StarTopic Nintendo General Discussion |ST19 April 2023| A tradition unlike any other

[merp]

You can record yourself with your phone, you either find out that you snore or that you live in Luigi's Mansion. If you own an Apple Watch IIRC it can give you some pointers on that.

I used to be a bad sleeper until I realized I snore. I dropped a few pounds and I'm doing much better, but more extreme cases might require a CPAP mask.

Sleep apnea is no joke.

Get a CPAP if you need one; there aren't many barriers to getting one, though it does have a cost.

 

[merp]

Nintendo needs to match this and buy me a pizza with black olives

The peeps behind Stronghold Crusaders?

Because if so, damn, that takes me back.

 

[Dardan Sandiego]

The peeps behind Stronghold Crusaders?

Because if so, damn, that takes me back.

That's Firefly. This studio hasn't released a game yet.

 

[merp]

That's Firefly. This studio hasn't released a game yet.

And like that, my excitement has deflated.

 

[Plum]

You can record yourself with your phone, you either find out that you snore or that you live in Luigi's Mansion. If you own an Apple Watch IIRC it can give you some pointers on that.

I used to be a bad sleeper until I realized I snore. I dropped a few pounds and I'm doing much better, but more extreme cases might require a CPAP mask.

If you take too many like I recently did, it can ruin your sleep quality.

However, in your case, you might need sleeping pills (just one, such as MidNite Melatonin, every now and then).

One thing to realize is this: you're on a gaming forum. You play lots of video games. So you may be getting too much blue light, which you can deal with by using screen protectors for your laptop, like I do, and, I believe, your Steam Deck as well (which admittedly I don't do).

Otherwise, this article came out 8 hours ago from now (I searched "sleep hygiene" on Google News); try it out:

Sleep: Meditation, Sleep Hygiene & Other Effective Tips To Ensure Good Quality Sleep

Achieving good sleep requires developing healthy sleep habits and maintaining a regular sleep schedule.

doctor.ndtv.com

Sleep disorders are an avoidable epidemic

Most people do not get enough sleep. The average person worldwide gets 6.8 hours of rest, which is not nearly the healthy eight hours most people require to function. Approximately 100 million Americans, or 30% of the population, are thought to suffer from sleep disorders at present. These...

dailycampus.com

These two articles might be of use to you.

Thanks! Do have an Apple Watch; just never used it for sleep stuff. I'll use that and do a recording tonight as well Will also give a read of those articles.

 

[merp]

New trailer for Redfall.



I'll be honest, I was more excited for this game before I learned that it had gameplay at, I think, 32 FPS but maybe I heard differently?

Also, thoughts on the trailer and the outlook of this game so far?

 

[meatbag]

I never got weed culture.

Never got it either, in much the same way I never understood alcohol. I much prefer being in a state of sobriety.

 

[merp]

Thanks! Do have an Apple Watch; just never used it for sleep stuff. I'll use that and do a recording tonight as well Will also give a read of those articles.

Just remember the amount of caffeine you consume (and I'm not just talking about coffee).

One last thing:

Waking up at a set time and sleeping at a set time can work a ton because your body will remember when to wake and when to sleep.

It's sort of like a mental ritual; it works, though, psychologically and biologically, I believe.

 

[hologram]

Could've sworn 420 was the cop code for marijuana and that's where it came from but I don't know.

That's a popular explanation, but I'm pretty sure it's a myth

 

[merp]

Never got it either, in much the same way I never understood alcohol. I much prefer being in a state of sobriety.

I drink wine and beer when they're around, but I never go out of my way to actually drink, period.

You won't find me, say, getting a champaign bottle from Food Lion or whatever.

 

[Deleted member 1108]

New trailer for Redfall.



I'll be honest, I was more excited for this game before I learned that it had gameplay at, I think, 32 FPS but maybe I heard differently?

Also, thoughts on the trailer and the outlook of this game so far?

Xbox version will launch at 4K30fps with a 60fps mode planned for later. PC is unaffected iirc.

 

[merp]

That's a popular explanation, but I'm pretty sure it's a myth

Like a lot of weird shit from the 2000s (9/11 conspiracism, the rise of Fox News, the hate against Britney Spears, the cementation of reality TV, the fucking Iraq war itself, etc.):

It's based on hearsay and the logic behind believing it boils down to:

"It's notable and secretly diabolical so it must be true."

