Iolaus – self-proclaimed protector of Hercules since forever

Young Hercules & Hercules: The Legendary Journeys

Think Tipping Is Out of Control? Watch This.

TWO DOLLARS AND THIRTEEN CENTS AN HOUR.

That’s how much millions of American workers are paid under the federal subminimum wage — which was set all the way back in 1991.

While many think tipping for services has gotten out of control, arguing over who deserves a tip and how much they should get distracts from what we should really be angry about: business models that depend on not paying workers a living wage.

It’s bad enough that the federal minimum wage is a measly $7.25 an hour. But employers are allowed to pay tipped workers just $2.13 an hour because supposedly the workers will be able to make up for it in tips.

Saru Jayaraman of One Fair Wage has been advocating to change this absurd and exploitative law. I asked her to share with us FOUR big reasons why we need to get rid of the subminimum wage and pay service workers a full living wage with tips on top.

Number 1: Workers who earn a subminimum wage often end up making less than the minimum wage

43 states currently allow certain workers to be paid a subminimum wage. Employers in these states are legally required to make up the difference if a worker’s combined wage and tips don’t reach the full minimum wage. But over a third of tipped workers report that their bosses regularly fail to do this.

That’s because enforcement of wage laws is lax, and it makes it easier for employers to get away with shortchanging staff.

Number 2: The subminimum wage perpetuates gender discrimination and harassment on the job

More than two-thirds of tipped workers — 70% — in the U.S. are women. And one in six women that work a tipped job are living in poverty — that’s nearly 2.5 times the rate for workers overall.

Since workers earning the subminimum wage are so dependent on tips to make a living, they are put in situations where they have to tolerate inappropriate customer behavior. A staggering 76 percent — that’s more than three-quarters of tipped workers — have reported experiencing sexual harassment on the job. And that only got worse during the pandemic.

Number 3: Tipping is actually a relic of slavery

Tipped workers are disproportionately people of color. And Black service workers in particular consistently earn less, including tips, than their white counterparts for doing the same job.

Look, this inequity of the subminimum wage is tied to America’s history of structural racism.

Following the Civil War, tipping was used as a racist solution by employers who didn’t want to pay formerly enslaved Black workers. So by allowing them to pay their workers just in tips rather than a wage, employers were able to avoid directly paying these workers.

Number 4: Paying workers a living wage plus tips is actually better for business — and our economy.

Corporate lobbyists, particularly for the restaurant industry, warn that paying workers a full minimum wage with tips on top will be devastating to businesses. But research shows these fears are completely overblown.

So far, seven states have replaced their subminimum wage for tipped workers with a higher minimum wage that still allows for tips on top. These seven states are actually faring better than the 43 states with subminimum wages for tipped workers — both in the number of restaurants and number of people employed by restaurants. And take home pay for restaurant servers and bartenders in these states was 24% higher than in states with a wage of just $2.13 an hour.

Workers at restaurants that have scrapped their subminimum wages in favor of higher minimum wages with tips on top are more productive, happier, and less likely to quit their jobs. This alone helps business owners cut employee turnover nearly in half. This is especially important following the pandemic, when restaurants are facing historic staffing shortages because over 1 million workers have left the industry due to low pay.

So not only have higher wage states been able to maintain their industries, but workers are more productive, getting paid more, and less likely to live in poverty.  

And when workers have more money, they spend more money — stimulating their local economies in the process.

And for the first time in 30 years, workers are winning on this issue, like in DC and Chicago and a dozen other states.

The bottom line is that ending the subminimum wage for tipped workers is better for workers, it’s better for business, it’s better for our economy — and it’s the right thing to do.

Think Tipping Is Out of Control? Watch This.TWO DOLLARS AND...

New Post has been published on https://robertreich.org/post/742430434718334976

Think Tipping Is Out of Control? Watch This.TWO DOLLARS AND...

Think Tipping Is Out of Control? Watch This.

TWO DOLLARS AND THIRTEEN CENTS AN HOUR.

That’s how much millions of American workers are paid under the federal subminimum wage — which was set all the way back in 1991.

While many think tipping for services has gotten out of control, arguing over who deserves a tip and how much they should get distracts from what we should really be angry about: business models that depend on not paying workers a living wage.

It’s bad enough that the federal minimum wage is a measly $7.25 an hour. But employers are allowed to pay tipped workers just $2.13 an hour because supposedly the workers will be able to make up for it in tips.

Saru Jayaraman of One Fair Wage has been advocating to change this absurd and exploitative law. I asked her to share with us FOUR big reasons why we need to get rid of the subminimum wage and pay service workers a full living wage with tips on top.

Number 1: Workers who earn a subminimum wage often end up making less than the minimum wage

43 states currently allow certain workers to be paid a subminimum wage. Employers in these states are legally required to make up the difference if a worker’s combined wage and tips don’t reach the full minimum wage. But over a third of tipped workers report that their bosses regularly fail to do this.

That’s because enforcement of wage laws is lax, and it makes it easier for employers to get away with shortchanging staff.

Number 2: The subminimum wage perpetuates gender discrimination and harassment on the job

More than two-thirds of tipped workers — 70% — in the U.S. are women. And one in six women that work a tipped job are living in poverty — that’s nearly 2.5 times the rate for workers overall.

Since workers earning the subminimum wage are so dependent on tips to make a living, they are put in situations where they have to tolerate inappropriate customer behavior. A staggering 76 percent — that’s more than three-quarters of tipped workers — have reported experiencing sexual harassment on the job. And that only got worse during the pandemic.

Number 3: Tipping is actually a relic of slavery

Tipped workers are disproportionately people of color. And Black service workers in particular consistently earn less, including tips, than their white counterparts for doing the same job.

Look, this inequity of the subminimum wage is tied to America’s history of structural racism.

Following the Civil War, tipping was used as a racist solution by employers who didn’t want to pay formerly enslaved Black workers. So by allowing them to pay their workers just in tips rather than a wage, employers were able to avoid directly paying these workers.

Number 4: Paying workers a living wage plus tips is actually better for business — and our economy.

Corporate lobbyists, particularly for the restaurant industry, warn that paying workers a full minimum wage with tips on top will be devastating to businesses. But research shows these fears are completely overblown.

So far, seven states have replaced their subminimum wage for tipped workers with a higher minimum wage that still allows for tips on top. These seven states are actually faring better than the 43 states with subminimum wages for tipped workers — both in the number of restaurants and number of people employed by restaurants. And take home pay for restaurant servers and bartenders in these states was 24% higher than in states with a wage of just $2.13 an hour.

Workers at restaurants that have scrapped their subminimum wages in favor of higher minimum wages with tips on top are more productive, happier, and less likely to quit their jobs. This alone helps business owners cut employee turnover nearly in half. This is especially important following the pandemic, when restaurants are facing historic staffing shortages because over 1 million workers have left the industry due to low pay.

So not only have higher wage states been able to maintain their industries, but workers are more productive, getting paid more, and less likely to live in poverty.  

And when workers have more money, they spend more money — stimulating their local economies in the process.

And for the first time in 30 years, workers are winning on this issue, like in DC and Chicago and a dozen other states.

The bottom line is that ending the subminimum wage for tipped workers is better for workers, it’s better for business, it’s better for our economy — and it’s the right thing to do.

Alternative Protein Processing Equipment Market Worth $2.13 Billion by 2029

According to a new market research report titled, ‘Alternative Protein Processing Equipment Market by Type (Dryers, Centrifuges, Grinders, Evaporators), Mode of Operation, Production Capacity (Small & Medium Scale, Large Scale), Application (Plant Proteins, Insect Proteins) - Global Forecast to 2029,’ the global alternative protein processing equipment market is slated to register a CAGR of 5.2% during the forecast period to reach $2.13 billion by 2029.

Download Free Report Sample Now @ https://www.meticulousresearch.com/download-sample-report/cp_id=5342 The major factors driving the growth of the global alternative protein processing equipment market are the increasing health consciousness among consumers and the rising demand for plant-based proteins leading to an increased demand for plant protein processing. Consumer habits are shifting away from traditional proteins to more frequent alternative proteins. The growing trend of millennials adopting flexitarian and meat-free diets indicates a shift in purchasing habits from the earlier generations. The most commonly preferred alternative proteins are plant, insect, and microbial-based.

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Alternative Protein Processing Equipment Market

The COVID-19 pandemic affected several industries and economies. Various governments enforced lockdowns, movement restrictions, and reduced workforce, resulting in the shutdown of various manufacturing facilities. Several alternative protein processing companies reduced their infrastructure by temporarily halting their operations, resulting in limited machinery requirements, especially the multifunctional ones, which help companies maximize their production volume and profit margins and eliminate additional costs during alternative protein processing.

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the supply chains of various industries, including alternative protein processing equipment, leading to increased costs and complex and time-consuming routing of goods. These factors cumulatively restrained the growth of the market. However, factors such as a limited workforce directed many companies to invest in automated alternative protein processing equipment, which is expected to boost the market at a relatively positive rate for companies offering automated alternative protein processing equipment.

