If you work 40 hours a week, you should be able to afford a good life, full stop.
this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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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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it's only common sense, right? apparently not.
Same way minimum wage means “we’d pay you less if we could”
"this is the aboslutely minimum we can get away with".
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There's a book on that out there that I'm dying to read but can't find anymore. Essentially, the argument is that with the collapse of the traditional "office work" structure and the rise of online work, there's a new underbelly that's here to stay in gig work, and that this will become the predominant type of work in the future (not necessarily poorly paid - some gigs are immensely lucrative). Basically, the adult worker of tomorrow will be largely independent, will have more income streams on average, will work online, and will be geographically mobile. The downside there, obviously, is that unskilled workers are going to be in a race to the bottom. In that type of economy they're even less valuable, and easy to hire for trivial wages.
Then Minimum wage is topped up with tax credits or be benefit, which I was actually rewarding the buisness not the individual but letting the buisness pay less than a living wage for those 40hrs
I'm trying to be optimistic that I'll see a 4 day work week in the US in my lifetime.
That’s the dream!!!!
Some people might see a 4 day work work with 10-12 hour days, maybe.
Doesn't seem that likely too me. I know there's been multiple European countries doing small scale experiments with it but is there anything similar going on in the US?
I’m optimistic of this as well. I know it will happen. If climate change doesn’t wipe us out before then lol
Work won't be by the hour in 20 years. It'll be more gig-based, online, and independent. "Four days" will probably lose meaning by then.
its more like, if people would stop settling for wages below what you need to survive, then businesses wouldn't be able to function without paying a living wage. but there is always someone willing to do the work for less so they get away with it. imagine a world where restaurants and farms were forced to employ fully waged employees, the entire country would cease to function.
This assumes that there's an infinite supply of well paying jobs that are freely accessible to everyone, but that's not how reality works. If the options are "work for shit pay" or "don't work at all and starve" then people will choose the shit job. It's why market economies aim for a few percents unemployment(and why places like the US really don't want to forgive student debt) because people need to be desperate for whatever job they can get to keep wages low.
A much better way to solve it is just to legislate that if you work a fulltime job you have to be paid a livable wage.
This isn't assuming shit. the problem is people don't collectively deny labor to jobs that don't pay a high enough wage. They're selfinterested and will take offers that are detrimental to the whole system because it gives them any amount of return. It's literally about collective bargaining, or at least refusing to negotiate for anything less than the bare necessities
So in essence you just want to ban employers from being able to offer poverty wages.
Doesn't that mean even more people would be out of a job as the jobs paying poverty wages disappear? They won't pay more, they're way more likely to close up shop.
Should a business that relies on poverty wages stay open? It seems to me that if you can't afford to pay your employees a living wage then you shouldn't be in business since your business is clearly not viable. It's like all these food delivery apps that popped up the last few years. They rely on venture capital and underpaying their "employees" to bring the price down. But eventually they'll be asked to make a profit and the prices will go up. I don't think people will keep on ordering in the same quantities when the delivery fees doubles or tripples, the bussinesses are just unsustainable and if you believe in market economies then they should be allowed to fail.
Businesses can adapt for the most part, they're just not quite there yet, but they will be in 10 years. Raising wages to $30/hour tomorrow would only accelerate that. The real long term fix isn't raising the minimum wage, it's making those workers valuable enough that they WILL be paid $30/hour, minimum wage or not, because they bring value to the table. That also pays huge dividends for society.
The real answer to the wage issue is in things like coding bootcamps, and Khan Academy. It's what people have in their brains.
Nobody deserves poverty, and nobody doing something that is necessary should be being paid so low that they can't afford to live.
I often hear stories about teachers in financial trouble. It's just completely mind-boggling that teachers in some places are unable to pay rent due to low pay, high rent and lack of school funding making them feel like they must buy their own supplies. I thought school teacher was a respected profession, and it's certainly necessary.
At this point there should be a minimum salary for teachers specifically. The incentive structure is terrible.
I think there's some, albeit limited truth to this. To my mind the fundamental question is "If you're willing to work harder to get further, CAN you?".
I think there's some variation in what people should be paid, and I think most people agree with that. You deserve to be paid what you're worth, within certain limitations. The problem is that a) there's risk involved whenever you try to advance, and people need to be given a cushion in case it doesn't work out and b) some people start off so screwed that they couldn't climb up the metaphorical ladder if they tried.
A huge missed aspect of work reform is trying to advocate for the RIGHT to take a risk. This right needs to be protected because you need to be able to make yourself valuable. A fast food worker is not economically valuable. They have few to no skills, there's usually no shortage of them, and they're about to be replaced by automation. People need to be able to get out of that position and to have something to offer. Your intellectual property is the only real asset you bring to the table. You need to be hard to replace, because you know things and can do things that not everyone can. If a fast food worker wants to go to school, or start their own business, or learn to code, they should have that right, and at the moment that right isn't protected to the extent that it should be. If the startup fails or coding becomes obsolete, there needs to be someone to catch them so that they have the ability to go out and do that in the first place.
I also agree that wages should be higher - workers should be paid what they're worth, so companies need to either pay up or decide that it's not worth it and figure something else out. Like another commenter said, if you work 40 hour weeks you should be able to live on that. BUT with that said there are always going to be a subset of people that want more but aren't willing to do anything for it. That problem has always existed and always will, and unfortunately movements like "work reform" will always suffer a bit at the hands of people who see it as code for "free rider portal".
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