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Doesn't add up
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2026
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
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This makes me think of an issue we had around here recently. We have a public company running the majority of school buses in our area. They receive funding from the government that should be enough to pay their drivers around 24$ an hour. Yet, they've been paying them 18$ or less for years.
This year the drivers tried to negotiate for a higher wage and the owners weren't even willing to go over 19$... So they went on strike and buses stopped; parents had to make alternative arrangements. This went on for weeks, the employer just kept playing hard ball and not budging.
Surprisingly, parents were overwhelmingly on the driver's side which I was happy to see. It reached a point where the owners almost had their contract taken away. After about 2 months, they finally gave in and agreed to an increase to about 21$.
What kills me is that in another town nearby with a different company running the buses, divers are being paid 23-24$ an hour like they're supposed to. So the employer still came out ahead after everything was said and done. Apparently, the owners are from Toronto (about 3-4 hours away from us) and are just using this company to make money which explains their unwillingness to increase their workers pay.
Unrelated rant: Typical big city rich assholes fucking over people in smaller communities. It happened during covid with housing, they came over and scooped up every house they could just to rent them out for profit. I was paying 1000$ for a 3 bedroom apartment and some asshole from Toronto came over and bought it. Then when I moved out, they increased the rent to fucking 2500$....
I'm a school bus driver myself. We're unionized (Teamsters) and the district operates its own buses. We make about $34 an hour and get subsidized health insurance and a small pension (after 10 years) as well. A neighboring district privatized their school bus service a few years ago; their drivers make $22 an hour with no benefits at all, their accident rate is 4X ours and the drivers keep getting busted for positive drug tests and drunk driving, and their operating costs (as measured per student/per mile transported) went up about 50%.
It is such an absolute no-brainer to realize that the only advantage of privatizing a service like this is to put money into the pockets of the bus service owners (as well as the officials and school board members that they bribe), and the disadvantages are literally every possible other aspect of the deal. And yet surprise surprise my district is discussing privatization to "save money". It doesn't help that our newly-hired transportation director is a member of the family that owns the largest private bus service in the area.
Damn, the school should make the contract have heavy penalties for each failed pick up.
They also have their equity firms buy up anything still quality and decent, enshittify the product and wait for people to catch on and stop buying the product. Then they do it all over again with another company.