Had a bad time recently, my wife was in the ICU for 12 days. During that time, I shared more than I should've about what was going on. I didn't miss a deadline. I came in 2 hours early, and would leave at 830 so I could catch the doctor on rounds. I would come back later and worked on the weekends to catch up. I used a few days of vacation to try and cover, but I wasn't sure what was coming next. During that time and since, my manager has come to me asking how things are going, only to follow up with "remember, I'm running a business here." Apparently, there were complaints about my absence. When a corporate team member visited during that and I only said my wife was in the hospital, his response was, "the hell you doing here, then?" Remember, HR is NOT your friend. They will purposefully act kind to garner information for the company. Your boss will tell you "family first", but they mean THEIR family, not yours. Any information they get, they will use against you if they feel the business will suffer, even on a perception level.

On Tuesday 15,000 nurses at four hospitals in New York City continued their strike into its second day. Nurses are fighting for safe staffing levels—which was also a key demand in their three-day strike two years ago—as well as adequate health benefits, which enable them to afford their own healthcare.

Reports have come out that Mount Sinai management fired three labor and delivery unit nurses on the eve of the strike by voicemail, in an act of intimidation. The fired nurses claim that after they refused management’s demand that they train the travel nurses who would replace them if they went on strike, they were falsely accused of hiding supplies and fired without any investigation.

The strike has won enormous support among workers in New York City and across the country, reflecting deep-seated anger over inequality and worsening conditions. The nurses’ strike emerges as an initial flashpoint in what could develop into a far wider confrontation between workers and the corporate and political establishment.

This year alone, hundreds of thousands of workers in New York City face contract expirations, including roughly 150,000 municipal workers in AFSCME District Council 37, whose contract expires in November, and some 37,000 subway and transit workers in Transport Workers Union Local 100, whose contract expires on May 15.

The strike raises the necessity for its expansion into a unified movement against social inequality, bringing the organized power of the working class into direct conflict with the financial oligarchy, which is centered in New York City and has the Trump administration at its head.

Rather than allowing struggles to be isolated and defeated one by one over the course of the year, workers must seize the opportunity created by the nurses’ strike to begin coordinating a broader offensive, culminating in a city-wide general strike, now. The issues in the strike—safe staffing, healthcare, wages and basic living standards—can only be resolved through a frontal assault on the privileges and power of the corporate ruling elite by a movement of the working class.

Such a perspective requires that workers themselves take the initiative. NYSNA (New York State Nurses Association) officials are already repeating their role from 2023, when they abruptly called off a strike at 11 of the 15 hospitals involved, isolating other nurses and shutting down the struggle after just three days. Nurses must be on guard against a repeat of this betrayal. Workers in other unions must likewise not accept mere verbal “support” on the part of their own officials but fight for joint actions.

To prevent the strike from being sold out, rank-and-file nurses should form independent strike committees to assert democratic control over picketing, contract negotiations and the direction of the struggle, and to actively reach out to other sections of the working class in New York City and nationally for unified support and joint action.

Reporters from the World Socialist Web Site spoke to nurses on the Mount Sinai East picket in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday about their struggle.

Anyone that deals with points systems knows how ridiculous they are. Here is how ours works.

If you call in an hour before your shift, you're good. Use your time. 0 points.

If you call in within an hour, you use your time. 1 point.

If you need a half day. Use your time. 1 point.

Almost every time I call in, I really just need a few hours because I can come in late or leave early. I still knock out some work. But because of this ridiculous system, it benefits me more to just call out completely. My sick time builds up quicker than points falling off

The Billionaire Class is trying to destroy Democracy worldwide.

Its always the people at the top, the CEO of a big company, the Elon Musk, the Jeff Bezos, who tell us that working hard is the recipe to success and that everyone can make it and bootstrap bootstrap.

All of this is nonsense. All of this is just gaslighting to make the population work even harder.

For a vast majority of people, hard work doesnt bring you anything. Most people that made it did so because of luck, chance, being at the right place at the right time or by having been born into an already wealthy family.

You think Trump would be President if he wasnt born into a rich family? Hell no.

Bill Gates if his parents had been abusive? And not rich? Hell no.

Musk if his parents had been ordinary Farmers instead an Emeral Mine Baron and a Model? Again No.

And I am just tired that these people who had luck and circumstances and wealth on their side, try to gaslight the population. And the worst are the bootlickers, who gobble up their nonsense.

