• Count Regal Inkwell@pawb.social
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    9 days ago

    Because they don’t want the workers voting.

    If you “can’t go to the ballot because you need to work” you are a plebeian, and so they have a way of excluding you while technically not excluding you.

    A lot of modern oligarchy is powered by these technicalities. Technically everyone has a “right to” participate in the system, but the whole apparatus is rigged in such a way that in material reality only the same nobility caste that has called the shots since the bronze fucking age gets to call the shots.

    • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      By law employers are required to allow their workers an opportunity to vote. The problem is other stuff like taking their kids to school and having to go to work right after and by the time you make it to the poll through rush hour traffic, the line is out the door and they shut it down and don’t let you vote even though you waited for an hour.

      • tquid@sh.itjust.works
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        9 days ago

        My roommate asked for time off to vote; her employer literally laughed at her. Now, there is legal recourse there, and she would have likely won and even gotten awarded a money judgment.

        But she needed that job without interruption. This was in Canada, by the way.

        • Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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          9 days ago

          This is why you don’t ask.

          Also, you don’t really need a whole day. I’m also Canadian. Employers are required to allow you time to do it, not an entire day.

          I would phrase the question like this: “I need to take time to go vote. Would you prefer I take the morning or afternoon off?”

          If they so no to both, you say “you know it’s illegal not to allow me time off to vote, right?”

          I’ve changed careers since the last election, but as a driver I’d just say “I’m going to swing by the polling place in my way to or back from wherever” and it was never a problem.

          • Count Regal Inkwell@pawb.social
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            9 days ago

            It really depends on how much you need that job to like

            Not be homeless

            And how hard it was to get the job in the first place.

            You can make your legal rights count if you have options.

            If you don’t, you let your boss walk all over you and thank them for it.

            • Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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              9 days ago

              I mean you do have options. We have the labour board here in Canada.

              You don’t tell your employer you’re talking to them. You let them contact the employer. They can’t fire you while an investigation is ongoing.

      • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyz
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        9 days ago

        So the bare minimum that even my little Eastern European hellhole could do was that a polling place closing means that those in line can still vote.

        A poll worker gets in line exactly at closing time, and those in front get to vote however long that takes. It’s not hard to organize.

        • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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          9 days ago

          Yeah, it’s exactly the same in the very opposite end of Europe (and about as poor) - Portugal - which I know becaused I maned the polling places a couple of times and read the rule book.

            • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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              8 days ago

              People generally do it because they’re in a political party, plus you get paid for it though I think it takes many months for it to come in (never really worried enough about it to keep an eye out for that money coming into my bank account) and it doesn’t add up to much per hour for what’s a really long day (from about 6 AM to around 10 - 12PM depending on how long it takes to count the votes of one’s polling station).

              It’s an interesting experience if a bit tiring.

      • Count Regal Inkwell@pawb.social
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        9 days ago

        The thing is

        “The law says it has to happen” doesn’t mean it happens.

        And the weaker labour protections are in your country, the more bosses can walk all over their employees.

        In the US, with their so-called “at-will” employment system, you can be fired at any time for any reason, and if you need the job to like, live, you won’t even bring up your legal rights.

        Mind you even on countries where polling happens exclusively on Sunday (like mine!) there are other subtle ways The Poors tm are kept from enfranchisement. “Voting happens on a work day” is just one of the ways it happens in one of our world’s oligarchies.

        • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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          9 days ago

          If you’re in food service, election day is likely an all hands on deck situation. Incredibly shitty. And here in the US a ton of people work weekends. I didn’t get a job that had weekends off until my mid 30s.

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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        9 days ago

        The law also doesn’t require employers to pay for that time, so many can’t afford to take the time off even if their employer is chill about it.

        • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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          9 days ago

          Oh no it’s never paid, but they have to allow them time to vote. Usually that means wake up at 6am to get to the polls by 7

          • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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            9 days ago

            it’s never paid

            As a salaried worker your pay will not change just because you took time off to vote. So it is de facto requires to pay for the time, but only for those who already have the privilege of a salaried position.

            Edit to make my point even more clear: the current law is structural discrimination against poor people.

            • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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              9 days ago

              You are arguing semantics on whether it’s paid or not. No one cares. The point is, paid or not, your job has to give you time to vote, usually at the employees expense.

              • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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                9 days ago

                Thanks for your reply! I am not arguing semantics at all. I am pointing out an inherent disadvantage faced by lower paid workers in an unfair system. Which is the entire point of this discussion. The fact that you don’t care about a few hours of paid time perfectly demonstrates that the privileged benefactors of the current system don’t even realize that others are being actively oppressed through technicalities of the law.

    • Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee
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      9 days ago

      “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

    • JeSuisUnHombre@lemm.ee
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      9 days ago

      Yeah, making election day a national holiday doesn’t help those of us who don’t get most holidays off.

      • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        Right. Congress would need to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to mandate that employers give national holidays off to employees for this to apply to everyone.

        • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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          9 days ago

          Protesting for fair rest days has taken a back seat to letting women marry women and also ensuring women don’t fucking die around childbirth or complications getting there, which seem to be very pressing and fundamental issues we seem to have lost value in solving. Also, issues like black slavery and prisoner slavery and women’s slavery and rapists choosing their kids’ mom’s and something about the overwhelming prevalence of fucking boomsticks in every part of that and everything else, like schools.

