In honor of labor day and all those who sacrificed for better working conditions I’ve been thinking of ways to make our voices heard. I think protesting at FAA air traffic facilities is a great option. If we keep controllers from accessing their jobs the air space shuts down. This would be a huge blow to Trump!
Let me explore how we organize these protests. The beauty is most of these employees are sick of going to work because they HATE TRUMP! They just need to see the public is on their side and we need to give them a reason to not show up for work! Air traffic controllers think their duty is to go to work and pretend everything is normal, if we protest right in front of them they will know the public wants them to act!
We will also not hurt the individual. The air traffic centers where there is a higher volume of controllers are paid very well. They also have great union benefits. Including leave pay called “weather leave”, which is usually time paid for absence from work due to adverse conditions. Well protests right outside their workplace is an adverse condition and the union will make sure the federal government pays the individual if they can’t make it to work!
So how do we organize this. I think we should target the air traffic centers “ARTCC”. These are large radar facilities where 100+ employees work every day. They have one gate access point. You can start off small, just on the sidewalk with signage expressing that serving Trump is shitting on the Constitution (this is a common debate between federal employees now) This can be as small as 1 person just out there on the sidewalk peacefully holding up a sign. Totally legal.
Now if we have enough numbers we can start “crossing the street” protests. Pedestrians legally are allowed to cross the street in front of the entrances to these centers and we can utilize slow walking speeds to delay entry to employees. Usually this should be done between 6-9am and 2-6pm as those are shift change hours.
Finally a lot of controllers may find other reasons to not show up to work. Emotional distress, lack of sleep, or fatigue are all Union protected reasons controllers could get PAID time off while we the people protest against the trump regime. Once the administration is deposed the worker individual can return to work normally with little impact to their financial situation!
So now the locations of the centers:
This is the issue, they are typically located outside city areas. So I don’t expect huge numbers of people showing up but like I said, 1 or 2 people protesting is still worth it! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._Air_Route_Traffic_Control_Centers?wprov=sfla1
So this is my protest idea. It’s one way to affect Trump adversely, a lot of federal employees are sick of this shit, THEY JUST NEED A REASON SO LET’S SHOW THEM WE WANT THEM TO FUCK TRUMP OVER
So you read all this and you’re still thinking “oh well nothing near me and I can’t do much” Well you probably do have a FAA airport near you with a control tower, you can protest there, or many other agencies that are run by the federal government. Finally you can copy this and spread it. You can edit it if you need to but just spread this idea.
Life in the USA cannot continue to go on as if this is all normal, something has to break! It’s Labor day weekend as I write this, let’s demonstrate labor still has the fucking power!
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Loan sharks love this desperation of that $23-33/mo in the budget for clothes, etc.
The cars are bloated in price too. They aren’t selling you the car, they’re selling you the loan/payment plan. You ever notice how they don’t like hearing, “I can’t afford this,” it’s “Get X with only $/mo”
That’s why the 2008 Recession occurred, the subprime mortgage – people who were risky to begin with were cut mortgages; the liquidity of the bottom workers flopped, and it echoed up the financial food chain. And it’s predatory as hell. The same shit happens to student loans. Students yearn for higher education to improve their lives, and when they leave, they can’t find jobs so the liquidity flops again. The problem with education debt is that it is non-dischargable; you can’t go bankrupt on student loans. WTF!!!
Also, do you really NEED sleep?
Are these prices from 1999? Where in the US can you get anywhere close to these rates? Certainly not near any major city.
I’m in a major city with lots of tech companies and getting unaffordable every year. Having said that, utilities, phone, and internet are doable, BUT with caveats:
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You can still find a $1200 1-BR apartment, but it might not be in a great area in the city. So I agree this is not ideal even though it’s possible.
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You can spend less than $100 on electricity and water in a 1-bedroom apartment because the utility provider is regulated. Once you get out of their coverage (outside city limits), it gets expensive pretty quick. My monthly bill back when I was living in an apartment was around $60-$70.