Speak to our Analysts to Understand the Impact of COVID-19 on Your Business: https://www.meticulousresearch.com/speak-to-analyst/cp_id=5342

The alternative protein processing equipment market is segmented by type (dryers, centrifuges, filtration systems, mixing systems, evaporators, boilers, grinders, screw press, and other equipment), mode of operation (semi-automatic and automatic), production capacity (small & medium scale and large scale), application (plant proteins, insect proteins, microbial proteins), and geography. The study also evaluates industry competitors and analyzes the market at regional and country levels.

Based on type, in 2022, the dryers segment is expected to account for the largest share of the global alternative protein processing equipment market. However, the filtration systems segment is slated to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The rapid growth of this segment is attributed to its benefits over conventional separation methods, rising awareness about filtration processes, and increasing demand for better quality products.

Based on mode of operation, in 2022, the semi-automatic segment is expected to account for the largest share of the global alternative protein processing equipment market. The large market share of this segment is attributed to its benefits, such as greatly improved labor productivity, flexibility in production processes, and technical & economic feasibility .However, the automatic segment is slated to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The rapid growth of this segment is attributed to the advantages of automated alternative protein processing equipment, such as higher production volumes, reduced labor costs, and improved precision and accuracy.

Based on production capacity, the small & medium scale segment is slated to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The rapid growth of this segment is attributed to rising government support for the development of small-scale processing enterprises, low financial needs, and increased productivity.

Quick Buy – Alternative Protein Processing Equipment Market- Global Opportunity Analysis And Industry Forecast (2022-2029), Research Report: https://www.meticulousresearch.com/Checkout/37143657

Based on application, in 2022, the plant proteins segment is expected to account for the largest share of the alternative protein processing equipment market. The large share of this segment is attributed to factors such as the growing demand from food & beverage manufacturers, the increase in the vegan population, the rising number of plant-based product launches, and the large presence of plant protein manufacturers. However, the insect protein segment is slated to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The rapid growth of this segment is driven by factors such as the growing demand for environment-friendly protein-rich food and rising investments in edible insect farming.

Based on geography, in 2022, North America is expected to account for the largest share of the global alternative protein processing equipment market. The large market share of this region is attributed to the high presence of key alternative-protein manufacturers, growing awareness of vegan products, well-established economies, and increased investment in research & development of food processing equipment. However, Asia-Pacific is slated to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period.

The alternative protein processing equipment market has witnessed several product launches, partnerships, agreements, and collaborations in recent years. The key players operating in the alternative protein processing equipment market are Alfa Laval AB (Sweden), The Bühler Holding AG (Switzerland), GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft (Germany), Flottweg SE (Germany), SPX FLOW, Inc. (U.S.), Coperion GmbH (Germany), Hosokawa Micron B.V. (Netherlands), Netzsch-Feinmahltechnik GmbH (Germany), SiccaDania (Denmark), Koch Separation Solutions (U.S.), Bepex International LLC (U.S.), Clextral (France), ANDRITZ Group (Austria), and Maschinenfabrik Reinartz GmbH & Co. KG (Germany).

To gain more insights into the market with a detailed table of content and figures, click here: https://www.meticulousresearch.com/product/alternative-protein-processing-equipment-market-5342

LIKE THEY WANT US TO FORGET SO BAD T BUT I WON'T BETH SHOT HIM 3 MF TIMES . WHY EVEN INCLUDE S2 FINALE WTF WAS THE POINT. I MEAN IM NOT SURPRISED BUT FUCK I'M SICK N TIRED OF SEEING THIS MAN HURT. N WTF NICK MAKES ME SICK TO MY STOMACH. SO HE'S THE CRIME BOSS MASTERMIND. HAS BEEN THE ENTIRE TIME WTF MAKES NO SENSE. GTFO WHY WHY GIVE HIS CH SO MUCH. RIO HAS BEEN HERE THE ENTIRE TIME. LITARALLY NO ONE CARES ABOUT THESE STRANGERS.

I cannot express how mad I am about the whole thing. I feel like I'm even madder about it because I knew they were going to do this. I knew they had no intention of addressing the shooting. But then seeing them actually gloss over it this way has made it 10000000x worse.

They are complete and utter fools, honestly. The shooting was done for shock-value, it was meant to be some bullshit #girlboss moment for Beth (self-actualisation if your name is Bill Krebs) which then laid the foundations for Rio to become the primary antagonist in s3, as opposed to law enforcement like the previous couple seasons. They never intended to fully commit to the storyline because they don't commit to anything. It's almost like a procedural show where nothing really carries over from one episode to the next, and it's so dumb.

The biggest issue now though is that so much of what's happening right now is steeped in the betrayal of 2.13 and the animosity it caused between Beth and Rio. Beth only started printing cash because she thought they were 'free' which is the only reason the secret service is involved. The entire Lucy plot was built off the back of 2.13 and Beth's printing operation. Then by trying to ignore this storyline going forward, all of those other parts of the plot lose context and it’s just so dumb. I know, I keep repeating that, but it's the only way I can describe it. Without 2.13 there would be no printing operation, there would probably be no Boland Bubbles, Lucy wouldn't have been killed, the hitman plot wouldn't have happened and the Secret Service wouldn't be here and the Nevada deal wouldn’t exist, because Beth only started her printing operation off the back of the shooting. So they want to keep these other balls in the air but not address the reason they exist, to begin with, and —🤯

Re Nick being the boss, again, it's so fucking dumb. It literally contradicts everything and I really do feel like doing a post mapping out everything we've been shown of Rio/his operation and how this new backstory contradicts it. It's like they'd happily do just about anything, regardless of how nonsensical, if it means they can avoid giving Rio a storyline for Rio.

Why do you think good girls don’t kill off white people ?

Ah! Well! That’s a pretty loaded question, haha.

I think there are quite a few things to unpack within it, particularly around how this show handles race and violence more broadly, and I’m going to do my best to offer an answer to that for you here, but before I do that, I want to start with the fact that I’m not the best person to ask.

Honestly, it’s a conversation I struggle with because while I do read, listen and try to think proactively about media, criticism and the voices of BIPOC writers, audiences and critics, I’m also white and I’m Australian, so presenting myself as anything close to an authority on the subject of race and storytelling in America feels wildly irresponsible at best.

(When I say that too, please don’t get me wrong and think I’m excusing Australian media from similar conversations – Australia has a deeply racist past and present, but the context of that past and present is very different to the experience of BIPOC in America, and to equate the two would be diminishing to the nuance of both conservations).

My point is that if any other bloggers feel comfortable and want to speak to this, or to what I write below, please do! And please tag me so that I can see and reblog, because I know I’m not the best source for this conversation and because I’d love to learn more myself and amplify the voices of people with more informed points of view!

But! You asked me and I don’t want to dodge the question either or thrust responsibility onto others!

So!

I personally think the issues of race on this show vary not just character-to-character, but writer-to-writer, which is indicative of a broader problem with the show I’ll talk about a bit later. Right now, I want to talk about the fact that there have been episodes where I think race has been handled in a way that feels thoughtful and considered. In particular, I’m talking about 2.06 which really paralleled Turner and Stan as Black men working for law enforcement, a conversation that was revisited in 2.09 during the lie detector test when the strength of Stan’s character was contrasted with the self-interest of Turner’s. The latter episode was also bolstered by Ruby and JT’s push-pull which came to a close by spotlighting a class issue often tied to race – under-resourced school districts. These are rounded episodes that touch on the nuance of complicated issues, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both episodes were written by Black writers, Des Moran and Carla Banks-Waddles.

That said, that nuance is too-frequently missing.

I think there are a lot of occasions where the show removes race from character and context in a way that is detrimental to not just those characters, but to the show overall. One of the clearest examples of this is – as @foxmagpie pointed out just the other day – the inauthenticity of the show presenting Ruby’s experience of invisibility as the same as Beth and Annie’s, something that the show does more or less every episode. Her experiences would not be the same as theirs, and to present it as such diminishes her arc, her relationship with Beth and Annie, and the show’s themes overall.

That removal of race from character and context is often a key issue that the show has with how it depicts violence. and I’m going to circle back to this point in a moment, but I just want to clarify something else quickly.

The show has killed off white people.

In fact, prior to 2.13, most of the characters killed were white (Eddie and Jeff), although not all (Ruby’s dad), and all the characters who experiences violence were white – Annie was almost raped, Mary Pat was raped, Dean was shot, Big Mike was shot, Ben’s bully had his finger broken, and Boomer was hit over the head with a bourbon bottle, held hostage in a treehouse, punched, manhandled and hit by a car. Marion was also killed off in 3.08.

I’m bringing this up not to diminish the violence that Ruby, Rio, Turner and Lucy have experienced on this show, but rather to emphasise my point above. The show, I think, wants to treat all of this as the same. It wants Ruby, Rio, Turner and Lucy’s identity and race to be incidental in these moments when it can’t be, because it’s not. Because ignoring the social and cultural history of the violence that these characters experience is not only inauthentic, but a part of a pattern of storytelling that brutalises BIPOC bodies in media.

