🧵I worked at a garment factory in the 90s. It was called Garan. We made Garananimals clothing for children. The plant moved to Mexico in the early 2000s.
99% of the workers were women. The women who climbed up on top of tables and cut patterns out all day made $6.40/hour. The girls turning shirts
99% of the workers were women. The women who climbed up on top of tables and cut patterns out all day made $6.40/hour. The girls turning shirts
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Participate in any or all Work Stops as you can.
During all Work Stops please assist the elderly, volunteer at shelters, donate to local food banks. Organize local barter systems. RESIST RESIST RESIST!
Now they say the rest of the world is ripping us off and slam them with tariffs.
Because everything is made overseas. They won't accept blame.
what they are trying to do is enslave millions of Americans into mind numbing factory jobs that they don't want
it's obscene
Immigrants, and foreign nations, are EXPLOITED by companies for profit.
The best customer ever was Neil Diamond. what a gem
Funniest was Tony Curtis. He flirted with every one of us.
Remember this?
Both parties have ruled.
First they will use deportation camp labor, and if and when that becomes illegal to use switch to their undereducated population.
Also… the Garanimals brand is such a memory of mine growing up. Amazing to piece that together with your memory. Wow.
just keep packing that poultry, kid
toiled there for 2 years hearing every racial epitaph
I was one of >10 visible minorities
Also, I saw a lot of mixed-race couples, which surprised me (it was uncommon where I lived in the US--I was pleased to see a little more openness in UK, tho I didn't kid myself about existence of racism overall).
?
Made electric motors for Fasco,that factory went to Mexico.
Made car seat frames for Delta International,they went bankrupt.they were a Japanese run company and great to work for.too bad it didn't last.
These are the types of jobs Trump plans to “bring back.” Low wage, back breaking manual labor. No unions. Working for pennies. Desperate work.
I made $5.15/hour an hour to do that work.
I understand that you're saying those were low wages to live on and you are absolutely correct.
I took it in a different way at first and I was wrong.
They were low wages, though typical for many people, even in a popular area like LI.
I lived in long Island. In 1992 I made $4.45 an hour at Kmart. In 93 it jumped to $5.25.
As a supervisor in '95 I got $7.
This was very typical money for 90s work.
We need more skilled workers not more shitty jobs.
Thank God I escaped and got myself back into jr college.
Depending on where you are in the country that's either not much or it's almost $4 an hour over the current federal minimum wage, which is likely what that job would pay now.
I'm glad you were able to get out of that 💙
We excel at high tech mfg.
They’re calling them freedom towns.
Only whites, only churches, no schools, totally owned company towns.
I guess the taxpayer does all the infrastructure and then the corporation builds anything profitable, or maybe we pay for it and they just get to run it for a $1 billion a year?
Now we have soft TV guys telling men to be manly and get back in the factory.
Cheap Labor for Big Corporations Profits 🤑
EVIL 😈
This political climate makes rollbacks imminent.
"Since 2021, 28 states have introduced bills to weaken child labor laws, and 12 states have enacted them."
Also, they also want to bring back pre-Triangle Waistshirt levels of workplace safety standards.
If those jobs came back to the US, you bet all would be minimum wage across the board
That’s the reason why 15k a year isn’t livable?
"I Want You Women Up North to Know
https://crossbeau.tumblr.com/post/647478115837362177/i-tell-you-this-cant-last-forever
They stand with the workers.
#OSHA
#SafetyRegulations
#DumpTrump
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire
The attempt to circumvent FLSA will be challenged in federal court.
#SCOTUS
#TrumpChange
#MAGA🌰🌰
https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/publications/WH1318.pdf
And the masses will be held down to perform menial tasks for subsistence earnings.
American dream may be over if we sit on our hands . Complacency is our enemy!
Got to mobilize and be heard .
Peacefully! If they let us!
Every filthy Nazi in this country belongs on a chain gang where they worked until they drop.
I did graduate college/MBA.
We need more US factories shut down and moved to Mexico and Southeast Asia for exactly this reason.
And workers lost jobs, yes? Why? Because they CORPORATION wanted more profit, higher share prices, bigger exec bonuses.
The other why is that Merikans want truckloads of stuff at rock bottom prices. Child labour? So what! Enviro poison? So what.
Gimme gimme.
@maddow.msnbc.com
Best post & comments I’ve read on @bsky.app.
A different view on manufacturing. It’s always from a economic perspective & not about the low pay & back breaking work.
This is the reason college or highly skilled jobs are so sought after.
1/
They make sure pay is terrible & create fear of job loss to keep them in their place to continue said terrible jobs (Amazon).
Federal minimum is 7.25 not because companies can’t afford more. It is low to keep people fearful.
2/
When they finally beggar enough people & the average American can no longer afford to stay alive or live in the U.S., the small no. of fools may finally realize they are very stupid.
-30-
It’s awful, repetitive painful work. Bosses pushed for speedy work, which caused repetitive injuries.
They like red states with low pay, poorly funded education & bad workers comp programs.
We are chattel.
https://www.digitaldrumbeat.com/p/everyone-should-watch-this-video
“He has stated that Apple manufactures iPhones in Asia, particularly China, due to the skilled workforce, advanced manufacturing ecosystem, and cost efficiencies that are difficult to replicate elsewhere.”
You can read between the lines.
We used to have to clock out for breaks BUT the machine had to keep running so we never got real breaks. I ended up going to an Electronics factory-it paid for college.
My goodness.
In 84 I made 10.50 an hour as a spreader. Cutters made really good money and we all got profit sharing at the end of the year.
Oligarchs are constantly on the lookout for the cheapest labor and that’s the reason corporations ARE NOT bringing back factory jobs to America.
Nobody is asking this question.
