Hannah Giorgis at The Atlantic writes—The Simple Request of the McDonald’s Anti–Sexual Harassment Protests:
Tuesday afternoon in Chicago, a McDonald’s worker and single mother named Adriana Alvarez led a group of protestors who stood with blue duct tape covering their mouths, with “#MeToo” scrawled on it in black marker. “I represent thousands of fast-food workers who are striking across the country against sexual harassment,” Alvarez said after removing the tape from her face. “Today, fast-food workers just like me are breaking the silence. We’re taking this historic step, and we’re going on strike to tell McDonald’s ‘No more sexual harassment.’”
“We’ve seen in the news that sexual harassment is happening to others within more major corporations like CBS, and how Hollywood actresses have filed lawsuits against their CEOs and media moguls,” Alvarez continued. “Now, more than ever, it is imperative that fast-food workers take action and use our voices in the same way—to hold McDonald’s and other fast-food chains accountable.”
But McDonald’s employees—and workers across the food-service industry—have been speaking up about workplace harassment for years. In May, 10 women working at McDonald’s locations in nine different cities filed complaints against the company with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for what they described as a culture of rampant sexual harassment. [...]
For McDonald’s employees and other fast-food workers, the overall lack of empathy from the public stems from the same source of marginalization that enable cultures of workplace harassment. Many low-wage food-service employees are uniquely vulnerable to harassment on the job because of the precariousness of their economic conditions. The specter of poverty complicates—and often precludes—decisions like the one to risk one’s income to protest harassment. Reports of misconduct in more visible, highly paid industries have thus far eclipsed the national concern over the hostile working conditions that many food-service employees contend with. So when McDonald’s employees ask that their voices be heard, their entreaties are directed just as much to media and to consumers as they are to the company’s executives.
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QUOTATION
“Another glorious Sierra day in which one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pulsing onward we know not where. Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality.”
~~John Muir, My Summer in the Sierra (1911)
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
On this date at Daily Kos in 2014—Boehner: Jobless Americans would 'just rather sit around'
House Speaker John Boehner had some harsh words for jobless Americans Thursday. In response to a question at the end of a speech to a conservative audience:
Boehner then lamented "this idea that has been born, maybe out of the economy over the last couple years, that you know, I really don't have to work. I don't really want to do this. I think I'd rather just sit around. This is a very sick idea for our country."
Ahem:
Less than two weeks after the House returned from its "August recess," which stretched well into September, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced Thursday that the lower chamber would be leaving town once again. Not for a week, as originally planned. But for almost two months, so members can go home and campaign before Election Day.
ANYWAY. The "very sick idea" is that unemployed people would just rather sit around. The jobs economy is improving, slowly, but this is still an economy where there are 2.1 job seekers for every available job.
On
today’s Kagro in the Morning show,
Kavanaugh still tops the news. Greg Dworkin rounds up the latest on that front and more. New angles also include a review of the stolen documents story, and that "certain look" his clerks should have. Trump still doesn’t know how elections work.