Damn, now y'all got me going about the 2000s lol

 

[Plum]

Just remember the amount of caffeine you consume (and I'm not just talking about coffee).

One last thing:

Waking up at a set time and sleeping at a set time can work a ton because your body will remember when to wake and when to sleep.

It's sort of like a mental ritual; it works, though, psychologically and biologically, I believe.

Yeah... my caffeine consumption is not great lol. Most days I have at least 1 Monster Ultra. Sometimes 2. Though never more.

As for waking up and sleeping at set times; I do try, but damn is it difficult. Especially when late evenings is pretty much the only time I can feel like I can relax. It's #293 on my list of reasons I want to move out lol

 

[merp]

Yeah... my caffeine consumption is not great lol. Most days I have at least 1 Monster Ultra. Sometimes 2. Though never more.

As for waking up and sleeping at set times; I do try, but damn is it difficult. Especially when late evenings is pretty much the only time I can feel like I can relax. It's #293 on my list of reasons I want to move out lol

Another thing may genuinely be your environment so there's that to consider.

Anyway, I'm done and I'm not a verified expert on sleep hygiene so, yeah, maybe do your own research sometime and figure it out; everyone is different.

 

[hologram]

Like a lot of weird shit from the 2000s (9/11 conspiracism, the rise of Fox News, the hate against Britney Spears, the cementation of reality TV, the fucking Iraq war itself, etc.):

It's based on hearsay and the logic behind believing it boils down to:

"It's notable and secretly diabolical so it must be true."

Damn, now y'all got me going about the 2000s lol

Look I'm not saying you're wrong in (most of) those examples but that really doesn't have much to do with 420 and mistaken beliefs about its origin, lol

 

[Plum]

Another thing may genuinely be your environment so there's that to consider.

Anyway, I'm done and I'm not a verified expert on sleep hygiene so, yeah, maybe do your own research sometime and figure it out; everyone is different.

Thanks! I'll definitely do some of my own research for sure

 

[merp]

Look I'm not saying you're wrong in (most of) those examples but that really doesn't have much to do with 420 and mistaken beliefs about its origin, lol

Oh yeah, sorry lol

I was just thinking back to my earlier years (childhood, adolescence, etc.), and that comment going off what I said previously in the last page.

My bad!

 

[Party Sklar]

One thing to realize is this: you're on a gaming forum. You play lots of video games. So you may be getting too much blue light

According to my brother-in-law, who is an optician and optometrist, this whole thing around blue light is basically a myth and not backed by scientific studies (I still keep the Night Shift at night on my iPhone, just in case, though)

 

[merp]

According to my brother-in-law, who is an optician and optometrist, this whole thing around blue light is basically a myth and not backed by scientific studies (I still keep the Night Shift at night on my iPhone, just in case, though)

Oh, wow, I didn't know this, if it is indeed true. Damn. Thanks for the heads-up.

 

[Barely Able]

Nintendo needs to match this and buy me a pizza with black olives

Will my Washington state legislative representatives get mad at Sony for this even though this studio is in Bellevue and Sony has seemingly invested billions in studios in that are if you include their purchases of Bungie and Suckerpunch?

 

[EvilChameleon]

Sony bought Firewatch?

 

[HockeyBird]

Feels like people are often reacting to the word acquired and reacting without actually looking into who or what was acquired.

"Company has just acquired Criminal Studios!"
"Oh, this is a great get for Company"
"Known for their human trafficking and money laundering"
"Oh well you see the acquisition must mean Company has confidence in their ability to evade the law and..."

 

[meatbag]

Especially when late evenings is pretty much the only time I can feel like I can relax

That’s actually a pretty common reason for why people stay up late. Tough part is that you need to put some effort into changing up your sleeping habits.

Feels like people are often reacting to the word acquired and reacting without actually looking into who or what was acquired

Internet loves its kneejerk hot takes

 

[Barely Able]

And the blue checks are gone. Don’t trust anyone with a check mark at this point

 

[Deleted member 1108]

Sony bought Firewatch?

No they bought a copy of Twin Peaks Firewalk with me

 

[Awesomegames23]

And the blue checks are gone. Don’t trust anyone with a check mark at this point

Got it

 

[CastletonSnob]

My plan for Pikmin so far:

Day 1: 1 Part.

Day 2: 3 Parts.

Day 3: 1 Part.

Day 4: 3 Parts.

Day 5: 2 Parts.

Day 6: 1 Part.

Day 7: 1 Part.

