Carla, isn't it interesting how quickly conservatives and Republicans in general rush to call things Communist or socialist? They have no idea what either of these is but know it will stir up their rabid throng of uninformed voters to stand against it when in reality, it would make the lives of so many of them better. That's just plain nuts!!
Let me share something with you I already said to Dr Gilbert in this discussion, but you're worth repeating it:
They keep up supporting that garbage, they'll get a first-hand gut load of what was objectionable about the Soviet Union - for pennies an hour! Can you say: "company town ‽"
(etc, etc, etc, . . . )
I forget the exact saying about the company town, but it went something like this:
The US is almost a company town. We work for a big corporation. They own major stakes in our homes, cars, loans, health care, 401K our education and all phases of the government. The same CEOs , the same investors, the same shareholders with the special voting stock. They require a 12% annual increase in revenue while cutting all expenses (us). It’s just like a company town and unsustainable unless we become like slaves.
Now, think of all those home buyers. The kind that send you postcards telling you they want to buy your house. It shouldn't take Einstein to figure out that those houses will be refurbished and sold - but sold to who? Envision corporate interests buying up said housing and "renting" it to its employees, so what they've paid comes back in profit - and the employee's pay is effectively cut by the rent they pay. Of course, it would be simple to use Kroger and Amazon models to set up a company store that caters to employees. The whole objective would be to effectively bring all employee payments back into company coffers such that the employees are working for food, shelter, and clothing. That's >exactly< the way it worked in the 1890s. This isn't sci-fi or flight of fancy. It's history. What do you think the old song "16 tons" is talking about with "I owe my soul to the company store," where purchases of necessities were credited against your current and future pay?
Hell! Even now, most people who believe they own their home only own a mortgage - and the hope that the market won't collapse, and the mortgage lender doesn't "call in" the loan, the way they devastated the Midwest farmers in the GD. In other countries, you buy a lease.
Some folks are offended by people who have a vocabulary (even at high school level), at least average intelligence and believe in using facts to back up their position. I, too, have been called a libtard This word and a few others are used by some to respond to things they disagree with, and don’t understand. They carry them around in their pocket so they never have to think. I don’t consider myself to be far left. And as for retarded, I see that as projection of how they feel about themselves.
Well, the only Marx I could find associated with Communism was Karl Marx! So, apologies to the Marx brothers! It is possible that the MAGA Republican thought Karl was a part of the act! Also, I cannot find the etiology of the word “libtard.” I sounds very MAGA, though.
Ok. That is definitely a surprise to hear that. So, then libtard is actually a communist adjective. Well, I am definitely not a communist. Thanks for letting me know.
They focus on ONLY culture wars issues because they KNOW the horrifically under-educated right WILL clap and yell as they're get less benefits and less pay! Bigotry hurts the bigots almost as much because it costs them food, shelter AND their dignity.
One is entitled to one's own opinion, but not to one's own facts. The people to whom Mr. Laemmerhirt refers are those who operate on opinion only, absent real facts. In other words, they don't bother to educate themselves, and simply latch onto whatever right-wing sources say. For instance, "The pandemic is a hoax," or, "Masks don't work," or, "A 30% sales tax is good for the working class." One can accurately say that such people---and there are millions who believe such myths and subsequently vote against their own interests---are indeed un-/under-educated.
When I hear this from any of these folks, I ask how many times they visited the Soviet Union and saw real communism at work. Usually the answer is never.
These folks have no real life examples to support their claims!
They keep up supporting that garbage, they'll get a first-hand gut load of what was objectionable about the Soviet Union - for pennies an hour! Can you say: "company town ‽"
So when California closed it's schools (needlessly it turns out) for 18 months, the didn't create economic desperation among the working class? Democrats did that!!
How can you say that closing schools was needless? COVID was/is REAL and it spread easily. How many students could have contracted it if in school? We don't know many could have died- but we DO know that over ONE MILLION died here in the U.S. The current number is 1,103,315.
1. What do you think Trump could have done differently that would have had a better outcome?
2. Do you mean "killed over a million people" with his rushed, "Warp Speed" vaccine that was poorly tested, experimental, poorly manufactured with a never-before used technology? Then, sure. He probably did.
By not running for president. He was a horrible president. Yeah he rushed it thru after he evaded and lied about it being a democrat hoax and put lives at risk, by not being responsible and too stupid to know what to do and not listening to the experts. By not rallying white supremacy and Nazi extremism. And by not giving out huge tax cuts to the wealthy that put 2 trillion more into the deficit. Trump inherited a GOOD economy from Obama. It took three years to destroy everything.
and teachers also have a right to be safe. how many teachers might have died if the schools hadn't closed? on top of the teacher shortage we already have.
The EU studies of school closures showed no benefit, only harm. Children are both not very susceptible to COVID, nor likely vectors to adults. Teachers & staff did not have a higher death rate than the general pop. Yet children suffered huge deficits in learning, & for the younger ones, this can never really be made up. Closing schools caused economic harm to working families, many who had to have one worker stay home, & eat up their savings in order to manage. Sweden never closed its schools and not one student or teacher died. The data is there if you care to see it.
Just a couple of moths ago children's wards were full. Add RSV. On average, RSV sends about 60,000 young children to the hospital each year in the U.S. In 2022, however, the virus hit early and hard. According to the CDC, doctors found more cases in each week of October 2022 than any week in the prior two years. https://www.cdc.gov/rsv/index.html
Here in Baghdad By the Sea our rates are much higher than in places that were closed longer.
