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Notes -
This morning I sought out and read two pieces on this news. The first was a short report from NPR which side stepped the
Equal PayEquality Act connection:The second was a BBC piece which more thoroughly reports on the immediate union dispute. The BBC article also more thoroughly avoids mentioning the equal pay lawsuit that set off the crisis. I do believe I am better informed by reading it, but only because I already read the broader context elsewhere. If I search "equal pay" on the BBC's website I can find articles like this one from a week ago, but the connection is almost a side note. It's a reality, not something to get upset about.
That leads me to a culture war observation: there is no Root Causeism to be found in these articles. Surely this is a case where the Root Cause is clear and could be addressed by fixing the legislation to avoid such judgments. If a city doesn't pay out hundreds of millions of dollars because a judge interprets a law a certain way, then a city is better positioned to avoid giving trash men an 8k/yr pay cut.
There are no professors, experts, or city officials quoted regarding the incredible judgment that led the city to the crisis. My expectation, were this a story on a knife crime crisis, the BBC would have criminologists to point at poverty or something. This is a union fight story, not a legislative or judicial horror show story, and those may be two different things in the UK's information environment. I feel demoralized thinking about it and I don't even live there.
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