Workers with Stockholm Syndrome*

[Lydia Leftcoast]

*Stockholm Syndrome, for those of you who don't know, is a term that comes from a 1973 incident in which a man in Sweden held several hostages for several days. The hostages came to identify emotionally with their kidnapper and spoke in his defense after their release.


Anyway...

A couple of days ago, the Chicago Tribune carried an op-ed piece urging employers to grant sick leave so that workers don't feel compelled to come in sick.

The reaction surprised me. Almost all of it was from right-wingers (or people brainwashed by right-wingers) objecting to the idea.

Here are a couple of examples:

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/70017407.html

God bless Communism?

after all, isnt that what most of you want? The Govn to be your mother, father and sole provider?
posted by ventian on Nov 16, 09 at 3:23 am |
4 of 8 people liked this comment. Do you?
Worst Idea Ever

You cannot force companies to give people paid sick leave. There is too large of a percentage of the work force that would abuse this and in many workplaces there is no way to cover the shortage of employees on the job this would create.
posted by averagefan on Nov 16, 09 at 7:03 am |
3 of 6 people liked this comment. Do you?
Sick leave.

There goes more business going overseas, they just don't get it. I rather not get paid for being sick then having my job go overseas.
posted by Frankie on Nov 16, 09 at 7:20 am |
1 of 1 people liked this comment. Do you?

[raccoon]

1. Maybe it's the same thing with people in Red states who are totally anti-union.

IME, many times people who would be helped by unions are totally and unthinkingly against unions. Go figure. :shrug:

And dumbass right-wingers with no insurance are against a single-payer plan. I kid you not. Some of them are.

[blindpig]

21. Consider the textile strike of 1934

The state allied with the owners and their scabs, many were killed, shot, beaten, the union effort was crushed. Trauma enough, ya couldn't even get the old timers to talk about it, and now the have mostly past away.

That darling of SC, Roger Milliken, was right on board, he once fired an entire mill because they had the audacity to hold a vote, even though the union was defeated handily.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textile_workers_strike_(1934)

[StarfarerBill]

2. "I don't deserve any consideration...

...unless my master, uh, boss says I do."

This really is the whole mess in a nutshell: workers not only refusing something that's in the best interests not only of themselves but their fellow workers, but actively working against it because they've been inculcated with the belief that what their bosses want is good for them, too.

Working-class-consciousness is dying a lingering death in this country...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. Yes, I actually posted a comment saying that

some of them wouldn't mind if slavery were brought back, open to all races.

[Echo In Light]

6. This phenomena/bizarre corporate culture affectation likewise applies to MANY perceptions

Class, role, gender role, political party identification, etc

[StarfarerBill]

7. Quite true, that.

[barbtries]

8. it's not going to die

we keep it alive. it just seems like it sometimes.

[MountainLaurel]

11. And on a side note,

There's the positive thinking nonsense, as discussed in Barbara Ehrenreich's new book, where if you're not smiling and shiny while your bosses shove the shit down your throat, then obviously you're bringing your workplace issues on yourself by your negative attitude.

In a related issue, I get to spend an hour today in a meeting on the roll-out of our new mission statement and "Pillars," instead of actually working.

:eyes:

[Echo In Light]

3. "Americans are active participants in their own degradation" - George Carlin

[Romulox]

5. Anyone catch the thread a week or two ago where many DUers approved of child labor?

"At least the kids aren't at home all day!"

:wow:

[barbtries]

9. i think i may know the thread of which you speak

and what i added to the discussion could have resulted in your putting me in that camp. just not true.

[Romulox]

12. If you spoke in defense of child labor, you have put yourself in "that camp"

(and what an unfortunate choice of words, btw!)

[barbtries]

24. i didn't

it's all good.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. Sad to say, I am not surprised

There are a lot of mean and dumb people on this site.

