Instead of being smug Europeans could try to help foster solidarity amongst the workers of the world and help Americans fight for their labor rights
Thanks for your comment. I’m currently out of office on annual summer vacation until 30th sep 2023.
maybe stop calling everybody on this side a “sOcIaLiSt” and we might feel like it
I would recommend you start by joining the Industrial Workers of the World and paying monthly dues to empower the union to fight the fight necessary. https://www.iww.org/membership/
There is a difference in interests at work between employees and employers. Even if someone doesn’t own the business, if they have real hiring and firing power over other workers then they count as an employer to us.
I have two direct reports at work, so it seems like they consider me an employer, and I’m not eligible to join.
By posting memes on Lemmy to piss off Americans, so they start to take formative action after they research the memes context and realise they don’t have free health care, cheap/free post secondary education, and mandatory holidays like the EU bros.
Tldr: Post them memes buddy!
Edit: guys… this is c/memes. Y’all are taking this way too literally lmao. Lighten up a bit ffs.
Free healthcare does not exist. Someone will pay the bill. The bill may not be ridiculously inflated but someone pays.
This reddit-ass post
Sorry, didn’t see your email cos it’s actually fuckin illegal to send me it if I’m not working
It can’t be illegal to send you an email outside working hours, that’s just silly. Now if it’s illegal to demand that you read it and respond outside working hours, I would understand.
You send an email outside of work hours? Jail.
You hand-deliver a letter during work hours? Also jail.
We have the best work-life balance in the world. Because of jail.
I couldn’t justify a 80k-100k pay cut for an extra week of PTO.
What about three weeks of extra annual leave, public holidays, real healthcare with no bullshit co-pays (and unlimited sick days, they don’t count towards “pto”), a maximum 35 hour work week… Because that’s more like what it would look like for a higher value job like that. Depends on the country and the job, of course. But in my case in the UK right now, and in my last job in Germany, my total “pto” in US terms has been roughly two months. (Which is a lot even here, but it’s not by any means unheard of, and easy to get if it’s a priority to you). Doing a job with an average salary of about 100k in the US, and I get paid a little over 50k £ for it, which is about 1.5 times the median salary here, so even after the recent inflation it affords a pretty comfortable lifestyle, it’s enough money to pay the mortgage and take holidays to the continent in my ample time off.
Sorry, this turned into a bit of a rant, but tldr: it’s not just “an extra week”
Still not worth it. I broke my leg 3 years ago I paid $2.4k total with my insurance. Today it’d be more like $5k as my insurance isn’t as good, but it would still be worth it to stay in the US even if I broke a bone every 3 months! However, two months of PTO is certainly something. But to be honest, my mentality is in a place where I’d probably end up doing some work on the side if I honestly had 8 weeks of PTO. Even when I had unlimited PTO, I only took like 4-6 weeks a year.
I think broadly speaking, if you make under $120k/year in the US, your quality of life will be better in Western Europe just because of the social safety net and worker’s protections. And this is especially true if you’re planning on having children.
{edit, I have no idea why the Lemmy algorithm decided to put this on my front page today}
I think that big difference is for low paid workers, rather than higher flyers.
Comparing a store assistant position between Lidl USA and Lidl UK.
Lidl USA
- Starting pay $16.00 per hour
- Up to 20 days of Paid Time Off (PTO) to use for sickness or vacation, plus 6 paid holidays annually
Lidl UK
- Starting pay £12 (current exchange rate $15.21)
- 30 days holiday (increasing to 35 after 5 years service)
- 10 days sick.
lower unemployment
Doesn’t matter, I can only have two, maybe three jobs at once so any more than that is irrelevant to me
higher growth
I get the same $8/hr whether the GDP goes up, stays the same or goes down. You can’t leave workers out of the distribution of wealth and then pretend that more wealth is good for workers
Do you have a plan to earn more money? Do you plan to learn a trade? Do plan to go college and pick up a degree? Do you have any plans to move up the corporate ladder? How about applying to new jobs that pays better at other places? Have you thought about saving up for an investment? Do you plan on having a side hussle? Do you plans to open your own business in the future?
The point I’m trying to make is that if you have zero ambition, no drive, no plans, and no goals and only intend on working minimum wage then don’t be surprised to live a minimal life. The point of minimum is get give you just enough to scrape by. If you want more you have to do more.
I don’t understand how the hell people even work jobs that don’t make minimum of $30/hour at least in California and even parts of the East Coast. Like your rent is $1600-$2200. At 0.8*3200 for $ 20/hour with taxes your take home is $2560 for a 40 hour work week. So what are you just not eating that month?
How about healthcare transportation medical 401K literally anything? Pruning of benefits didn’t happen because of corporate greed it happened because people just accepted what they were offered. In the Midwest where apartments might be closer to $700-$900 a month some of this works but on the coasts rent is usually twice that. And a car to get most places is $400 a month with insurance supposing you have the credit.
I work in IT and programming, and Id love to do physical labor and talk to real humans rather than salamanders in silicon valley. But the jobs I see don’t even break $30 an hour. Yet it costed me $27 for ham and cheese and altoids, not even including bread where I live in the bay area. It is fucking expensive.
I feel like America is doing so many things ass backwards greed first. But it’s not like I have the experience of living overseas or in Canada or otherwise so I don’t have much to compare it to, so it’s safer by default to live with the devil you know than the one you don’t.
What people do is pile into apartments. Yeah, to live alone may cost let’s say $2000/month rent. But you can pile 4+ people into a four bedroom apartment that costs $5000, split it four (or more) ways, and they’re paying $1250/month. Some of them have significant others, so then you wind up with two people in one room each paying $625/month. (Just random numbers, but that’s the general idea of it.)
The people I know who do it hate it, but it’s what they can afford while staying in the area they like (and/or were born in, have a community in, etc.).
27$ for ham? How much are we talking about? 500g or 1kg? (about 1 or 2 pounds)? Deli or conveniece?
But your billionaires get richer more quickly than ours! Isn’t that something to be proud of?
one day I’m gonna be one of those billionaires
I sense people actually believe they’re an easy powerball away from just that.
