8.(8) Workers Rights - ReadySetGooo/Sustainable-Development-Goals GitHub Wiki

Protect labor rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers, including migrant workers, in particular women migrants, and those in precarious employment

United States

Lay Person Tasks

  • If someone in your workplace is organizing a union or strike, support them. Consider starting your own union or strike.

  • See if there already is a union you can join. Not all unions are for a specific business- as an example, content creators in the US can join SAG-AFTRA.

  • Don’t be a scab. A scab is a person who fills the job of a striking worker. This damages the strike’s efforts, and usually guarantees you won’t be able to succeed or get a job in the industry when the strike is over. 

Action Tasks

Resources

Informational Resources

Find more info at: https://starshipgender.com

  • Bystander Training within Organizations - information - PDF paper about the value of training people to actively get involved when oppression and marginalization occurs on the small-scale, especially in work environments. Taking action is vital, and the small things matter; bystander trainings can help people take positive action instead of watching idly as problems fester. https://www.texasconflictcoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Bystander-Training.pdf 

  • Building Resilient Organizations - information - a great article about ways in which our organizations can become mired in problematic dynamics, even ones that are aimed at justice and liberation causes. Lots of concrete advice and recommendations for how to avoid and grow beyond such issues, whether on a personal level or a collective one. https://forgeorganizing.org/article/building-resilient-organizations 

  • Web page of Kat Vellos - information - Kat offers a number of invaluable resources and ideas for building community. I've found ideas from her book Let's Get Together (many of which are also available via the site We Should Get Together) to be very useful in both formal settings (like a company) as well as informal/casual settings (like a circle of friends). https://www.katvellos.com/ 

  • How to Eradicate Toxic Culture from Your Workplace - actionable - an easy-to-watch YouTube video about ways to reduce problematic behavior in an office environment. Fairly introductory and basic, but a decent conversation-starter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIQR5FZnrTs 

  • Post-Meritocracy Manifesto - actionable - recommendations for eradicating the poisonous mentality of "meritocracy" from tech-creation environments. https://postmeritocracy.org/ 

  • Immunity to Change - information - this is a popular book about various ways in which we can unconsciously or subconsciously resist change, even changes we desire. It is aimed primarily at corporate cultures and has a very distinctively white perspective, so please keep that in mind; but it does offer some insights that I've personally found helpful in illuminating why sometimes things don't seem to move forward the way they should, both in and around me. https://bookshop.org/p/books/immunity-to-change-how-to-overcome-it-and-unlock-potential-in-yourself-and-your-organization-robert-kegan/16711272?ean=9781422117361 

Feedback Loops

  • Some companies that hire independent contractors withhold their payments so they can invest the money. This causes serious problems for the contractor employees.

Rules

POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS

Rules

  • Automate union rights by automatic creation, or right to creation, of a union after X amount of workers exist. Have a small business union and family business union to cover remaining businesses.

Buffers

  • Paid sick days, period days, medical leave, family leave.