On this day, 5 December 2019, the first of numerous strikes by French public sector workers began in protest at proposed cuts to pensions. The government of Emmanuel Macron wanted to cut workers’ pensions, increasing normal retirement age for many public sector workers from 62 up to 64, after previous reforms had increased it from 60.
The strike severely disrupted transport, schools, fire services and even shutdown the Eiffel Tower, while hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets, in some places clashing with police.
Opinion polls showed that a 69% of people in France supported strikes, with support especially strong amongst younger workers.
Many transport workers remained on strike for six weeks, while other groups of workers, like ballerinas, took sporadic action until the government agreed to suspend its plans in January, pending a report later in the year.
Pictured: striking ballerinas give a public performance to other strikers. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1869374639914344/?type=3
LPT: Don’t throw your junk mail away. Use it to to help the USPS instead!
Next time you get a credit card offer in the mail, or a junk piece of mail that includes a prepaid envelope or postcard, don’t throw it away! Send the envelope back with a blank sheet of paper inside, or don’t fill the postcard out, but still send it back. The company that sent it to you had to pay the USPS for postage on each one they get back. This is a way to support the USPS by doing very little, and sticking it to the annoying companies that want all of your money.
In the 90s we would send companies “hate mail” by stuffing prepaid envelopes with things like ‘blanks’ (flat heavy metal pieces), a roofing shingle) and layers of other competitors’ mail or junk news. This is because the company would have to pay more upon recieving the junk mail. It eats into them. It actually somewhat reduced our junk mail returnables, I think.
Send that mail y’all.
Except please don’t do this to nonprofits!!
If you do this when you get a donation request or something from a nonprofit, you’ll be forcing small organizations with very little overhead to deal with the incoming mail and paying for the postage.
Credit card companies? YES. Personal loan offers? ABSOLUTELY. The chain store you’ve never shopped at who bought your info from a competitor? BY ALL MEANS.
But don’t do this to your local “Friends of the Library” fundraiser or homeless outreach program or anything like that. You’ll be draining their limited resources that would be better used elsewhere.
Feel free to do it to groups like Salvation Army, PETA, or Susan Komen cuz fuck them.
The Indus Valley Civilization was a cultural and political entity which flourished in the northern region of the Indian subcontinent between c. 7000 - c. 600 BCE. Its modern name derives from its location in the valley of the Indus River, but it is also commonly referred to as the Indus-Sarasvati…
