> if what is published from time to time on media is actually true
That's a big IF. Unions were invented after the onset of the industrial revolution to combat truly unsafe work conditions in industrial settings where worker's dying was common.
OSHA did away with all that.
The current generation of "bad work condition" complaints is around getting adequate bathroom breaks.
What rock are you living under? Plenty of the documented absolute nightmare of working for Amazon in their warehouses is corroborated by their own internal analysis. Unions are for more than just making sure people don't die when doing their job. The union I am a member of more than doubled the wages of its members after its first 12 years of existence. Crucially it also ensures twice yearly cost of living adjustments. It is the only way for labor to have a meaningful negotiating position. There are shitty unions out there, but there are a lot of shitty employers too. Amazon's internal reporting shows they're going to exhaust the labor pool in several areas because they've cycled through everyone who could possibly work at the warehouses and fulfillment centers. People aren't leaving Amazon because they aren't allowed to use the bathroom. They're leaving Amazon because it is dehumanizing and miserable. Funny how the people who make the lowest wages have to put up with the most shit.
OSHA is always thrown around as either an overbearing force of oppression or a magical savior of the worker by anti-union people.
The reality is that it’s a toothless tiger by design. Many states do their own enforcement, and don’t exactly prioritize it — IIRC, North Carolina has 20% of the inspectors that it says it needs.
I’m sure your cushy IT gig requires you to stand for 6 hours without taking a piss. Try it sometime before attacking others.
OSHA did away with all that on paper. In reality, OSHA compliance varies considerably across manual labor jobs. Here's how:
Suppose you're a manager/foreman. You never outright tell your staff to ignore safety regulations; you simply give them a huge workload with a deadline and set of equipment that make it impossible to feasibly accomplish the workload within compliance. Your workers catch on that in order to get the job done, they need to ignore the safety regs. As a manager, you look the other way as they ignore the rules. If an injury happens on the job, you then blame the worker for ignoring the safety regulations, which of course you instructed them to follow. Follow up by giving them a drug test so you might even be able to get out of paying them workers comp.
This is how it works in the real world. Source: seen it, done it.
...
So why didn't you push back and hold the manager foreman's feet to the fire for the scheduling if you knew it caused OSHA violations?
If you do not push back against management, nothing changes, and unfortunately, to get anything provable in a court of law beyond he said she said... It has to be on paper/in an email.
Go on. Text your boss you can't get the job done on his schedule without violating OSHA standards. Then come back tomorrow and finish it. If they decide to fire you, sue. All the evidence you need will be discoverable.
Don't absorb risk for people not putting their neck on the line.
For heaven sake. You're enabling this type of behavior. Every manager will push and squeeze to get everything out of you they can.
Here's the secret though: It's their ass on the line if it doesn't get done. If they're a middle manager, they now have to go back with hat in hand and tell their higher up they made a mistake. That repeats for however many layers of middle management exist until resources get properly allocated. It's their business that takes the hit if it gets out to client's that project their having built is meat grinding their laborers.
You the end laborer, hold the power in this case. A manager cannot knowingly force you to conduct your work in such a way as your rights to a safe workplace are jeopardized. You have the power to expose it, and make it unequivocably known to your higher ups that these violations are happening. You can report your employer to your local OSHA enforcement arm.
A law on paper but never enforced is no law at all, and a workplace where everyone lets the boss abuse one another is the only outcome if you won't stand up for you, and sometimes, encourage someone else to stand up for themselves. I did it for my people damn it. You need to do it for yourselves and your peers. This is why labor organization is important. Businesses can abuse you because people don't act in concert to the degree the business does.
No work is so important it cannot be done as safely as possible. No one has the right to conspire to put you in harms way. An employer who provably does is not entitled to be an employer in the United States. That is a privilege, not a right.
Fight, damnit! Fight! Or vote with your feet by finding something else to do! If you don't set the bar for people to not work for, and refuse to make their life more difficult by making them accountable for their own malfeasance, you're passing the buck to the next crazy motherf'er who will, and we are in short supply.
The problem is chronic. Activists of all kinds have to eat, see the doctor, pay rent, and so forth.
Those things are currently damn tough for most people, and that's where
FIGHT DAMMIT!!
...breaks down.
You aren't wrong. Having been in those scenarios, when it was my turn to make the calls, the stuff got done safely, work / life balance is appropriate, and so forth.
It's expensive too! Tons of economic pressure on not doing the right things for and with people.
The farther away from the edge people are, the more they are able to do those things you say. The more robust their support network is, the more able they are.
This is pure historical revisionism concocted solely to diminish modern struggles for worker organisation.
Wages are and have always been the primary driver of unionising.
The main motivation was never mustache twirling capitalist charicatures shoveling children into furnaces as fuel or some other unambiguous evil that we have since banished. Conditions have always been part of the bargain, but the goal has always been first and foremost higher wages.
That's a big IF. Unions were invented after the onset of the industrial revolution to combat truly unsafe work conditions in industrial settings where worker's dying was common.
OSHA did away with all that.
The current generation of "bad work condition" complaints is around getting adequate bathroom breaks.