

To form a union, employees are supposed to gather signatures from at least 30 percent of eligible workers and submit them to the National Labor Relations Board as a “showing of interest.” The labor board then sets up an election, which is decided by a simple majority. I’ve never seen workers win if they follow these instructions. If the workers have an outright majority on union cards, they can also ask the employer to voluntarily recognize the union. I’ve only rarely seen this happen.

Legally, private employers are not allowed to interfere with the right to organize. They cannot bribe, threaten, retaliate, surveil, give the appearance of surveilling, or fire workers for organizing. My experience is that many employers do all these things. I was taught that to win a “boss fight,” union supporters need to organize underground until at least 70 percent of employees have signed union cards so that they can withstand a 15 percent to 20 percent drop in participation when the employer counter-campaign hits.

During the Trump administration, the labor board issued a rule that allowed employers to delay elections through legal maneuvers, and also permitted them to file postelection challenges, which can prevent workers from moving into the bargaining phase at a reasonable pace. Time is a white-collar weapon. People with resources can easily outwait people with none. The longer it takes to get to an election, the less chance workers have of winning their union.

The assault on workers’ rights continued under Ronald Reagan then George H.W. Bush then Bill Clinton. With the rise of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, I saw workers internalize anti-union sentiment. When most people think of the George W. Bush presidency, they think of the Sept. 11 attacks, or the Iraq war, or Hurricane Katrina. What I remember was the assault on labor. Overtime rights were stripped, federal safety standards were rolled back, and many government employees lost important whistle-blower protections.

Employers do NOT want to pay fair wages, give you benefits, lose the ability to fire you on a whim, etc. They fear unions, and are willing to spend massive amounts of money to keep them from organizing. That should tell you all you need to know about how good a union is for the members.

 

[Pumbaa]

Lots of people have the mentality of “that guy over there is making more than me and I work harder” - even if they don’t really know who is or isn’t working harder objectively. I see it in workplaces all the time. On annual surveys where I work, multiple people invariably write “My group is working harder than this other group” and then the leadership brings out the chart showing all the work everybody is doing and there’s very little difference from group to group... often times the complainers were actually working less than those they accused of not pulling their weight.

Fear, envy, racial animus, culture wars, etc... these are the ingredients in the GOP recipe for getting voters.

Oh yes. Perception, ignorance and hard work…

At a former place of work I tried to improve the working conditions by proposing changes to the workflow. Adding a bit of structure would basically let us get more work done in less time with less effort.

The response from one of the owners (and board member) during the meeting that followed?

“Everyone is always busy 100% of the time so we are working as efficiently as possible.”

 

[Renzatic]

The concept of a living wage is fine. I understand the push for it. But people are not equal. Some work hard, some don't. Should they be compensated the same?

That's a problem no society has been able to solve in the 10,000+ years we've had civilization. The mistake is assuming they make up a large percentage of the population, and that we can somehow fix the unfixable situation they represent. We have always had, and always will have listless, lackless layabouts that contribute nothing to society, and act as a drain on those around them.

It becomes an even bigger issue when you ask a group of people to define who these listless, lackless layabouts are exactly, so we can do something about it.

Rather, what we should be doing is writing off the fact that x% of the population will be a drain on society as a given, take measures to minimize the damages they can cause, while making sure that we don't unduly punish those who don't deserve punishment just because they happen to occupy a certain economic niche.

If Billy's a hard worker down on his luck, and Bob is a lazy bastard who spends most of his time smoking pot in the break room, the only thing you really can do is try to prevent Billy from becoming collateral damage in our neverending war on lazy people.

In short, don't worry about it.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

The concept of a living wage is fine. I understand the push for it. But people are not equal. Some work hard, some don't. Should they be compensated the same?

I'm not sure how we back peddle to this situation, but the apartment I lived in for a long time up until recently was an 1,100 square foot 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom. It was built back in the 70's. Obviously some more modern appliances and other facility upgrades were added since then but the basic structure has remained the same. I'm sure at the time it opened it was probably inhabited by people who worked in retail and the service industry. When I lived there I was surrounded by young techies. Point being, a structure that formerly housed low skill/low income people shouldn't later become only affordable by the highly skilled and educated with no substantial increase in quality.

 

[Herdfan]

If Billy's a hard worker down on his luck, and Bob is a lazy bastard who spends most of his time smoking pot in the break room, the only thing you really can do is try to prevent Billy from becoming collateral damage in our neverending war on lazy people.

In short, don't worry about it.

No, you should be able to fire Bob on the spot without worry about being sued. Yes Bob loses his job and all that goes with it, but it will filled by hopefully another Billy who needs the job and is willing to work.

 

[lizkat]

I'm not looking for protection of layabouts and laggards by unions, but I do think the only way workers on a factory floor get safety precautions paid enough attention to is if they either get organized or else have federal agency oversight and no-notice inspection with teeth in the fine print about violations.

Look at what happened in poultry processing on Trump's watch when some big chicken processing firms got waivers in the spring of 2020 on line speeds and bumped the theoretical max rate for poultry cutters to 175 birds a minute when there were already some terrible worker injuries --including amputations-- at a theoretical max of 140 a minute. The changes also involved moving workers closer to each other which of course during covid was hardly a recommended health protocol.

The industry was already known to run injury rates much higher than the average factory having a mix of automated and human work required. Now I think those waivers may have got rolled back, not sure, but let's just say it's not only in China or South Asia where worker protections run to flimsy too often.

USDA Allows Poultry Plants to Raise Line Speeds, Exacerbating Risk of COVID-19 Outbreaks and Injury - National Employment Law Project

USDA recently granted line speed waivers to 15 poultry plants with poor safety records, ignoring CDC recommendations to prevent COVID spread.

www.nelp.org

In April 2020, 15 large poultry plants requested and received approval from USDA to increase their line speeds, permitting them to kill and process more birds per minute than legally allowed under current USDA regulations. These approvals, known as line speed waivers because they waive the requirements of current regulations to limit line speeds, were given to plants owned by Tyson Foods, Wayne Farms, Mountaire Farms, and George’s Processing.

These waivers were granted under the cover of darkness, with no notice to the public and no request for public comment. The plants will now be allowed to speed up their slaughter and production lines by 25 percent, from the legally allowable rate of 140 birds per minutes to a new limit of 175 birds per minute.

The union representing some of the workers went to court over it in the summer of 2020.

Unions sue USDA over faster chicken plant production speeds

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa - The union representing workers at chicken processing plants in six states sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Tuesday, saying its policy of allowing companies to slaughter birds more quickly endangers workers and makes it more difficult to protect against spread of...

www.thestar.com

“America’s poultry workers have been on the front lines of this pandemic since day one, putting themselves in harm’s way to make sure our families have the food we need during this crisis,” said UFCW International President Marc Perrone. “As COVID-19 continues to infect thousands of meatpacking workers, it is stunning that USDA is further endangering these workers by allowing poultry companies to increase line speeds to dangerous new levels that increase the risk of injury and make social distancing next to impossible.“

The lawsuit claims the USDA has allowed 53 of 124 chicken processing plants to process up to 175 birds per minute instead of capping production at 140 birds as specified in regulations adopted in 2014.

A spokeswoman for the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

Representatives of meat processing companies Tyson and Wayne Farms, which are mentioned in the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

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