 

[famicorpse]

And the blue checks are gone. Don’t trust anyone with a check mark at this point

Hopefully Twitter gets worse and a better alternative comes from it.

 

[Party Sklar]

Hopefully Twitter gets worse and a better alternative comes from it.

or even better, the banks take Twitter back from Elon and someone who is not a moron is put in charge and Twitter becomes great once again (let me believe)

More seriously, I wonder where the brands will go to make announcements if Twitter dies. Will we have like Instagram Directs in the future ?

 

[Mr_No_U]

From

HALO

to

halol

 

[Sir Sonic]

guys I have a question
If I want to buy vouchers and redeem both Zelda TotK and Pikmin 4, can I buy a one month online service subscription and pre-order both and don't deal with subscription again.
or I have to to extend my subscription until both game's release date?

 

[thoughthaver]

Feels like people are often reacting to the word acquired and reacting without actually looking into who or what was acquired.

"Company has just acquired Criminal Studios!"
"Oh, this is a great get for Company"
"Known for their human trafficking and money laundering"
"Oh well you see the acquisition must mean Company has confidence in their ability to evade the law and..."

finally we found the CEO of Crimes

 

[Brofield]

finally we found the CEO of Crimes

 

[Barely Able]

guys I have a question
If I want to buy vouchers and redeem both Zelda TotK and Pikmin 4, can I buy a one month online service subscription and pre-order both and don't deal with subscription again.
or I have to to extend my subscription until both game's release date?

It says you need an active membership to redeem. Now. It doesn’t not say anything about redeeming it as a preorder and then downloading it after. I assume that is okay because the wording is clear that you can use/keep the game if your NSO expires but it is not clear at all on their FAQ

Nintendo Support: Nintendo Switch Game Vouchers FAQ

en-americas-support.nintendo.com

 

[thoughthaver]

Will my Washington state legislative representatives get mad at Sony for this even though this studio is in Bellevue and Sony has seemingly invested billions in studios in that are if you include their purchases of Bungie and Suckerpunch?

they should lobby sony to get off their asses and make a twisted metal collection

 

[SammyJ9]

I'm just always tired recently.

Tbh, I blame the weather. Feels more like November rather than April.

At least around here, April and November are practically the same month anyway so that’s not too unusual. I guess April is lighter since it’s on DST, but temps are fairly comparable.

But I feel being tired, this week has been rough. I could really use some vacation, but I have to wait until TOTK weekend for that (which will be great!)

 

[MisterSpo]

Do preloaded games only unlock at midnight or is there some glitch whereby my Switch and or Nintendo can't tell the time and Advance Wars is now accidentally playable


Asking for a uhhhh friend

I'm the friend

 

[Sir Sonic]

It says you need an active membership to redeem. Now. It doesn’t not say anything about redeeming it as a preorder and then downloading it after. I assume that is okay because the wording is clear that you can use/keep the game if your NSO expires but it is not clear at all on their FAQ

Nintendo Support: Nintendo Switch Game Vouchers FAQ

en-americas-support.nintendo.com

Yeah I read them beforehand, doesn't specify either

 

[merp]

Merp's Labor Update

1.



2.

The US has a child labor crisis. Lawmakers are trying to make it worse. : Peoples Dispatch

Iowa just passed one of the most extreme pro-child labor bills in recent times, leaving employers off the hook if a child worker dies on the job

peoplesdispatch.org

Iowa just passed one of the most extreme pro-child labor bills in recent times, leaving employers off the hook if a child worker dies on the job

3.

In L.A. Schools, Solidarity Strike Scores Big for Both Unions

When Los Angeles educators joined school support staff on the picket lines last month, our solidarity strike helped them clinch a contract with a 30 percent raise. Riding that wave, yesterday educators reached a tentative agreement of our own, with a 21 percent raise, smaller classes, and...

labornotes.org

When Los Angeles educators joined school support staff on the picket lines last month, our solidarity strike helped them clinch a contract with a 30 percent raise.

Riding that wave, yesterday educators reached a tentative agreement of our own, with a 21 percent raise, smaller classes, and improved staffing.

Superintendent Alberto Carvalho had scoffed in February when support staff voted by 96 percent to authorize a strike. On Twitter he belittled the threat as empty theatrics. “1, 2, 3…Circus,” he wrote, “a predictable performance with a known outcome, desiring of nothing more than an applause, a coin, and a promise of a next show.”

