cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/19267793

https://mastodon.social/@peterjriley2024/112436295100404451

Industrial unions ran by activist kids from the city aren't workers unions. They're just leeching

I'm shocked more people don't realize this. There is absolutely nothing broken with the system. It's working exactly as intended. The suffering of the lower classes is the desired outcome. If we're too tired, desperate for enough resources to survive, and too afraid, we won't be able to stand up for ourselves and demand something better.

And unfortunately it's working spectacularly.

laughs as a wobbly himself. we legit help local folks get strong enough to transition into “real” unions.

No there the job creaters you moran!! [sic]

• people who simp for the billionaires

It's both, but boss is the biggest contributor of the two by far. I've worked for few owners, they hate payroll. It's their biggest expense and that infuriates many of them. They despise paying anybody anything.

So, of course a huge amount pay the lowest wages possible, and a lot of them would own you as a slave if it was legal, no doubt. And they'd grumble about the cost of the gruel.

Government's fundamental job is keeping the general population from being enslaved by these people. It's what government is for.

evidenced plainly by the fact that they'd invest 1.5+ trillion in the magical "I don't need workers anymore" word guessing machine and keep doubling and tripling down upon it at the potential peril of the global economy

It’s their biggest expense

I kinda doubt this is true for most businesses to be honest. It's just the expense that most pisses them off.

It's kinda like if you ever get into an argument with someone about US government spending. Many people believe military personnel is the biggest ticket item for the pentagon when it is not even close.

Many companies spend more on marketing (in house or more often outsourced) than they do on labor. But for some reason, labor is always what pisses them off.

Every worker should be a part of a union. It is worth it to have some one on your side in negotiations.

It is most certainly in the business's interest to pay the absolute minimum possible

But is this not basic supply and demand? More people wanting a job pushes the price down, migrants are more people

lol really? Cheap labors drives down wages.

More people isn't just more supply, it's also more demand. More people means more customers.

We've been working for different types of companies then, because I'm going to have to agree with the other guy on payroll usually being the biggest. Definitely so for office type work, probably less so for industrial work where you need to buy a bunch of input goods.

There are very few businesses that increase staffing 1:1 proportionally with customers

And when people do stand up to ask for EVERYONE to receive what they should be given for their work, fare wages, affordable healthcare, half the nation screams at them, threatens to run them over, and says they must not have jobs because they can protest on a Saturday. They’re doing the work for the wealthy for free, busting up worker rights movements as a hobby, just to keep themselves poor and sick.

There aren't enough workers per retiree anymore. That's why publicly traded companies have to do nasty things to keep their stock prices growing for said retirees. Remember, retirement funds are usually based on stock indexes, not bonds which are super slow growth.

We've been living in a system predicated on infinite growth. The old can retire because there are so many young people working. Now people live longer than ever (on average; not individually) and are having fewer kids than ever. Naturally the workers need to be exploited if the old people want to retire.

Migrants would actually be beneficial because they make the economy grow again.

And? I'm talking broadly about the economy, not one particular business.

That's just deflecting from the fact that more people job seeking means lower wages, without even considering that people moving from poorer countries will typically work for less

How is that a deflection? It's a direct refutation of your central point.

When a person moves in and takes a job at a grocery store, they aren't just a customer for the grocery store. They are a customer for clothing stores, movie theaters, appliance stores, barbers, restaurants, mechanics, etc.

To simplify things to "basic supply and demand" levels: if you have 20 businesses in town which each staff at a 1:20 ratio, 20 migrants moving into town and shopping at those businesses, increases supply exactly in proportion to the increase in demand.

It's reductive, but then "basic supply and demand" is itself extremely reductive. It's a drastic simplification to illustrate basic concepts, like frictionless surfaces and spherical cows in Physics 101. "Basic supply and demand" is not how economies actually work, it's a simplified model for Econ 101.

rofl... "you cannot be a real union; there are no rich kids amongst you!"

... You're a fucking clown.