[arcadian]

13. I know a former Starbucks manager who was fired by Starbucks.

For, get this, giving away free coffee, one or two cups a day. Recently we had a back and forth about Starbucks anti-photography stance in their stores. I said that you can take a picture in any public space no matter where and it is legal to do so. This guy defended Starbucks. Some people get used to the whip and learn to love it.

[Cid_B]

15. There must be more to that...

If I work at McDonalds and give out 2 free hamburgers to my friends every night at the drive-thru I should damn well be punished or fired. How is that different?

[bullwinkle428]

18. If they would have been thrown out otherwise, how would that be

hurting the company?

[Cid_B]

28. Not your hamburger to give away...

Also that doesn't apply with the coffee case either.. two old cups just lying around ready to go to the trash?

[arcadian]

19. Really? Several restaurants I go to give me free refills on sodas.

It was two customers. Daily long term customers. They would buy one cup of coffee and he would give them a free refill. It was only these two customers and it was because they had been coming to that location so long that it was sort of an unwritten policy.

[Cid_B]

29. If it is "unwritten policy" then people are usually doing the wrong thing...

There is no such thing as "unwritten policy" ... Thats a common answer though when Im conducting an investigation.

[Toucano]

14. 100% Dead On

I think you really got it. I have had a hard time explaining the phenomenon, but you have hit the nail.

Notice too the economic blackmail that exists.

"I rather not get paid for being sick then having my job go overseas."

The government policies that permit jobs to "go overseas" give the corporation a menacing big stick the carry against labor. It's the "don't even think about it" warning they invoke to hold labor down.

It doesn't even occur to the Syndrome stricken worker that they should be entitled to sick pay AND a job to return to.


Sick pay, by the way, should rightfully be a part of the social security administration with employers responsible for the first 3 days and the benefit kicking in after that. If there were a national health service, employees could be required to visit a doctor to make use of the benefit thereby weeding out abuse.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. Oh, that makes too much sense

When DISNEY doesn't give its workers sick leave, then you know it's pure greed, not a matter of "small struggling businesses" being forced to take on an onerous expense.

Recessions make the "I'll move your job" threat powerful.

Back during the Reagan recession I worked temp, and one company was clearly violating labor laws. I mentioned this to some of the employees, and they told me to be quiet, because their boss had threatened to move their jobs to Mexico if they complained to the state labor commissioner or tried to form a union--which is in itself illegal.

[Toucano]

20. I've been on that end of it too.

South Carolina, early 90's.

Whirpool Corp. was taking advantage of the low, "right to work" wages paying us 60% of what our (union) counterparts in Ohio made.

As union whispers started and NLRB meetings were held, along came the "we'll close this shop and move it to Mexico" rumors.

The whispers died.

Whirlpool closed the plant and moved the jobs to Mexico a few years later AND many of their Ohio operations have since gone, too.

[femrap]

17. Most of these people probably

don't have to work outside the home. Or they're so damn rich, they don't have to work. Or they're paid to write this crap.

May the H1N1 look upon them with glee!

[Maraya1969]

22. They feel like they have no power. Unions give workers power. We need unions!

[Sinti]

23. Continuing Reaganitis

Always please the whip master, because after all you depend on them for everything since government is bad, bad. Of course, we want the corporations to be our mother, father and sole provider - and sell our flesh if it's profitable. If we want to change anything for the better, we have to change that mindset.

[KakistocracyHater]

27. yet somehow the government is GOOD when it comes to war

go figure. Also gov. is good for those too big to fail, & those cost-plus gov contracts that some favored private corps. get.

[scarletwoman]

25. These are people with no generational memory. Sick pay USED to be the norm!

45-some years ago, when I first entered the work force, I can't remember there ever NOT being sick pay. Some employers offered more than others, employers differed somewhat on how long you had to work for them before you were eligible -- 2 months, 3 months, 6 months -- but I can't remember ANY employer not including sick pay as part of the employment package.

Of course, that was along with other quaint employment practices like scheduled pay raises and defined pensions.

