Yeah, it's one of the stolen parts. Well, that's all of them. Oh, yeah. I know. So anyway,

during the strike, affected stores saw their shelves emptied out, recalling images of the early part of the COVID pandemic. And we did hear from United Workers Union National Secretary Tim Kennedy, who said that warehouse workers had engaged in good faith negotiations for almost seven months and raised concerns about punitive productivity metrics imposed on workers which algorithmically tracked their productivity and tied it to disciplinary actions which aside from yeah aside from the ai bullshit and often in tandem with it this is the other big like, oh, we're in the future now. Bosses are going to, you know, they're like, we're going to make this normal. You're just going to be tracked by a robot and it's going to tell us when to fire you. And it's never going to be racist or make a mistake.

We talked about this a lot when talking about Amazon warehouse workers because time off task is that thing that everybody is held to there. And it's this constantly changing algorithm. And where we saw a lot of early labor activity at Amazon, one of the demands was literally just publish the quotas. Let's know what the quota actually is like stop holding us to a metric you don't even tell us what it is like it's it's absurd yeah

no

it's nightmarish

and just uh as a slightly uh positive thing the uh united workers union uh uwu yeah very

cool right except you got to say it in an australian accent so it's uwu Oh, okay.

I don't like it anymore. Our

five Australian listeners are very offended, John.

Aussies love me. I don't know why, but we have a thing going.

Because of your well-known love for the various vege and marmites.

I love Vegemite and I love dim sims and I love a lot of Australians things. Chicken salt is fucking amazing. You nailed that one, guys. Anyway, so speaking to Nine News, Woolworth CEO Amanda Bardwell indicated that the company has seen a quote-unquote very challenging year and said, quote, we're deeply sorry for our customers who rightly are very frustrated right now. End quote. Also saying, quote, we have a really good offer on the table for our team right now. We pay 40% above award rate and we're offering above CPI. These are very good offers for our team and we're hopeful the union will accept those offers. End quote. I just want to go over some of those terms real quick. Award rates in Australia refer to the minimum pay rates, allowances, and conditions that apply to most employees in an industry and occupation. Wow, we pay 40% above minimum wage. Exactly. CPI is the consumer price index. Which is inflation. So basically, which is inflation. This is just a very flowery way of saying that they pay quote unquote competitive wages. Yeah,

yeah, that's exactly. I mean, I will say this is this. The tiny thing I will give Woolworths is compared to American companies that just say we pay competitive wages. This at least gives you a number. That's true. it's also but it's a number you shouldn't be bragging about. Like in the United States, this would be like, OK, so that would be bragging that you pay ten dollars an hour. Yeah.

Like,

come on. It's

fucking disgraceful. So the two parties did eventually reach an agreement ending the strike that included a pay rise and language that quote breaks the link between measuring the speed of their work and automatic punishment. If they fall behind, end quote, according to an uwu spokesperson, they were, however, sent back to work before being able to vote on the agreement, um, which is unfortunately pretty common with stuff

like this. But, but that is a big, that may not seem like a big win, but like honestly, by the standards of Western unions, and granted I'm using the American and Canadian standard mostly, we don't cover as many stories in Australia, but like any win on work rules is so rare. Like wages and benefits. So like, yeah, whatever, we'll give you a couple more dollars. But like control on the shop floor of any sort of working condition, like they never, ever want to give up. And so being able to say, no, you can't just have an algorithm that fires people or declares what the quota is that somebody could get fired for. No, you can't do that. Like, that's a big win. Like, obviously, we want to win more, but, like, that's a hard-fought issue to successfully beat things over. Because we've seen so many strikes where, yeah, again, they'll just, like with, you know, even some things like the Boeing strike where they'll just be like yeah we'll give a big ass raise but we're not giving you the pension back so right so that's a that's a big win well

and especially for a condition like this where it's like algorithmic tracking opens the door to so many more abuses because it's essentially turning your job into a roguelike yeah and your job should not be a roguelike. It should be nice and predictable. You should know what you're going to do when you get there. Well, because like one