None of us live in a vacuum, and context matters. Context is important. Context is what all of us live with, and on paper – in a vacuum – a man being shot by an ex-lover after he kidnaps her is very different to the contextualised image of a white woman shooting her Latino ex-lover – a sequence of events that conjures racist stereotypes, tropes and historic cultural violence. Similarly, a woman being murdered after being used by a colleague and then coerced by a gang is different on paper to the image of an Asian woman being used by a white woman and then murdered in a country where anti-Asian violence is at an all time high, and when Asian characters in Western media have historically been treated as disposable.

We don’t live in a world without context, so the stories we consume shouldn’t ignore that context irresponsibly.

I also think there’s something to be said here about the salacious presentation of certain acts and the lingering camera on certain moments. The scene with Rio being shot is graphic in a way no other violence on the show has been, with the closest to it – I would argue – being Boomer’s attempted rape of Annie in 1.01, which is a whole other kettle of fish (I have very mixed feelings about how this show uses and talks about rape, but that feels like a whole other post, haha). Similarly, the camera lingered on Ruby’s shot leg (and the story’s stayed with us longer than Dean’s shot chest), and Turner’s body, while Marion and Eddie were both killed off-screen. At the same time though, there’s an argument to be made that the show’s treated the violence against these character’s a lot more seriously than it’s treated, say, Boomer being carted off in a bag after being raped in prison to presumably be further brutalised in some way, or Dean collapsing at Boland Motors halfway through a Fortnite dance.

My point there is that we shouldn’t ignore that white characters on the show are killed and brutalised too, but we also need to acknowledge that these scenes are entrenched in different contexts, which means that the way that they play out has a really different impact, and the show trying to divorce these acts from race is ignorant and irresponsible.  

In that sense, I don’t think the show’s trying to be harmful or deliberately relying on racist tropes. I think it’s made active efforts to rectify certain problems it’s had historically (half of s3’s episodes were written by Black women, a marked evolution from 0 in s1), but it’s one that, in my opinion, doesn’t treat race as central to its story in the way that it should, particularly as a relatively diverse show that’s concerned with class, family, poverty and crime in America. And that is why I think the depiction of it varies writer-to-writer, and it’s why I think the show overall can be thoughtless with how it depicts scenes of death and violence, and that is a top-down problem that Jenna and the PTB need to address.

After all, death and violence are always going to be a part of a show like this – particularly a show that has such a small, insulated cast (ergo limited characters to depict as both victims and perpetrators of that violence in meaningful ways), but it’s the thoughtlessness for me that steeps the show’s most racist scenes, and in 2021 that’s really not acceptable and the show should be held accountable.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 11, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

On the twentieth anniversary of the day terrorists from the al-Qaeda network used four civilian airplanes as weapons against the United States, the weather was eerily similar to the bright, clear blue sky of what has come to be known as 9/11. George W. Bush, who was president on that horrific day, spoke in Pennsylvania at a memorial for the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 who, on September 11, 2001, stormed the cockpit and brought their airplane down in a field, killing everyone on board but denying the terrorists a fourth American trophy.

Former president Bush said: “Twenty years ago, terrorists chose a random group of Americans, on a routine flight, to be collateral damage in a spectacular act of terror. The 33 passengers and 7 crew of Flight 93 could have been any group of citizens selected by fate. In a sense, they stood in for us all.” And, Bush continued, “The terrorists soon discovered that a random group of Americans is an exceptional group of people. Facing an impossible circumstance, they comforted their loved ones by phone, braced each other for action, and defeated the designs of evil.”

Recalling his experience that day, Bush talked of “the America I know.”

“On America's day of trial and grief, I saw millions of people instinctively grab for a neighbor's hand and rally to the cause of one another…. At a time when religious bigotry might have flowed freely, I saw Americans reject prejudice and embrace people of Muslim faith…. At a time when nativism could have stirred hatred and violence against people perceived as outsiders, I saw Americans reaffirm their welcome to immigrants and refugees…. At a time when some viewed the rising generation as individualistic and decadent, I saw young people embrace an ethic of service and rise to selfless action.”

Today’s commemorations of that tragic day almost a generation ago seemed to celebrate exactly what Bush did: the selfless heroism and care for others shown by those like Welles Crowther, the man in the red bandana, who helped others out of danger before succumbing himself; the airplane passengers who called their loved ones to say goodbye; neighbors; firefighters; law enforcement officers; the men and women who volunteered for military service after the attack.

That day, and our memories of it, show American democracy at its best: ordinary Americans putting in the work, even at its dirtiest and most dangerous, to take care of each other.

It is this America we commemorate today.

But even in 2001, that America was under siege by those who distrusted the same democracy today’s events commemorated. Those people, concentrated in the Republican Party, worried that permitting all Americans to have a say in their government would lead to “socialism”: minorities and women would demand government programs paid for with tax dollars collected from hardworking people—usually, white men. They wanted to slash taxes and government regulations, giving individuals the “freedom” to do as they wished.

In 1986, they had begun to talk about purifying the vote; when the Democrats in 1993 passed the so-called Motor Voter law permitting people to register to vote at certain government offices, they claimed that Democrats were buying votes. The next year, Republicans began to claim that Democrats won elections through fraud, and in 1998, the Florida legislature passed a voter ID law that led to a purge of as many as 100,000 voters from the system before the election of 2000, resulting in what the United States Commission on Civil Rights called “an extraordinarily high and inexcusable level of disenfranchisement,” particularly of African American voters.

It was that election that put George W. Bush in the White House, despite his losing the popular vote to Democrat Al Gore by more than a half a million votes.

Bush had run on the promise he would be “a uniter, not a divider,” but as soon as he took office, he advanced the worldview of those who distrusted democracy. He slashed government programs and in June pushed a $1.3 trillion cut through Congress. These measures increased the deficit without spurring the economy, and voters were beginning to sour on a presidency that had been precarious since its controversial beginnings.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, hours before the planes hit the Twin Towers, a New York Times editorial announced: “There is a whiff of panic in the air.”

And then the planes hit.

“In our grief and anger we have found our mission and our moment,” Bush said. America had seemed to drift since the Cold War had ended twelve years before, but now the country was in a new death struggle, against an even more implacable foe. To defeat the nation’s enemies, America must defend free enterprise and Christianity at all costs.

In the wake of the attacks, Bush’s popularity soared to 90 percent. He and his advisers saw that popularity as a mandate to change America, and the world, according to their own ideology. “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,” he announced.

Immediately, the administration focused on strengthening business. It shored up the airline industry and, at the advice of oil industry executives, deregulated the oil industry and increased drilling. By the end of the year, Congress had appropriated more than $350 billion for the military and homeland security, but that money would not go to established state and local organizations; it would go to new federal programs run by administration loyalists. Bush’s proposed $2.13 trillion 2003 budget increased military spending by $48 billion while slashing highway funding, environmental initiatives, job training, and other domestic spending. It would throw the budget $401 billion in the red. Republicans attacked any opposition as an attack on “the homeland.”

The military response to the attacks also turned ideological quickly. As soon as he heard about the attacks, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked his aides to see if there was enough evidence to “hit” Iraqi president Saddam Hussein as well as al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. In fact, Saddam had not been involved in the attack on America: the al-Qaeda terrorists of 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates.

Rumsfeld was trying to fit the events of 911 into the worldview of the so-called neocons who had come together in 1997 to complain that President Bill Clinton’s foreign policy was “incoherent” and to demand that the U.S. take international preeminence in the wake of the Cold War. They demanded significantly increased defense spending and American-backed “regime change” in countries that did not have “political and economic freedom.” They wanted to see a world order “friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.”

After 9/11, Bush launched rocket attacks on the Taliban government of Afghanistan that had provided a safe haven for al-Qaeda, successfully overthrowing it before the end of the year. But then the administration undertook to reorder the Middle East in America's image. In 2002, it announced that the U.S. would no longer simply try to contain our enemies as President Harry S. Truman had planned, or to fund their opponents as President Ronald Reagan had done, but to strike nations suspected of planning attacks on the U.S. preemptively: the so-called Bush Doctrine. In 2003, after setting up a pro-American government in Afghanistan, the administration invaded Iraq.

By 2004, the administration was so deeply entrenched in its own ideology that a senior adviser to Bush told journalist Ron Suskind that people like him—Suskind—were in “the reality-based community”: they believed people could find solutions based on their observations and careful study of discernible reality. But, the aide continued, such a worldview was obsolete. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore.… We are an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

The 9/11 attacks enabled Republicans to tar those who questioned the administration's economic or foreign policies as un-American: either socialists or traitors making the nation vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Surely, such people should not have a voice at the polls. Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression began to shut Democratic voices out of our government, aided by a series of Supreme Court decisions. In 2010, the court opened the floodgates of corporate money into our elections to sway voters; in 2013, it gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act; in 2021, it said that election laws that affected different groups of voters unevenly were not unconstitutional.

