2d ago

‘A literal gut punch’: Missouri workers devastated by Republican repeal of paid sick leave

www.theguardian.com

Voters approved sick leave mandate by 58%, but lawmakers are caving to lobbying by the state’s chamber of commerce

Being sick is a costly business for Bill Thompson, who worked in the fast-food industry in Independence, Missouri, for more than 30 years, and recently worked at Guitar Center until early July, when he was laid off as.

“As an older worker, I have health issues from working on my feet and with my hands for many years with no breaks for eight to 10 hours a day. I have done it for 38 years now, living paycheck to paycheck,” 54-year-old Thompson said, noting in Missouri, workers are not mandated breaks of any kind during work.

So when Republicans in Missouri repealed a paid sick leave mandate that the state’s voters approved by 58% after an aggressive lobbying campaign by the Missouri chamber of commerce and industry and other business industry groups, he said, “It was a literal gut punch.”

112 comments

This is why progressives win when they’re not being undermined by corporate Democrats. Average people, including Republican voters, support this stuff by large majorities most of the time, even in the face of right wing propaganda.
I don’t think they deserve this because they vote Republican. I think they deserve paid sick leave and a higher wage. We should look inward and ask how we’re failing them if they’re voting traitor lunatic.
- It's because we let the Democrats get away with being awful. Their goal is to be barely less evil than Republicans. If they had to actually fight for votes, we'd start to see results.
This is what happened in Ontario. Our premier took away mandatory paid sick days right away and guess what happened next? ...Ontario voted for him again 4 years later with a majority. And then they did it again earlier this year.
Never underestimate how stupid the voter base is.
- It's because they do these things strategically. They passed these corporate centric laws that hurt voters in the years when there's no election. Then they spend the rest of the time pumping social issues that their conservative minded voters care about like abortion and immigration totally overshadowing the thing they did to screw over the voters. And the, now conservative controlled, media helps them to cover it all up.
You keep voting them in though. Enjoy!!!
- Yeah, screw the people who can't afford to leave! Their neighbors are morons so they deserve to eat shit as well!
The thing that is crazy to me about all of this even when midterms come up people will still go out and support the GOP. There is no bottom floor to hit for them.
It's pronounced "misery"
NOTE: Not a literal gut punch.
Thank you for your attention to this grammar.
- "Literal" has been used metaphorically for emphasis by better writers than you, centuries before you were born. Shut up.
  
  Okay boomer
  
  I think "veritable" is more fitting.
When you vote for GOPers, this is what happens
Even on a day where Missourians sort of overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump, Josh Hawley and Governor Kehoe, they also overwhelmingly voted for an increase in paid sick days.
So they elected candidates who historically have opposed labor protections and government benefits, and then expected to get paid sick leave?
- Fox news tells them the GOP are pro-worker and the Democrats actually hate America and workers.
  It's infuriating :/
  
  Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me for three decades straight and I'm the average Republican.
- I'm a school bus driver and our shop is union (Teamsters). My coworkers rabidly support our union, but are opposed to all other unions (except police unions of course) including even the teachers' union in our district. They're also mostly MAGA. They're just so fucking clueless about their own self-interest, leaving aside their utter selfishness. Our dispatcher is a lesbian who proudly talks about her wife, and she's the most rabid trumper of them all. I had one painful conversation with her where she insisted that it's the GOP that brought about same-sex marriage.
  
  she insisted that it's the GOP that brought about same-sex marriage
  Well she's about to find out the hard way how wrong this is as the Supreme Court is about to (probably) overturn Obergefell
  
  KC here... I'm frankly fucking AMAZED we're still not a "Right to Work" state... for how quickly everything else has been overturned blatantly I'm amazed Gov Heehaw didn't find a way to gut it on the way out.
- There's a lot of lead pipes here still. And massive swaths of empty land that votes against anyone that might try to maintain or replace them via the necessary step of raising taxes.
  Kansas city and St Louis didn't vote for Republicans. Unfortunately both blue patches aren't quite half the States population. But were close enough that there governor is looking to take away our representation.
  
  blue patches aren’t quite half the States population
  Before gerrymandering
- It's absolutely maddening, and it's been happening for at least 30 years
- So they elected candidates who historically have opposed labor protections and government benefits
  In the USA, all candidates oppose labor protections and government benefits; it's not as if the Democrats provide relief.
  (min. wage 7.25, no sick leave, no maternity leave, no vacation, fire at will, no union protections, unions down to 10% (from 40% in 70s))
  Both parties are not the same, but they are both pro-corporate and anti-labor
  
