this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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Antiwork

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  1. We're trying to improving working conditions and pay.

  2. We're trying to reduce the numbers of hours a person has to work.

  3. We talk about the end of paid work being mandatory for survival.

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[–] Potatos_are_not_friends 69 points 2 years ago

If we tap into the underage and the elderly, we can avoid paying more and keep our yachts!

[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I am sure all those tax breaks for rich is going to work out.. Any second now..

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Trickle down economics has never worked, ever.

"But this time it will!" said conservatives.

[–] FlashMobOfOne 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

When a policy has lasted forty years across both parties' having periods of absolute governing power, one can't really pin a policy on a single party anymore.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Oh come on. It's very clear who the champions and vanguard of trickle down economics are. It's fatuous to "both sides" this issue.

[–] FlashMobOfOne 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I think it's objectively absurd to look at a 40-year old policy and try not to acknowledge that it's been adopted by the Democratic Party.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is a story about the UK...

Your point makes slightly more sense if you're talking about the US instead. I still think it's silly to ascribe equal blame to the instigators of the idea and a party that fails to push the tide the other way because of inertia and political expediency.

I mean the centre ground if fucked over there, so you have my sympathy.

[–] FlashMobOfOne -1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I was talking about the US.

It's not inertia, though. The Dems have had the power to make meaningful change several times in the past four decades. Their failure to do so is a choice they've made repeatedly.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 years ago (2 children)

"Economically inactive" 🤣

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 years ago (2 children)

They are not old, they are economically inactive. Hmm, I can see it becoming a thing..

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

And we have no more old people in this country. No more old people. We shipped them all away and we brought in these senior citizens

[…]

Well, I’m getting old and it’s okay because thanks to our fear of death in this country I won’t have to die. I’ll pass away or I’ll expire like a magazine subscription.

What happens in the hospital. They’ll call in the terminal episode, the insurance company will refer to it as a “negative patient care outcome” and if it’s the result of malpractice they’ll say it was a therapeutic misadventure.

I’m telling you some of this language makes me wanna vomit. Well, maybe not vomit. It makes me want to engage in an involuntary personal protein spill.

— George Carlin

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

George Carlin is a fuckin' legend. This man satarized the west harder than Volcano fucked Pompeii.

[–] uis 1 points 1 year ago

Dead are not dead, they are economicaly inactive too. Soon corporations will invent necromancy.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

Being able to look forward to terms like "economically inactive" and "unretirement" makes being classified "biologically inactive" and "unalive" seem better and better, here and now.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 years ago

Unretirement ? Wow, that is crazy.

[–] FlashMobOfOne 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That the elderly and children have to work at all represents a total failure of our culture here in America.

My dad is 80 years old and is developing dementia, and I was helping him fill out job applications earlier this year. This is a man who worked since age 11 (my grandfather died when my dad was a kid) and had his own business, in America, for 50 years. (Killed by Goldman Sachs and the 2008 economic crisis)

People love to call ours a Christian country, and they're making a very strong case for atheism in the process.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

People love to call ours a Christian country, and they’re making a very strong case for atheism in the process.

And the moral progress is getting more and more inhuman like China. Anddd.. the world seeing this as a gold standard right now, I understand what your feeling after watching Adam Curtis Documentary, very wide view movies I ever watch so far..

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm really conflicted about this. On the one hand, I am not defined by my contribution to the economy, the value capital owners are able to skim off my labour. Fuck off with that.

On the other, 50-64 year olds who could afford to retire early are exactly the demographic buying into nativist anti-immigration rhetoric resulting in this, and it's a bit funny thinking about that group getting hoisted by their own petard.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They're not getting hoisted by anyone's petard. It's not the people who can afford a comfortable retirement the liberals* have in their sights here.

  • for any confused USians, that word does not mean what you (probably) think it means
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That's exactly who they are targeting as noted in the article. The unretired 50-64 year olds are still in the labour force.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You didn't read the article then. Cool, cool.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The article explicitly about coaxing (or coercing depending on your perspective) older workers who left the workforce due to covid back into the workforce? Yes, I did read that. Did you?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

But research also revealed that a substantial number of those who gave up work during the pandemic were hard-up as a result, with reduced expenditure on food and lower wellbeing. Meanwhile, one survey found that a fifth of economically inactive 50- to 64-year-olds were waiting for NHS treatment – evidence of the social and economic damage caused by the vast waiting list for treatment. As well as queues for operations such as hip replacements, economic inactivity is linked to the rising toll of chronic mental and physical illness.

You know fine well who will be prodded back to work and who will carry on enjoying their well-funded retirements. Or at least, you should if you had a) read the article and b) been paying any attention at all to how the world works and why kites like this are flown.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Why did you quote a paragraph referencing people who took an early retirement as evidence that this article is not aimed at exactly that group?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They didn't take early retirement.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

who gave up work during the pandemic

This is what happens when you quickly scan articles looking for ways to dunk on people without actually grasping the content of the piece.

Also, you're coming at me as though I support what the article is saying. I don't. I just don't have the greatest sympathy for people with enough wealth to think they can retire at 50. Even if the retirement is a little tighter than they thought.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They didn't retire, they were forced to quit work. They're not getting a pension and they're not eligible for sickness benefits.

But you go ahead and fall for the fantasy that it's going to affect the rich people you don't like. That's exactly why they're flying this kite. Mug.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

If they were forced out why is there an article about trying to coax them back into work? If they needed to work they would presumably be trying to find work rather than sitting retired having the capitalist class trying to think of ways to make them get back on the production floor. These are people with at least some money.

[–] Rooty 12 points 2 years ago

Translation: "We wil do anything before offering fair wages".

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This is part of every tight labor market, the marginally attached come back in when the employer is willing to pay up.

Imagine someone retired for 6 months and then a big project comes up at their old employer...they might go back, but it better be for 30% more or something.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

That's exactly what my grandfather did, although it was quite a bit more than 30%.

Bit of a special case though, he legitimately really enjoyed his job and worked it so he only went into the office 3 days a week

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Meanwhile, fewer than one in 20 of participants in the government’s “skills bootcamps” – employer-led short courses aimed at equipping jobseekers for the opportunities in their area – are aged over 55.

Earlier this month, Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, championed the idea of over-50s delivering takeaways, and doing other jobs more readily associated with younger workers.

Crucially, they should extend beyond low-wage private sector vacancies to labour shortages in health, education and social care – where recruitment and retention problems are acute and linked to low pay levels and workload pressures.

But research also revealed that a substantial number of those who gave up work during the pandemic were hard-up as a result, with reduced expenditure on food and lower wellbeing.

As well as queues for operations such as hip replacements, economic inactivity is linked to the rising toll of chronic mental and physical illness.

But the coexistence of high levels of economic inactivity with key worker shortages in vital areas such as teaching remains hugely problematic, and should be addressed by return-to-work policies.


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