And now we grapple with the logical extension of that argument as a former Republican president claims he won the 2020 election because, all evidence to the contrary, Democratic votes were fraudulent.

Today, former president Bush called out the similarities between today’s domestic terrorists who attacked our Capitol to overthrow our government on January 6 and the terrorists of 9/11. “There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home, “he said. “But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit. And it is our continuing duty to confront them.”

In doing so, we can take guidance from the passengers on Flight 93, who demonstrated as profoundly as it is possible to do what confronting such an ideology means. While we cannot know for certain what happened on that plane on that fateful day, investigators believe that before the passengers of Flight 93 stormed the cockpit, throwing themselves between the terrorists and our government, and downed the plane, they all took a vote.

---

Notes:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/11/politics/transcript-george-w-bush-speech-09-11-2021/index.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20050205041635/http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=project_for_the_new_american_century

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

In 1938, when Franklin Roosevelt signed the nation’s first minimum wage into law, it excluded restaurant workers, a category that included a disproportionate number of Black people. In 1966, when our nation’s minimum wage was overhauled, restaurant workers were even more formally cut out with the creation of a subminimum wage for tipped workers. Today, 43 states and the federal government still persist with this legacy of slavery, allowing a tipped work force that is close to 70 percent female and disproportionately Black and brown women to be paid a subminimum wage. A nation that once enslaved Black people and declared them legally three-fifths of a person now pays many of their descendants less than a third of the minimum wage to which everyone else is entitled. The subminimum wage for tipped workers isn’t simply born of racial injustice; it continues to perpetuate both race and gender inequity today. In the mid-1960s, the guaranteed wage for tipped workers was $0 an hour. Today, the federal minimum wage for tipped workers is just $2.13 an hour — a just over $2 increase — and a mostly female, disproportionately women of color workforce of tipped workers still faces the highest levels of harassment of any industry. Women restaurant workers in states with subminimum wage report twice the rate of sexual harassment as women working in restaurants in the seven states that have enacted One Fair Wage — a full minimum wage with tips on top. The women in these seven states — California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Montana, Minnesota, and Alaska — can rely on a wage from their employer and are not as dependent on tips and thus feel empowered to reject the harassment from customers. The unfair power dynamic between women tipped workers and male customers in most states has only worsened during the pandemic. Women restaurant workers report being regularly subjected to ‘Maskual harassment’, in which male customers are demanding that women servers take off their masks so that they can judge their looks and their tips on that basis. With tips now down 50 to 75 percent, male customers know women workers are more desperate than ever. For Black women, the situation is especially dire. Before the pandemic, Black women who are tipped restaurant workers earned on average nearly $5 an hour less than their white male counterparts nationwide — largely because they are segregated into more casual restaurants in which they earn far less in tips than white men who more often work in fine dining, but also because of customer bias in tipping. With the pandemic, these inequities were exacerbated; nearly nine in 10 Black tipped workers reported that their tips decreased by half or more, compared to 78 percent of workers overall. All workers were asked to do more for less — enforcing social distancing and mask rules on top of serving customers, for far less in tips. Black workers were more likely to be punished by hostile customers for attempting to serve as public health marshals than other workers. Seventy-three percent of Black workers reported that their tips decreased due to enforcing Covid-19 safety measures, compared to 62 percent of all workers. Technically, federal law requires that employers must cover the difference when the hourly wage, subsidized by tips, does not amount to $7.25 an hour. But in practice, that mandate is frequently ignored. A federal review of employment records from 2010-2012 revealed that nearly 84 percent of full-service restaurants had committed wage and hour violations.

Michelle Alexander, Tipping Is a Legacy of Slavery

‘maskual harassment’ is a new one.

The decade-long economic expansion has been a boon to those at the top of the economic ladder. But it left millions of workers behind, particularly the 4.4 million workers who rely on tips to earn a living, fully two-thirds of them women. Even as wages have crept up–if slowly–in other sectors of the economy, the minimum wage for waitresses and other tipped workers hasn’t budged since 1991. Indeed, there is an entirely separate federal minimum wage for those who live on tips. It varies by state from as low as $2.13 (the federal tipped minimum wage) in 17 states including Texas, Nebraska and Virginia, up to $9.35 in Hawaii. In 36 states, the tipped minimum wage is under $5 an hour. Legally, employers are supposed to make up the difference when tips don’t get servers to the minimum wage, but some restaurants don’t track this closely and the law is rarely enforced.

Waitresses are emblematic of the type of job expected to grow most in the American economy in the next decade--low-wage service work with no guaranteed hours or income. Though high-paying service jobs have been growing quickly in recent months, middle-wage jobs are growing more slowly and could decline sharply in the event of a recession, says Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody’s Analytics. Those who lose their jobs in a recession usually move down, not up, the pay scale. Jobs like personal-care aide (median annual wage $24,020), food-prep worker ($21,250) and waitstaff ($21,780) are among the fastest-growing occupations in America, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). They have much in common with the burgeoning gig economy, in which people turn to apps in the hope of getting shifts delivering food, driving passengers and cleaning houses. (x)

Please read this article. It’s about a lot of things, including the effects of having a separate minimum wage for tipped workers.

The State Security Board considers the sale of 11,111 NFTs a “high-tech fraudulent securities offering.” A virtual, Cyprus-registered casino Sand Vegas Casino Club faced an emergency cease and desist order from Texas and Alabama state securities regulators. The company is ordered to “stop a fraudulent investment scheme tied to metaverses”. On April 13, the Texas State Securities Board reported issuing the order, accusing Sand Vegas Casino Club, Martin Schwarzberger and Finn Ruben Warnke of illegally offering nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to fund the development of virtual casinos in metaverses. Allegedly, Sand Vegas offered 11,111 NFTs to raise funds for its metaverse casinos. The firm offered those who purchased Gambler NFTs and Golden Gambler NFTs a share of the future casino’s profits. By Sand Vegas' projections, owners of Gambler NFTs could expect profits between $1,224 and $24,480 per NFT annually, and Golden Gambler NFTs holders would earn between $6,480 and $81,000 per NFT over the same period. By April 9, the listing price for Gambler NFTs was between 0.23 ETH (around $744.38) and 777.77 ETH ($2.5 million), while the listing price for Golden Gambler NFTs was between 2.13 ETH ($6,793) and 169 ETH ($547,000). According to the order, the respondents claimed their NFT offerings were not securities and thus did not fall under securities laws. The document specified:“The Respondents are also devising a scheme to obstruct any attempt to regulate the Gambler NFTs and Golden Gambler NFTs [...] They are misleading purchasers by claiming they can simply avoid securities regulation by implementing illusory features or using different terminology.”Related: SEC investigating NFT market over potential securities violationsSand Vegas is not registered to sell securities in Texas and Alabama, and hence it is not allowed to proceed with its NFT sales. It appears that the Texan regulators’ initiative could kick off a larger trend as well. As Joe Rotunda, enforcement director at the Texas State Securities Board, has told journalists, his agency is coordinating across state lines to investigate similar offerings and plan enforcement actions in the “hot area” of NFTs. Go to Source

Veronica

raven-dale replied to your post “Why should Veronica have invited Kevin?”

okay so this whole post was basically a veronica call out - which firstly, why lol ?? And secondly, wow a whole post as a response I'm flattered. Anyway, do I wish she invited Kevin ? Yes, I wish she invited Kevin and Cheryl and even Josie bc they're her friends too,, but this was a couples weekend . And thus she invited bughead, who also was suggested by Hiram who co-ordinated this whole thing

okay so this whole post was basically a veronica call out - which firstly, why lol ??

@raven-dale

Because 2B Veronica is someone who deserves to be called out? Mostly for helping make Jughead and the Sunnyside trailer park homeless, but on a lesser scale, for being a horrible friend to Kevin (and Josie, TBH).

And secondly, wow a whole post as a response I'm flattered.

And I’m . . .glad for that, I guess?

Yes, I wish she invited Kevin and Cheryl and even Josie bc they're her friends too,, but this was a couples weekend . And thus she invited bughead, who also was suggested by Hiram who co-ordinated this whole thing

You don’t think she could have invited Kevin if she really wanted to? Given that her dad lets her think she has her way when she objects to a chaperone?

She could have brought Kevin along if she really wanted to. It says a lot about Ronnie that she was perfectly fine with leaving one of her supposed “best friends” behind. “It’s a couples weekend” is a pretty weak defense of her being deliberately cliquey. 

And who *actually* bought the Sunnyside Trailer Park, which 1. Veronica didn't know and 2. Doesn't see the bigger , bladder picture off bc surprise surprise they don't let her in on much.

Except that 1) Veronica does know about it. She was there at the meeting with FP, Jughead, and Hiram in 2.13. Remember? She told Jughead to “act civilized.” 2) As far as we know, the Lodges did tell Veronica everything in 2.09 after she asked them to, and until the audience is told otherwise, we know that she’s now complicit in all of it.