But fast-forward one month, and the joke was on him, as 45,000 people filled downtown’s Grand Park for a high-energy rally where SEIU Local 99 announced a three-day strike and United Teachers Los Angeles announced it would honor the picket lines. There were more than a few signs showing Carvalho dressed as a clown.

News traveled fast after the joint rally. The district’s two largest unions, together comprising 65,000 workers, would stop working and grind the education system to a halt.

4.

Welcome to the Union Family: What Working People Are Doing This Week | AFL-CIO

Welcome to our regular feature, a look at what the various AFL-CIO unions and other working family organizations are doing across the country and beyond. The labor movement is big and active—here's a look at the broad range of activities we're engaged in this week.

aflcio.org

Welcome to our regular feature, a look at what the various AFL-CIO unions and other working family organizations are doing across the country and beyond. The labor movement is big and active—here's a look at the broad range of activities we're engaged in this week.

5.

Student assistants file to form union at California State University campuses

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Student workers in the California State University system launched the largest non-academic student organizing effort in U.S. history on April 17, filing over 4,000 cards with the state’s Public Employee Relations Board declaring that they want to form a union representing s...

www.peoplesworld.org

6.

As GOP states shut hospitals, nurses and labor push for health care

Republican lawmakers are presiding over the shutdown of rural and other hospitals from coast to coast by starving them of funds while the nation’s nurses and the labor movement, with the support of progressive Senate and House Democrats, are pushing instead for more staffing to provide good...

www.peoplesworld.org

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Student workers in the California State University system launched the largest non-academic student organizing effort in U.S. history on April 17, filing over 4,000 cards with the state’s Public Employee Relations Board declaring that they want to form a union representing some 10,000 student assistants, mostly undergraduates, who work in supporting roles on the CSU system’s 23 campuses throughout the state.

Later that morning, student assistants were joined by leaders of CSU academic and support staff unions and a state legislator with a powerful union history as they held a virtual press conference to announce their action.

Grayce Honsa, a first-generation college student now in her third year at San Diego State University, where she’s majoring in political science and women’s studies, told reporters assembled on Zoom that she supports herself through college by living on campus as a residence adviser, working as a mentor at the campus Women’s Resource Center and sometimes helping with safety and security at her residence building.

“I love my job mentoring women and students who are non-gender-conforming in the Gender Equity Program, and the center has so many resources that are so important to students,” she said. “Still, the student assistant work feels extremely unstable. We don’t have health insurance, paid time off, sick pay, and there’s so much instability within that. So many student assistants need to work to support themselves, yet the university doesn’t give that support back to the people who are making the university run every day.”

Honsa said she was inspired by the University of California academic workers’ nearly-five-week-long strike late last year, and wanted to be a part of that movement, too.

“The CSU does need to take better care of their students, and hear their voices, because our voices matter,” she said. “That’s why I am calling for the CSU to hold an election and let our students vote … with the union our voices could really be heard and a positive change could be made.”

Another third-year undergraduate, Cameron Macedonio, a communications major specializing in journalism, cinema and television arts at Cal State Fullerton, said he’s very fortunate to be able to live with his family fairly close to campus, but he is largely supporting himself, and among his expenses are very costly textbooks and a car.

“Last August,” Macedonio said, “I got a job right in line with my goals,” as general manager at the student-run radio station. There, he manages programming, handles marketing, leads a staff of 12 students, and makes sure over 100 student DJs understand the station’s policies and know how to use its equipment. “I love the work,” he said, “but I’m the only general manager I know who works for minimum wage.”

Macedonio said he works 30 to 35 hours a week on average – far more than the 20 hours he’s paid for under the CSU policy that caps student assistants’ paid hours at 20 per week – besides carrying 18 hours of classes.

“I make it work,” he said, “but it isn’t easy. The worst part is that the university truly doesn’t listen to our needs.” For example, he said, the university mismanaged the station’s budget, and funds will run out before the school year is over, forcing all student assistants there to go without pay for a month. When he brings such problems to university administrators, they say they’re sorry, they don’t have the money.

“I’ve learned we can’t count on the university to look out for us as student assistants,” Macedonio said. “I can’t wait to vote Yes to our union and bring the power of all student assistants together, to make the changes we need to succeed in school and beyond. CSU, let us vote!”

Elisa Mendez-Pintado, a graduate student in school psychology at San Diego State University, runs a mentorship program at the school’s Latinx Resource Center, supervising a half-dozen mentors there in addition to serving as an in-training school psychologist at a local school to gain hours toward her professional license.