  Minimum wage
  Democrats have consistently advocated for its increase. Including a proposal to raise it to $15/hour in the 2024 platform.
  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/07/can-harris-stop-blue-collar-workers-from-defecting-to-donald-trump?
  Paid medical/family leave
  This seems to be mostly determined by states. Several have mandated times. Plus, the Democrats push FAMILY act, which would federally require 12 paid weeks.
  The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was passed in 2022 - requiring better accommodations for pregnant women.
  Unions
  Democrats push the Protecting the Right to Organize Act - aims to expand collective bargaining rights and strengthen penalties for labor violations.
  Executive actions under Biden:
  Repealed Trump-era EOs that weakened collective bargaining
  
  Raised the pay floor for federal workers to $15/hour Appointed pro-union guy to the labor relations board
  Pay equity
  Passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009 and the Paycheck Fairness Act - both attempting more equality in pay.
  Trying to equate the Republicans and Democrats on these issues is absolutely asinine, completely indefensible and based on sheer ignorance. People like you, too lazy to do the slightest research and subsisting on lazy assumptions and memes, are why a convicted pedophile is currently the president.
  
  The Democratic party is, but at the local and state levels, there absolutely are progressive, pro-labor Democrats. Whereas all Republicans right now are fascists (the few non-fascists left or were forced out).
- Sounds like a lot of people got exactly what they deserve
cant spell missouri, without misery.
This administration is definitely trying to kill off the poor
Fuck Republicans
- Wonder how many hourly workers voted for Trump.
  
  In my shithole town I think most of them did. Can't fucking wait to move to a big city.
I was talking with my brother about how republican state congresses tend to overturn voter initiatives. I don't understand this cuck attitude that keeps so many people voting for them.
- Because the Democrats aren't running on those platforms, because they are also opposed to thise initiatives. The Democrats COULD run on a platform of guaranteed sick leave, mandatory holiday pay, rent control, and other wildly popular pro-worker policies, but they don't ecause they want to "appeal to moderates" or some other dumb bullshit. So you end up with a useless Democratic party in states like Ohio, Missouri, and Wisconsin who refuse to help people because they don't want Republicans to call them socialists. Then come election time they get caleld socialists anyway who support " illegals stealing jobs and giving abortions" or whatever and and shocked Pikachu when they keep losing elections. Until Democrats start openly campaigning on things that immediately benefit workers, they will continue to lose ground to the Republicans.
  
  thats all fine but when the folks you vote for are reversing he specific thing you voted for. I mean its not hard to realize you need to not be putting these people in power. At the very least they could just not vote actively for the ones doing this. I don't see how the dems not good enough plays in. If Im dying of thirst and I have a choice of drinking from a sewage pipe or a stream. Im going to risk the stream.
- They’ve spent decades demonizing the left so thoroughly that any idea that they dislike and can associate with the left hey do so ad nauseam.
  So any idea that would help those on the right just has to be called liberal and they’ll vote against it even if it hurts them too. It’s literally an unthinking knee-jerk hatred and reaction at this point. No thinking required.
  
  Still. They vote for something and then their reps reverse it. I mean you would think something would seep through there.
- Racism > not being a dumb ass.
Oh dumbass Missourians.
Just like in 2018 when they voted against right to work and on the same ballot voted in a Republican majority and the Republican majority tried to implement right to work as the first item on the new session.
Never learn Missourians, never learn.
Sorry, but get fukt red Missourians. I hope they feel as much pain and anguish as possible, because it's the only way they learn, if it personally negatively affects them. And even then they sometimes still don't learn (see: COVID). I feel terrible for the democrat voters that get screwed anyway.
- Missouri has voted on numerous laws that have been repealed by state legislators. We voted an anti-gerrymandering law in but it was repealed a year later. We voted for abortion and they tried to take that back, we voted for better pay and sick leave, and they are taking that.
  I don’t know how red Missouri actually is or if it’s just getting fucked by some bad representation. (Don’t get me wrong, Missouri voted in Josh Hawley and Roy Blunt, it’s not perfect)
  
  They haven't gone Democrat in a single Presidential election since Bill Clinton in 1996. Almost 30 years.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elections_in_Missouri
- Ironically they will still vote Republican. They will somehow blame Hillary for it.
  
  Trump 28!
  