of the downfalls of the Treaty of Detroit, which was basically what set the terms for like bureaucratic contract bargaining in the U.S. was this idea of, look, we'll provide constant productivity increases. You provide constant raises. Well, what a surprise. Eventually, the bosses gave up the constant raises part, but good Lord, they did not give up on the constant productivity part. So

this is interesting because productivity hits a natural ceiling way before raises. Well,

yeah, but not if you keep people under the lash or in this case, the algorithmic lash, which is why, you breaking that control is so important and

it's also worth noting since they were fighting for something so key that the strike action was not strictly legal the fair work commission determined the strike to be quote unquote unlawful picketing due to the action preventing vehicles and people from entering the distribution centers we heard from the fair

commission

i know President Gerard Boyce, who said that he was satisfied that the union had engaged in actions beyond those protected by law, saying, quote, the remainder of the evidence unchallenged by the United Workers Union is sufficient for me to make a finding that unlawful picketing of the distribution center sites has occurred. I find that UWU is not and has not met its good faith bargaining obligations under the Fair Work Act. Accordingly, I find it is reasonable to make an order. End quote. And Boyce's order not only required all UWU members and officials to allow any person or vehicle to cross the picket line, but also forbade them from, quote, making, publishing, disseminating, or distributing any statement or representation, suggesting or indicating that any other person should do so, or expressing support, however described, for any other person doing so, end quote.

This reminds me of when I think it was New Jersey transit workers held a big sick out because of all the laws preventing them from doing a strike. And then afterwards, like these judges were just like, like purple with rage and just being like, you can't like your union officers, like can't even say sick days are good anymore because that's like incitement to a sick out or whatever. And like, oh no, I found your picketing was unlawful because it was effective.

Yeah. That's essentially what they're saying. And I also, I just really feel like there's this like covert way of saying, don't bring in your communist mobs to stand in your place. Yeah. I

mean, more or less, but no, but it's just like, yeah, this was bad faith because you, you did a strike, which was mean. Yeah. And

we didn't like it. Yeah. And it didn't follow the letter of the law that we wrote specifically to not give you any power.

Yeah. Like you're, you're allowed to do strikes as long as they don't hurt the employer. Didn't you know? Didn't you get like how our bullshit fake law works?

so as if this wasn't enough fucking bullshit for these australian workers the union also was forced to wait to begin their strike until contract negotiations had started because under australian labor law contract negotiations constitute the only legal time to begin a strike no other context is justified under the law not safety concerns widespread bullying sexual harassment abrupt changes in working conditions or any other such issues and additionally workers who are not covered by any kind of agreement are not legally allowed to strike under any circumstances so if you've got your union but you don't have a contract yet you can't strike according to the law wow

that's fucked so

yeah i

mean not only are there no ULP strikes, which is bad enough, but no safety strike. Like, you don't even need a union to do a safety strike in the U.S. You can just leave. Like, granted, in reality, de facto, you'll probably get fired. But like, and then your employer will not be held accountable for it. But in the, like, in the du jour realm, theoretically, you do have that right. That's ridiculous. They're just like, yeah, well, yeah, okay, sure. They're making you drive, like, deadly equipment that's broken and hasn't been maintained. But you've got six more months until contract negotiations begin. So you're just going to have to sit it out.

Yeah, you can come back to the table in July. And I'm sure you'll have plenty more on your list if you're still alive.

You gotta get these leaking nuclear waste barrels where they're going before we get anywhere near contract negotiations.

Yeah, I mean, rarely would I say this, but I'm just like, that's even worse than American labor law.