Speaking in English and in Spanish, she highlighted the lack of health benefits as a major concern and said the CSU policy of limiting student assistants’ paid hours to 20 per week, while intended to help students focus on schoolwork, causes special problems for first-generation students or those whose families can’t help them financially.

“These policies go against the CSU’s mission to be inclusive and open up opportunities for students like those I mentor at the Latinx Resource Center,” Mendez-Pintado said. “By coming together in a union with other student assistants, we can make student assistant work what it is meant to be: the work that supports students and their educational goals.”

The student assistants and their union supporters were greeted by California Assemblymember Liz Ortega, D-Hayward, who before being elected to that position in November, headed the Alameda Labor Council, based in Oakland.

Calling the student assistants’ filing for their union “a historic step,” Ortega, who also spoke in both English and Spanish, said the fair thing would be for the university to let the student workers vote. “But I’ve often found that employers with the most elevated and lofty values and mission statements are the ones who fight just as hard as some of the richest corporations in the world. So don’t be surprised that you have a fight on your hands, and don’t be discouraged, because we will all have your back.”

Calling CSU “a special institution dedicated to uplift and provide opportunities,” she urged its leaders to “lean into those values of fairness, democracy, opportunity, and valuing and empowering students. The only way to do this is to let student workers vote.”

Chairing the press conference was Catherine Hutchinson, president of the California State University Employees Union, CSUEU SEIU Local 2579, which represents some 16,000 support workers at 23 CSU campuses across the state.

Hutchinson, who is a biology technician at CSU Channel Islands, told how that union’s winning significant improvements for its members had aroused the student assistants’ interest in forming a union.

“Many of us work side by side with student assistants,” she said, “and they would share frustrations about the universities’ making them do the work of CSUEU staff without the pay, benefits or protections of a union. We are supporting the students coming together to form their union, because it’s the right thing to do. If they’re doing any work, they should have a union.”

Also expressing wholehearted support was Charles Toombs, president of the California Faculty Association. He said the student assistants are often the first contact other students and the public have with many departments and programs throughout the CSU. “They are workers, they perform in a professional manner, and yet we have heard today how they struggle to make ends meet.”

Addressing the CSU administration, he said, “They have told you this morning that they want the opportunity to vote for a union that will give them worker rights for pay, benefits and other working conditions. I challenge the CSU to encourage the formation of student workers as a union.”

CSUEU Executive Director Jim Philliou told reporters the organizing process is currently on two tracks. CSUEU has filed a petition with the Public Employee Relations Board for the student assistants to be part of the existing CSUEU units, and a hearing is to take place in June. The cards filed just before the press conference open a second track, for a separate bargaining unit of student assistants.

Meanwhile, he said, CSUEU will work with the PERB, CSU administrators and the student assistants, to make sure the right groups of student employees are included in the bargaining unit, which will be able to vote to be in the union.

Now that the cards have been filed, he said, the state university system has the option to work with the union and PERB to schedule an election and reach agreement on who’s eligible to vote, or they can try to stall the process.

“We’ll be ready to challenge them for any of their tactics,” he said, “but we’re calling on them to take the high road here – negotiate the issues to set up an election that’s timely and allow both sides to focus on setting up the process to work on improvements for the student assistants that they find important, based on their experience.”

Philliou said the United Auto Workers local representing graduate student academic workers in the CSU system is also expressing solidarity with the student assistants’ organizing efforts.

Asked what community members can do to support the student assistants in their efforts, Philliou urged calls to chancellors of state universities, asking when the election will happen, and contacting one’s state legislator to ask what’s happening at the state university in their districts.

7.

Streaming video doesn’t stream money to its writers, who authorize strike

HOLLYWOOD, Calif.—Streaming video may be streaming money to Amazon, Apple, Disney and Netflix, but it isn’t trickling down to the writers of those videos’ scripts, who voted 98.3%-1.7% (9,020-198) to authorize their union, the Writers Guild of America, to call a strike.

www.peoplesworld.org

HOLLYWOOD, Calif.—Streaming video may be streaming money to Amazon, Apple, Disney and Netflix, but it isn’t trickling down to the writers of those videos’ scripts, who voted 98.3%-1.7% (9,020-198) to authorize their union, the Writers Guild of America, to call a strike. Turnout was a record 78.8%.

