Workers Are Gaining Leverage Over Employers

[applegrove]

Workers Are Gaining Leverage Over Employers

June 6, 2021 at 12:14 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 22 Comments

https://politicalwire.com/2021/06/06/workers-are-gaining-leverage-over-employers/

"SMIP....


New York Times: “The relationship between American businesses and their employees is undergoing a profound shift: For the first time in a generation, workers are gaining the upper hand.”

“Up and down the wage scale, companies are becoming more willing to pay a little more, to train workers, to take chances on people without traditional qualifications, and to show greater flexibility in where and how people work. The erosion of employer power … could persist for years.”

.......SNIP"

[applegrove]

1. After the plague cerfs got more barganing power and the middle classes grew.

I'm just saying...

[DBoon]

3. yes, the 14th century ruling class even tried to enforce maximum wage levels

to keep wages from rising:

From the perspective of many of the survivors, the effect of the plague may have been ultimately favorable, as the massive reduction of the workforce meant their labour was suddenly in higher demand. R. H. Hilton has argued that those English peasants who survived found their situation to be much improved. For many Europeans, the 15th century was a golden age of prosperity and new opportunities. The land was plentiful, wages high, and serfdom had all but disappeared. A century later, as population growth resumed, the lower classes again faced deprivation and famine.

...

Furthermore, the plague's great population reduction brought cheaper land prices, more food for the average peasant, and a relatively large increase in per capita income among the peasantry, if not immediately, in the coming century. Since the plague left vast areas of farmland untended, they were made available for pasture and put more meat on the market; the consumption of meat and dairy products went up, as did the export of beef and butter from the Low Countries, Scandinavia, and northern Germany. However, the upper class often attempted to stop these changes, initially in Western Europe, and more forcefully and successfully in Eastern Europe, by instituting sumptuary laws. These regulated what people (particularly of the peasant class) could wear, so that nobles could ensure that peasants did not begin to dress and act as a higher class member with their increased wealth. Another tactic was to fix prices and wages, so that peasants could not demand more with increasing value. In England, the Statute of Labourers 1351 was enforced, meaning, no peasant could ask for more wages than in 1346.

- Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequences_of_the_Black_Death

[applegrove]

4. Thanks. Very interesting.

[ck4829]

5. I wonder if eastern Europe's sumptuary laws had consequences even today

Take an era after these laws were passed and compare the standards of living between the west and east of Europe.

Even taking into effect things like communism, the Soviet Union, world war 2, and Balkanization; it makes me wonder if this totalitarianism of these sumptuary laws made it harder for innovation, technology, agricultural development, expression, etc. that affects the region even to today.

And those things I mentioned... may have hit Eastern Europe to a greater effect because of the sumptuary madness.

Critical Race Theory

[DBoon]

6. I believe Eastern Europe always had a more oppressive form of feudalism

Stronger sumptuary laws were a manifestation of this.

[ck4829]

2. "Without traditional qualifications" AKA "PhD for an entry level job"

Last edited Tue Jun 29, 2021, 11:09 AM - Edit history (1)

This is the way it should be, may it swing this way for years to come!

Critical Race Theory