SHAME ON GREYHOUND 🚍 🚌

Y U say shame?

Not you, precious.

Never you.

In the US, Greyhound is a long distance bus carrier. 🚌 🚌

Shame on THEM.

The employees struck!!

And delays are mounting across the board.

Over the intercom the official version of events is that they lack equipment, but word on the street is that the drivers have struck.

All busses are delayed by 1-3 hours, and it's more or less pandemonium whenever one arrives and the employees start yelling about where to line up.

A gentleman to my left tells a tale of being there since 5pm yesterday, and that he hopes to make it home today.

"..it don't work," he tells them, each and every time someone walks towards the vending machine.

"It'll give you change, won't give you no food."

Heart of a lion to do that every time.

Everyone took him on his word and didn't test whether he was telling the truth. So if you ever want to screw Greyhound out of vending machine profits, it's viable. 🍭

Going on strike.

Going on strike is lame.

Something that's childish and dumb if you did it as an individual doesn't become righteous and grand because you do it en masse.

I'm a fan of doing what I say I'll do, and if I have a commitment to be somewhere and people depend on me, it doesn't cross my mind to not show up as a ploy to try to get paid more.

Economics lesson:

Businesses aren't really rolling around in spare cash that they can dole out at random based on whether they're greedy or what mood you put them in.

Typically (at least in any free and open market) they operate on razor thin profit margins.

Because if it wasn't razor thin, it would be easy for someone else to swoop in and do the same thing for a cheaper price.

There might be some room for them to budge.

So negotiate.

(You can ban together and do it collectively and have spokespeople and all that if you want.)

But negotiating by way of not showing up is silly.

What does that show? Other than that they made a bad hiring decision.

I wonder why the people who strike don't immediately get fired, to the point where it's common knowledge that it ends poorly and you shouldn't do it.

Sure, it hurts the company in the moment, to lose so many employees. But you win the long-game and aren't exploitable in that way anymore.

I tend to think there must be some government rule that makes it illegal to fire people who strike.

(Which is a weird rule because it involves being inside a person's mind regarding what their motivation is. But that's beside the point.)

Or, I'm sure Greyhound is forced to allow workers to unionize.

Or something.

It just seems so easy to guard against strikes, if they weren't saddled by some coercively imposed rule or another.

Power to the people!!!

No. The people have been awake for 40 hours, wishing they could be at home.

We've been exploited by the working class, made to believe that we'd be riding on a bus, but patiently we wait, while they shirk their commitment in pursuit of profit.

We wait but we never forget.