Pay is the key issue, but not the only one. A WGA report issued before the April 17 strike authorization vote shows that adjusted for inflation, a median writer’s income has fallen by 23% over the last decade. Combined, Hollywood-based WGA-West and New York-based WGA-East represent 11,000 writers and allied occupations.

“Our membership has spoken,” the WGA negotiating committee told members on the union’s website. “You have expressed your collective strength, solidarity, and the demand for meaningful change in overwhelming numbers. Armed with this demonstration of unity and resolve, we will continue to work at the negotiating table to achieve a fair contract for all writers.”

The Guild’s contract with the studios and bosses, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), expires May 1. Bargaining began March 20. Talks resumed April 17.

But another issue is the bosses’ practice of setting up “mini-rooms,” which the Guild describes as “small, supplementary support writing rooms for a project.

“Because mini-room writers can be paid the minimum compensation, corporations have been exploiting this loophole to avoid paying producer or showrunner fees,” which augment writers’ income, the union explains.

Guild bargainers told their members a big margin for authorizing a strike “gives the negotiating committee leverage to make the best deal possible, and entrusts leadership with the power to declare a strike after contract expiration, if needed.” They got it.

The bargainers, led by co-chairs David Goodman and Chris Keyser and chief negotiator Ellen Stutzman, added the studios “only listened politely to our presentations and made small moves in a few areas, almost entirely coupled with rollbacks designed to offset any gains. In short, the studios have shown no sign they intend to address the problems our members are determined to fix in this negotiation.”

The union wants to solve those problems through “increasing minimum compensation significantly to address the devaluation of writing in all areas of television, new media and features, standardized compensation and residual terms for features” released in theaters or on streams, curbing the studios’ mini-room abuses and ensuring “appropriate television series writing compensation throughout entire process of preproduction, production and post production, among other goals.

The studio bosses haven’t addressed “core economic issues” in the key types of production areas the writers create scripts for–comedy-variety, screen and episodic television—the union said. The Guild also wants any new contract to address pay equity, discrimination and sexual harassment on the job.

The studios responded they expected the Guild’s strike authorization vote. They charged, without proof, that WGA leaders were campaigning for the strike authorization before talks even began. It demanded the union “compromise” and “turn its attention to serious bargaining,” again without proving the union had not done so.

The writer-workers garnered strong and uick support from the leading news outlets in their home cities, the New York Times for WGA-East and the Los Angeles Times for WGA-West.

“If studios and platforms want to be in the original scripted content business, they need to make that business work for the people writing those scripts. It’s that simple,” tweeted Mary McNamara, the TV columnist for the Los Angeles paper. And its entertainment section added in a separate tweet: “AMPTP needs to stop screwing around and come to the table with reasonable responses to the WGA’s core demands for its new three-year contract before the old one expires on May 1.”

8.

Massive strikes are sweeping Europe - here's a little roundup

Whether it's working conditions, unfair pay, or the rising of the age of retirement, Europe is going hard on its strikes

www.thecanary.co

Strikes are sweeping across Europe – just as some UK trade unions try to bow-down to bosses. From France to Germany via Greece, working-class people are up in arms about greedy corporations, dodgy politicians, and the repressive state – with the French rebellion leading the charge.

9.

Rutgers Strikers Run the Table

Three faculty unions at Rutgers University in New Jersey have shown a way out of the crisis in higher education.

www.thenation.com

Institutions of higher education in the United States are in crisis. Essential research is suffering. Highly qualified instructors lack job security and struggle to make ends meet. Students graduate saddled with debt. Public universities, the backbone of our system of higher education, have been starved of funding. Recently though, a ray of hope, in the form of a series of innovative strikes launched by segments of the higher education faculty at universities around the US, has emerged from the debacle. Most recently, last week’s tentative victory in a strike of the three faculty unions at Rutgers University in New Jersey has shown a way forward. At the three Rutgers campuses, graduate employees, adjunct instructors, non-tenure-track professors, tenured faculty, and others had been working without a contract since July 2022. Although represented by different unions, they faced down together the administration’s threats of court injunction to secure a victory against the short-term contracts and low wages that have long bedeviled American colleges and universities.