So yes. She was okay with one of her friends being made homeless by family as long as her family profited from it.

But, I digress, you seem to be keen on you "she's the devil" belief so whatever.

I don’t think “she’s the devil.” I do think she’s a pretty horrible friend to Kevin, and an even worse friend to Jughead. I don’t like 2B Veronica at all. I wish she could go back to her season one or earlier season two character. You know, when she wasn’t helping make people homeless.

But even though I wanted her to invite the others i understand why she didn't, and also it makes sense for his plot line later on

Yeah, I’m sure Veronica *just knew* he was going to have a plot later on, and that’s why she didn’t invite him. Like Deadpool, Veronica can just see past the fourth wall.

also, I didn't see any of the rest of the core 4 suggest that they invite anyone else.

That’s because it was Veronica’s house, and they can’t just invite other people to someone else’s vacation home, and they saw her reject Cheryl right in front of them, so they rightly assumed she didn’t want to invite anyone else.

but it's unfair to call her a bad friend bc she didn't invite him to the couples weekend when he isn't part of a couple ??

Again, it didn’t have to be a couples-only weekend. Hiram suggested that, Veronica was the only one seen enforcing that. If she truly wanted him along, she could have at least invited him just to be polite, but she didn’t. Which, fine, it’s her house, but it doesn’t exactly create a flattering picture of her as a friend.

The Republican Stimulus Plan Lets Restaurant Owners Who Endanger Workers Off the Hook

Mauro Pimentel/AFP via Getty Images

Liability protections would prevent people from suing their employers if they contract COVID-19 on the job

Over the next several days, lawmakers in Congress will be hard at work on a second economic stimulus package that’s expected to exceed $1 trillion. With the purported intent of keeping the American economy afloat as the coronavirus pandemic rages on, Republican leaders in the Senate unveiled the HEALS Act, which includes a second round of $1,200 stimulus checks for most American households and hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for schools, health care facilities, and businesses, among other institutions impacted by COVID-19.

The bill is the counterpart to the HEROES Act, introduced by Democrats in the House of Representatives. That legislation includes a continuation of the $600 federal unemployment supplement and $1 trillion in funding for state and local governments, in addition to a second round of stimulus payments directly to Americans.

That $1,200 stimulus check — which has bipartisan support in Congress and the support of President Donald Trump — has, not surprisingly, gotten most of the attention. But tucked into the bill are liability protections for hospitals, schools, and businesses like restaurants. These provisions, broadly supported by Republican lawmakers and opposed by Democratic leadership, would prevent workers from suing their employers if they contract COVID-19 on the job.

As with all congressional stalemates, this second stimulus package will ultimately be resolved, likely before Congress is set to adjourn for a monthlong recess on August 7. Considering that enhanced federal unemployment benefits have already expired and many families are in dire need of that $1,200 check, it’s likely that these liability protections proposed by Republicans will be obscured by more immediate short-term needs. But this isn’t the time for Congress to let restaurants — or any other business — off the hook for putting their workers in danger.

What are liability protections?

Essentially, they’re provisions that would prevent workers from suing their employers if they contract COVID-19, with some key exceptions. Under the current system, most workers aren’t able to sue their employers when they’re injured on the job due to workers’ compensation laws, which require that employers pay for wage-replacement benefits and medical treatment instead of facing lawsuits over unsafe working conditions.

Generally, the only time that workers are able to sue their employers for injuries sustained on the job is when that business shows “reckless disregard” for the safety of its employees. In the case of the coronavirus, if a worker was able to prove that their employer was not following appropriate health and safety protocol to stem the spread of the virus, they may have grounds to file a lawsuit and seek compensation for getting sick.

That said, those laws only apply if an employer carries workers’ compensation insurance, which would pay for those medical bills and lost wages. Most states require employers to carry some kind of workers’ compensation insurance — Texas is a notable exception. But the restaurant industry is notorious for not having this kind of coverage. If a restaurant worker’s employer doesn’t have that insurance, that worker would typically have standing to sue the restaurant’s owners.

Is it likely that liability protections will be included in the second stimulus bill?

Business owners are generally very much in favor of these protections, which all but eliminate the potential for pricey lawsuits. According to Forbes, businesses are terrified that they will face a “wave” of lawsuits as they bring their employees back to work and those employees get sick. As such, businesses of all sizes have a major interest in ensuring that enhanced liability protections are included in the second stimulus package.

These businesses have a strong ally in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has described liability protections as a “red line,” and said that he won’t negotiate with Democrats over their inclusion in the upcoming stimulus bill. Meanwhile, most — but not all — Democrats are firmly opposed to the inclusion of liability protections. In an interview on Meet the Press on Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Democrats would not support a bill in which these protections are included. “If you get sick, you have no recourse because we’ve given the employer protection,” Pelosi said. “And if you don’t go to work because you’re afraid of being sick and you have that job opportunity, you don’t get unemployment insurance. This is so unfair.”

Considering how far apart both parties are on the issue, there isn’t much time to come to a consensus before Congress’s upcoming recess. Democratic leadership has pledged to get a deal done before then, but it’s unclear how these liability protections will look in the bill that is ultimately signed by Trump.

How does this apply to restaurants and restaurant workers?

Because of their frequent contact with the public and the nature of dining spaces, restaurant workers are especially vulnerable to COVID-19. Countless workers across the country have contracted the virus, and many have died. If Republican lawmakers get their way, it would be nearly impossible for restaurant workers who get sick on the job to sue their employers to pay for medical expenses.

This is compounded by the fact that most restaurant workers lack employer-provided health insurance. According to one 2019 survey, only 31 percent of restaurants reported offering health insurance to their employees, and less than a quarter of those businesses provided workers’ compensation insurance. Without health insurance, paying medical bills associated with contracting COVID-19 is an extreme financial burden.

If the Democrats win this fight, these workers would have the ability to sue businesses that flout health and safety guidelines during the pandemic. A key issue here is that there is no federally codified set of guidelines that restaurants are obligated to follow in order to protect the health and safety of their workers, which could make it difficult for these workers to prove that their workplaces weren’t following the rules. Right now, there is no federal law that requires restaurants to close, or even inform the public, if a staffer contracts COVID-19, and very few states have implemented those rules. If there isn’t a definitive set of guidelines, how can restaurants be held liable for not following them?

That’s why lawmakers like Delaware Sen. Chris Coons also want the stimulus bill to include provisions for the creation of a comprehensive set of health and safety standards that would be overseen by an agency like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. According to the New York Times, Democrats seek to “establish an enforceable standard based on guidance from top federal health agencies, for workplaces to develop infection-control plans.”

Considering that restaurant workers are among the most vulnerable frontline workers during this pandemic, they deserve a much broader set of government protections than the businesses that employ them. Restaurants may not be able to afford expensive lawsuits, but restaurant workers are even less likely to be in a position to afford tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills because their workplace didn’t implement infection-control standards.

Restaurants should not be allowed to self-govern when the stakes are literally life and death, especially considering the industry employs some of the most economically vulnerable workers in the country. Right now, restaurateurs are worried about whether or not their businesses will survive the pandemic, and they are justified in that fear. The abject failure of governance on almost all levels is putting this industry at risk, but it shouldn’t be up to workers who are paid $2.13 an hour — or even $15 or $20 an hour — to keep restaurants afloat. Livelihoods are at stake, but so are actual lives.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/3hShWsz https://ift.tt/30YEHo3

Mauro Pimentel/AFP via Getty Images

Liability protections would prevent people from suing their employers if they contract COVID-19 on the job

Over the next several days, lawmakers in Congress will be hard at work on a second economic stimulus package that’s expected to exceed $1 trillion. With the purported intent of keeping the American economy afloat as the coronavirus pandemic rages on, Republican leaders in the Senate unveiled the HEALS Act, which includes a second round of $1,200 stimulus checks for most American households and hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for schools, health care facilities, and businesses, among other institutions impacted by COVID-19.

The bill is the counterpart to the HEROES Act, introduced by Democrats in the House of Representatives. That legislation includes a continuation of the $600 federal unemployment supplement and $1 trillion in funding for state and local governments, in addition to a second round of stimulus payments directly to Americans.

That $1,200 stimulus check — which has bipartisan support in Congress and the support of President Donald Trump — has, not surprisingly, gotten most of the attention. But tucked into the bill are liability protections for hospitals, schools, and businesses like restaurants. These provisions, broadly supported by Republican lawmakers and opposed by Democratic leadership, would prevent workers from suing their employers if they contract COVID-19 on the job.

As with all congressional stalemates, this second stimulus package will ultimately be resolved, likely before Congress is set to adjourn for a monthlong recess on August 7. Considering that enhanced federal unemployment benefits have already expired and many families are in dire need of that $1,200 check, it’s likely that these liability protections proposed by Republicans will be obscured by more immediate short-term needs. But this isn’t the time for Congress to let restaurants — or any other business — off the hook for putting their workers in danger.