I’m not aware of what’s in the studies you are looking at but know one knew at the time what this pandemic could or would do. The US had many many more cases then most other countries and Florida had many cases more then other states. Evidence is empirical and points to some of the measures taken actually working. But states like Fla decided not to report, thereby skewing the evidence. There are right wingers also in The UK that want to skew the evidence so I tend to believe what Johns Hopkins puts out as I regard their infectious disease specialist as the best. It’s better to take more precautions, when we don’t know, then less.
Can you truly say with proof that not one teacher or student died? That sounds fantastical. Sweden had the highest COVID deaths early on of like countries and later had a higher percentage of vax use than the US. References:. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8807990/
I agree, and would argue they know very well what they are doing is akin to modern-day slavery. The same forces that enslaved, later infiltrated and destroyed from within the free labor market that defeated them in 1865.
I totally agree with you as a general principle, but I am sure you met some workers during your working life who were definitely liabilities to their employer!
There is no question about that. Plenty of awful employees. I have also encountered my share of terrible employers, who were fortunate enough to have employees who protected their enterprises from the stupidity and self-destructive impulses of their owners.
this is the face of modern slavery, where businesses must be forced by law to behave as respectable employers, as decent human beings. but instead, they still view -- and treat -- employees as replaceable, as living widgets that are unimportant to their grand scheme to earn more and more money on the backs of their poorly paid and abused workers, and to wield ever more power to exalt themselves in the eyes of their overpaid and useless peers, at the expense and harm to working people everywhere. wealthy people pretend a lot, but there is not a decent bone in their bodies.
Girl Scientist, you are so right about the inability of the wealthy to see their workers as anything but cogs in a wheel that they the rich start and expect it to continue no matter the conditions or needs of the workers because they are only of value to serve the masters. It is disgusting and we should be able to do better and to expect more of employers. That is where unions could make a difference, but with all the anti-union tools the wealthy owners have it is going to be hard for unions to set up in most places. All workers ultimately suffer because those employers who treat their workers as property keep getting richer while their workers get poorer and We the People don't seem to be able to effectively intervene on behalf of the workers. And a whole lot of people envy the owners and wannabee them using the same anti-worker tactics.
Ruth and Grrl Scientist, yes, the once strong unions are history, which seems the antithesis of what is needed in this Democracy to protect citizens. Instead our courts dismantle our rights and hand them to the wealthy and corporations. Including protection, such as gun ownership. I could turn this into a rant or a book. And that would add to the collection of scholars, historians and citizens who work to warn us and our representatives.
but wait! aren't employers corporations not peoples? i mean, corporations don't gotta follow any laws they don't wanna. if they get caught they pay a paltry fine (cost of doing business) and go on their merry capitalist way.
Professor, thank you for highlighting the differences between the United States and other countries in terms of paid medical and parental leave. Your charts are simple and enlightening. And disturbing. You could also add annual vacation leave. And the fact that the USA not only has fewer days of vacation time, hourly wage earners often have no benefits. As a teacher, I was “given” ten sick days per year. Instructional aides, paid by the hour, only had sick days and medical insurance if they worked 20 hours per week. Often they were hired for 19 or fewer hours. Barbara Ehrenreich described the disparity of wages and benefits in her books, including ”Nickel and Dimed.” As you described, lower income and wage earners are often not provided benefits. A simple internet search shows how backwards the USA is in family and childcare policies. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/16/u-s-lacks-mandated-paid-parental-leave/
Irenie, I, too have seen the disparities in leave between teachers and other staff. The cutting to 19 hours to make the worker just miss the cut-off for benefits is a tactic used often. I am grateful our district's assistants and other staff had a union too, so were able to get above-minimum wage pay and similar benefits to our teacher benefits. I know that is not the case in most places. Paid leave should be everywhere for every employee, no matter how many hours. Those hour requirements allow employers to abuse their workers. We need to do better for all workers.
Ruth, your comment about a union is spot on. Unions in education are critical for all employees, and admins who might have been teachers once now work for the school board and often not for the heart of the school, teachers and students. All over the USA, the school battles rage, whether it’s about Critical Race Theory, religion, or money. Elected members of school boards who may or may not know anything about education or students. Mmmm, sounds like being president of a country.
You're so right, Irenie. I was down-sized before the pandemic, and basically sat out the worst of it. When I began job hunting again, I encountered dozens of "opportunities" that involved near misses when it came to benefits. For example, a 9:30 to 5:00, M-F office position that had zero benefits---absolutely nothing, and low wages. Such lose-lose jobs are becoming more prevalent, from what I can see in job postings.
I've finally given up and am looking at remote positions, to avoid having to commute every day and incur that cost, on top of healthcare insurance, etc. In short, it's not the job-seekers-calling-the-shots situation that MSM is constantly extolling. Far from it!
We are going backward. Large companies now get around their own paid sick leave and vacation policies by hiring contract workers- who do not receive any of those benefits, or receive 40 hours of paid time off after 3000 regular hours of labor (overtime doesn't count). It is parasitic.
No argument there. The excuse I've received when being screwed by someone was "it's just business, (nothing personal)" Devoid of empathy, they have a ready excuse not to care about the outcome of their actions..
Daniel, yes, workers do have to keep even appalling jobs because of benefits. That is one of the reasons it would be good to have universal health care. It would relieve employers of having to provide coverage for medical concerns and they would then have no excuse for not giving paid leave, as much as needed. Our nation would be healthier and probably happier too.
... which is a solid piece of evidence that we need to abandon healthcare-for-profit and see to it that everyone is covered under universal health insurance.