Public universities such as Rutgers have helped to make this country a powerhouse. The United States established publicly owned land-grant institutions of higher education in laws passed in 1862 and in 1890. These laws gave federally owned land to individual states as a means to raise money to establish such institutions. These colleges and universities were to focus on curricula devoted to cutting-edge practices of agriculture, science, and engineering. Though they were racially discriminatory, and their legacies often marred by expropriation of lands that had been Native American, their mandate was to benefit the people of their states through teaching, research, and service. Land-grant colleges and universities are by no means America’s only public institutions of higher education. State universities—formerly called teachers colleges—and community colleges have offered upward mobility to many. Together, these institutions have contributed mightily to the United States’ ascendence as an economic superpower with unparalleled levels of scientific research and technological innovation, while also offering upward mobility to millions.

The fabric of this national patchwork quilt of public higher education began to fray in the 1970s. Government anti-poverty and education programs of the 1960s helped many people. Black, Latin, LGBT, and female students gained new rights and new access to education and jobs, with much of their political activity taking place on campuses. Not surprisingly, a political backlash against education funding ensued. Free tuition in states such as California and Florida, as well as at City University of New York, came under attack. Funding declined. In 1969, over 75 percent of faculty were tenured or tenure track. By 2016, 73 percent of college instructors were not tenure track; instead most were low-paid, temporary employees. Tuition increased and student debt skyrocketed. Yet the number of administrators with six figure salaries also shot up.

Faculty activists have begun to fight back. In 2022, graduate employees at Indiana University struck for better pay and better work conditions. The successful strike of 48,000 graduate employees across the entire University of California University system and another at University of Illinois at Chicago rang in the year 2023. Grad employees at Temple University in Philadelphia followed with yet another successful walkout. Then at Rutgers, something new unfolded. While the prior strikes of university professors were mostly limited to one part of the professorate, Rutgers faculty prepared for their negotiations with the university’s administration by uniting the three unions representing the diverse sections of the academic workforce behind a single set of demands. In a labor action not focused on raising salaries of the privileged, strikers instead aimed to do what they could to ensure equal pay for equal work, measured by academic credit, among all sections of the faculty, and to end contingent labor among instructors.

On April 10, the three unions walked out as the only way to force the university to bargain. Reaching beyond the needs of their own ranks, they also struck for issues their students as well as the community at large would benefit from. They advocated, for example, a rent freeze on units owned by the university, because high rents were contributing to student indebtedness, and they demanded a million-dollar contribution to a Beloved Community Fund, to help the most vulnerable in their midst meet their needs. By emphasizing the common good, the strikers broadcast their intention to contribute to the reestablishment of a society that works for everyone. With this model of strike action, whole communities stand a chance of benefiting from labor’s struggle.

10.

How Open Bargaining—and Not Letting Management Set the Ground Rules—Led to a Union Victory

In 2017, Kentucky became the most recent “right-to-work” state in the US. Which makes the recent victory by the Amalgamated Transit Union all the more significant.

www.thenation.com

Before the recent mass shootings, Louisville, Ky., was best known for bourbon, baseball bats, and horse racing. The races can sometimes surprise you. Just last year, an unknown horse named Rich Strike—with the second-longest odds against him in the Kentucky Derby’s entire 147-year history—finished ahead of an elite field. In another upset, in this right-to-work state where only 7.9 percent of the workforce are covered by union contracts, the members of Local 1447 of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) beat back racist divide-and-conquer proposals by management last November to win a great contract. But their victory relied on method—not luck.

“I had just been elected the year before the negotiations started,” Lillian Brents, the 47-year-old president of the local, tells The Nation. “Everything was a lot of firsts for us, including the approach called ‘open negotiations.’ We welcomed all members to come to hear for themselves what management was saying.”

Brents’s father was an active union member—and a Marine. “You don’t make excuses—you make adjustments,” she remembers him saying. “I was raised with three brothers, and I learned to have a can-do attitude. I don’t take no for an answer.” Even before the start of negotiations, the Transit Authority of the River City (TARC) sent a proposal for ground rules, which included a gag order prohibiting the union’s negotiations committee from discussing the talks with anyone not on the committee.

“I was so taken aback,” Brents says. “I said no to the ground rules. And no ground rules at all.” As the second woman president of a local in the union’s history—and the first in more than 20 years—she was determined for all of its members to experience the negotiations. The timing of her election was perfect: The national leadership was preparing for its 60th annual convention, and the agenda included a resolution to make open negotiations the official policy of the entire ATU. “I wanted help, and when I called my [national] union’s offices, they helped me understand how I could open the negotiations to all members,” she says.

