Tag: Workers
Has anyone seen Trump or his family on the front line? Boris Johnson was and he has the virus to show for it. He’s Your President America!!! (ODT)
via Workers Are Warriors in the Fight Against the Coronavirus | The Nation
Workers’ wage rises lowest on record
THE WAGES SLUMP the Abbott Government plunged Australia into back in 2014 is now firmly entrenched. More than five years after the first failed budget by disgraced former Coalition Treasurer, Joe Hockey, workers’ wages are increasing at the lowest rates since records have been kept. It is unlikely there has been a worse period in Australia’s history for workers receiving a fair share of the nation’s vast wealth.
This dismal news emerged from the quarterly wages figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) last Wednesday.
Global comparisons
Tradingeconomics.com has data on wage growth for 30 developed countries, current to March or June this year for most. The average rise after allowing for inflation is 2.27%.
Australia’s puny 0.82% ranks a dismal 21st out of those 30 countries. Down in the bottom one third.
This is the time when workers should be earning a fair share of the nation’s vast wealth and investing in homes for now and superannuation for the future. The nation should be investing in the quality of life for all citizens now – especially those doing it tough – and in infrastructure for the future.
It seems the rich foreign controllers of the Coalition parties have decided to grasp as much as they can while they can and to hell with the Australian people. Because eventually, surely, one day, citizens must wake up to what is going on and call a halt.
As the Post-Gazette reported:
The choice for thousands of union workers at Royal Dutch Shell’s petrochemical plant in Beaver County was clear Tuesday: Either stand in a giant hall waiting for President Donald Trump to speak or take the day off with no pay.
“Your attendance is not mandatory,” said the rules that one contractor relayed to employees, summarizing points from a memo that Shell sent to union leaders a day ahead of the visit to the $6 billion construction site. But only those who showed up at 7 am, scanned their ID cards, and prepared to stand for hours—through lunch but without lunch—would be paid.
“NO SCAN, NO PAY,” a supervisor for that contractor wrote.
The biggest lie ever told in American politics is the claim that Donald Trump cares about working people.
He never has. He never will.
As a bankruptcy-prone business mogul, Trump has always financed his lavish lifestyle at the expense of the workers and contractors he screwed over. Now he is doing the same thing as president, having engineered a government shutdown that on Friday denied 800,000 federal employees their paychecks.
via Trump Got Rich by Screwing Over Workers—Of Course He’s Doing It Again as President | The Nation
Would or could ordinary people ever unite for change? (ODT)
The world’s largest economies have grown at a steady pace and unemployment has consistently fallen in the years following the greed-driven global financial crisis of 2008, but income gains during the so-called recovery have been enjoyed almost exclusively by the top one percent while most workers experience “unprecedented wage stagnation.”
via As Global 1% Seize Economy’s Gains, ‘Unprecedented Wage Stagnation’ for Everyone Else
Midwestern workers voted for Obama in 2012, but they have lost faith in the establishment. Trump echoed their resentments while promising change
The treatment of low-paid workers in Australia today is reminiscent of master-servant relationships we supposedly ditched last century
If the China-Australia free trade agreement proceeds without labour market protections, the Turnbull government will “effectively surrender autonomy over its migration laws” and invite a wave of Chinese workers into Australia, driving down local wages and conditions, a new report has found.
Source: China free trade agreement to invite wave of Chinese workers, drive down wages: report