Isn't it curious that when workers get sacked it's "just business and nothing personal", but when employees leave for a better job they're disloyal, ungrateful and don't appreciate "that we're all like a family here" when they put in notice?
Others have already written that too many businesses see people as dispensable widgets, easily replaced. Someone told me once that one sign of workplace downfall was when the departments focused on employee matters went from being referred to as personnel departments to human resources. Person is at the root of personnel. How do businesses generally view a resource? Something to be extracted, exploited and consumed to deliver services or make products. Until labor is once again seen as people with value, working people will keep fighting to justify being treated with dignity.
Ax, you are right about the problem of contract workers. If there were a law requiring ALL employees to have at least a certain number of weeks of paid leave that would have to include contracted and part-time employees too.
The contract house gets around the state mandatory paid sick days by saying they don't have enough employees to be obligated. - They only count their own office staff.
Yes Ax, contractors do a lot of cheating when it comes to their workers. In fact that is how contracting happened. Corporations jumped on the contractor bus so they could claim all kinds of things about their workforce, most of them untrue, and the workers suffered because there was no requirement that either the corp. that hired the contracted workers or the contracting company pay a decent wage or cover their insurance. That was allowed to slip by and now it is standard in the industry. To correct the workplace abuse, and to give paid leave, ALL workers will have to be covered no matter how many employees the contractor claims. If they don't have to count the workers as those they need to make sure they are covered with insurance and other benefits, there should also be no tax break for the staff services regarding those workers. You should not be able to have it both ways and skip paying taxes and abuse the contracted workers, or any workers for that matter.
Oddly enough, though this monster corp. could not find funds to make some contract workers direct hires, they WERE able to find funds to gift their favorite employees apple watches(for which they must have an apple phone?)
I agree with everything you wrote. I think paid sick leave ought to be in place or begin accruing on the date of an employee’s hire. Many times folks who start a new job are already strapped for money & most affected by lost wages, should they fall ill in their first month or two of work. So regardless of a “probation” period, it would be much to their advantage if say, they were sick with the flu or laryngitis for example, then they could rest easy and heal sooner knowing their sick leave cushion was propping them up.
Don’t get me started on all of the part-timers working in the country who don’t receive benefits…
Anne, I agree that Dr. Reich's case for paid medical and family leave should be available to all workers is well-stated, and your reminder of part-time workers and workers who are just beginning a job having no benefits is important and fixing it is critical to repairing our nation's employment structure. Now, how do we get congressional Republicans and the employer-Democrats to accept the task to insure paid leave for all?
They would ideally grow empathy. Short of that to appeal to their pocket. Data that supports the idea that employees who take time to care for themselves are able to work better/ increase productivity is about the only way. They still will be Grinch, but the employees get a benefit.
Many people who need sick leave are sick with COMMUNICABLE illnesses that those people may pass on to others in their workplace. What does THAT do for productivity and profitability?
Employers should keep THAT in mind when they dig in their heels against workplace protections for their employees.
I should add that this is all of a piece with those who brayed loudly and incessantly against providing any health care, including COVID vaccinations, for undocumented immigrants — as though unaddressed health problems begin and end at the immigrants’ own skins and can’t be transmitted to others in the general population, even the non-immigrant, white Christian males whose lives, votes and disposable income Republicans and corporations prize so highly.
Kastigar: BS. All workers pay Medicare taxes. Virtually all of us will pay Medicare premiums. The costs of Medicare would drop because more healthy people would be added to the base. In terms of risk, current Medicare covers the aged, the infirmed and disabled, the highest risk categories. Expanded Medicare would cover everybody.
The costs of most insurance would drop even more if the "collateral sources" rule were removed. When people buy workers' comp or liability the indemnity risk is less than the risk of future medical coverage. The cost of liability, other insurance would be reduced because pain and suffering is usually based on medical special damages.
Daniel, thank you for your summary of medicare. It is so hard to get some people to understand what universal health care would look like and that they would only be paying a little more than they already pay and get coverage without having to prove they are so desperately ill they deserve help.
Robert, the cost would be paid by each worker paying into the health care fund whatever it is called. They would pay according to their ability to pay. You wouldn't suffer any more than anyone else and would benefit from having all your medical costs covered.
Avie Hern. THIS has always been a "pet peeve" of mine. A hundred years ago, when I was in my mid-twenties, I caught the chicken pox. I was sick enough to be taken to the ER. When I returned to work, with my resistance low, I caught the flu. Three weeks with no paycheck left me surviving on canned soup for the next few weeks.
1 of several things where American workers are left far behind our peers as well as many supposedly less advanced countries for decades because of the short-sighted, narrow-minded views of the corporatists that rule our corporatocracy in which short-term corporate profits are prioritized over the long-term benefit of our people. No guaranteed paid sick leave, no universal healthcare, no government provided higher education, a small fraction of holidays & other paid time off. Just a callous disregard of its citizens. No wonder Americans have become a bunch of angry people at each other's throats incited by propaganda devised & funded by corporations & billionaires!
Jaime, you are right about some of the reasons for the people's anger. Unfortunately, their anger is often aimed in the wrong direction. How do we change that? How do we get people to see that it is the rich corporations and individuals like Musk who do what they can to keep people down as far and as long as they can. Propaganda as you say helps in stoking the anger and pointing it at our government and not at the conservatives who want no improvements for workers because when they get those improvements, they might want more.
Just another indication of the deliberately designed 'extractive' economy: impoverishing the poor to enrich the rich. We used to call it slavery, now we call it the underclasses. Same effect, different names.
