Re: Gawker unionized

1

Maybe Unfogged commenters should unionize. We could negotiate a higher price for our deep insights and profound wisdom.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 06- 4-15 6:19 PM
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2

I'm pretty sure we have discussed it, and that TRO was as conflicted as you'd expect.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 06- 4-15 6:30 PM
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3

But now it's actually happened.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 06- 4-15 6:31 PM
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4

Indeed, and that's certainly noteworthy. I was just answering the questions in the OP.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 06- 4-15 6:38 PM
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5

Which questions I may have misunderstood, I now realize.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 06- 4-15 6:39 PM
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6

I meant to ask whether their actually now having voted had come up, but I realize that it was unclear.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 06- 4-15 7:01 PM
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7

I don't remember talking about this here or demonstrating an interest in this particular issue, but then again I often comment in a stream of consciousness, sometimes while drunk or driving (not at once, assholes), so who can say what I may or may not have written before. It is awesome that Gawker unionized, even though IMO much (but not all, I mostly like Jalopnik and a lot of Deadspin) of their product still sucks. If Hollywood (-ish, it's the WGA East, not West) unions can make an inroad into the online content industry that is hugely important for creative people everywhere so right the fuck on. Right the fuck on!

Also, I'd like to see Rich Trumka hang out as a Jezebel guest-poster for a day, after which he would presumably find a bunch of old-school industrial-union thugs to murder the internet.


Posted by: T"R"O | Link to this comment | 06- 4-15 7:13 PM
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I know! I've met Trumka. But there's got to be someone left in the UMWA who can take out Jezebel.


Posted by: TRO | Link to this comment | 06- 4-15 8:49 PM
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9

7: You comment (or text) while driving?! That's dangerous and not legal here.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 06- 5-15 3:13 AM
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10

I thought only texting was bad. Commenting isn't really very different from sending emails.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06- 5-15 5:19 AM
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11

Give the Gawker management credit for not being assholes:

we hope the labor drive at Gawker Media, culminating in the June 3 election, can serve as a new model for cooperation in digital media.

But it's not clear to me that non-assholishness by management has any chance at all of becoming some kind of trend.

(In the gun thread, I appreciated knecht's entirely implausible narrative about how sensible gun laws are possible in the US in some small number of decades. If he wants to explain how unionism is going to be revived in the US, I'd enjoy that too.)


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 06- 5-15 6:36 AM
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11: it's not legal there, either.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 06- 5-15 6:36 AM
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13

13 to 14.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06- 5-15 6:37 AM
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14

He said "driving," not "moving." Still illegal, less dangerous.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 5-15 6:57 AM
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15

Everybody who wants to comment while commuting should take the bus.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06- 5-15 6:58 AM
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I was largely kidding in 7, but, yes, on those very few times when I have commented while driving it's because I've been stuck in a total standstill in traffic and not moving at all. Still definitely illegal.


Posted by: TRO | Link to this comment | 06- 5-15 7:51 AM
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He said "driving," not "moving." Still illegal, less dangerous.

In Virginia, the texting-and-driving statute expressly excludes drivers of a vehicle that is "lawfully stopped," meaning it's perfectly legal to text while you're, for instance, at a stoplight. Which is really awesome, because now plenty of drivers are reading their phones at red lights and then missing the switch from red to green, which prompts ICY DEATH STARES from the driver behind and a gentle honk from my Honda Civic.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 06- 5-15 8:46 AM
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18

"Gawker's Idealism Is Exactly What the Labor Movement Needs"

"Their union drive is strikingly performative--they have enunciated their justifications for their organizing of Gawker in Gawker. And these justifications are not entirely or even mostly regarding specific workplaces grievances. They are, instead, broad arguments on behalf of unions as vehicles of worker empowerment."


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 06- 5-15 8:45 PM
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There is hope to be found in the Chicago Teachers Union strike and Fight for $15. It's a different model -- social unionism -- that has meaningful potential.

http://monthlyreview.org/2013/06/01/the-rebirth-of-the-chicago-teachers-union-and-possibilities-for-a-counter-hegemonic-education-movement

http://labornotes.org/2012/10/how-chicago-teachers-got-organized-strike


Posted by: Sir Kraab | Link to this comment | 06- 7-15 4:34 PM
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There is hope to be found in the Chicago Teachers Union strike and Fight for $15. It's a different model -- social unionism -- that has meaningful potential.

http://monthlyreview.org/2013/06/01/the-rebirth-of-the-chicago-teachers-union-and-possibilities-for-a-counter-hegemonic-education-movement

http://labornotes.org/2012/10/how-chicago-teachers-got-organized-strike


Posted by: Sir Kraab | Link to this comment | 06- 7-15 4:34 PM
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