What are liability protections?

Essentially, they’re provisions that would prevent workers from suing their employers if they contract COVID-19, with some key exceptions. Under the current system, most workers aren’t able to sue their employers when they’re injured on the job due to workers’ compensation laws, which require that employers pay for wage-replacement benefits and medical treatment instead of facing lawsuits over unsafe working conditions.

Generally, the only time that workers are able to sue their employers for injuries sustained on the job is when that business shows “reckless disregard” for the safety of its employees. In the case of the coronavirus, if a worker was able to prove that their employer was not following appropriate health and safety protocol to stem the spread of the virus, they may have grounds to file a lawsuit and seek compensation for getting sick.

That said, those laws only apply if an employer carries workers’ compensation insurance, which would pay for those medical bills and lost wages. Most states require employers to carry some kind of workers’ compensation insurance — Texas is a notable exception. But the restaurant industry is notorious for not having this kind of coverage. If a restaurant worker’s employer doesn’t have that insurance, that worker would typically have standing to sue the restaurant’s owners.

Is it likely that liability protections will be included in the second stimulus bill?

Business owners are generally very much in favor of these protections, which all but eliminate the potential for pricey lawsuits. According to Forbes, businesses are terrified that they will face a “wave” of lawsuits as they bring their employees back to work and those employees get sick. As such, businesses of all sizes have a major interest in ensuring that enhanced liability protections are included in the second stimulus package.

These businesses have a strong ally in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has described liability protections as a “red line,” and said that he won’t negotiate with Democrats over their inclusion in the upcoming stimulus bill. Meanwhile, most — but not all — Democrats are firmly opposed to the inclusion of liability protections. In an interview on Meet the Press on Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Democrats would not support a bill in which these protections are included. “If you get sick, you have no recourse because we’ve given the employer protection,” Pelosi said. “And if you don’t go to work because you’re afraid of being sick and you have that job opportunity, you don’t get unemployment insurance. This is so unfair.”

Considering how far apart both parties are on the issue, there isn’t much time to come to a consensus before Congress’s upcoming recess. Democratic leadership has pledged to get a deal done before then, but it’s unclear how these liability protections will look in the bill that is ultimately signed by Trump.

How does this apply to restaurants and restaurant workers?

Because of their frequent contact with the public and the nature of dining spaces, restaurant workers are especially vulnerable to COVID-19. Countless workers across the country have contracted the virus, and many have died. If Republican lawmakers get their way, it would be nearly impossible for restaurant workers who get sick on the job to sue their employers to pay for medical expenses.

This is compounded by the fact that most restaurant workers lack employer-provided health insurance. According to one 2019 survey, only 31 percent of restaurants reported offering health insurance to their employees, and less than a quarter of those businesses provided workers’ compensation insurance. Without health insurance, paying medical bills associated with contracting COVID-19 is an extreme financial burden.

If the Democrats win this fight, these workers would have the ability to sue businesses that flout health and safety guidelines during the pandemic. A key issue here is that there is no federally codified set of guidelines that restaurants are obligated to follow in order to protect the health and safety of their workers, which could make it difficult for these workers to prove that their workplaces weren’t following the rules. Right now, there is no federal law that requires restaurants to close, or even inform the public, if a staffer contracts COVID-19, and very few states have implemented those rules. If there isn’t a definitive set of guidelines, how can restaurants be held liable for not following them?

That’s why lawmakers like Delaware Sen. Chris Coons also want the stimulus bill to include provisions for the creation of a comprehensive set of health and safety standards that would be overseen by an agency like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. According to the New York Times, Democrats seek to “establish an enforceable standard based on guidance from top federal health agencies, for workplaces to develop infection-control plans.”

Considering that restaurant workers are among the most vulnerable frontline workers during this pandemic, they deserve a much broader set of government protections than the businesses that employ them. Restaurants may not be able to afford expensive lawsuits, but restaurant workers are even less likely to be in a position to afford tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills because their workplace didn’t implement infection-control standards.

Restaurants should not be allowed to self-govern when the stakes are literally life and death, especially considering the industry employs some of the most economically vulnerable workers in the country. Right now, restaurateurs are worried about whether or not their businesses will survive the pandemic, and they are justified in that fear. The abject failure of governance on almost all levels is putting this industry at risk, but it shouldn’t be up to workers who are paid $2.13 an hour — or even $15 or $20 an hour — to keep restaurants afloat. Livelihoods are at stake, but so are actual lives.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/3hShWsz via Blogger https://ift.tt/2X8NSkI

Low wages, sexual harassment and unreliable tips. This is life in #America’s booming service industry. The decade-long economic expansion has been a boon to those at the top of the economic ladder. But it left millions of workers behind, particularly the 4.4 million who rely on tips to earn a living, fully two-thirds of them #women. Even as wages have crept up—if slowly—in other sectors of the economy, the minimum wage for waitresses and other tipped workers hasn’t budged since 1991. Indeed, there is an entirely separate federal minimum wage for those who live on tips. It varies by state from as low as $2.13 (the federal tipped minimum wage) in 17 states including #Texas, #Nebraska and #Virginia, up to $9.35 in #Hawaii. In 36 states, the tipped minimum wage is under $5 an hour. Legally, employers are supposed to make up the difference when tips don’t get servers to the minimum wage, but some #restaurants don’t track this closely and the law is rarely enforced. Waitresses are emblematic of the type of job expected to grow most in the #American economy in the next decade—low-wage service work with no guaranteed hours or income. Read the full story—published in partnership with The Fuller Project, a non-profit newsroom that reports on issues impacting women—at the link in bio. Photograph by Sasha Arutyunova (@sashafoto) for TIME https://ift.tt/2U6xgXX

stanrubyhill

replied to your post

“When Beth shot Rio every single woman was like OMG, FUCK THIS BITCH!!!...”

Maybe it’s a little unfair to label a lot of people who keep saying they have problems with the racial component of Beth shooting Rio as only caring because it’s Rio, when many of them keep saying otherwise? Also, I don’t see a huge double standard, I don’t know that Turner has kids, it was said he has a family, but I don’t know that that means kids. I do think that we need to stop killing off LGBT+ characters, but as for him being a man of color this show touched on before, a lot of POC feel that when a person of color takes on a profession in the law enforcement agency of the United States, their racial identity becomes largely secondary to their uniform. (Which we saw in Stan’s talk with Turner) It’s considered treacherous to a degree, given how the U.S. law enforcement system has systematically victimized black and brown citizens. So basically there’s not a lot of sympathy for Feds in general, let alone Turner who has proven himself to being lacking in any compassion.

I’m not labelling a lot of people. I’m saying that I find it interesting that a specific portion of the fandom who is currently gleefully giffing Turner’s dead body and celebrating the pre-meditated murder of a black, gay man (and several others), were some of the same (see also: loudest) ones condemning the depiction of a white woman shooting a brown man on TV during a crime of passion (which – as I’ve said before – I did not like personally, nor socially, nor narratively. There are some very real issues racially and thematically with all of that – so I agree with you very much on that front).

I’m really taking on board your argument about Turner being law enforcement, and would love to hear and understand more; and while I truly think there’s an interesting conversation to be had there, that wasn’t the conversation that was being had at the end of last season, nor is it the conversation that’s being had within the broader fandom now. As a result, Turner’s lack of compassion and whether or not he’s a father is as irrelevant now as it was with Rio in 2.13. The argument that is, and was happening has always been presented as the optics of a brown man being shot on television, not who that brown man is or was as a character. In this case, the optics are more similar than they aren’t, and the situations are being treated very, very differently.  

Look, it’s been almost nine months since 2.13 aired. I’m frustrated with people retrospectively trying to change the arguments they were making then - and throughout the hiatus - because trust me, I know all the arguments. I’ve gotten  them all direct to my inbox - to justify outrage then and celebration now. 

That’s all I’m trying to say.

New top story from Time: Low Wages, Sexual Harassment and Unreliable Tips. This Is Life in America’s Booming Service Industry

Published in partnership with The Fuller Project, a non-profit newsroom that reports on issues impacting women.

After an eight-hour shift on her feet, shuffling between a stuffy kitchen and the red vinyl booths of Broad Street Diner, Christina Munce is at a standstill in traffic. Still wearing the red polo shirt and black pants required for work at the diner in South Philadelphia, she’s arguing with her colleague Donna Klum. They carpool most days to spare Klum a two-hour commute on public transportation that involves three transfers.

“It’s not O.K. for people not to tip,” Munce says from the driver’s seat, the Philly skyline passing by. Klum believes that bad karma will catch up with non-tippers, but Munce, a single mother who relies on tips to live, doesn’t care much about their fate. “I have to make sure that my daughter has a roof over her head,” she says. The desire for cash over karma is understandable: Munce’s base pay is $2.83 an hour.