John, I don't think our nation ever got over the desire to have slaves. So, we permit employers, landlords, and others with money to do their best to keep the poor from gaining and the rich benefit. We hear that employers have the right to demand pretty much whatever they want of their workers while those workers are on the job. Those employers are often permitted to keep workers from doing all kinds of things while off the job too. That means they pretty much own the lives of those workers. How are We the People allowing this? How are we letting rich business people to treat employees so badly, to deny them sick and family leave, to deny them use of social media off the job, to provide medical insurance with thousands of dollars of deductibles? We need serious campaigns to stop this modern slavery.
Here's an eye opener. My son now lives in Sweden. His wife, who is a Swede, gave birth in late July. She teaches English as a second language to special needs middle schoolers, and because of Sweden's family leave policies, is home full time for a year with the baby. She is guaranteed her job when she is ready to return to work, and while she is home full time, receives her pay. Granted it is a percentage of her full time pay, but it is still a healthy chunk. My son, who has worked for a Swedish company for over a year, also is entitled to 6 months of family leave, and should he take it, would still be paid, and be guaranteed a job when he is ready to return. The birth, carried out in the Karolinska Hospital (part of an internationally known medical research facility) cost them NOTHING. I could go on, but I think the point is made. Why can we not have this good a situation? Oh, yeah. The super rich in the USA DON'T PAY TAXES. End of story.
Most people in the US have a very low quality of life because of the lack of decent policies around health care and family leave. I worked in a Federal Government Department where young women knew their child’s birth date right from the start- the date they go to the hospital to have an induced labor- due to the policies around their taking leave to have a baby. Yet these are the same individuals who continually and unwittingly help vote in candidates who work against the very policies that would make the quality of life better. Wouldn’t it be great if a greater part of the population understood this and voted the changes needed to make it happen.
Of course it would be great if people understood the issues you outline, and voted the changes needed to make improvements happen, but then there is FOx "News" filling people's heads with propaganda. MAybe quashing the lies promungated by Fox "News" would help???
What we learned from the pandemic is that you can force women out of the economy and work force if you don't have paid leave, and this has always been a major goal for them.
E.C., getting women out of the workforced, at least at the higher levels has been a goal of a lot of white conservatives/Republicans. Their push to force women to remain pregnant even if the woman does not wish to be is another tool. Let's face it, white men are scared of women of every color. They can't stand that women are as good or better than they are at just about everything, so want to put them back in the home taking care of them and the children forced to be born. It's amazing there are women like Greene, Barrett, and Boebert who go along with this nonsense.
As an Englishwoman of 88 I find it impossible to think of living without our National Health Service (free at the point of use but we do pay National Insurance throughout our working lives)4 weeks plus of annual holidays, paid maternity and paternity leave, State Pension,etc. It relieves you of lots of fears that diminish people constantly concerned with how to meet the extortionate medical bills, for example, that you face in the US.
It's not communism or socialism it's common sense. As people's, we should care for each other according to our abilities and assets Be kinder to each other. Live more simply. Don't believe in people who stir you to want more and more - they want you to enrich them.
I'll stop rambling but send a message that I earnestly hope the people of America can rise above themselves to live in harmony.
Maybe it's time to make a defense against those who regard you as a left wing (almost) loonie by pointing out that (a) your ideas are actually in everyone's interests (like paid sick leave) and (b) the international context - the USA shouldn't fall behind others so much.
I started working at a Swiss multinational in Switzerland on November 1, many years ago. About November 15, my supervisor came into my office and informed me that I had to take time off. I was concerned that I had already committed a faux pas and was about to be fired.
Instead, it was a requirement to take the proportion of mandatory annual vacation. I was told I must take seven days of paid vacation by December 31. This was considered so important that exceptions had to be approved by the departmental director.
Within Europe and globally, Switzerland leads in productivity in many sectors. Yet, there are fairly liberal annual leave policies and paid medical / family leave mandated by the federal government.
There is really no productivity paradox. Humans need rest periods to achieve maximum performance. The American focus on depriving its workforce of needed rest periods ultimately leads to lower productivity and economic output.
What you hear from the opposition is “that’s communism” when, sadly, they don’t recognize the bones of slavery.
Carla, isn't it interesting how quickly conservatives and Republicans in general rush to call things Communist or socialist? They have no idea what either of these is but know it will stir up their rabid throng of uninformed voters to stand against it when in reality, it would make the lives of so many of them better. That's just plain nuts!!
Pavlov would say it's not for nothing the words are "dog whistles!"
Let me share something with you I already said to Dr Gilbert in this discussion, but you're worth repeating it:
They keep up supporting that garbage, they'll get a first-hand gut load of what was objectionable about the Soviet Union - for pennies an hour! Can you say: "company town ‽"
(etc, etc, etc, . . . )
I forget the exact saying about the company town, but it went something like this:
Born in a company hospital,
went to a company school,
fed by a company store,
worked in a company mine,
died in a company hospital,
buried in a company grave,
and went to the company hell!
The US is almost a company town. We work for a big corporation. They own major stakes in our homes, cars, loans, health care, 401K our education and all phases of the government. The same CEOs , the same investors, the same shareholders with the special voting stock. They require a 12% annual increase in revenue while cutting all expenses (us). It’s just like a company town and unsustainable unless we become like slaves.
