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.

founded 2 years ago

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Are there any political or social movements that try to mandate all business be worker owned cooperatives and how can we support them? (self.workreform)

submitted 5 months ago by Twoafros to c/workreform

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I'm all for higher minimum wages, unions, paid leaves and other forms of worker protection, but it seems like the most forms of worker protection focus on maintaining a division between an employer(s) who owns the business and the employee who makes money for the business but does not own it. IMO, this division is unethical and exploitative because it denies the worker the full value of their work.

Are there any political or social movements that push for policy or legislation that makes all businesses to be worker owned cooperatives?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Critique of the Gotha Programme is a Marxist text, not an Anarchist text, but considering we are discussing Use-Value and Exchange-Value, it is extremely useful still.

"Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase "proceeds of labor", objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning.

What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society – after the deductions have been made – exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another."

Value exists as a measure of inputs and outputs, as you cannot have output exceed input. This avoids the chaos of undefined value. Additionally, however, production is no longer directed for profit, ie exchange, but instead to fulfill Use-Values.