The decade-long economic expansion has been a boon to those at the top of the economic ladder. But it left millions of workers behind, particularly the 4.4 million workers who rely on tips to earn a living, fully two-thirds of them women. Even as wages have crept up–if slowly–in other sectors of the economy, the minimum wage for waitresses and other tipped workers hasn’t budged since 1991. Indeed, there is an entirely separate federal minimum wage for those who live on tips. It varies by state from as low as $2.13 (the federal tipped minimum wage) in 17 states including Texas, Nebraska and Virginia, up to $9.35 in Hawaii. In 36 states, the tipped minimum wage is under $5 an hour. Legally, employers are supposed to make up the difference when tips don’t get servers to the minimum wage, but some restaurants don’t track this closely and the law is rarely enforced.

Waitresses are emblematic of the type of job expected to grow most in the American economy in the next decade--low-wage service work with no guaranteed hours or income. Though high-paying service jobs have been growing quickly in recent months, middle-wage jobs are growing more slowly and could decline sharply in the event of a recession, says Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody’s Analytics. Those who lose their jobs in a recession usually move down, not up, the pay scale. Jobs like personal-care aide (median annual wage $24,020), food-prep worker ($21,250) and waitstaff ($21,780) are among the fastest-growing occupations in America, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). They have much in common with the burgeoning gig economy, in which people turn to apps in the hope of getting shifts delivering food, driving passengers and cleaning houses.

Sasha Arutyunova for TIMEChristina Munce waits tables at Broad Street Diner in Philadelphia, where she’s worked for more than eight years.

This “sometimes” work has put the stress of earning a weekly wage, paying for health insurance and saving for retirement squarely on the shoulders of workers. Munce is on food stamps and Medicaid, and many days doesn’t make it to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. One of her recent paychecks read $58.67 for 49 hours worked. Add in the $245 she took home in tips, and she made about $6.20 an hour. She wants to work 40-hour weeks, but some days the diner is slow and she gets sent home early. “I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, all I do is save money,” Munce says.

But these employers are hiring, and these jobs are becoming a fallback for people whose former jobs placed them solidly in the middle class. Food-service jobs have grown nearly 50% over the past two decades, to 12.2 million, according to the BLS. They are on track to surpass America’s manufacturing workforce, which, at 12.8 million, has fallen 25% over the same period.

Sasha Arutyunova for TIMEn the kitchen at the Broad Street Diner in Philadelphia, waitress Christina Munce keeps her daughter’s photo next to her pad for taking orders.

Markets have swung wildly in recent weeks on fears of a possible recession, which could speed up the nation’s continuing shift from one that makes things to one that serves things. The last recession, from 2007 to 2009, took a sharp toll on industries that make things in America, with construction and manufacturing each losing 1.9 million jobs in the five years after the recession began. In contrast, industries like health care and food service added hundreds of thousands of jobs in the same period.

If another recession starts, “the primary hit is going to generally be in sectors that don’t involve providing basic services to other people,” says Jacob Vigdor, an economist at the University of Washington. On Aug. 20, President Trump, while declaring the economy still strong, said the Administration is examining various options to bolster the economy. Still, whenever the next recession comes, more workers will have to turn to the booming service industry, where low wages and unstable hours are the norm.

Christina Munce didn’t plan to be a waitress. She was in school studying massage therapy when, at 21, she got pregnant, and started waiting tables to put away the cash she would need as a young mother. She doesn’t regret a thing–her daughter, now 11, is her whole world, her name tattooed in cursive on Munce’s forearm. Pictures of the two posing together dominate the otherwise blank walls of their government-subsidized two-bedroom apartment. But being a single parent has limited Munce’s job options, since she needs the flexibility to take care of her daughter.

Tipped workers have always been an underclass in America. The concept was popularized in 1865, when some formerly enslaved people found employment as waiters, barbers and porters; still seen as a servant class, they were hired to serve. Many employers refused to pay them, instead suggesting that patrons tip for their service. A 1966 law tried to bring some measure of security to these jobs, requiring employers to pay a small base wage that would bring tipped workers up to the federal minimum wage when combined with their tips. In 1991, the tipped minimum wage was equal to 50% of the value of the overall minimum wage, but it’s stayed at $2.13 since then, as the minimum wage has nearly doubled. In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed legislation that froze the wage for tipped workers at that amount. It hasn’t changed since.

The regular minimum wage has doubled in that time. If the tipped minimum wage had even risen with inflation since 1991, it would be $6 an hour, according to research from Sylvia Allegretto, co-chair of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California, Berkeley. Only 12 states currently pay waitstaff above that.

The serving workforce remains a microcosm of pay disparities in the broader economy. According to 2011–2013 data from the Economic Policy Institute, people of color make up nearly 40% of the workforce that falls under federal tipped-minimum-wage rules, which includes nail-salon workers and car-wash attendants. The flexibility of restaurant work is in part why more than a million single mothers are on the job. After eight years working at the 24-hour diner, Munce, 32, mostly gets the shifts that she wants–working breakfast and lunch and leaving by 3 p.m. when her daughter gets out of school–so for that, she’s grateful. When her daughter got bullied at school and Munce had to pick her up, Munce was able to get other waitresses to cover for her without getting in trouble for calling off work–though of course this also meant she didn’t get paid. When her daughter was younger and Munce couldn’t find anyone to watch her, she’d bring her daughter to the diner and have her sit quietly in a booth with crayons.

Half a century ago, people like Munce without a college education could expect to make a middle-class wage. But in recent years, as male-dominated manufacturing jobs have been outsourced or automated, women are contributing more to their families’ paychecks, and more of the 40% of Americans with no more than a high school education are being pushed into the service sector–as waitresses, domestic workers, hairdressers and Uber drivers.

Consumer spending on restaurants surpassed spending in grocery stores for the first time in 2015, and to support that, the BLS projects more than 500,000 food-serving job vacancies between 2016 and 2026, a higher number of openings than in all but three occupations it tracks.

“We’re not a sliver of the economy,” says Saru Jayaraman, co-founder of the Restaurant Opportunities Center, an advocacy organization pushing to eliminate the tipped minimum wage. “We’re increasingly the jobs that are available to every new entrant into the economy, including people being laid off from other sectors.”

Karen Baker, 52, one of Munce’s managers at Broad Street Diner, says she once made $90,000 a year as an assistant production manager in a plant that made plastic soda bottles. When the plant moved to Iowa, she didn’t want to uproot her family so she returned to the service industry. “That’s one good thing–if you can’t find a job anywhere else, you can always find a job waitressing,” she says.

This is true of many service jobs, says David Autor, an economist at MIT who studies the future of work. But as job seekers are flooding into those fields, they’re being met with low pay, few benefits and no raises as they age and gain more expertise. In 1980, 43% of workers without a college education were in middle-skill jobs; by 2016, that number had dropped to 29%, Autor says.

Sasha Arutyunova for TIMETwo-thirds of tipped workers in America are women, and female waitstaff make less than men do.

A raise for tipped workers, then, could mean a raise for middle-class families across the country, says Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute who worked in the Department of Labor under President Obama. In the seven states where servers are paid the regular minimum wage for those states before tips, including Minnesota and Oregon, the poverty rate for waitstaff and bartenders is 11.1%, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Where there’s a separate tipped wage, the poverty rate among waitstaff is 18.5%.

Under Pennsylvania’s $2.83-an-hour tipped minimum wage, Baker’s colleague Debbie Aladean, 74, says she can’t retire because she has so little Social Security. Olivia Austin, a 30-year-old waitress in rural Pennsylvania, started driving across the border to a restaurant in New York, where there was a higher minimum wage, because she couldn’t save any money as a waitress in Pennsylvania. “Most of the people I worked with could barely pay their rent,” she says.

Of course, some do quite well in the restaurant industry–especially white men, who are more frequently employed by fine-dining establishments. According to the National Restaurant Association (NRA), a lobbying group that represents more than 500,000 restaurant businesses, the median hourly earnings of servers, including tips, actually ranges from $19 to $25 an hour. Asking owners to do away with tipping and pay workers a $15-an-hour set wage puts too much burden on business owners and could sink one of the economy’s strongest-growing sectors, they say.

“We need a commonsense approach to the minimum wage that reflects the economic realities of each region, because $15 in New York is not $15 in Alabama,” says Sean Kennedy, the executive vice president of public affairs for the NRA.

The owner of Broad Street Diner, Michael Petrogiannis, is supportive of raising wages. “If [the minimum wage] goes to $15 an hour, then we’ll go to $15 an hour, no problem. I support that,” he says. He leaves reporting tips up to the waitstaff, and his employees have not complained about being shorted. “We want them to make whatever they have to make.”

Sasha Arutyunova for TIMEBecause their pay is so unpredictable, the women at Broad Street Diner sometimes have to pull double or triple shifts when they’re short on cash.

The strength of the service sector offers a sort of tenuous job security for waitresses, but it comes with few protections. Sexual harassment is rampant. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission receives more complaints of sexual harassment from the restaurant industry–more than 10,000 from 1995 to 2016–than from any other industry. Many waitresses have come to expect it. On a shift in July, Munce chirped back at offhanded sexual comments as readily as she dished out nicknames to regulars. When a man called her “thick and delicious” on his way out the door, she replied, “I think you mean tiny and tasty,” without skipping a beat.