Now, think of all those home buyers. The kind that send you postcards telling you they want to buy your house. It shouldn't take Einstein to figure out that those houses will be refurbished and sold - but sold to who? Envision corporate interests buying up said housing and "renting" it to its employees, so what they've paid comes back in profit - and the employee's pay is effectively cut by the rent they pay. Of course, it would be simple to use Kroger and Amazon models to set up a company store that caters to employees. The whole objective would be to effectively bring all employee payments back into company coffers such that the employees are working for food, shelter, and clothing. That's >exactly< the way it worked in the 1890s. This isn't sci-fi or flight of fancy. It's history. What do you think the old song "16 tons" is talking about with "I owe my soul to the company store," where purchases of necessities were credited against your current and future pay?
Hell! Even now, most people who believe they own their home only own a mortgage - and the hope that the market won't collapse, and the mortgage lender doesn't "call in" the loan, the way they devastated the Midwest farmers in the GD. In other countries, you buy a lease.
Some folks are offended by people who have a vocabulary (even at high school level), at least average intelligence and believe in using facts to back up their position. I, too, have been called a libtard This word and a few others are used by some to respond to things they disagree with, and don’t understand. They carry them around in their pocket so they never have to think. I don’t consider myself to be far left. And as for retarded, I see that as projection of how they feel about themselves.
I'd fact check that if I were you. After all, MAGA. I'd fact check everything they say, even if they told me the sky is blue!
Well, the only Marx I could find associated with Communism was Karl Marx! So, apologies to the Marx brothers! It is possible that the MAGA Republican thought Karl was a part of the act! Also, I cannot find the etiology of the word “libtard.” I sounds very MAGA, though.
Ok. That is definitely a surprise to hear that. So, then libtard is actually a communist adjective. Well, I am definitely not a communist. Thanks for letting me know.
They focus on ONLY culture wars issues because they KNOW the horrifically under-educated right WILL clap and yell as they're get less benefits and less pay! Bigotry hurts the bigots almost as much because it costs them food, shelter AND their dignity.
One is entitled to one's own opinion, but not to one's own facts. The people to whom Mr. Laemmerhirt refers are those who operate on opinion only, absent real facts. In other words, they don't bother to educate themselves, and simply latch onto whatever right-wing sources say. For instance, "The pandemic is a hoax," or, "Masks don't work," or, "A 30% sales tax is good for the working class." One can accurately say that such people---and there are millions who believe such myths and subsequently vote against their own interests---are indeed un-/under-educated.
Thank you! I sometimes have trouble explaining my thoughts.
You came across perfectly clearly to me. : )
When I hear this from any of these folks, I ask how many times they visited the Soviet Union and saw real communism at work. Usually the answer is never.
These folks have no real life examples to support their claims!
I forget the exact saying, but it went something like this:
Born in a company hospital,
went to a company school,
fed by a company store,
worked in a company mine,
died in a company hospital,
buried in a company grave,
and burn in the company hell!
They keep up supporting that garbage, they'll get a first-hand gut load of what was objectionable about the Soviet Union - for pennies an hour! Can you say: "company town ‽"
(etc, etc, etc, . . . )
Here's what they don't want you to realize: https://youtu.be/8gCtWxfrPIg
Yes, Tom Hartman is excellent in laying this out.
DZK thanks for this link, I listened....
So when California closed it's schools (needlessly it turns out) for 18 months, the didn't create economic desperation among the working class? Democrats did that!!
How can you say that closing schools was needless? COVID was/is REAL and it spread easily. How many students could have contracted it if in school? We don't know many could have died- but we DO know that over ONE MILLION died here in the U.S. The current number is 1,103,315.
Yeah, The way I see it Trump helped kill over a million people.
1. What do you think Trump could have done differently that would have had a better outcome?
2. Do you mean "killed over a million people" with his rushed, "Warp Speed" vaccine that was poorly tested, experimental, poorly manufactured with a never-before used technology? Then, sure. He probably did.
These are anti vax talking points. In fact more Republicans die from COVID than Democrats because more Republicans believe this crap.
https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2022/11/more-republicans-died-democrats-after-covid-19-vaccines-came-out/380245/
By not running for president. He was a horrible president. Yeah he rushed it thru after he evaded and lied about it being a democrat hoax and put lives at risk, by not being responsible and too stupid to know what to do and not listening to the experts. By not rallying white supremacy and Nazi extremism. And by not giving out huge tax cuts to the wealthy that put 2 trillion more into the deficit. Trump inherited a GOOD economy from Obama. It took three years to destroy everything.
and teachers also have a right to be safe. how many teachers might have died if the schools hadn't closed? on top of the teacher shortage we already have.
thank god for the teachers' unions.
We tend to forget how long we endured the pandemic without adequate masks or vaccines. No serious effort was made to supply masks for some time.
The EU studies of school closures showed no benefit, only harm. Children are both not very susceptible to COVID, nor likely vectors to adults. Teachers & staff did not have a higher death rate than the general pop. Yet children suffered huge deficits in learning, & for the younger ones, this can never really be made up. Closing schools caused economic harm to working families, many who had to have one worker stay home, & eat up their savings in order to manage. Sweden never closed its schools and not one student or teacher died. The data is there if you care to see it.
BS. All BS.
Just a couple of moths ago children's wards were full. Add RSV. On average, RSV sends about 60,000 young children to the hospital each year in the U.S. In 2022, however, the virus hit early and hard. According to the CDC, doctors found more cases in each week of October 2022 than any week in the prior two years. https://www.cdc.gov/rsv/index.html
Here in Baghdad By the Sea our rates are much higher than in places that were closed longer.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2023-01-31-covid-19-leading-cause-death-children-and-young-people-us
I’m not aware of what’s in the studies you are looking at but know one knew at the time what this pandemic could or would do. The US had many many more cases then most other countries and Florida had many cases more then other states. Evidence is empirical and points to some of the measures taken actually working. But states like Fla decided not to report, thereby skewing the evidence. There are right wingers also in The UK that want to skew the evidence so I tend to believe what Johns Hopkins puts out as I regard their infectious disease specialist as the best. It’s better to take more precautions, when we don’t know, then less.