Passed unanimously at the convention, “Resolution X, Strengthening Collective Bargaining and Contract Campaigns” is a clear embrace of open negotiations. It states, “The ATU encourages local unions to expand the use of open and transparent collective bargaining techniques…to mobilize a majority of the membership in campaign activities…and establish special defense and strike funds to improve their leverage in collective bargaining.” Brents was already moving full steam ahead with this approach. Because she had refused management’s ground rules, she was free to rally the membership against management’s divisive, three-tiered tiered wage proposal—which would have given the smallest group of mostly white workers (the engineers) a 3 percent raise, the next-largest group (the bus drivers, mostly Black women, like Brents) a 2 percent raise, and the largest group (made up largely of Black men, including cleaners and non-maintenance workers) a 1 percent raise. When management, after upping the 2 percent to 2.5 percent, said this was its last, best, and final offer, Brents led the workers to vote the proposal down resoundingly. “Management was showing different treatment to different workers, but we are one union,” she says. “When we forced them back to negotiations, keeping our momentum up throughout, we won a two-year contract with a 6 percent raise across the board for all workers in year one and a 4 percent raise in year two. It was hard. But we are never going back to closed-door negotiations, because this new way worked.”

The segregated wage proposal wasn’t the first time that management revealed its racial bias. In an e-mail to union leadership, it had proposed holding talks at the local zoo, highlighting the view the 90 percent Black workforce could have of the orangutan enclosure. The contract victory also included the adoption of Juneteenth as a holiday, increases for necessities such as uniforms and tools, and more.

“Why wouldn’t we enable rank-and-file union members to be part of their negotiations?” asks ATU International president John Costa. “Each member can contribute uniquely and meaningfully because they understand the job better than anyone, and they can advocate for their passengers and riders. Open bargaining is not just democratic but produces the best and strongest contracts.” Brents firmly believes this new approach of encouraging all the members to attend and watch management’s shenanigans is what helped them build solidarity and achieve big wins.

Brents has been sharing her local’s all-in approach with two other Louisville-based unions that have big negotiations coming up this year: a Teamsters UPS local and a United Auto Workers local. In her own union, she hardly had to do any education about the contract during the ratification process; most workers already knew everything that was in it because they had taken part in the negotiations. “We’ve started something here, and I’m very proud of it,” Brents says. “I’m proud of my international union supporting me and giving me the information, the knowledge, and the experience to do so. History has a way of repeating itself: The labor movement’s bigger than myself. It’s escalating and it’s making a comeback.”

With the Writers Guild of America currently balloting members on a possible strike against film and television studios and negotiations upcoming for two national unions with new reform leadership—the Teamsters and the UAW—all unions can learn from the ATU’s success. Open negotiations start with radical transparency—and then actively engaging all workers to directly participate. Every legacy union has the chance to use contract talks to rebuild into a fighting force—the kind American workers are desperate for. A union local led by a Black woman bus driver in the heart of Mitch McConnell country made history. We all need more negotiations like this.

----

Hope you all might find these useful and informative!

 

[HockeyBird]

Post this here as well because it's really good

 

[Mandos]

Why am I freaking backordered in advance wars from target when I ordered the day it was announced

Honestly kind of wishing I had done 2 Costco Eshop $50 cards at $40 and grabbed it and ToTK with vouchers for $80. Then again I would’ve had to make room on my memory card for them soooo….

 

[undefined]

Was this shared? Spookware, kinda like WarioWare but spooky I remember seeing the folks from Easy Allies playing it. Might grab it later, I’m playing some short-ish games while TotK is not released

 

[kimbo99]

Canadians, does amazon usually deliver games soon after release date? I'll be traveling to Montreal on TotK release day and back home on the Sunday, but then have another trip to Texas on the following Wednesday. I just wanna know if I'll get TotK delivered by the time I fly out to Texas.

 

[Man God]

 

[EvilChameleon]

Did we get it?

We got it.

 

[Magic-Man]

 

[Mekanos]

Do preloaded games only unlock at midnight or is there some glitch whereby my Switch and or Nintendo can't tell the time and Advance Wars is now accidentally playable


Asking for a uhhhh friend

I'm the friend

They should only unlock at midnight (per country), but it's possible because the game sat on Nintendo's server for so long there are some oddities.

 

[Mr_No_U]

this is so wholesome that I think I felt my cold, withered heart twitch a little

 

[theguy]

i just got £140 in eshop gift cards, do i cave and buy the pixel remasters or wait for a sale?

 

[theguy]

i caved