Everyone on DU should see this

[DemocracyMouse]

The new film, Sorry to Bother You, is bringing the creeping loss of workers' rights and dignity to a boil. Democrats, ready to reclaim your union mission?

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/sorry-to-bother-you-is-the-perfect-film-for-labor-day.html?

From today's Slate review:

Boots Riley’s film, released earlier this summer, is a funny and insanely inventive trip that has been accurately described as science fiction with a dollop of magical realism. But from the perspective of workers’ rights, it’s frighteningly accurate in its depiction of the world we are heading toward.

In the film, the main character, Cassius Green—played by Lakeith Stanfield—and his friends work at RegalView, a telemarketing company. The employees get only commissions and no wages at all. So far, this doesn’t depart from what’s legal in the real world: Generally, employers are allowed to pay salespeople on a commission basis (although what they’re paid has to add up to minimum wage and in some cases overtime too). In this case, the reality of what is happening in the real-life labor market is actually sometimes worse than the fiction. For example, supermarket baggers or other similar workers have sometimes been paid only in tips, which is plainly illegal. And Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website allows people to assign tasks for as little as a penny. In such cases, many workers end up with paltry earnings. And then there are the gig economy companies that fraudulently treat their workers as independent contractors, paying only commissions to their workforce, who alone bear most of the expenses and virtually all the risk.

[PDittie]

1. Also on Democracy Now yesterday

Some film excerpts the link:

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/9/3/boots_riley_on_his_anti_capitalist