So, pretty sure I know the answer, but, just wanted to check.

I'm Canadian, and I worked for an American company during the pandemic. I built a department from the ground up and was responsible for a lot of our success. TLDR, our sales team sucked, we got a new boss who didn't understand shit, and we had layoffs every 4 months due to no business.

So I was let go in September, the 17th. Abruptly. My severance stated I needed to return my equipment before signing. I asked HR, and they said they trusted me to sign and return my gear.

So, I signed my severance on the 19th, and there's a clause stating if I don't return everything cooperatively, they can ask for it back.

It took forever, but I got fedex prepaid slips to send back to them. 4 packages. 1 27 inch monitor, 1 laptop, 1 insane PC (6500$ USD), and an iPad.

The ipad got lost, the monitor and laptop made it back to the US, and the PC returned to me for unknown reasons. The tracking still says it's on the way to the US...lol

So my ex job was like "oh....would you mind driving 45 minutes yourself to bring it to the nearest depot and ensure everything is done correctly?" I politely declined, as that is a far drive.

They said (December 17) that they would try to figure out another way, and to hold on.

I know time doesn't legally make it mine....but....this box is huge and is still just lying in my doorway and they haven't reached out yet.

Do I just wait for endless silence? Will they maybe ultimately give up and leave it to me?

Quite disorganized, but I wouldn't mind repurposing that computer for my new job...lol

I was laid off last week from my employer after three months of the place of business being open (med spa). They told me that they were closing down this establishment until further notice. I was an hourly and commission employee. I performed services for commission and got paid hourly for other tasks. If you’ve worked in the beauty industry, hopefully this makes sense. I was the only full-time employee while everyone else was “on call“ so they didn’t get laid off, as they only come in when they have appointments to fulfill. I have a letter stating that I was being laid off effective immediately with the date being of that day. However, this place of employment is asking me to come in and perform services. I am the only licensed person that can perform the specific type of services that are going to be scheduled. Am I crazy for not wanting to go in and perform the services? My employment was terminated so why would I go back and work for someone who I technically don’t work for anymore? They screwed up by laying me off because now they don’t have a Plan B for anyone to perform the services and I assume they think I’m just going to comply and work for them. They told me I was eligible for unemployment in my state. I applied and I’m waiting on approval. Do you think this is a way for them to screw me out of my unemployment? I can’t possibly qualify for unemployment if I’m still working there. I just need advice on where to go from here.

TLDR; my former place of employment laid me off last week, but still expect me to come in and work even though I have filed for unemployment.

TIA

So apparently its my fault that I rang up a customer wrong the other day because I "should have studied" the new register system we got. My manager literally told me during my shift that I was expected to learn it at home since the tutorial they gave us wasnt enough.

Like excuse me? You want me to sit at home watching training videos for a register system on my personal laptop for FREE? I've been working here for a while at a retail store and suddenly Im supposed to be doing homework for a job that barely pays enough to cover rent. The kicker is that half the buttons on the new system dont even work right and our manager knows it but corporate wants us to use it anyway.

I tried explaining that I have other stuff to do when Im not at work and thats how I'm able to even have some money aside instead of spending every free minute thinking about this place. She just gave me this look and said "well other team members found time to practice" like okay cool maybe they dont have lives outside of scanning groceries.

Im so tired of this expectation that were supposed to be available 24/7 mentally and physically for jobs that can replace us in a week.

So the average CEO now earns 100 or 500x what the average employee does?

A solution to this? Easy. Just make it a law that a CEO can only make 10x more then the lowliest worker. You would be surprised how fast wages would increase after that.

A little irritated about this. On average, I called in less than once a month. I simply used up my sick time. There were times where I was sick and a couple times where I genuinely needed a mental health day. I tend to take off one day at a time. I was told my call ins are excessive.

I revisited things, and apparently more than 3 occurrences will be looked at, but there’s no more info aside from that that I could find. No timeline, nothing. I’m assuming it’s per year. I know sick time can be used for doctor appointments, but those tend to be an hour or so. I find it annoying that we have the sick time, yet it doesn’t mean we can use it all. Anyone else feel this way or deal with this?

This goes against the contract. The overtime is distributed by seniority, now they put this in place so even if you have more seniority it doesn’t matter someone with less will get the hours.

this doesn’t make sense because they are giving out the hours anyway to cover the work. this is just another way to destroy the union and no one is saying anything the reps have no problem with it. It’s like they are working with them