Worker's Rights

Auto Workers Disapprove

United Auto Workers may go on strike in the US as soon as next month. Also, he got indicted for a fourth time, a Texas woman wins $1.2 billion in a revenge porn lawsuit, Maui asks for aid and less tourists, suing Montana actually kinda worked, and a big ol' undersea cable.

Endeavorance

Aug 16, 2023 — 4 min read

United Auto Workers May Strike

The United Auto Workers union is planning to hold a strike authorization vote in the coming weeks, threatening a strike of 150,000 workers if contract negotiations continue to stagnate with employers.

Union president Shawn Fain had SOME WORDS:

we're done taking their crap and the scraps they want to feed us

As for what they're looking to get from negotiations, here's what he had to say:

The UAW wants to improve pay and benefits and end a two-tier pay system that contributes to wage erosion.

If the authorization of the strike passes and the negotiations don't lead anywhere, the strike could happen as soon as next month.

It Literally Just Keeps Happening Idk

Alright Donald Trump got indicted again again again again again. This time, he was indicted in the state of Georgia for the whole "hey, can you 'find' 11,000 or so votes for me so we win the state" phone call he made to the Secretary of State of Georgia. Notably, that is illegal.

18 other people are included in the indictment (which is huge, like nearly 100 pages) and the indictments include RICO charges, which basically means "we're charging you as a criminal organization intentionally orchestrating illegal shit"

This brings his total indictment count to 91.

Also of note, due to ~laws~, there will be cameras in the courtroom this time, and we're expecting that they will be taking a mugshot, so you'll be seeing that everywhere.

If you're wondering, Republicans are digging their heels in even further and stand firmly behind Trump, claiming that this is all just Biden and the DOJ being corrupt (please ignore the mountains of heavily documented, publicly distributed evidence)

Hey, Don't Do Revenge Porn

A woman in Texas (who will remain anonymous!) was awarded an incredible $1.2 BILLION in damages in a lawsuit brought against her ex-boyfriend for a long running, targeted abuse campaign centering around revenge porn.

The boyfriend didn't just slap some of her photos online, to be clear. He hosted them on Dropbox and sent the links around to her friends and family. He snooped on her online accounts and even directly messaged her about how she will spend the rest of her life trying to get rid of the pictures.

The guy—who is a shitstain on the world's collective tighty-whities—now owes the plaintiff $1.2 Billion (again, with a "B"). The plaintiff originally asked for $100 Million, but got $200 Million for past and future damages as well as $1B because "fuck that guy"

And Please, Don't Visit Maui Right Now

As the death toll in Maui continues to rise from the horrific hurricane-blown wildfires, locals are working to put their lives back together however they can, only to be interrupted by tourists and investors.

Some residents have reported getting cold calls from real estate investors asking to purchase their land.

Local residents and officials are also asking people to just stay the away from Maui when picking a vacation spot. Tourists were swimming in the beaches while people searched for loved ones and lost pets.

If you would like to donate to relief efforts, here are a few funds worth looking into:

Suing Montana is Kinda Working?

Here's a nice update! A while back I talked about a group of youths in Montana who banded together to sue the state over climate change.

Basically, the Montana constitution guarantees the right to a clean and safe environment, and that is not true anymore because of the whole "the world is burning with all of us on it" thing. So, the youngins are suing the state for fucking up their futures, and uh…

It's kinda working.

A state court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, stating that they have indeed had their constitutionally protected environmental security harmed. One of the primary goals of the lawsuit is to require the state to consider future environmental harm when handing out permits for energy projects. Now the state has to either reconcile that with their constitution, or find a different way to weasel out of it. This is likely not the end of the road though, as legal challenges are expected.

Still, these kids sued their state over climate change and got at least one win out of it.

On This day…

On this day in 1858, the first trans-Atlantic telegraph messages were sent between US President James Buchanan and Queen Victoria of England. The cables laid to allow the cross-ocean communication took four years to construct, and only operated for a total of three weeks as the cables rapidly degraded in performance.

Still, we learned a lot, and we still use big-ass undersea cables to send shit over the internet so, not all bad.