USPS is falsifying safety docs as its workers die of heat

Re:USPS is falsifying safety docs as its workers die of heat by OfSanguineFire on Friday October 13, 2023 @10:05AM (#37870780)

In the case of USPS, there is a section of the American population who wouldn’t necessarily support better conditions. A relative of mine was a letter carrier. That whole branch of family, who you would think would, qua family, be sympathetic, regularly scoffed at the relatively decent working conditions he had at USPS. Comments like “You can’t tell me that he should be getting over $20/hour just to deliver the mail”.

Some of that was possibly jealousy. But another factor is that unions for public-sector employees have always been more controversial in the United States than unionization in general.

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Re:USPS is falsifying safety docs as its workers die of heat by local_crmdgeon on Friday October 13, 2023 @10:12AM (#37870845)

USPS has 3 unions. This is just a speculative rant, please don't do that here.

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Re:USPS is falsifying safety docs as its workers die of heat by OfSanguineFire on Friday October 13, 2023 @10:24AM (#37870976)

Where did I say USPS doesn’t have unions? The whole point of my post is that this is a unionized sector, and that unionization got results.

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Re:USPS is falsifying safety docs as its workers die of heat by gottorf on Friday October 13, 2023 @03:45PM (#37874713)

> unions for public-sector employees have always been more controversial in the United States than unionization in general.

For good reason. Unions pool workers' interests against the opposing interests of the employer; which means for public unions, they go against the interests of the public at large. There are countless examples of this.

Naturally, in a country with a deep history of skepticism of centralized government authority, people don't view public-sector unions very favorably.

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Re:USPS is falsifying safety docs as its workers die of heat by entropicdrifter on Friday October 13, 2023 @03:49PM (#37874783)

>Naturally, in a country with a deep history of skepticism of centralized government authority, people don't view public-sector unions very favorably.

This feels contradictory to the sentiment in the preceding statement at first glance. If the people are generally skeptical of centralized government authority, why would they also be skeptical of unions who push back against that centralized authority, as opposed to seeing themselves as on the same side?

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Re:USPS is falsifying safety docs as its workers die of heat by klyrs on Friday October 13, 2023 @06:28PM (#37876313)

As I understand it, it's the rank-and-file "unelected" government employees that are perceived as the real problem. And all government spending is always bad. And unions are commie pinko bastards. And taxes are always bad. Add it all up, and government employee unions are corruption on corruption, fighting to screw the voter out of their tax dollars.

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Re:USPS is falsifying safety docs as its workers die of heat by OfSanguineFire on Friday October 13, 2023 @04:33PM (#37875298)

An argument of the left, however, goes that the employer of public-sector employees isn't actually the public at large, but rather a state controlled by the bourgeoisie that only claims to represent the public interest. In that case, both the public at large and public-sector employees are on the same side and both deserve union protection.

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Re:USPS is falsifying safety docs as its workers die of heat by throw0101c on Saturday October 14, 2023 @09:43AM (#37880427)

> For good reason. Unions pool workers' interests against the opposing interests of the employer; which means for public unions, they go against the interests of the public at large. There are countless examples of this.

Or against the politicians / political class. And given the amount of gerrymandering that goes on in the US, whether the elected politicians actually accurately represent the public at large is debatable.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP

See also "Teachers are now five times more likely to have a side gig than the average full-time worker":

* https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/4/17164718/te...

* https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/07/01/about-one...

Perhaps some public sector employees need unions because they're getting steam-rolled. (Of course some unions (e.g., police) may be too powerful.)

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Re:USPS is falsifying safety docs as its workers die of heat by dontlaugh on Sunday October 15, 2023 @10:03AM (#37889813)

The police ones aren’t actually unions. In most countries they aren’t even called that.

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