• Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

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

  • Stern@lemmy.world
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    9 hours 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)

  • Count Regal Inkwell@pawb.social
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    15 hours 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.

    • Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee
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      11 hours 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.”

    • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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      14 hours 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.

      • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyz
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        11 hours 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.

      • tquid@sh.itjust.works
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        14 hours 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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          13 hours 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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            13 hours 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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              13 hours 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.

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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        13 hours 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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          12 hours 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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            10 hours 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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              11 hours 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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                11 hours 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.

      • Count Regal Inkwell@pawb.social
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        13 hours 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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          12 hours 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.

      • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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        10 hours 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.

  • hperrin@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    Because Republicans don’t want you to vote if you have the kind of job that you can’t just take whatever time you want off.

  • Noodle07@lemmy.world
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    12 hours 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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      11 hours 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.

  • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.cc
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    8 hours ago

    We have it in Malaysia if the polling date is in weekdays, and we usually have general election on Saturday so most people have no reason not to vote. And even then, we have law that said employer cannot stop employees from going to vote and this is heavily enforced. Though our election is only one day, and once the polling station close, anything or anyone that arrive afterward is not counted

  • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
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    9 hours ago

    Bcs the few are important & worshipped, the many are expendable and barely deserving of human-level acknowledgment.

    /s
    (or at least I wish it was sarcasm)

    • bss03@infosec.pub
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      13 hours ago

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