Random Business News

[easye]

In celebration of Labor Day in the US.....

4 things to know on Labor Day — from the Hot Labor Summer to the Hollywood strikes

www.npr.org/2023/09/04/1197265279/labor-unions-labor-day-ups-starbucks-hollywood-sag-uaw-jobs

Those four things?

1. Unions be flexing!
2. Uncertainty Ahead! (What's new?)
3. Unionizing Efforts are not always successful
4. Big Fights Loom Ahead

For extra-credit reading, cross-reference the child labor and Automation thread!

[easye]

www.npr.org/2023/09/11/1198394085/uaw-big-3-automakers-4-day-work-week-shawn-fain-detroit

Why a 4-day work week is on the table for auto workers

That's essentially what Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers, has been agitating for in ongoing labor talks in Detroit.

The reform-minded union leader envisions a 32-hour work week for 40 hours of pay, and overtime for anything more.

As wild as that might sound, he's leaning on a concept that has captured the imagination of workers all over the world, thanks to widely publicized trials. Microsoft ran a month-long pilot in Japan in 2019 and reported hugely positive results, including a 40% increase in productivity. More recently, dozens of companies in the U.S., Canada, and Europe have participated in ongoing trials that have likewise been deemed successful.

[easye]

Pretty big news here in the US, but old hat for the EU probably.....

www.npr.org/2023/09/12/1198558372/doj-google-monopoly-antitrust-trial-search-engine

United States takes on Google in biggest tech monopoly trial of 21st century

The United States government is taking on one of the world's most powerful companies: Google.

A court battle kicks off on Tuesday in which the U.S. Justice Department will argue that Google abused its power as a monopoly to dominate the search engine business. It's the government's first major monopoly case to make it to trial in decades and the first in the age of the modern internet.

The Justice Department's case hinges on claims that Google illegally orchestrated its business dealings, so that it's the first search engine people see when they turn on their phones and web browsers. The government says Google's goal was to stomp out competition.

[Haighus]

Sept 12, 2023 9:38:34 GMT -5 easye said:

Pretty big news here in the US, but old hat for the EU probably.....

www.npr.org/2023/09/12/1198558372/doj-google-monopoly-antitrust-trial-search-engine

United States takes on Google in biggest tech monopoly trial of 21st century

The United States government is taking on one of the world's most powerful companies: Google.

A court battle kicks off on Tuesday in which the U.S. Justice Department will argue that Google abused its power as a monopoly to dominate the search engine business. It's the government's first major monopoly case to make it to trial in decades and the first in the age of the modern internet.

The Justice Department's case hinges on claims that Google illegally orchestrated its business dealings, so that it's the first search engine people see when they turn on their phones and web browsers. The government says Google's goal was to stomp out competition.

It really is the digital gilded age.

[easye]

Soon to be followed by trust busting and a progressive era; if we can trust what happened last time.

[mdgv2]

In Google’s favour?

Bing is shit.

[Haighus]

Sept 12, 2023 12:43:30 GMT -5 mdgv2 said:

In Google’s favour?

Bing is shit.

Unfortunately Google is also increasingly shit. Most results are an advert these days, and Google images is mostly product images too. Bloody annoying when you are trying to find images of old models and instead get dozens of eBay listings.

[Haighus]

Sept 12, 2023 11:36:30 GMT -5 easye said:

Soon to be followed by trust busting and a progressive era; if we can trust what happened last time.

Fingers crossed...

[mdgv2]

Sept 12, 2023 13:41:08 GMT -5 Haighus said:

Sept 12, 2023 12:43:30 GMT -5 mdgv2 said:

In Google’s favour?

Bing is shit.

Unfortunately Google is also increasingly shit. Most results are an advert these days, and Google images is mostly product images too. Bloody annoying when you are trying to find images of old models and instead get dozens of eBay listings.

Now there’s a quandary for the ages.

Deliberately, paid to be shit. Or….plain old incompetence shit.

This is a sticky one.

[semipotentwalrus]

Sept 12, 2023 13:41:30 GMT -5 Haighus said:

Sept 12, 2023 11:36:30 GMT -5 easye said:

Soon to be followed by trust busting and a progressive era; if we can trust what happened last time.

Fingers crossed...

Let's just hope we can stop before we get to the sequels down the line, they weren't very good.

[easye]

www.cnn.com/2023/09/14/business/deadline-uaw-strike-negotiations/index.html

Autoworkers strike: What to watch for as the clock ticks down

New York
CNN
—
Time is running out to avert a strike that could shut down America’s unionized auto assembly plants and other manufacturing facilities.

The United Auto Workers contracts expire at 11:59 pm Thursday. The contracts cover 145,000 UAW members at the three companies: General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, which builds vehicles under the Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler brands for North America.

If there’s no new deal by the contract expiration, the union has said it will start targeted strikes against a undisclosed number of facilities at each company.

This summer has been full of Labor unrest in the US.

[easye]

Two big news items....

Cyberattacks strike casino giants Caesars and MGM

www.npr.org/2023/09/15/1199681234/cyberattacks-strike-casino-giants-caesars-and-mgm

The name pretty much says it all.

The second big news story is about the UAW.

The UAW launches a historic strike against all Big 3 automakers

www.npr.org/2023/09/15/1199673197/uaw-strike-big-3-automakers

A historic strike at the Detroit Three automakers is now underway.

For the first time ever, the United Auto Workers union is striking against all Big Three automakers at once, after it failed to clinch a deal on a new contract by the 11:59 p.m. deadline on Thursday.

But the UAW strike won't mean all of the nearly 150,000 union members who work at the three automakers will walk off their jobs en masse.

Instead, workers at three Midwest auto plants -- a General Motors assembly plant in Wentzville, Missouri, a Stellantis assembly plant in Toledo, Ohio, and part of a Ford plant in Wayne, Mich. -- were the first to walk off the job under UAW president Shawn Fain's "stand up strike" strategy.

For now, that means the strike involves just under 13,000 workers — less than 9% of UAW membership at the three companies.

But additional locations could follow at a moment's notice, depending on how bargaining with the companies progresses — a strategy intended to ramp up the pressure on companies by keeping them guessing about how their operations would be disrupted.

"This is our generation's defining moment," Fain told UAW members at a Facebook Live event on Thursday night. "The money is there, the cause is righteous, the world is watching."

[herzlos]

So it looks like the NFT nonsense is completely over. 95% of NFT collections have a value of $0. The rest presumably aren't much better.

www.theregister.com/2023/09/21/95_percent_nfts_worthless/

[easye]

Good.

I heard an interest NFT related ad in relation to sports gambling the other day, and it was brilliant and horrifying at the same time.

The idea was that Players would buy electronic NFT "Football" cards. They then could make Fantasy Football teams using the cards and play Fantasy Football. On top of that, you could place wagers on your Fantasy Football team results using real betting apps. Of course, you could also buy "booster" packs of NFTs as blind buys of new "players" to boost your pool of potential Fantasy Players.

Basically a combination of the worst aspects of trading cards, collectible Card Games, sports betting, mobile games, and Fantasy Football all in one game!

[herzlos]

That sounds awful and completely unnecessary. I could see using it to ensure that each fantasy character player is only owned by 1 player, but you could do that with any database driven website for a fraction of the computing.

I could kind of see if it we're talking about buying players for something like $1.