In my experience, no, it's not your boss at all, it's the C-Suite. In the overwhelming majority of companies, the people who are 2-3 levels of management above frontline staff have little to nothing to do with setting wages

As I have explained before, I don’t care if an immigrant tries to take my job. For starters, it’s not like bosses are throwing out good employees to make room for immigrants. Next, all those immigrants are going to need housing, utilities, cars, food, education, places to go for recreation, and all the other things. That is growing the economy and increasing the velocity of money. If they bring the whole family, then one of the cousins will open a restaurant with grandma cooking, and those places are peak. (If ICE starts harassing the Honduras restaurant I will have to start shooting fools. Also I really need someone to open a Nepalese restaurant in this town.) Growth and velocity of money. A couple immigrants will do more for the local economy than anything that dribbles down from some billionaire. I think the number I heard was that immigrants create 1.6 jobs per person. The billionaires around here mostly cause the utilities and land prices to go up by getting freebies and buying everything to offset taxes.

They absolutely are pushing down wages, especially when they come from poor desperate countries, because they're in a much more precarious financial position, they're easier to exploit, less likely to join a union, and most importantly, more likely to work for lower wages.

Separating that, from the notion of racism or people getting mad at the immigrants, and not the elected officials creating the policies that allow your boss to import and exploit people from overseas, is important to working class success.

How did we get so easily baited into falling for this?

Yeah this poster is idiotic and hopefully not real. My boss and my government is the problem, for hiring and exploiting the migrant workers who are so desperate that they will work for lower wages.

If we fix the laws so that there aren't so many desperate poor people to import and exploit, we could solve this problem.

But the IWW is captured and corrupt so it makes sense they would make this.

What about when they're temporary, and go back home with their money?

What about when they come from a country so desperate and poor that they're terrified of being forced to go back, and so they'll do anything for work, even work half of minimum wage? You don't think that might drive down wages?

What if they're so terrified that they won't form a union? Shouldn't the IWW care about that?

What if this is all a trick by the capitalists themselves?

But then you're being reductive, because that person could very well just be taking their money back home with them. Because as you say, it's not just as simple as that. The person above you has a point.

I believe "activist kids from the city" means he's calling the IWW the rich kids.

Not if you're supporting policies that import scab labour you're not.

"Don't criticize my scab labour importation policy, that's just like racism" this is bait

What if you're going on strike, and your boss hires some scabs to replace you, and for a second there you're really mad at the government and the policies that allow your boss to hire those scabs, and you're a little mad at the scabs too, except hold on there partner, those scabs were imported from another country. They're immigrants. What are you, some kind of anti-immigrant?

This is capitalist bait.

and what policies are those? no scabs here, that im aware of.

Describe the problem and how to avoid it. Otherwise you're just a fucking scum-sucking fuckhead defeatist loser like everyone else who pretended they had a point.

Your ideas don't have to be sound. Though they must demonstrate your willingness to abandon the status quo.

So tell us; Is your mind greater than the status quo, or not?

So activists are all entitled and can be dismissed as a whole?

So nothing rich fuckheads say has power until they're past dead?

Both aspects bear meaning, but only one side of the coin bears extra suffering.

also keeping your population complacent, they wont riot or protest in any unified manner. thats why tiktok, enough wages/jobs, youtube, streamers. also to add in a little cultural wars as distraction in case the other doesnt work usually does the trick. it is the reason why the tech ceos, own children are kept away from social media, they dont want thier own children to be brainrotted.

But then you're being reductive

Yes, I explicitly said so. Almost as reductive as "basic supply and demand" arguments. Almost.

Because as you say, it's not just as simple as that. The person above you has a point.

On the contrary, that only proves my overarching point that actual economics is more complicated than "basic supply and demand".

What you're describing is relatively common among seasonal workers, but that's an entirely different can of worms than normal migrants. Seasonal migrant workers are not competing against locals for jobs, because locals aren't applying for those jobs, which is why there's a market for seasonal migrant workers in the first place.

If they're taking their money back home with them, they aren't really the immigrants we're talking about. Immigrants are people who have made this their new home.

And again, those people are doing jobs locals don't want. They aren't seeking citizenship and applying for normal jobs, they're moving here for a season to pick fruit under the table. Locals are not competing for those jobs.

