Jack Saturday

Monday, March 27, 2017

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1591-1593

After losing jobs in January, women took the majority of the new jobs in February, gaining 99,000 jobs to men’s 76,000. Women have more than made up their losses in the recession, gaining 2.5 million jobs in the recovery, compared to 2.1 million jobs lost, while men have been struggling more, gaining 4.2 million jobs after losing 5.3 million in the downturn.

It may be tempting to proclaim a trend here, especially after revisions showed that for a brief period during the credit crisis, women held more than half of all jobs.

But that does not mean that women are coming out ahead. “The good news is that women are getting jobs,” said Joan Entmacher, the vice president for family economic security at the National Women’s Law Center, which crunched the gender numbers in today’s jobs report. ”The bad news is they have very low pay and bad working conditions.”

THE JOBS REPORT
Women Made Jobs Gains in February
By SHAILA DEWAN  MARCH 7, 2014
New York Times
 

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In the past decade, B.C. nurses experienced approximately 2862 time-loss injuries from violence, which were often the result of being kicked, hit or beaten by patients or residents of the facilities they work in. What’s perhaps more striking, though, is the fact that these nurses are at greater risk of injury from workplace violence than law enforcement and security workers.
B.C. nurses face higher risk of workplace violence than law enforcement
Worksafe BC
Times-Colonist
March 20, 2017
 

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 Five former members of the Jills, the cheerleading squad for the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, filed suit against the team, alleging that they were forced to perform as many as 20 hours of unpaid work a week and to do jumping jacks while coaches administered a “jiggle test.”
Harpers Weekly Review
April 29, 2014
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Monday, March 20, 2017

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1588-1590

A few months ago, Gallup released the findings of their “2013 State of the American Workplace” poll and it’s grisly. According to the Gallup study, 70% of Americans either “hate” their jobs, or are “completely disengaged.”

This is a damn travesty and doesn’t bode well for mankind!
...
I know this was a poll on the American workplace, but I checked around and those in Europe and Canada don’t fair much better. Most people dislike their jobs and it’s a global epidemic!
Job Sucks? This Is What You Do
ExploratoriaBlog

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 American society has “an irrational belief in work for work’s sake,” says Benjamin Hunnicutt, another post-workist and a historian at the University of Iowa, even though most jobs aren’t so uplifting. A 2014 Gallup report of worker satisfaction found that as many as 70 percent of Americans don’t feel engaged by their current job. Hunnicutt told me that if a cashier’s work were a video game—grab an item, find the bar code, scan it, slide the item onward, and repeat—critics of video games might call it mindless. But when it’s a job, politicians praise its intrinsic dignity. “Purpose, meaning, identity, fulfillment, creativity, autonomy—all these things that positive psychology has shown us to be necessary for well-being are absent in the average job,” he said.
A World Without Work
Derek Thompson
the Atlantic
 

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 ...seven people died in stampedes at a stadium in Abuja where 65,000 Nigerians had been invited to pay $6 to take an aptitude test for 4,556 job openings at the country’s immigration service.
Harper's Weekly Review, March 18, 2014
 


Monday, March 13, 2017

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1585-1587

Many people go to jobs they hate or put more accurately, hate them. Forced to work with and for people that hate you and under different conditions you would never meet or even want to meet, you go on. There are laws to protect the average worker who if they stand up for themselves will become a pariah and never work anywhere again. Jobs are killing people from either stress or other environmental dangers. Workers caught, trapped having to deal with regular indignities and offenses because they have families to support and bills to pay. You're over a barrel and "they" know it. Companies are rife with nepotism and cronyism. Nothing you can do if you need to work. Suck it up and do your best to make it through another day.
 Brenda •
Comment section
Is the Job You're Fighting for Really Worth the Struggle?



 ...a 2016 survey found that 40 percent of women working in fast food are sexually harassed.
How to Share the Wealth If the Robots Start Doing the Work
By Kate Aronoff / In These Times
February 27, 2017





 In Brazil, to cite just one example, cash transfers helped to cut poverty rates in half in less than a decade.
Basic income isn’t just a nice idea. It's a birthright.

Jason Hickel
theguardian

Monday, March 06, 2017

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1582-1584

The average age of a fast food worker is 29, and 26 percent are raising children. Fifty percent work more than one job.
How to Share the Wealth If the Robots Start Doing the Work
By Kate Aronoff / In These Times
February 27, 2017

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 Trump claimed to have saved 1,100 jobs in a deal with United Technologies to invest in its Indianapolis Carrier factory. Shortly thereafter, the company’s CEO, Greg Hayes, said he plans to use much of that money to replace workers. “We’re going to . . . automate to drive the cost down so that we can continue to be competitive,” Hayes told CNBC. “What that ultimately means is there will be fewer jobs.” Indiana taxpayers, meanwhile, are on the hook for $7 million in corporate tax breaks included in the agreement.
How to Share the Wealth If the Robots Start Doing the Work
By Kate Aronoff / In These Times
February 27, 2017
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 A Japanese firm replaced 34 of their workers with IBM’s Watson; a Chinese factory reported a 250% productivity increase after replacing 90% of their human workers with robots; Ford announced that they’re spending $1BN on self-driving cars; online retailer Ocado are trialling robotic arms that can pack fruit without bruising it; Rolls-Royce announced that they plan to release their first autonomous ships by 2020; and Georgia Tech is using AI as a teaching assistant.

It feels like this is a trend that’s only going to continue picking up pace.

 Politicians starting to react (read: Universal Basic Income)

Another idea that seems to be picking up pace is Universal Basic Income, which is being discussed by increasing numbers of politicians as a solution to jobs disappearing as a result of automation. In 2017 so far, two French socialist Presidential candidates declared their support for it, MEPs said they think we should seriously consider it, and Canada became the latest country to announce a pilot.

Automation’s impact on jobs: what’s happened in just 6 weeks.
Ed Newton-Rex
On Coding

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