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Fiber internet (500 Mbps) can be as low as $30-$45. You just have to keep calling every renewal either to ask for a promo rate, or threaten to switch so they offer to get you back to the introductory price. I hate that it has to be like this, but it’s possible.
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A pre-paid carrier like Mint or US Mobile can cost as low as $15 a month, but you’ll have limited data. If you don’t really need much internet while out and about, then it won’t really be much of an issue.
Transportation is definitely the problem, and $300 a month won’t cut it. Public transpo barely exists and you’ll likely have a car payment and insurance, which will eat up your monthly budget. And yeah, $350 for food isn’t enough anymore.
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Great Lakes rust belt. Okay well maybe rent is actually $2200 and utilities are $450, but the others aren’t too far off if you put in the work to find deals. So maybe those figures were circa 2009. That only leaves you what, $1k in debt each month with zero spending money? Not so bad for one of the most affordable major urbanized regions, right? /s
I live in a suburb of a large city. These might be higher since it’s me, gf, and kid. Rent with all included fees: 1850
Utilities(basically just electric): 200-400 per month depending on weather
Phone : 40 per month(had to buy phone out of pocket first)
Food: 400-600 recently with only groceries no eating out
Transportation(gas for car): 100 minimum
Car insurance: 275 (no tickets, 1 accident 4 years ago but I was found 0% at fault)
Car payment: 350 (paid off next month)
Total(check my math I did it in my head) 3250 per month for essentials
This isn’t in any way a defence of low wages, but phone, internet, and food can all be had for cheaper depending on location, and if public transportation or close walking proximity to resources and employment are available, that can be significantly less too.
That still leaves too little extra to do any activities that cost money, survive an emergency situation, or save for retirement.
Hampton Roads, VA. I’m in Newport News. $1375 for a two bedroom apartment, although water/sewer is nearly $200/mo and electric is around that as well. We’re barely scraping by.
It was never sustainable, it was a hack to keep people from demanding unions. There’s plenty of countries with no minimum wage and well paid workers. It takes strong unions and labor protection laws, which is why the fascists will fight it to the death.
When minimum wage was instituted in the United States, it was intended as a living wage.
That has been eroded with time, though.
It was never implemented in the first place. What was intended never happened. Probably for the best honestly. Minimum wage is a poor way to accomplish a living wage, the only advantage it has, is political expediency.
Sweden here, we have unions but no legal minimum wage.
For all the good, there’s still too many companies not unionized which mostly affects young people and foreigners with shit wages at shit jobs and with no legal minimum and far lower momentum for unionization these days these people don’t have a lot of leverage, stuck living with parents or in other shitty conditions to afford anything.
If you’re in a job with a good union it can be nice, but not all people have that luck.
I understand that since you’re working 400 less hours per year, with a months more vacation, and paid parental leave on a job that’s much more difficult to get fired on you might still have complaints.
But seriously, the tiny fractions of a problem that still exist in the Swedish labor market, wouldn’t even make rounding errors in the US. There are always going to be problems, and lots of arguments about how to fix them. Most people in the US, would much rather have Swedish labor market problems to argue about.
Rent bots have added another $100-$130 to their listing prices.
They’re as naive as someone just putting together that minimum wage en masse isn’t sustainable when it’s a punishing poverty wage. Its a shanty wage…if that.
This lines up pretty well where I live and I’m in a major metro area (San Antonio). Rent would get you something pretty small though but not impossible. Food, phone and internet are about spot on for what I pay currently. Utilities for a small studio/1br track about there. Transportation is a bit off depending on if you own a car or not.
But regardless, even if the numbers are close, it just drives the point home that much more.
But minimum wage is 7.25 in tx
minimum wage in every state is $7.25 due to it being the federal minimum wage. it’s just that a few blue states made local laws making non-federal jobs have a higher state minimum wage in cities (emphasis on cities only). – but these states also raised the city tax to compensate which cancels out half of the minimum wage raise.
but it’s better than red states where many filthy republicans have been trying to introduce laws lowering the minimum wage while still increasing taxes.
