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The Was and Should Be King

@thewasandshouldbeking / thewasandshouldbeking.tumblr.com

Who am I kidding? This place has gone entirely OOC. ONCE upon a time a: Multi-Muse RP & Art Blog Specializing in Tragic Megalomaniacs; Some OOC shenanigans.
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vallaragna
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zvaigzdelasas
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U.S. bans noncompete agreements for nearly all jobs
The Federal Trade Commission has voted to ban employment agreements that typically prevent workers from leaving their companies for competit
NPR
"We heard from employees who, because of noncompetes, were stuck in abusive workplaces," she said. "One person noted when an employer merged with an organization whose religious principles conflicted with their own, a noncompete kept the worker locked in place and unable to freely switch to a job that didn't conflict with their religious practices."
These accounts, she said, "pointed to the basic reality of how robbing people of their economic liberty also robs them of all sorts of other freedoms." The FTC estimates about 30 million people, or one in five American workers, from minimum wage earners to CEOs, are bound by noncompetes. It says the policy change could lead to increased wages totaling nearly $300 billion per year by encouraging people to swap jobs freely.
The ban, which will take effect later this year, carves out an exception for existing noncompetes that companies have given their senior executives, on the grounds that these agreements are more likely to have been negotiated. The FTC says employers should not enforce other existing noncompete agreements.
The vote was 3 to 2 along party lines. The dissenting commissioners, Melissa Holyoke and Andrew Ferguson, argued that the FTC was overstepping the boundaries of its power. Holyoke predicted the ban would be challenged in court and eventually struck down.
Shortly after the vote, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said it would sue the FTC to block the rule, calling it unnecessary, unlawful and a blatant power grab.

Huh [23 Apr 24]

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hauntedwestwind

Tumblr has completely missed this, but the Biden administration set out to be the most pro-Union presidency in the history of these United States, and he has in fact succeeded in that goal.

Chairman of the FTC, Lina Kahn, has in fact been taking aim at monopolists and capitalist fraudsters nonstop since 2021, earning hatred from the Chamber of Commerce and scoring some victories, as well as some losses, in court.

Non-compete agreements are terrible for workers because they essentially make the worker complicit in industry-wide collusion to depress the market value of labor. It will take years for the policy change to make its way through the appeals process, but it's unambiguously good policy and correct as a matter of fairness, whether or not it complies with existing law.

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comradegiddybiscuit
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copperbadge

Let's Talk About Missing Persons

So, I've seen this post circulating last week, and a few others like it in the past year. I think this probably needs to be discussed every few years, and it feels like time.

First, a few caveats: there are reports on the post that Abby has been located and is fine, so no need to reblog and also that's great news, I'm very happy she is safe. Second, I did not especially doubt the veracity of the post, so I'm not impugning the people who made and posted it, but I also declined to reblog it for reasons I'll get into. Third, I know that especially in marginalized communities it can be dangerous to involve the police, and that Missing White Woman Syndrome means it can be difficult to get media coverage. I understand why Abby's community may have chosen to search for her in the way they did.

However, for everyone's safety, I do not link any missing persons post that requires you to contact an individual to report the missing person's whereabouts. If the poster doesn't ask you to contact the police or a known missing persons organization, I won't do it.

This is for the safety of the missing person.

When you see a post with someone's photo, name, and last known whereabouts, and you are asked to contact an individual -- a family member, partner, friend, etc -- what you are being asked to do is report on the whereabouts of one person you don't know to another person you don't know. You don't know that the person you're talking to isn't an abusive partner or parent, a stalker, or a person who means them material harm. One of the Insta accounts in the missing image doesn't appear to exist, and another has no bio and very little captioning on their images. I couldn't verify that Abby even knew these people.

Again: when I looked at the image, it looked sincere to me. I didn't doubt those people were earnestly searching for a friend they were worried about. But also, an abuser doesn't look like an abuser until they do. So I don't make exceptions, because a missing person is missing but a victim outed to their abuser has strong odds of being murdered. The most dangerous time in the life of an abused person is when they are leaving their abuser. Even if a victim simply logs on to say "Hey, I'm fine, these people mean me harm" the abuser has now flushed them out of hiding, and manipulated them into making a public statement.

If you can't verify positively that the person searching does not mean the missing person harm, you should not be circulating a post, full stop. At the very least, if the community doesn't wish for the help of the police (understandable) or can't get the help of an organization or community (frequent), the missing persons poster should advise you to speak to the missing person, not the searcher, and notify them they're being sought, as long as it's safe for both you and them to do so.

This isn't intuitive. We want to help, and search posters like that tug on the heartstrings. We know that when the police get involved even in something this innocuous, it can be perilous for everyone. But in situations where someone is so vulnerable, we have to concern ourselves first with harm reduction, which in this case means not spreading someone's photo with a stranger's contact information on it.

I'm glad Abby was found and is fine and that her searchers were in earnest. But that will not always be the case, and it's important to remember that.

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thewasandshouldbeking

I think about this a LOT, especially when the missing persons posters are for older teens and adults. Maybe they were kidnapped, but dedicated runaways aren't likely fleeing a safe and loving home.

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