          It’s like there’s a million mind-numbingly simple things we should have solved trivially with an “of course I’m not a dick” vote that we seem to have stalled on or went backward about, and these are pushing the more nuanced class war issues onto the back back back burner pending their resolution.

          Fuck this exhausting shit and the effort to just keep a country going where people are dying and blaming Biden for it. Secede from those richremoved fuckwits and their hillbilly fan base. When all their people are dying and dead, buy the land to settle the debt and then reunify better. We don’t tolerate intolerance, and maybe that means we can’t save this version of the matri-uh, union, and maybe we need to start working on the next.

    • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      9 days ago

      This was my thought as well. Too many years of retail has left me with an instinctual hatred for holidays. Like how Labor Day is a holiday for the rich to “celebrate” the working poor who have to work that day.

    • jaybone@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Maybe OP works at an elementary school 40 years ago.

      Though somehow there’s usually a mattress sale.

  • CyberEgg@discuss.tchncs.de
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    9 days ago

    Because only people who are able to afford a day off are supposed to vote. That’s also why republicans agitate against postal voting and why early vote ballot drop-offs are burning.

  • ntma@lemm.ee
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    9 days ago

    Even if you made it a federal holiday, the wage slaves would still have to work.

      • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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        9 days ago

        It’s on Tuesday because that was actually convenient with the flow of business at the time. Most were Christian and wouldn’t work or travel on Sunday if possible, it often took a day’s travel to get to the nearest town with a polling place, and Wednesday was market day.

        If Sunday and Wednesday are right out and you need a day’s travel time (which also can’t be Sunday or Wednesday) you’re basically left with Tuesday or Friday. And if you’re going to be in town for the market anyways then Tuesday makes more sense.

        It is in November because that’s after the biggest harvests, but not so far after that the weather is likely to be rough. And it’s the Tuesday after the first Monday so that it can’t overlap with All Saints Day.

        On the upside it could be changed with a regular old law, it doesn’t require an amendment or anything.

        • Valmond@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          Some countries let you vote for 2-3 weeks, others it’s a sunday. Tusday was maybe the best a thousand years ago but who cares? Thanks for the interesting history lesson though!

          • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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            8 days ago

            Tusday was maybe the best a thousand years ago but who cares?

            Closer to two hundred years ago, since the law in question was passed in 1854. But the point was it’s that way for a reason, and that reason was a good reason at the time it was done. It seems so weird now because of social change that has since made it inconvenient.

            It can also be changed if Congress wanted to, as it’s just a regular law and not part of the Constitution or something else that would be harder to change.

    • pyre@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      how are federal holidays not mandatory time off dude there’s a reason they exist. what a backwards country.

      edit: apparently the concept is so foreign that people don’t understand how these things work. of course there will be exceptions but of you work on a holiday you get a full day’s salary as overtime. this usually assures employers only force work when necessary because most would rather not pay extra. and of course further exceptions can be made into the law. no one said life should stop when there’s a holiday.

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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        9 days ago

        Black and white rules always end up fucking someone over. For example I work in the entertainment industry and a lot of my income is from working on holidays, specifically because they are holidays. That aspect of my job is not exploitative, and if the option were taken away I would have big problems.

      • Hazor@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        I work in a hospital. Unfortunately, people don’t stop being sick on holidays, so someone has to work. I don’t see how it could be different in any other country.

  • Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    In most civilized countries, voting takes place on weekends and your employer is legally obligated to let you leave work to go vote

    • TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee
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      9 days ago

      Employees have to let you leave to vote.

      They can also fire you the next day for a coincidentally unrelated reason, and unless you have 50k in lawyers retainers handy there’s not shit you can do about it

    • DerisionConsulting@lemmy.ca
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      8 days ago

      Some places give you a whole week to vote, and the polls are open 12 hours a day. So if you something happens and your plans are ruined, you have ample time to still make it to the polls.

      • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        I’d feel weird voting for other stuff on a day called presidents Day now. Maybe we should add more days. Like governors day and mayors day. Oh and county comptroller day!!! We should have cookouts on that day also, obviously.

      • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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        9 days ago

        It has a purpose…that’s when we have big sales at the car dealerships. Just as George Washington always wanted.

        How would people have time to get more car-poor if they had to stop shopping to do something silly like vote for the leader of the free world?

    • bss03@infosec.pub
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      9 days ago

      Yeah, my current position is this way, and I’m a $programmingLanguage Developer.

  • apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    The poor and desperate will vote less under the current conditions. It is all baked into the US cake. Wait until you realize that the US never passed the Equal Rights Amendment. Still waiting on those bastard laggard states to ratify it for nearly 50 years.

  • Stern@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Dudes working at most hourly lower end type jobs still wouldn’t get election day off, unless you mandated like octuple pay for anyone working that day (They should)

  • Noodle07@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    In France elections are held on a Sunday so most people don’t work, the others are allowed time off to vote of course

    • Wogi@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Well in the US, no one was originally intended to vote but the male landed gentry, who clearly could afford to travel for several days to their polling place, get plastered on local liquor, and just shout who they were voting for at whomever was supposed to jot that down. Them that person would go off and vote for whoever they wanted, in case the peasants had gotten any silly ideas and voted for the wrong guy.

  • bamfic@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Why is it election day anyway, why not election month. California and Oregon have vote by mail; every state should