a reminder that rail workers’ wild demand is simply to get a few paid sick days and *not be penalized* for taking time off for illness… during a pandemic.
@lauraolin Repeated image with alt text. Thank goodness for the iphone’s text extraction feature (only very recent phones have it built-in). cc @anildash
@lauraolin @r343l @anildash thank you for adding alt text. It matters!
@r343l @lauraolin Even better: Copying the text from the original source and linking to it. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/28/rail-strike-biden-congress/
@Rocket @lauraolin True. Didn’t have the energy to go find the source. :)
@r343l No worries! In the end we found the source together.🤝
@lauraolin this is a bit off topic but you’ll see it’s perfectly on topic :
“[the technician] had also performed the work during his 13th consecutive seven-day workweek.” — re The Clapham Junction Rail Crash — see for example https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clapham_Junction_rail_crash … humanity please!
@lauraolin A *lot* of employers have byzantine or weird time off policies. Like, oh you get X days per year, they roll over, but you don't get overtime, you get K-time which adds 1 hour per hour of overtime to PTO, unless it's a stoploss situation, then you get time and a half K-time...
or situations where you have to go into vacation PTO to go to the hospital or whatever.
even the family medical leave act (in the US, FMLA) only guarantees your employer cannot replace you for nearly dying.
@lauraolin is being sick a vacation though? Lol
@lauraolin Everyone should get paid sick time regardless of the job that they work or the number of hours in a week that they put in at work, it's appalling how the wealthiest nation cannot afford to give their workers basic things such as paid time off
Definitely can afford it. We/Oligarchs choose not to.
@lauraolin hell to the yeah.
This crap is why unions are needed, & if things get bad enough that a big chunk of our transport infrastructure's gonna be out of use a while... then perhaps somebody's been screaming too long and loud & we need to pay some attention.
These aren't some minor snit-fits, like more brand-name items n the break room vending machine. It's about the health & well-being of their workers. I hope this gets resolved with dignity and these guys get their paid sick days.
@lauraolin I get the need to keep rail lines staffed. But that just means they need to hire more workers so that employees aren’t overworked, and so some employees are available on standby in case one of their co-workers is sick & needs time off.
Purposefully understaffing is a bad business model. Sure, upper management gets rewarded handsomely for minimizing salary “burden,” but at great cost to the lives of their revenue generators.
@lauraolin U.K. is in a similar situation, but we have a broad range of strikes happening. I support all these, regardless of temporary inconvenience to me. We need a profound change in our political power system that values people & social cohesion, over their adding value to shareholders.
@lauraolin
They negotiated that deal to get higher pay.