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I'm so fucking done, it will take 4 years for us to get a 40 hour workweek and yeah that's great but it's a fucking joke
Gracias Sheimbaum
this post was submitted on 04 May 2026
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
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Here in Colombia it were like that and did it work. I think it's because not terrorize the right hand
yeah they gave us the same reasons here and I get it to certain extend. the same companies that have exploited us for decades were scared of this reduction and asked for this compromise.
I'm still mad that the so called "left leaning" president bent to their claims but was not able to secure TWO free days a week
So I used to work in industrial automation, and I did see a factory owner buy a robot to automate a task because it was a brain meltingly simple task that was unpopular with his workers. The robot was slower, and more expensive than a human.
It was taking a small piece of metal from a stack and putting it in a machine and pushing a button (not sure if he had a two-hand-no-tie-down set up) then taking the now bent price of metal out of the machine and putting it on a stack. I think they had about 8 hours production per week of demand for the part.
He didn't do it out of the kindness of his heart but because he got tired of paying recruiters to find people willing to do it.
leave your ai to cover for 8 hours. they'll love it
They didn't just hand us the forty hour workweek. You can thank the early unions for that. Organizations like this.
Yup.
Workers have to fight hard for every little thing, which is why it's so sad to see us back pedal by electing born rich anti-worker dipshits into the highest offices in the land. We're losing things that will take years and a lot of struggle to get back.
Exactly. Productivity gains don’t magically turn into free time for workers unless people organize and demand it.
Right and why would it? If you let people take advantage, they will. Doesnt matter what’s right. Doing what’s right gets you fucked in this world. Literally people distrust you if you try to do what’s right. It’s a lonely existence and that’s fucking sad.
Worse, there's actual practical evidence that a 4-day workweek for the same pay as the 5-day one still makes the company more money and the workers happier and healthier, but adoption is still glacial.
The grabbing hands grab all they can
All for themselves - after all
It's a competitive world...
This, I feel, is the real message behind Animal Farm
*fucking
This reminds me of this old productivity / salary chart that shows how fucked we are.
Weird that the divergence is also the same point in time where (a) modern conservatism is born, (b) Fox News is conceived, and (c) the middle class died.
Total coincidence, I'm sure.
Literally been flat lined for 50 years
great but there are more studies about it just look up salary vs productivity
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(7 replies)
There is no war but class war.
I suggest an alternative. All war is class war. Start fighting like it.
also the increase 30-40+hrs is design to exhaust people so they are to tired to protest for reforms socially, financially and to keep people disengaged from politics/ and information.
I want more people to think though
"If this tool makes me produce double, and I get paid the same, who's keeping all that new value?"
If your productivity doubles, they will lay off half the people, and all gains disappear upwards. It's already happening.
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Every little luxury we have with working, from safety to days off, is paid for in blood.
Even things like the 15 minute break.
Companies will begrudgingly give you the bare minimum they're mandated to, and pretend you're only getting it out of their sheer appreciation and benevolence.
Maddening.
I've been salaried for just over 30 years consecutively. What are breaks? What is overtime? You're speaking a foreign language to me.
Pshh. Yeah.
I have no idea how they passed and we accepted this concept of "Salary means we own you and your thoughts and ideas, labor laws basically don't apply, and you never actually stop working." Absolutely deranged.
It was probably pitched as such a great thing to employees, too, but I've always seen it as a scam.
(No judgment on you personally, of course, if somehow this affords you a good life balance!)
I'm also paycheck-to-paycheck with little in the way of advancement prospects unless one of my creative projects lands. So I'm not exactly writing as a sage of material success or anything 😂.
I do appreciate what little time I have to my own autonomy though. Anything trying to take that from me gets met with stiff resistance.
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