Can you truly say with proof that not one teacher or student died? That sounds fantastical. Sweden had the highest COVID deaths early on of like countries and later had a higher percentage of vax use than the US. References:. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8807990/
ol' Tweety "heard some things," that "people were sayin'," too. Show links to those studies or blow your "talking points" elsewhere.
What do you care any at. We won’t have public schools in the near future if republicans have their ways.
Probably better then being dead from a pandemic.
I agree, and would argue they know very well what they are doing is akin to modern-day slavery. The same forces that enslaved, later infiltrated and destroyed from within the free labor market that defeated them in 1865.
When will we learn? Employees are assets, not liabilities.
I totally agree with you as a general principle, but I am sure you met some workers during your working life who were definitely liabilities to their employer!
There is no question about that. Plenty of awful employees. I have also encountered my share of terrible employers, who were fortunate enough to have employees who protected their enterprises from the stupidity and self-destructive impulses of their owners.
this is the face of modern slavery, where businesses must be forced by law to behave as respectable employers, as decent human beings. but instead, they still view -- and treat -- employees as replaceable, as living widgets that are unimportant to their grand scheme to earn more and more money on the backs of their poorly paid and abused workers, and to wield ever more power to exalt themselves in the eyes of their overpaid and useless peers, at the expense and harm to working people everywhere. wealthy people pretend a lot, but there is not a decent bone in their bodies.
Girl Scientist, you are so right about the inability of the wealthy to see their workers as anything but cogs in a wheel that they the rich start and expect it to continue no matter the conditions or needs of the workers because they are only of value to serve the masters. It is disgusting and we should be able to do better and to expect more of employers. That is where unions could make a difference, but with all the anti-union tools the wealthy owners have it is going to be hard for unions to set up in most places. All workers ultimately suffer because those employers who treat their workers as property keep getting richer while their workers get poorer and We the People don't seem to be able to effectively intervene on behalf of the workers. And a whole lot of people envy the owners and wannabee them using the same anti-worker tactics.
Ruth and Grrl Scientist, yes, the once strong unions are history, which seems the antithesis of what is needed in this Democracy to protect citizens. Instead our courts dismantle our rights and hand them to the wealthy and corporations. Including protection, such as gun ownership. I could turn this into a rant or a book. And that would add to the collection of scholars, historians and citizens who work to warn us and our representatives.
but wait! aren't employers corporations not peoples? i mean, corporations don't gotta follow any laws they don't wanna. if they get caught they pay a paltry fine (cost of doing business) and go on their merry capitalist way.
Professor, thank you for highlighting the differences between the United States and other countries in terms of paid medical and parental leave. Your charts are simple and enlightening. And disturbing. You could also add annual vacation leave. And the fact that the USA not only has fewer days of vacation time, hourly wage earners often have no benefits. As a teacher, I was “given” ten sick days per year. Instructional aides, paid by the hour, only had sick days and medical insurance if they worked 20 hours per week. Often they were hired for 19 or fewer hours. Barbara Ehrenreich described the disparity of wages and benefits in her books, including ”Nickel and Dimed.” As you described, lower income and wage earners are often not provided benefits. A simple internet search shows how backwards the USA is in family and childcare policies. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/16/u-s-lacks-mandated-paid-parental-leave/
Irenie, I, too have seen the disparities in leave between teachers and other staff. The cutting to 19 hours to make the worker just miss the cut-off for benefits is a tactic used often. I am grateful our district's assistants and other staff had a union too, so were able to get above-minimum wage pay and similar benefits to our teacher benefits. I know that is not the case in most places. Paid leave should be everywhere for every employee, no matter how many hours. Those hour requirements allow employers to abuse their workers. We need to do better for all workers.
Ruth, your comment about a union is spot on. Unions in education are critical for all employees, and admins who might have been teachers once now work for the school board and often not for the heart of the school, teachers and students. All over the USA, the school battles rage, whether it’s about Critical Race Theory, religion, or money. Elected members of school boards who may or may not know anything about education or students. Mmmm, sounds like being president of a country.
You're so right, Irenie. I was down-sized before the pandemic, and basically sat out the worst of it. When I began job hunting again, I encountered dozens of "opportunities" that involved near misses when it came to benefits. For example, a 9:30 to 5:00, M-F office position that had zero benefits---absolutely nothing, and low wages. Such lose-lose jobs are becoming more prevalent, from what I can see in job postings.
I've finally given up and am looking at remote positions, to avoid having to commute every day and incur that cost, on top of healthcare insurance, etc. In short, it's not the job-seekers-calling-the-shots situation that MSM is constantly extolling. Far from it!
When will stay-at-home mothers (or fathers) get social security benefits for their unpaid work?
They already do -- based on spousal earnings records.
We are going backward. Large companies now get around their own paid sick leave and vacation policies by hiring contract workers- who do not receive any of those benefits, or receive 40 hours of paid time off after 3000 regular hours of labor (overtime doesn't count). It is parasitic.
It is also very cruel.
No argument there. The excuse I've received when being screwed by someone was "it's just business, (nothing personal)" Devoid of empathy, they have a ready excuse not to care about the outcome of their actions..