After 12 years of waitressing, Munce’s somewhat hardened to the disrespect, but for her, the fickleness of the work is a bigger problem when it affects her family’s well-being. Her daily income depends on whether people decide to brave the heat or snow to dine out the day she’s working. It depends on whether customers order the $5.29 breakfast special or the $16.99 New York sirloin strip with two eggs, and whether they leave 20% of their bill. It depends on how many other waitresses are working that day, all hungry for tables.

This lack of certainty is stressful for waitresses, but as more workers face this reality, it has implications for the broader American economy, which relies on consumer spending to drive growth. Munce has saved about $1,000 by putting aside every $5 bill she earns in tips, but she can’t seem to ever get ahead. During a recent shift, she was staring down a weekend where she’d need cash for a cake for her daughter’s 11th-birthday party, $650 for a new evaporator for her car and quarters for the laundry. She feels the weight of taking a day without tips, wondering whether she’ll have enough to pay for back-to-school season, or the money that finally allowed her to get an air conditioner for her apartment. “My mind is always calculating,” she says of each tip, good or bad. Though the women at the diner will chip in and pay for one another’s expenses in case of emergency–a car accident, a babysitter or even funeral costs–slow shifts mean they’ll have to lean more on the one free meal they get at work, or make another trip to the food bank, or dip into whatever cash they have stored away from a better week.

Because their pay is so unpredictable, the women at Broad Street Diner sometimes have to pull double or triple shifts when they’re short on cash. The day before Munce drove Klum home, Klum had worked her regular day shift, taken her 5-year-old daughter to a public splash park, and then gotten a call from her manager at 11 p.m. to come in for a night shift three hours later. Klum paid for a Lyft to the diner, since public transportation doesn’t run to her apartment after midnight, then worked a double shift, from 2 a.m. to 3 p.m. “The diner’s been slow, so I really needed it,” Klum says. But as bad as the money can be, it’s helpful to be able to go home with cash in hand. She still holds out for the chance of one big payday, obsessing over YouTube videos where women are left a $12,000 tip. But when Munce suggests that they would be better off getting a fair hourly wage rather than depending on tips, Klum balks. “I would never do this without tips,” she says.

Sasha Arutyunova for TIMEMunce works eight-hour shifts at Broad Street Diner for $2.83 an hour; her tips are supposed to get her to $7.25 an hour, but they often don’t.

Restaurant owners say that the problem isn’t low wages, or even low tips–it’s that the federal government should enforce its requirement that waitresses make at least the minimum wage after tips. But the sheer number of restaurants in America–an estimated 650,000 and growing–makes that difficult.

“We could have spent all of our time on tipped-minimum-wage enforcement because the violations are so pervasive,” says David Weil, who was the head of the Wage and Hour Division in the Department of Labor under President Obama. Weil’s division did 5,000 investigations into the restaurant sector in his time in the department, but “we were just scratching the surface,” he says.

The Trump Administration last year revoked an Obama-era rule that would have increased enforcement on restaurants that make tipped employees spend more than 20% of their time on non-tipped work.

The federal government does help low-wage workers like waitresses in other ways–with food stamps, subsidized housing and health care. Some cities have raised their own tipped minimum wages; others have opened wage-and-hour enforcement offices, but investigations on behalf of tipped workers often remain a low priority. In Philadelphia, a branch of the Mayor’s Office of Labor looks into complaints of wage theft. But the city’s messaging suggests it devotes more staff and resources to its long-standing offices guaranteeing fair pay for construction and government workers; its department that enforces wage-theft complaints was formed in 2015 and has only four employees. The chief of staff of the Mayor’s Office of Labor, Manny Citron, who is responsible for enforcement, says that although he was “not a pro on what our labor law says,” he believed that people who didn’t earn $7.25 an hour with tips “could just be a bad waiter,” and he falsely asserted that state law guarantees only $2.83 an hour. Without any documentation showing that cash tips didn’t bring waitresses to the minimum wage, he says, it’s hard for his office to take any action.

In July, the House passed the Raise the Wage Act, which would phase out the tipped minimum wage nationwide by 2027, eventually bringing all low-wage workers to $15 an hour. “Every member of this institution should be fighting to put more money in the pockets of workers in their communities,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on the House floor when the bill was passed. In 2019 alone, at least 12 states as politically varied as Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Indiana introduced legislation to end the tipped minimum wage.

But the Raise the Wage Act has little chance of advancing in the GOP-controlled Senate. It has vocal opponents in the NRA and the Restaurant Workers of America (RWA), a group of servers who want to keep tipping. “It’s a system that works,” says Joshua Chaisson, a Maine waiter who is a co-founder of the RWA.

Restaurant owners say they aren’t the ones who should pay the price of America’s shift to a service economy. “Today, the middle class has been gutted, but [lawmakers] are trying to legislate entry-level low-skilled jobs into living-wage jobs where you can raise a family in New York, one of the most expensive places in the world,” says Andrew Riggie, executive director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance, which represents hotels and restaurants. “We can’t address all societal ills on the shoulders of small-business owners.”

Sasha Arutyunova for TIMEMunce cuddles with her daughter in their apartment in southwest Philadelphia.

In the long, final days of summer, business at Broad Street Diner has been slow. Munce tries to stay positive. The customers and staff of Broad Street Diner are her family, more or less, and not just because her sister, Jeanne, is also a waitress there. Munce speaks fondly of one of her regulars, Bill, an elderly man who likes his toast dark as a hockey puck. “They’ve got the best girls in here, and I’ll tell ya, not one grouch,” Bill says to no audience in particular one day this summer.

For Munce, it all adds up: the freebies, the walkouts, the cops receiving a 50% discount, the mess-ups from the kitchen–each one a knock to her take-home pay. “I am a people person. But at the end of the day, your compliments and smiles are not enough,” she says during one of her shifts, a sheen of sweat on her forehead.

She hopes she can give her daughter a better life than she had growing up. Her dad served in Vietnam and her mom always scraped by on odd jobs, she says, but it’s harder to string together a living these days. She lives a couple of miles from where she grew up. Is she really doing better than they did? She tells her daughter that education is the most important thing, that she needs to get good grades, no matter what. “I say, ‘I just want you to be better than me,'” she says. Not that she’d steer her daughter away from waitressing, necessarily. If you’re a people person, Munce says, it can be fun to talk to strangers all day. Depending on them for tips, though, is something else.

  This appears in the September 02, 2019 issue of TIME. via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

Significance of minimum wage and arguments against it

With the spiking growth of industries and opportunities in the commercial sector, employment is booming for the past few decades. Despite the recession and everything, a lot of individuals have found employment in some revered as well as not-so-reckoned organizations. But what’s striking is that with the rising prices and falling economy, employees have to arrange their bread and butter and sustain a roof over their heads at a minimum wage.

The minimum wage can be defined as the lowest legal wage that companies can pay workers, and currently, it is $7.25 per hour. This is for the non-tipped workers. Tipped employees must receive $2.13/hour in cash wages, and if the hourly tips equal to less than $7.25, then their employers can make up the difference. 

The purpose of minimum wage

Fewer people realize the fact that the purpose of the minimum wage is to create a minimum standard of living to protect the wellbeing and health of employees. The sole cause of enforcing a minimum wage value for the employees is to prevent employers from exploiting desperate workers. As per the standards, the minimum wage should be able to provide enough income to afford a living wage, i.e. the amount needed to provide enough clothing, food, and shelter.

Experts say that workers who can cover the cost of living can have better morale and they can be more productive with a decent standard of living. Minimum wage can be a significant asset to reduce income inequality, spur economic growth, improve employee retention, and promote education and better health standards.

Although the minimum wage is a major savior for workers in terms of preventing exploitation, the fact it hasn’t kept pace with the inflation cannot be neglected. In fact, if it would have kept pace, it would now be $10.41 an hour, and if kept up, the amount would have risen as an executive-level pay, i.e. $23/hour. 

Arguments against minimum wage

Nowadays, businesses and conservatives are two major entities that are opposing the rise in the minimum wage. Undoubtedly there are many pros, but there are some cons as well. For one, the system of the minimum wage is an unfunded mandate that falls on business shoulders. It raises business labor costs, which cause some smaller companies to declare bankruptcy. Labor-intensive industries are penalized, which shits the very fabric of the country’s economic base. Minimum wage is also responsible for job outsourcing and increases unemployment and poverty.

Minimum wage or no minimum wage? 

If opinions matter, then we say, the minimum wage should be decided from the employee as well as the employers’ point of view. While for the industries, the minimum wage is still a burden for the pocket, some capital-intensive industries have also done a commendable job for the daily workers by raising the pay. On the other hand, where many employees are struggling to earn a living with their minimum wage, some workers appreciate that they have that much money in hand.