Yeah, well, ever since we pushed Gough Whitlam out of power, we've just kind of been tinkering with experimental cowboy capitalism in the land down under. Orders

from Pine Gap. But speaking of another former crown colony, let's move back to North America, to our neighbors to the north in Canada former in air quotes well yeah now they're an American colony don't

they both have like clauses in their like legal things where the crown can take over this or that

yeah like they're technically still part of I don't know the the british order the british uh imperial octopus or whatever like uh um but anyway anyways anyways back to canadian labor um we got some bad news on the front of the otherwise extremely cool canada post strike Because once again, the supposedly progressive Canadian government has shown its true colors and sided with management to crush yet another strike. This time, the nationwide shutdown of the country's mail services by the 55,000 workers at Canada Post. On Friday, December 13th, labor minister, Steven McKinnon directed the Canada industrial relations board to order Canada post employees back to work. Steven McKinnon

rapidly becoming the number one enemy of the show. At least in Canada. Yeah. It goes like this. Netanyahu, Biden, Trump, Steven McKinnon. I

mean, uh, maybe. But so to explain how this works, somewhat similar to a Taft-Hartley injunction, this order from the Canada Industrial Relations Board is essentially forcing the workers into a cooling off period until a determination is made by the government. But unlike a Taft-Hartley injunction, which only is for 90 days, this is for six months. And so the Inquiry Commission will not be issuing its report until May 15th of 2025. So this move by the Trudeau administration uses the same legal as their crushing of the port and rail strikes earlier this year, using a legal loophole to get around the normal process for fucking over workers in Canada labor law, which requires the legislature to come in and pass back to work legislation. Instead, using some weirdness in Canadian law that they have just been skipping that part and using the Industrial Relations Board to order the end to these strikes. And this is the third Canada post-strike crushed by the state since 2011, although the prior two did at least use the standard legislative approach where all of the lawmakers have to come forward and vote to say that workers shouldn't have rights. But Dan,

the NDP developed enough of a presence in Canadian politics that they wouldn't be able to do that anymore, which stopped them. Except it didn't. They just figured out an even quicker and more vicious way to do it.

I just this to me is further cementing the loss of the liberals in Canada in the coming election. We

talked about this. Oh, yeah. No. Oh, yeah. They're toast. Yeah. The conservatives are 100 percent winning the election, which sucks because they're bad. It's terrible. We don't like being right.

But you have to predict what's gonna happen if you want to be right so every we have to share everyone is

predicting them that the liberals are gonna lose because they're just basically mirroring the biden administration um and so in their announcement of this uh mckinnon said on friday quote we're calling a time out uh suffice to say positions appeared to have hardened and it became clear to me we were in a total impasse, end quote.

Thank you for that, Dan.

Look, I'm just I'm just speaking like Canadian. So this time, rather than forcing the Canada Post workers into binding arbitration, as they did with the port and rail workers, they're leaving that part out where technically they're not like 100% forcing whatever the inquiry decides, leaving it slightly in more limbo and leaving some illusion of choice and agency in there. But I mean, realistically, forcing a six-month pause in the strike is likely to end in the same result that binding arbitration would have by lowering workers' leverage anyway. Yeah,

it's just this increase. I think of it as the I'm not touching you mentality, where they touch you a little bit less each time, but they're always touching you, and they keep saying, I'm not touching you. Well,

they're just like, no, look, we're not imprisoning you. We just built this cage around you where you're standing right now, and you can't leave. Yeah,

well, it's like, okay, we're not going to legislate it away. We're just going to do like a weird other kind of interdiction in this. And it's like, okay, well, we're not totally stopping you. We're going to give you six months and then you can think if you want to go back out there. And it's like, there's always going to be some qualified thing that secretly makes it good, except it fucking doesn't. It's a lie.

It's also, I mean, I think that another thing to point out is the timing. Because May, I don't think, is a prime holiday season where people are waiting for their packages.

Yeah, exactly. A hundred percent. That is a huge part of it. And so, unsurprisingly, the workers' union, the CUPW, denounced the move, calling it a, quote, assault on our constitutionally protected right to collectively bargain and to strike, end quote, as reported by the CBC. And so workers will be returning to the post office on Tuesday the 16th, today, if you're listening to this, the day the episode comes out. But of course, the issues that workers have been fighting to resolve are not going to just magically go away because, uh, the state crushed the strike. So, uh, while this does, you know, greatly harm the workers leverage and, and likely to lead to accepting whatever deal is recommended, we'll see because like, as damaging as this is, they're still not paying enough money and they're still making workers go through all this bullshit. So we may be, on strike again in the summer. But separately this week, related to this, Teamsters Canada, whose members have been forced into binding arbitration to accept a shit contract from Canadian freight rail monopolies, lashed out at the government for interfering on the side of bosses. In an op-ed in the Toronto Globe and Mail, the Teamsters said, quote, We believe this to be bad faith. In bargaining, end quote. And now we've just seen the government do the exact same thing to Canada Post.