The flip side is that many people need to work to keep their medical coverage and other fringe benefits.
Daniel, yes, workers do have to keep even appalling jobs because of benefits. That is one of the reasons it would be good to have universal health care. It would relieve employers of having to provide coverage for medical concerns and they would then have no excuse for not giving paid leave, as much as needed. Our nation would be healthier and probably happier too.
... which is a solid piece of evidence that we need to abandon healthcare-for-profit and see to it that everyone is covered under universal health insurance.
That is, when such benefits are offered, which is becoming more rare.
Isn't it curious that when workers get sacked it's "just business and nothing personal", but when employees leave for a better job they're disloyal, ungrateful and don't appreciate "that we're all like a family here" when they put in notice?
Others have already written that too many businesses see people as dispensable widgets, easily replaced. Someone told me once that one sign of workplace downfall was when the departments focused on employee matters went from being referred to as personnel departments to human resources. Person is at the root of personnel. How do businesses generally view a resource? Something to be extracted, exploited and consumed to deliver services or make products. Until labor is once again seen as people with value, working people will keep fighting to justify being treated with dignity.
Ax, you are right about the problem of contract workers. If there were a law requiring ALL employees to have at least a certain number of weeks of paid leave that would have to include contracted and part-time employees too.
The contract house gets around the state mandatory paid sick days by saying they don't have enough employees to be obligated. - They only count their own office staff.
Yes Ax, contractors do a lot of cheating when it comes to their workers. In fact that is how contracting happened. Corporations jumped on the contractor bus so they could claim all kinds of things about their workforce, most of them untrue, and the workers suffered because there was no requirement that either the corp. that hired the contracted workers or the contracting company pay a decent wage or cover their insurance. That was allowed to slip by and now it is standard in the industry. To correct the workplace abuse, and to give paid leave, ALL workers will have to be covered no matter how many employees the contractor claims. If they don't have to count the workers as those they need to make sure they are covered with insurance and other benefits, there should also be no tax break for the staff services regarding those workers. You should not be able to have it both ways and skip paying taxes and abuse the contracted workers, or any workers for that matter.
Oddly enough, though this monster corp. could not find funds to make some contract workers direct hires, they WERE able to find funds to gift their favorite employees apple watches(for which they must have an apple phone?)
This is a great piece, Professor Reich.
I agree with everything you wrote. I think paid sick leave ought to be in place or begin accruing on the date of an employee’s hire. Many times folks who start a new job are already strapped for money & most affected by lost wages, should they fall ill in their first month or two of work. So regardless of a “probation” period, it would be much to their advantage if say, they were sick with the flu or laryngitis for example, then they could rest easy and heal sooner knowing their sick leave cushion was propping them up.
Don’t get me started on all of the part-timers working in the country who don’t receive benefits…
Anne, I agree that Dr. Reich's case for paid medical and family leave should be available to all workers is well-stated, and your reminder of part-time workers and workers who are just beginning a job having no benefits is important and fixing it is critical to repairing our nation's employment structure. Now, how do we get congressional Republicans and the employer-Democrats to accept the task to insure paid leave for all?
They would ideally grow empathy. Short of that to appeal to their pocket. Data that supports the idea that employees who take time to care for themselves are able to work better/ increase productivity is about the only way. They still will be Grinch, but the employees get a benefit.
Ruth, I don’t know. I do not have the answer.
Many people who need sick leave are sick with COMMUNICABLE illnesses that those people may pass on to others in their workplace. What does THAT do for productivity and profitability?
Employers should keep THAT in mind when they dig in their heels against workplace protections for their employees.
I should add that this is all of a piece with those who brayed loudly and incessantly against providing any health care, including COVID vaccinations, for undocumented immigrants — as though unaddressed health problems begin and end at the immigrants’ own skins and can’t be transmitted to others in the general population, even the non-immigrant, white Christian males whose lives, votes and disposable income Republicans and corporations prize so highly.
The irony is that if Medicare were expanded, companies wouldn't bear the cost of medical care.
As a former (now retired) part owner of a small business, I completely agree.
No, the cost would be shifted to those of us who work and pay taxes.
Kastigar: BS. All workers pay Medicare taxes. Virtually all of us will pay Medicare premiums. The costs of Medicare would drop because more healthy people would be added to the base. In terms of risk, current Medicare covers the aged, the infirmed and disabled, the highest risk categories. Expanded Medicare would cover everybody.
The costs of most insurance would drop even more if the "collateral sources" rule were removed. When people buy workers' comp or liability the indemnity risk is less than the risk of future medical coverage. The cost of liability, other insurance would be reduced because pain and suffering is usually based on medical special damages.
Thanks for clarifying this for us; well done.
Daniel, thank you for your summary of medicare. It is so hard to get some people to understand what universal health care would look like and that they would only be paying a little more than they already pay and get coverage without having to prove they are so desperately ill they deserve help.
IMHO pay LESS get MORE. 15% of medical costs go to profit and administration.
As I say, eliminate the collateral sources rule and the cost of practically all insurance drops.
Robert, the cost would be paid by each worker paying into the health care fund whatever it is called. They would pay according to their ability to pay. You wouldn't suffer any more than anyone else and would benefit from having all your medical costs covered.
Already pay Medicare taxes.
Avie Hern. THIS has always been a "pet peeve" of mine. A hundred years ago, when I was in my mid-twenties, I caught the chicken pox. I was sick enough to be taken to the ER. When I returned to work, with my resistance low, I caught the flu. Three weeks with no paycheck left me surviving on canned soup for the next few weeks.