  (/s)
Missourian businesses basically want workhouses... say goodbye to modern ideas of a weekend.
Missouri is a 3rd World MAGAt filled Red Oblast. Zero sympathy.
- texas, missouri and other red states are technically russia, oligarch owned states.
It wont stop them from voting republican.
The irony is that in the passing of sick leave and the repeal of it Missourians still got what they voted for. No sympathy.
- A shithole state is as a shithole state does.
Read the article to see if someone was punched in the gut. Spoiler: nobody was.
Fuck Missouri.
- You're literally nitpicking.
  
  It's journalism. The least they can do is be grammatically accurate. It's half their job.
- https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/gut-punch
  "something that shocks and upsets you very much: I was totally floored when I heard what happened - it was a gut punch."
  So I think the use of literally is still applicable.
  
  Modern dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. They document how language is used, and if an error becomes common enough it will show up in the dictionary.
  For example, a lot of people say "alot" instead of "a lot". If that happens enough, "alot" will be added to the dictionary.
  Enough people now mistakenly say "literally" when they mean "figuratively" that that misuse is now documented in the dictionary.
  
  Um, that's the metaphorical definition of "gut punch", not the literal one. The literal definition of "gut punch" is, well you know, when you take a punch to the gut. It's when an actual fist suddenly displaces your favorite abdominal organs. Houdini was killed by a literal gut punch (rip). As far as I know, metaphorical gut punches only killed Padme (rip). Two totally different definitions, and the whole point of the word "literally" is to convey the correct one.
  We literally can't say that literally every phrase literally matching its dictionary definition (regardless if it's the literal or metaphorical definition) can be literally prepended by the word "literally", because that's literally every phrase in the dictionary, literally (literally).
I've never understood this. Even from the viewpoint of an extremely selfish person; do you want someone with COVID, the flu, or a cold making your food, or even just interacting with you in a retail environment? And as for employers; how shortsighted are you that you don't realize that while one sick person coming in may be better for productivity than them staying home, that quickly becomes five sick people working much less efficiently instead of four healthy ones and one person out sick?
- Let's all say it again... "Cruelty is the point"
  
  Yeah but that's not an answer. It also makes no sense.
  Get people to think through the fact that that does not help them.
- I used to work for someone who prided herself on never missing work. My first day back after catching bronchitis from her, she called me into her office to berate me for taking time off when she was there working with a 104 degree fever all week.
  
  I don't know what's worse, those dipshits that never take the time, or the ones that come in sick because sick days are for impromptu golf days.
If something is voted in, how can 'lawmakers' just choose to ignore it ?
- In the US votes don't actually matter. The democratic and republican party work for corporate donations. So, if everyone votes for issue A, but corporations lobby against it, sometimes for as little as $10,000, then issue will not happen. What are you going to do? Sue? The judges also work for the corporations.
  
  Thanks, Citizens United.
  
  On an article about Republicans it never fails someone both sides the bullshit and brings in Democrats
- Have you not been paying attention for the last 8 years?
- It depends on the state. Many states have no means of direct voter legislation. Some do, but the result is a new law, which can be repealed by the legislature as easily as anything else. Some states treat citizen ballot initiatives as more powerful than basic laws (eg, as an amendment to the state constitution) which are generally way harder for politicians to roll back.
  
  Missouri is one of those states that does have direct voter legislation. Able to even get things put in to the state constitution.
  Trouble is our chucklefuck idiots will vote for very progressive things in state, but then go full stupid and keep voting for the R next to the name despite overturning our voting for direct legislation for the past decade.
Once again:
Fuck the south
- Gonna be contentious with this one. Missouri wasn't technically the South. Iowa and Kansas certainly weren't either. Yet the bible belt all the way to Canada is full of states that drink the red kool-aid of the Republicans...
  I'm not gonna argue "Fuck the South" but the attitude to that is that the South has infected the rest of the country.
You voted for this, no take backs!
They'll forget about it when the petrolum they're dumping in the water hits the memory centers of their brains
Both sides same, right? Right?
- They're not the same, but both are anti-labor and pro-corporate. Neither provides any benefits for workers, Rs have always been awful and Ds have ignored labor for decades.
  Poland has better worker benefits than the USA... we've been surpassed by Japan, Australia, Korea, Canada, most of Europe and now even eastern Europe. Sad.
  
  At the risk of repeating myself from another reply to a similar comment you made elsewhere in this thread:
  The Democratic party, as a whole, is as you say. That said, there absolutely are progressive candidates at the state and local levels.
  
  Exhibit A.

112 comments