It's truly mind-blowing how far we've fallen. And all those people too young to remember how different it used to be have learned to love the whip.

The American worker has been SO fucked over! :cry:

sw

[Usrename]

30. Even small employers had to treat workers like human beings.

There would have been social stigma, even for a small employer, if they didn't meet some basic measure of decency. Nobody would stick around and certainly word would get out and the assholes would be shunned. This whole corporate non-person person-hood has trickled down to even the small employers now. Nobody is responsible for anything, no one has any obligations to anyone else.

I can also lay a whole lot of blame for this at the feet of the evangelicals. They preach that no one owes anyone else any common decency, not even decent manners, because as long as they go to church and believe in God all shall be well and fuck everyone else. In this world view the only ones that should take care of people are the churches, not the government nor secular society in general.

[scarletwoman]

26. Kick for an excellent post! (nt)

[Manifestor_of_Light]

31. I wish they would take half the people into consideration.

Women.

A lot of women, I don't know the percentage, suffer from disabling menstrual cramps.

I am a woman, and for something like 42 years I suffered severe fatigue and horrible menstrual cramps every single month for two to four days. I had to stay in bed. No drugs helped the pain until ibuprofen came along in the early 1980s. I still had severe fatigue.

I was treated with birth control pills, hormones, surgery to remove endometriosis and cut nerves to my uterus, and none of those worked. More than once I heard "This will cure your cramps". That is one of the big lies, like "This is only a cold sore" or "I'll respect you in the morning".


If I had to go to work it was all I could do to sit up or hold my head up. Not to mention having to ask for court breaks to go to the bathroom, from male judges. Or of being threatened with punishment by a male teacher for being late to class in high school because I had to go to the bathroom to tend to my needs in the middle of the day, and the breaks between classes were not long enough.


This was four days a month, times 13 times a year (remember the lunar calendar is 13 months of 28 days, not twelve months).


That is 52 days a year I was sick, which is one day a week. There is no job on earth that would give that much time off. If I went to a doctor all they would say would be "She's menstruating, which is a normal function". The only evidence would be my subjective pain. I don't think menstruation has ever been filed for as a recurring disability under EEOC or ADA.


Minus 40 weeks for one pregnancy, that's 5.75 years of my life gone from illness, including 8 weeks of continuous bleeding after delivery & recovering from a C-section, major abdominal surgery.


I was in a custody fight with my ex-husband and his male attorney deposed me for TWO HOURS asking me intimate questions about my menstrual periods and my disability, because they accused me of refusing to get a job, so I would not have to pay child support. Fortunately, my female lawyer started yelling at opposing counsel about HER cramps when he got too outrageous. That deposition was one of the most humiliating things that ever happened in my life. It was unethical too, but this lawyer thinks he's above being ethical. He's just a nasty vicious bastard.


You would think that men who have these oblivious attitudes about menstruation and cramps and taking breaks, are married to women, and the wives are pregnant, and deliver daughters, and these wives and daughters menstruate. They do menstruate, but the men with wives and daughters act like they have no knowledge of this.


When I was pregnant, I had to take six months off just to lie around the house and eat and sleep and try to breathe. I could barely walk. It hurt to sit up after I was five months along. I also threw up my toenails every day for four months while pregnant due to a sinus infection.


When I was a young mother and working, I had to take breaks to go to the bathroom to pump the milk in my breasts out in the sink, and they hurt very much because they were congested. I had no place to store milk. The baby got formula at the babysitter's house.


I think we need menstrual huts, where women can go relax, be introspective, and deal with their fatigue. Asking us to be like a superhuman man who never gets sick is cruel and irresponsible and sexist.


I don't understand women who are proud of menstruating. I think it's a painful hassle. At least it was for me. Nothing fun about it. I'm glad they are lucky enough to not have cramps.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

32. Did you know that for a long time (I don't know if they still do)

Japan gave menstrual leave to women workers?

[DU GrovelBot]

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