1 of several things where American workers are left far behind our peers as well as many supposedly less advanced countries for decades because of the short-sighted, narrow-minded views of the corporatists that rule our corporatocracy in which short-term corporate profits are prioritized over the long-term benefit of our people. No guaranteed paid sick leave, no universal healthcare, no government provided higher education, a small fraction of holidays & other paid time off. Just a callous disregard of its citizens. No wonder Americans have become a bunch of angry people at each other's throats incited by propaganda devised & funded by corporations & billionaires!
Jaime, you are right about some of the reasons for the people's anger. Unfortunately, their anger is often aimed in the wrong direction. How do we change that? How do we get people to see that it is the rich corporations and individuals like Musk who do what they can to keep people down as far and as long as they can. Propaganda as you say helps in stoking the anger and pointing it at our government and not at the conservatives who want no improvements for workers because when they get those improvements, they might want more.
Just another indication of the deliberately designed 'extractive' economy: impoverishing the poor to enrich the rich. We used to call it slavery, now we call it the underclasses. Same effect, different names.
John, I don't think our nation ever got over the desire to have slaves. So, we permit employers, landlords, and others with money to do their best to keep the poor from gaining and the rich benefit. We hear that employers have the right to demand pretty much whatever they want of their workers while those workers are on the job. Those employers are often permitted to keep workers from doing all kinds of things while off the job too. That means they pretty much own the lives of those workers. How are We the People allowing this? How are we letting rich business people to treat employees so badly, to deny them sick and family leave, to deny them use of social media off the job, to provide medical insurance with thousands of dollars of deductibles? We need serious campaigns to stop this modern slavery.
"Trickle UP Economics"
Here's an eye opener. My son now lives in Sweden. His wife, who is a Swede, gave birth in late July. She teaches English as a second language to special needs middle schoolers, and because of Sweden's family leave policies, is home full time for a year with the baby. She is guaranteed her job when she is ready to return to work, and while she is home full time, receives her pay. Granted it is a percentage of her full time pay, but it is still a healthy chunk. My son, who has worked for a Swedish company for over a year, also is entitled to 6 months of family leave, and should he take it, would still be paid, and be guaranteed a job when he is ready to return. The birth, carried out in the Karolinska Hospital (part of an internationally known medical research facility) cost them NOTHING. I could go on, but I think the point is made. Why can we not have this good a situation? Oh, yeah. The super rich in the USA DON'T PAY TAXES. End of story.
Most people in the US have a very low quality of life because of the lack of decent policies around health care and family leave. I worked in a Federal Government Department where young women knew their child’s birth date right from the start- the date they go to the hospital to have an induced labor- due to the policies around their taking leave to have a baby. Yet these are the same individuals who continually and unwittingly help vote in candidates who work against the very policies that would make the quality of life better. Wouldn’t it be great if a greater part of the population understood this and voted the changes needed to make it happen.
Of course it would be great if people understood the issues you outline, and voted the changes needed to make improvements happen, but then there is FOx "News" filling people's heads with propaganda. MAybe quashing the lies promungated by Fox "News" would help???
What we learned from the pandemic is that you can force women out of the economy and work force if you don't have paid leave, and this has always been a major goal for them.
E.C., getting women out of the workforced, at least at the higher levels has been a goal of a lot of white conservatives/Republicans. Their push to force women to remain pregnant even if the woman does not wish to be is another tool. Let's face it, white men are scared of women of every color. They can't stand that women are as good or better than they are at just about everything, so want to put them back in the home taking care of them and the children forced to be born. It's amazing there are women like Greene, Barrett, and Boebert who go along with this nonsense.
BRAVO on your last sentence, Ruth!
I used FMLA last fall to help care for my nonagenarian parents. It was an amazing gift of time that I will always treasure.
In so many ways America is a backward nation.
As an Englishwoman of 88 I find it impossible to think of living without our National Health Service (free at the point of use but we do pay National Insurance throughout our working lives)4 weeks plus of annual holidays, paid maternity and paternity leave, State Pension,etc. It relieves you of lots of fears that diminish people constantly concerned with how to meet the extortionate medical bills, for example, that you face in the US.
It's not communism or socialism it's common sense. As people's, we should care for each other according to our abilities and assets Be kinder to each other. Live more simply. Don't believe in people who stir you to want more and more - they want you to enrich them.
I'll stop rambling but send a message that I earnestly hope the people of America can rise above themselves to live in harmony.
"It's not communism or socialism it's common sense." ✅
Yet another example of how corporate America distorts truth and influences policy through campaign contributions and lobbying.
Maybe it's time to make a defense against those who regard you as a left wing (almost) loonie by pointing out that (a) your ideas are actually in everyone's interests (like paid sick leave) and (b) the international context - the USA shouldn't fall behind others so much.
I started working at a Swiss multinational in Switzerland on November 1, many years ago. About November 15, my supervisor came into my office and informed me that I had to take time off. I was concerned that I had already committed a faux pas and was about to be fired.
Instead, it was a requirement to take the proportion of mandatory annual vacation. I was told I must take seven days of paid vacation by December 31. This was considered so important that exceptions had to be approved by the departmental director.
Within Europe and globally, Switzerland leads in productivity in many sectors. Yet, there are fairly liberal annual leave policies and paid medical / family leave mandated by the federal government.
There is really no productivity paradox. Humans need rest periods to achieve maximum performance. The American focus on depriving its workforce of needed rest periods ultimately leads to lower productivity and economic output.