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Today we're going to learn about wage theft (thelemmy.club)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/memes@lemmy.ml
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[–] 5 points 7 months ago (6 children)

Workers have right; those right are poorly applied but workers have unions to defend themselves. Slaves have none. This is a big difference, and being exploited is enough to be outraged; we do need to make confusion that would invisible people enslaved

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Okay, when people had to literally arm themselves, fight and die for the right to a union, and then to rights those unions fought for i.e. the 8 hour workday, do you not see the similarity between those literal armed struggles and slave rebellions

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (2 children)

    I do; but a lot of people still do not have those rights : depending of the country, sex work, prisoners, "disabilities", people without papers, and people owned in domestic situation (still exists) In most cases, our unions fail to defend people in those situation. If we want to make this to change, maybe we shall not invisibilize difficulties of the most oppressed of the working class, but adapt to these. And a lot people said their are cringed by the use of the terme "slavery" for wage an employee situation that would be an improvement.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    dawg, wage labor under capitalism is literally slavery with more steps. If your ability to survive is predicated on your ability to sell your body for a wage, you are a slave, and anyone arguing otherwise (you, in this case) is wrong. If you refuse to work and your refusal is met with homelessness and starvation, that is no less coerced labor than if I held a fucking gun to your head.

    Also your initial statement of "workers have rights, slaves have none" is just so fucked and wrong from multiple perspectives. Slaves have historically had rights, not every form of slavery is "north american chattel slavery" where they're treated like livestock. And, again, what difference is there from a "right" won through violence by a union and rights won by slave revolts? There isn't any

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    I'm not sure you did read anything I've said :

    Workers have right; those right are poorly applied but workers have unions to defend themselves

    Slaves have historically had rights

    Did I say anything about history ? Or the US situation ? No, you think you know my point before reading it. I'm saying they still is slavery situation, and even those people are proletarian too, they are marginalized and even sometime exploited by our class too. I,ve never said the wage condition and struggle are unrelated. They are. And they are related to children condition too; but being related is not being equal. The real question is : what could we do do change things and develop our class consciousness ?

    A hint : not ignoring the most marginalized one, and the critics inside our class

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    There are multiple kinds of slavery. Forced penal labor is a different kind of slavery than debt slavery, which is different than racial chattel slavery, forced marriage and so on. Most of those "have rights" to some extent. The US, for instance, had slave codes that delineated things like just how much owners were allowed to beat their slaves.

    That is to say: When people talk about workers being wage slaves, they aren't saying the modern worker has it just as bad as other slaves, they're talking about institutionalized forced labor.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    they aren't saying the modern worker has it just as bad as other slaves, they're talking about institutionalized forced labor.

    I'd also like to mention that anarchists and socialists have, for a long time, criticized wage labor under capitalism as being more exploitative than literal serfdom i.e. kropotkin's "shame on the feudal baron" quote. Serfs giving up a quarter of their crop was seen as barbarous, but wage laborers give up the entire value of their labor and are paid only a pittance for it

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