But they’re all so busy chopping down the orchard in spring that they haven’t bothered to reason that there won’t be any apple in the fall.
Teamsters job, starting pay was $3.40 with mandated raises when minimum wage was $2.30
Unions work.
But dangerous.
I saw a fractured skull, wrist, two arms, ankle, fingers lost, hand nearly cut off, etc.
These are the jobs they want kids to fill.
That man has no fucking clue how ANY businesses work.
There are so many abandoned buildings.
Exploit the poor as your worker base and viola!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kylewestaway/2022/05/31/jack-welch-the-man-who-broke-capitalism/
They gutted staff and paid like shit; one using for its poor pay the excuse that the biz couldn’t afford it.
I said workers were their own biz too.
Jon Ronson devoted a chapter of The Psychopath Test to Dunlap. IIRC Jon decided Al wasn't a psychopath—but then, he had never worked for him.
Even in China and India machines are taking jobs.
And we are currently in a condition of blind money being
tossed haphazardly into "AI" to take even more.
In the 90's I kept machines running for ladies to fill and box seasonal twattle
Christmas tags and Easter honeycomb and crepe is pretty low margin.
a sizable chunk of the population of 6 or so small towns.
They built a modern foundry making control arms and brake rotors for the auto industry that didn't employ a 1\10
of the labor force.
It's why we made such a big thing of
a "Service economy"
Service is built on either a singular product
or trust. America is quickly running short on both.
Servers in AR are still making less than $3/hr.
Make THAT make sense.
(AR did pass a law saying if a server doesn't make minimum wage with tips, the restaurant is supposed to pay them the diff)
What happens instead is if the server legit doesn't make at least min wage with tips and tells their employer, the employer calls them a "liar" and refuses to pay the difference. 😳
Thanks for your kind words.
That's barely a living wage.
Work the old boy network just right and your kids won't have to work overnights at the meat packing plant before their day job.
They will have to learn to not see the boss's kids and their antics, though.
Then I worked entering numbers into a computer. Still boring, but I could sit down.
While I went to college.
They would lay everyone off on their day 69 for 24 hours.
Out of about 100 a shift, 1 or 2 made union a year.
Totally dehumanizing.
And had I wanted to name names, I would have in my original post.
Have picture of us hugging at my college graduation. Just two generations from coal mines to graduate engineer.
Will not let this go backwards.
https://www.wqad.com/article/news/local/drone/8-in-the-air/2-sterling-teens-die-after-being-electrocuted-while-detasseling-11/526-27e206cf-9432-411b-a384-a8f41a0ed91b
People who work the fields work get my full respect. Hardest-working people ever.
Trump's particular contrib to the already cruel min wage is to change the calc for overtime so that it's calculated over 30 days instead of 7. No tax on it, but you'll never get it anyways
What I'm saying is that it's going to actually get WORSE because of what he IS GOING TO DO
When was the last time the middle and lower classes had lift?
50’s 60’s, which decade where they better off?
This Tariff and wrecking ball will wipe Republicans out at Mid Terms unless they swamp the vote but that did not work last time.
Thank you
Hard work, low pay, extremely rough on the body. Little chance to promote in the company, like you described.
If only it was that easy.....
If the US companies aren't going to create US jobs then why should the rest of the world take up the slack?
It'll never happen.
But chinese are still too cheap
Solution/ tariff
When my broken neck healed I reapplied to McDs. The manager wasn't sure: "You didn't do your shift" the day of my accident.
That, more than anything, convinced ...
I know my story doesn't seem like the ones about working textiles, but the employer mentality is the same. "You're lucky you have a job" = "Fear me, and be sure to smile when I make you eat a eat sandwich."
Then minimum wage went up two weeks later.
They stole money from thousands of new hires
Corporations do not care about humans, just what profits we generate for *them* at *our* expense
Sad what they did to you!
Yet Florida Republicans are making it legal for kids as young as 14 to work overnights, when there’s likely to be even less supervision of the supervisors.
So much for the party of family values and “Think of the children!”
If Berkshire Hathaway is based out of Omaha, Nebraska, then why don't they make Garanimals in Omaha, Nebraska?
They were sweat shops, my mother worked two jobs cleaned houses on the weekends , so her children would never have to do those kind of jobs. We strive to bring better jobs higher wages!
Today on TAP: Fearing workers’ professionalism and workers’ rights, Republicans are going after both.
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-02-18-anti-worker-party-working-class-base/
The court said nonprofits, labor unions challenging the move lacked standing.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-admin-asks-supreme-court-block-reinstatement-fired/story?id=120102207
Since the New Deal, the wealth/corp classes (modern feudal lords) resented the rise & power of the middle class & the check it put on their dominance. Regs, unions, civil rights, & accessible ed. were central to its growth & manifested the egalitarianism at the core of the American dream. 1/2
One way is to raise the standard of living everywhere to American standards.
The other way is to lower American standards so they're the same as how people live in the poorest parts of the world.
Guess which one DJT chooses.
https://www.investopedia.com/us-inflation-rate-by-president-8546447
Boomers get blamed for *everything*
I think we need a book like The Greatest Generation.
My dad was a Rush Limbaugh guy, and yes, he fought in the Pacific theater.
When he groped me I didn't think of him as Greatest.
We need our own book!
Every day call your reps and
Mike Johnson (202) 225-2777
John Thune (202) 224-2321
Chuck Schumer (202) 224-6542
Hakeem Jefferies (202) 225-5936
Call for impeachment/treason charges
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2024/10/16/immigrants-will-be-americas-only-source-of-labor-force-growth/
https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/the-states-suffering-most-from-the-labor-shortage
We don't need to have any of that exacerbated at taxpayer expense.
We'll be fine, but it's never fun!
Too early in the morning for this thought experiment
I put in my 2 weeks notice on the first day because it was so boring.