Woo Hoo!

Bargaining is over; I might just survive this job, assuming I don't melt first.

Apple Sued

Oops:

David Walsh, a former Network Engineer that worked at Apple from 1995 to 2007, is suing the company for violating California labor laws.

Filed in the United States District Court, Southern District of California, the complaint focuses on the fact that employees were required to work more than 40 hours a week or eight hours in a workday. Walsh’s suit says that Apple then denies the employees proper compensation for that work.

Walsh claims that Apple has created several job levels so they can make them exempt from receiving overtime wages. One example given is the use of “Senior” before the title “Network Engineer,” even though all Network Engineers perform the same duties.

The on-call requirements for Network Engineers were also an issue for Walsh. His on-call duties lasted for seven days, every six weeks — during this time he was on stand-by every night without additional compensation.

The lawsuit is seeking class action status, which would allow any employee during the class period to join the lawsuit.

I find this entirely believable. Unsurprising, even.

Oregon's awesome initiative system

Check out the initiatives that have already made it on the ballot for the upcoming election (via the Register-Guard):

The five initiatives already approved would create mandatory minimum prison sentences for certain theft, forgery and drug crimes;

Crap - mandatory minimums are and have always been a terrible idea.

exempt property owners from obtaining building permits for improvements valued under $35,000;

Sketchy - I'm a proponent of land-use planning, as land-use planning has proven to be at least somewhat good for the environment, and this smells like an effort to undercut that on the bizarre grounds that private property rights are sacred instead of merely existing because we all collectively choose to abide by them.

prohibit unions and others from using “public resource” funds for political purposes;

Crap - specifically put there to weaken the ability of unions to speak in the political realm. Don't get me wrong; I think money and politics need a quick and painful divorce, but this, being unilateral, would lead to an increase in the power of corporations, which I oppose. Also, I think it's sponsored by Bill Sizemore, who is a mortal enemy of unions and the public good.

prohibit teaching public school students in a language other than English for more than two years;

Short-sighted, racist crap. I don't think I need to say any more; even Hering is against this one, it's so obviously a bad idea. Come to think of it, it's a lot like cutting off federal funding to underperforming schools, like in No Child Left Educated Behind.

and would allow Oregon taxpayers to make federal income taxes fully deductible on state returns.

This is explicitly designed to starve the state of funds on the simplistic grounds that government = bad. I believe it's a Bill Sizemore initiative. Therefore: crap!

... don't get me wrong. Governments do stupid shit all the time; certainly I've been known to criticize all levels of government, from D.C. down to *cough* local school boards. But Sizemore's whole schtick is to starve the Oregon government of funds so it can't maintain the level of services it currently provides - and there's to be no replacement. Clearly, this is problematic, as it leaves a lot of people out in the cold.

What, you think the free market is going to solve that problem? Buddy, you must be outta your frackin' mind if you still believe that after that last several decades.

Washington Monthly blogger Kevin Drum, a moderate California Democrat, advocates taking a default position of "no" on all initiatives. For the first time, I'm inclined to join him. This year's crop of initiatives makes the entire system look like it's merely a conduit for moneyed, corporate interests to buy ballot measures.

Because it's always about screwing the worker?

Wow.

Watching from the weeds

From down the road, something that I already suspect might eventually apply to me as well (assuming I have the good luck to have things turn out as well as they have for this guy):

You know what I love about meeting up with my fellow unionists? It's being constantly told that no matter what I do in my job, no matter how well things turn out here at local 3544, no matter how many of our members go on to jobs in labor, I will never be considered successful because of the way we do our membership drives. Everything is tainted, from bargaining to affecting change at the state fed, none of it matters because we don't go knocking on doors to achieve 75% membership. One hundred and twenty-five people at a GMM? Doesn't count. 22% raises over the last 6 years? Useless. (In fact, because the GTFF has not hit the streets in that time, our results should not actually be possible because bargaining is only won "on the streets." That I haven't led the GTFF out on strike means that I haven't actually achieved anything.) I could go on, but you get the drift.

[UO] If We Could Trust the Boss, This Might Not Be An Issue

From an op-ed in the Daily Emerald down at UO:

Unfortunately, as reflected by their rhetoric, the GTFF leadership's efforts to mandate contracts sometimes get in the way of faculty running our programs to, in our professional estimation, best serve our students' present and future needs.

In other words, graduate students don't know what's best for them, so they shouldn't worry about it and just let the bosses run the place without interference.

Riiiiight. Because that's worked so well in the past.

Strike Life

As part of the WGA strike, a couple of folks teamed up and produced some web-only shorts about the strike under the name Strike Life. I've only watched one (but the rest are all loading as I type this), and since it was fracking hilarious, I thought I'd point you in that general direction.

For the record, I saw "Problem Solved."

Another WGA Video

'Subtext $5' - awesome.

Good Video on the WGA Strike

Daily Show writer explains strike, makes Viacom CEO look like idiot

Writer's Guild Association Strike

Check out this IGN interview with Battlestar Galactica producer and writer Ron Moore; it does a great job explaining why the strike is happening - and why you should support it =)

UPDATE: For lots and lots (and lots) of information on the writer's strike, check out the United Hollywood blog.

This strike seems to be a attracting a lot of support and attention in a really short time.

That's a good thing, but it's a qualified good.

Where is the attention paid to strikers in less-visible industries?

Why are we paying attention to this strike?

In a nutshell, 24.

Seriously.

Something's wrong here.