FixMyJob- Working America

[Positivist]

I came across this site: (http://www.fixmyjob.com/) in an article on alternet. It is a tool made available by Working America to help non-unionized workers diagnose problems with their workplace and take action to repair them. Many of the options provided are as generic as "join a union" or "campaign against this type of abuse" but pragmatic legal opportunities and strategies for mild resistance are also included.

Now as an auxiliary of the AFL-CIO, obviously nothing radical is ever proposed by the site but this new website does seem to be capable of significantly enhancing the organization of non-unionized workers, and the platform which the site has been constructed on may offer an opportunity for more militant proletarian organization if properly structured.

What are your thoughts? Do you feel that this site, or a similar site could assist in organizing the unorganized mass of workers into pursuing meaningful demands? And if so how would you modify the site, or even Working America at large to better cater to these objectives?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Yeah, on a basic level, I wish there was a "Yelp" where workers could anonymously criticize the companies they work for and talk about the dumb shit management does or the bad/illegal practices, or even just criticize the rudeness of customers.

One of the things that keeps people feeling helpless is isolation and so with the contemporary state of things, even if there was sort of a public water-cooler where non-union workers could get together and gripe about shit, it might help people begin to put some pieces together and see larger trends in work.

I don't know if I'd expect any concrete organizing to come from a site like that (the union one might be different, because I'm sure they could potentially use it as outreach for their channels), but it wouldn't hurt and might help people connect with others in their same company or whatnot.

It would also be tricky because if a site took off in a public way, then there'd definitely be people with anti-union interests (or hired by companies) that could also try and find out about any real covert organizing.

[Positivist]

That is what I was thinking as well, it is often very difficult to criticize one's boss or complain about one's experience inside the workplace and so most just go on accepting their shitty lives as an invincible fact of life. I would hope that this website or ones like it can do something to reduce this, but it still requires knowing their is a problem in the first place.

Your idea of a "giant public water cooler" though only hypothetical, would certainly be an attractive development if it were possible to establish. It is very hard to imagine how something like this could be born out of anything other than an online forum though, except for perhaps in the case of smaller localities. Still it is worth contemplating.

[Sea]

A sort of "crappy job social networking" site would really be something. Getting people do use it would be something else, but it is certainly an idea that deserves some thought...