• sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz
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    8 months ago

    I don’t think housekeepers are seeing the increase. They say “the lower end” and I’m pretty sure it’s talking about the new stronger contracts unions won through strikes and what not. That’s not a ding on Biden.

    • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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      8 months ago

      Biden took some pretty unusual action to strengthen the NLRB, which is part of the reason unions have been having all these successes recently. It’s not just the one or just the other; the battles the unions have been picking and the hard work they’ve been doing have been able to win them successes, and also they’ve also been getting legal and political backing that they usually haven’t been getting, and each makes the other easier to do.

      But also, yes, housekeepers are seeing the increase. Increases in wages for anyone tends to drive competition that drives up wages for everyone who’s roughly in the same bracket and category. What I meant in talking about the lower end was overall US wage income at the 10th percentile; I was just using housekeeping as one random example. But yes:

      The typical housekeeper therefore saw their wages beat inflation by 15.1 percentage points, even in a time of incredibly high inflation. That’s fucking astoundingly unusual, even if it’s invisible to most people who talk about politics and economics in Washington and on Lemmy.

      • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz
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        8 months ago

        For what it’s worth, the “housekeepers” mentioned in the data are mostly hotel workers. And they made big, and public, wage strides through union strikes. Not saying it’s bad or anything, just saying. But let’s say all that was completely wrong. Even on that weird, unreal hypothetical…that still gives zero fucking reasons to not vote for Biden in November. It’s why I don’t really like discussing this shit. When someone says they aren’t going to vote, or vote for trump, I’m just done. It’s the dumbest fucking thinking.

        • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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          8 months ago

          And they made big, and public, wage strides through union strikes.

          Exactly. Waiting for elections to get things done isn’t going to do it. Every major movement in the US started with direct action and organization, and the votes came later when they couldn’t ignore the direct action anymore.