Labor Day
In any celebration of Labor Day I’m at a slight disadvantage because for a big chunk of my life it was celebrated as May Day where I was living.
It is rather unique, as it is the only holiday I’m aware of that was imported from Canada where it’s spelled Labour Day.
When I was an elementary school student, it marked the end of summer and beginning of school, but it was a rare holiday in the South as there was no tradition of blowing things up in celebration. This year a local city decided we should blow things up. There is also no tradition of honoring labor in the South, and labor unions are considered communist conspiracies.
Things were different in New York, as it was considered respectable to belong to a union and at various times I belonged to two, and was actually elected treasurer of my AFSCME local.
The largest benefit of belonging to a union is dealing with the employers. The union acts as a buffer and keeps disputes from becoming personal. There is a known and accepted procedure for settling disputes that improves the atmosphere in the workplace because people have to follow the “rules” whether they are managers or workers.
Somewhere along the way people have forgotten that the best way of getting people to work hard for a business is to allow them to benefit from the success of the business. There was a time when corporations and workers were loyal to each other. The workers benefited from increased profits, so they had a reason to work as efficiently as possible. Now, only top managers and investors derive any benefit from success, so workers aren’t “investing” in their employers. Everyone loses.
A point that should be stressed on Labor Day is that if you look at the long list of disastrous business failures the one thing that becomes clear is that they were caused by management – the group that suffered the least. If a few senior managers go to prison, they at least get fed and have a place to sleep, something that is not always true for the workers.
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OT: A couple things, an update and a FL news item I just came across that you might enjoy (or already know about).
Florida Student and Professor Sue Education Commissioner Over ‘Stop WOKE Act,’ Alleging First Amendment Violations
Well! The past two weeks have been hell! It took me a week to bypass the DELL insane multilayer security BS and unlock the SSD so I could install my OWN W10 Pro without all the DELL/M$ nosy snooping cr*p! I also discovered how to access the BIOS as a DELL tech. & disable all the ‘security’ nonsense! As a bonus, I can now use 7.7 GB of the 8 GB RAM, instead of just over 5 GB! I also get to use almost all of the SSD, as dell had THREE hidden partitions, including backup installations of Win 8.1 & Win10 (This tablet came with Win10)! I wondered why I was missing about 150 GB of the 512 GB SSD! Anyway, the tablet is now working as it should & much faster than ever before. I’ll call that an exhausting, time wasting, win!
We had a hell of a storm that lasted two days! And today is Sunny, as if it never happened! Except for all the new ponds that have appeared all over the place. 😕 But I took advantage of the sun and went to my triple-damned Bank to sort out MY money! Saw the Manager and told him what I thought of them the second he said “We are sorry for the inconvenience”! By law here in Vic, it is only supposed to take a maximum of 7 days to release Superannuation funds when eligible, and I have been since 2015! I said that if the funds were not in my bank account by end of the day, there would be hell to pay and a nice big fine for them! Geez… I hate banks! 😠😖
(I actually hope they DON’T release the funds today, because then they will be fined and I get an extra AU$2100 which will more than pay for the PC parts and even a new GPU) – Though I am happy with the GFX Card I have, but why not! 🤷🏽♂️😉😊
I feel better now! Thanks! 👍🏽😊 Got home half an hour ago, Made a coffee, gave the kitties a nice lunch treat (they missed me, I haven’t been out for Months!) 😾🐱
I hope you are better Bryan & all is well with you and hipparchia. Anya and all! 👋🏽😻😊
Waves at Kryten!
Gotta love banks, eh?
My bank just got “absorbed” by another and last weekend was the Transition Weekend. Of course, this had been going on since April as they sent everyone new debit/credit cards, changed all the logins for their online banking, and completely revamped their computer systems. My heart goes out to their tellers who were still trying to work things out while their equally confused customers waited in line.
At least all their shiny, new logos were all in place….
Hiya Anya! 👋🏽😊
We had a banking Royal Commission into our Banks. it took 2 years until 2017 & found that ALL our Banks had several breaches of Law and ‘unethical’ behavior (that one made most of us laugh!) I changed my Superannuation fund late 2015. My Bank made a very nice, detailed report & charged me a $1,400 fee. The recommended a fund manager called MLC. They ‘forgot’ to disclose a conflict of interest, because they owned MLC! Also, A Law was enacted here in Victoria in 2014 making it illegal to charge any fee regarding Superannuation advice. They had to pay me $1,968 (with lost interest) in 2018. Looks like they will be paying me again!
And people say you cannot get money out of a Bank unless you are wealthy! 😂 And, I don’t have to pay them back! Bonus. I also found out this week they have been underpaying Interest on my Super. The minimum here is 15.46%. I have been getting an avg. of around 12%. So, they will have to pay me ALL the compounded interest & probably a fine. That will pay for several things I need. I hope they screw me every year! Easy money! 😂
It really does pay to know your rights & the Law!
How are things with you? I hope you are well. 👍🏽🥰
Australia has a lot of consumer protections that don’t exist in the US. Up here you have to sue to get any relief, and your lawyer is the only one to profit. It can take years to get a trail date and businesses stall hoping you’ll quit or die. I’m hoping to get a 1% interest return on my savings after all of the increases by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, even a 12% rate of return would be wonderful. I wish you luck.
Anya, the business account for the apartments I manage went from Ready Bank to Coastal Savings & Loan, and settled on Synovus. Instead of a branch a block away, the nearest branch is several miles away on the corner of two of the busiest roads in the area. I use a credit union that my parents used with no name changes and free ATMs everywhere.
Kryten, good luck on your new build, and “slaying the hidden menace of preinstalled software on laptops”. It was easier to do on my Toshiba, but still annoying. Yeah, it was like machines sold when Win 10 was new all had backups of Win 8.1 and/or Win 7. Show a lot of confidence in the new OS version 😉
That is true to a point. The best ‘consumer protections’ are in Victoria, because of the State Government usually being ALP.
I waited for the new AMD/Intel launches. They are crazy expensive in every way! Even CPU power usage & heat generation is through the roof!
So, decided to wait whilst current gen products dropped as companies wanted to get rid of the stock for the ‘new’ stuff. They are in for a shock!
I ordered the 5800X3D CPU & a Motherboard for it. I’ll Order a case, RAM and cooler in a couple weeks when i have the money. The CPU especially started selling like crazy when reviews showed it was better at gaming than the entire Ryzen 7000 series and much more efficient! their performance in many other areas such as multimedia & coding is much better though. I suspect AMD have decided there is more money in that market. Probably right too!
Take care! Be safe my friend. (As I said in your Ian update, I’ve had flu. I got my flu shot in July, but it only reduces the symptoms & duration. Which is a good thing IMHO!)