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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.”
Even if you made it a federal holiday, the wage slaves would still have to work.
At least make it a sunday lol, a tuesday wtf?!!
how are federal holidays not mandatory time off dude there’s a reason they exist. what a backwards country.
edit: apparently the concept is so foreign that people don’t understand how these things work. of course there will be exceptions but of you work on a holiday you get a full day’s salary as overtime. this usually assures employers only force work when necessary because most would rather not pay extra. and of course further exceptions can be made into the law. no one said life should stop when there’s a holiday.
Black and white rules always end up fucking someone over. For example I work in the entertainment industry and a lot of my income is from working on holidays, specifically because they are holidays. That aspect of my job is not exploitative, and if the option were taken away I would have big problems.
I work in a hospital. Unfortunately, people don’t stop being sick on holidays, so someone has to work. I don’t see how it could be different in any other country.
Yep. Your boss can still say no and just give you a day in lieu
Good point, the real solution is to spread out the election and make voting easier, as in mail-in.
We should just have elections on presidents day.
And that way presidents day finally has an actual purpose.
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.
Like 95% of the US get neither off
Yeah, my current position is this way, and I’m a $programmingLanguage Developer.
In France elections are held on a Sunday so most people don’t work, the others are allowed time off to vote of course
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.
I think what you just described is the electoral college
Why is it election day anyway, why not election month. California and Oregon have vote by mail; every state should
Washington State too. You’re right, the election isn’t just a day anymore - I voted more than a week ago.
The west coast, Vermont, and DC have all been mail voting for a long time. Hell, even Utah is via mail.
Early voting near me started last week, I made time this monday, wasn’t even a line when I got there. Early voting all this week from 7am-7pm. Why chance a long line on election day.
In most civilized countries, voting takes place on weekends and your employer is legally obligated to let you leave work to go vote
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)
You are getting President’s Day off?
why the fuck is election day not on a Sunday like any normal fucking country?
Bus doesn’t even run on Sundays where I live in large areas (one of the top 10 largest cities in the US)
WTF?!?
Service workers work on both of those days, so the working class lose either way.
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.
I used to agree that election day should be a bank holiday, but many many still have to work on bank holidays. Now I’m in a populous red state and in-person early voting has been available for years.
I voted early in 22 and in 20. Not sure how old the law is. I think I can vote early all the way up to Saturday, maybe Sunday. too lazy to check.
I think this is a better solution, mail voting notwithstanding. Voting doesn’t have to go on for a whole month, but a week or two early makes sense.
Anyways I’ll be voting sometime between now and Tuesday.
You can’t tell me you don’t understand why this is
We shouldn’t specifically have Election Day off work. Everyone should get one paid day off in the period of early voting or election day. It’ll prevent the hours-long wait times at the polls on election day and allow businesses to stay in operation by spreading out the time when workers are off to vote.
I’d prefer it even more if the money for the vacation time were paid by the government, but only of the person actually votes. Otherwise, you’ll just find a bunch of cruise specials around election season meant to capitalize on the extra vacation time, and voter turnout won’t be significantly impacted.
this scheme has no incentive to actually vote. It would likely help many people in voting, but a lot would just go fishing or stay home to play games. I’m not saying make it a crime to not vote.
tax incentives to vote sounds like a giveaway to tax-prep companies and tax-software companies, none of whom should exist at all.
and all of this when the whole voting structure is fucked – first-past-the-post is when one candidate gets more than another, even if they get a small minority of votes.
Did you not read the part where I said the incentive requires them to vote?
we agree more voting is better.