But again, it's a complicated system. "Basic supply and demand" is basically irrelevant outside the classroom. Sure it's one of many factors, but it's not the ultimate truth in a rational understanding of actual economics. It's a spherical cow.

The point is, your boss could pay everyone, including them, as much as he always did, and more.

He specifically chooses to exploit this desperation and pay less, because the difference adds to his bottom line.

The anti-immigrant talks shift the blame from those who intentionally pay less to those who has to choose between a bad deal and starvation.

Elected officials won't do anything about it until you force them to. And immigrants are your allies in this - they too are a workforce who needs better wages. Your interests are aligned.

Marx to Kugelmann, 1870:

The average English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers wages and the standard of life. [...] He regards him practically in the same way the poor whites in the southern states of North America regard the black slaves. This antagonism between the proletarians in England is artificially nourished and kept alive by the bourgeoisie. It knows that this split is the true secret of maintaining its power. [...] Finally, England today is seeing a repetition of what happened on a gigantic scale in ancient Rome. A nation that enslaves another forges its own chains.

You're just straight up factually wrong. Immigration has either little effect, or in fact increases wages for native citizens.

Instead of making statements based on your feelings and how you think that things work, you should do a bare minimum amount of research beforehand.

https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/revisiting-immigrations-effect-us-wages-and-employment

https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118767/documents/HHRG-119-JU01-20251217-SD001-U1.pdf

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2024/05/01/immigrants-raise-wages-and-boost-employment-of-us-born-workers/

https://abic.us/facts-immigrants-arent-stealing-your-jobs-or-lowering-wages/

https://www.nber.org/papers/w32389

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/immigrants-make-the-labor-market-great/

The point is, who drives down wages? They don't fall down automatically.

(Spoiler: it's your boss, he's the problem)

You seem to miss the overall point of the picture.

It is bosses, not immigrants, who drive down wages. And boy they have plenty to spare a lot of the time.

They'd just rather have you focused on immigrants instead of the actual people who exploit desperation of migrants and remove any of their worker protections to make this possible

What about when they're temporary, and go back home with their money?

That's not an "immigrant", that's a seasonal migrant worker. Typically not legally capable of competing with legal citizens. They're picking fruit, not edging you out of a Target cashier job, much less anything else. If they're actual immigrants, and not seasonal workers, this is home.

What about when they come from a country so desperate and poor that they're terrified of being forced to go back, and so they'll do anything for work, even work half of minimum wage? You don't think that might drive down wages?

If they live here, they live here. If they're legally able to apply to jobs that pay above minimum wage, why would they be forced to go back? Are there any employment-dependent visas for minimum wage work? I'm certainly not aware of any.

What if they're so terrified that they won't form a union? Shouldn't the IWW care about that?

What?

What if this is all a trick by the capitalists themselves?

Immigration? I mean yeah, they're the driving force behind seasonal migrant workers. But actual immigrants?

People's wellbeing must be the end goal, not a demand-driven commodity. That's what I would identify as a key issue here.

Yep, no idea which is which. Maybe everyone's software scammers at this point, couldn't tell you. Seemed a little me-centric to assume that was the case, but could be. 🤷

Most produced products seem like production labor is very low cost (they outsource to somewhere to have "very grateful" five year olds do it) and the majority of the "in-house" labor is things like sales and marketing (which aren't even usually in-house which is why I put it in scare-quotes). But all of this is admittedly anecdata.

I said the opposite you fucking spoon

I could never understand why people blamed the immigrants and not the places that hire them. This backwards ass logic is what gets you a fascist with over half a voter base supporting his Nazi ass.

Assuming there can only be a fixed number of jobs, you're right. However, that's like solving for spherical chickens in vacuum.

To see why immigration is not a factor, see https://lemmy.world/post/53479187/26477182

To see why immigration is not a factor, see https://lemmy.world/post/53479187/26477182

To see why immigration is not a factor, see https://lemmy.world/post/53479187/26477182

Assuming there can only be a fixed number of jobs, you’re right. However, that’s like solving for spherical chickens in vacuum.

To see why immigration is not a factor, see https://lemmy.world/post/53479187/26477182