Yeah, and honestly, laying it out in such stark terms, I think, is something that many people need. Because sure, we sit here and look at labor all the time and we can be like yeah i mean clearly the workers should have what they're demanding they're the people who are doing all of the work and uh should be benefiting from that and the needs and dangers they face are very real and the company is doing these and that you know we can we can look at that and identify that but most people might not have that direct you know that constant uh education on labor to just say all right so this is why this whole thing is fucked and and i'm i'm really glad that they actually laid it out in such a such stark terms absolutely

also i keep forgetting that ot is the fucking capital of Canada. Oh, what do you think? It's Toronto? Yeah, well, or I just forget Ottawa fucking exists. It's a goofy ass capital. You think centers of power, it's like Washington, D.C., London, Moscow, Beijing,

Ottawa. Well, I mean, it is in the, you know,onto uh ottawa montreal like kind of canadian megalopolis agglomeration there so yeah um i don't know i i don't you live close to canada how do

you forget that ottawa exists i even have a professional hockey team i'm gonna agree with john here because i mean to be fair it's not like people are like, oh, yeah, New York City is the capital of the United States. But, you know, Toronto should be the capital of Canada. Why?

I think Kitchener should be the capital of Canada. Whatever. Sure. I don't know. I don't know why. Who cares? Oh,

we're just having fun here. Yeah. Just to keep it lighthearted while we can.

But closing out this story, this is fucked. Yeah, it is. And like, but for perhaps a more analytical take, like there are only so many times that you can do this, right? Like eventually if you just keep shutting off every single avenue for people to improve their lot, even in like a regimented, bureaucratized, neutered sort of way, then like, they're gonna seek other means of redress.

Yeah, yeah. Well thank you for bringing us back to reality on that one because after

our discussion on where the capital of canada should yeah

no because no it's important and and we're gonna be regrounded into reality in the next story as well because we're gonna be talking about uh you know the continuation of the genocide against palestine resistance in regards to it, and obviously the continuing of the repression. Because here in the United States at New York University this past week, a peaceful pro-Palestine protest was held. And it seems like the university called the police on the action, though that wasn't what the article said. It just based on all the evidence, that's where it appeared. They also unilaterally, the university declared three faculty members who are participating in the action persona non grata, meaning that they cannot. They're basically barred from the campus, basically just not firing them on the spot but effectively because we've seen that you know people are fired over time when those things come down uh two of the people who were declared persona non grata were also arrested by the nypd again likely at the request of the university admin uh this is a clear violation of these workers' rights to protest their working conditions at the university. And we've said that many times, because when the university is invested in supplying, whether it be research or other sorts of benefits to either arms companies or any other benefit to Israel, that is complicity and an active participation in genocide. Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, said, quote, This crackdown on NYU faculty is part of a distressing pattern of repression of pro-Palestine speech at college campuses. The AAUP condemns this practice, and we will fight to defend the end quote. Uh... And this process of punishing faculty while circumventing any level of union due process is not really anything new. Earlier this year, Clara C., who was brought into a meeting following participation and arrest at the Columbia-Palestine Solidarity Encampment, where she was off the clock, which I think is a kind of important detail. The first meeting was just some heavy finger wagging uh but then the admin uh demanded another meeting where she was like okay i want my union representation they told her she wouldn't need it but in that meeting she was suspended so

i mean i guess technically you have to like affirmatively and forcefully invoke your Weingarten rights. No, I know. But then to just be like, I'm not okay. I'm not going to have the meeting then. But, but, but it's again, it's like, it's the same. This is like the, the, if like the cops, I mean, granted, of course it doesn't matter. They can do this because they can do anything.