While that is awful… I’d eliminate the internet line and tether my phone. Data plans are ridiculous these days.
The most common end-run around no Internet is to use the library. And we’ve been closing libraries faster than we’ve been opening private data centers
It’s called minimum wage for a reason. It’s not a career and you aren’t supposed to do it forever.
It’s not meant to be sustainable. Capitalism is about cheating your fellow men out of their munnies so you have more.
That’s why we need Scientific Socialism
I’ve never lived in a $7.25 state. Excluding tipped jobs, have any of y’all worked that rate or know somebody who has in the last 10 years?
It’s unfathomably low.
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I still see jobs listing for $9/hr
how is it sustainable? it’s not. and that’s by design. American politicians and billionaires want it this way. they want the divide. the more poor you are the more likely you are to serve them. slavery never disappeared from the US. the ‘American dream’ has been dead for decades.
It also wasn’t sustainable 20 years ago.
Millennials in their 40s are finally reaching the level of income/financial freedom as a genX did in their late 20s.
And some of GenX got part of the Boomer economy where they practically handed you a job for simply asking and things were affordable.
the more poor you are the more likely you are to serve them
I am getting tired of waiting for people to realize what’s in the post and finally take up to pitchforks. That’s not rocket science, come on
If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you. Lyndon B. Johnson
It works for poor versus rich too. Convince their depressed earnings are due to immigrants, etc. and they’ll attack them and (not us rich folks). It’s a redirection by the rich.
Rent 1200$?? How much is your real estate market fucked up?
That’s very low for the US
That’s about right from my experience in the midwestern USA. Went looking at options for apartments in this area alongside a lesser populated area prior to moving here at the start of this year. I’m not in some high-income zone, it’s predominantly manufacturing around here. My apartment costs 1451/mo, and it was the cheapest I could find out of the options I was open to accepting. I recall seeing apartments as cheap as 1130/mo, but those were apartments in a reeeeeeallly sketchy area, and I can’t say I was particularly open to that if I have the option to go elsewhere.
Edited for clarity
Also another edit: This is less rigorous and more rooted in what I’ve experienced, but when I had a friend from Italy over here in 2022-2023, I recount him commenting a few times on how high the costs for things are. He didn’t use words like “Cost of Living” per se, but would speak on how he doesn’t get how we can live with things being as expensive as they are. Not to completely shame the system, he did mention a few luxuries of living here that he doesnt have over there, but things were very skewed toward “How tf can you afford this shit?” Case in point, he could afford to fly overseas with a less-than-luxourious job, at the time, I could not.
Indeed that seems really expensive from a western european point of view, I wish we could speak more about this when we talk about the US economy, and not the GDP growth being higher or some other dumb things. Europe often sees the US as an economic compass, but I couldn’t tell your situation was so worrying before signing up on Lemmy.
To comparison, my income has been 460€ per month (social scholarship) for a long time, my rent being around 200€ but with the allowances I was only paying 40. And the minimum wages here is 1477€ net (around 9€ per hour), so I was very very poor.
With healthcare, I could take care of my chronic illness without spending anything, and I could eat pretty normally and even have some hobbies. Since uni is free for poor people (170€ per year for everyone else), I didn’t have to pay for anything aside from my classic expenses.
With a full time work, you’re litterally poorer than an alone ill student without any other income than social allowance in france.
I hope your situation will get better, go unionize and that kind of stuff, don’t stay alone, and a big good luck
$1200 is a studio apartment in a regular neighborhood these days. Or a 2bdroom in fucking nowhere.
Oh my, sounds soo expensive
Minimum wage is $7.25…
And it should be $30/hrIt should be tied to some multiple of the zip codes median rent.
We have organizations that calculate the “living wage” in each area, it should be tied to that. Its $26/hr where I live.
The federal minimum wage is $7.25, something like 20 states don’t pay a higher minimum wage.
… and many are paid much, much less than that, like working prisoners, making less than a dollar an hour.
… and also many farm workers are paid much, much less than federal “minimum”.
Millions of people. The more you look, the more people you will find making laughable wages.
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