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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A billionaire wrote this letter to Google a year ago. How likely is that Google's layoffs and actions since then are at least partly because of this? (lemmy.world)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I wouldn't generally trust a billionaire to make the humane decision for anything but that is not why I was surprised here. My starting position here is him asking a company to fire tens of thousands of people and lower the pay of more for a more profitable short term investment. I do believe that most people are selfish to some extent but I think people like this are more selfish and hence why my attempt to explain his seemingly more charitable acts from a selfish point of view.

Additionally, I think these people have so much drive to achieve power, it becomes aggressive to the rest of humanity at that point. Sort of "directly and consciously hoarding water for personal gains and comfort during a horrible draught" kind of aggressiveness.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

He sounds similar to those insufferable effective altruists. Most of these people have a genuine skill in something narrow, and the willingness to walk all over everyone in pursuit of the 'highest score' achievement on their 'net worth'.

Yet they've convinced themselves that only they can save the world, so they have to make as much money as possible by any means necessary in order to fund misguided charities. They'll burn down the planet and anyone necessary to make money so they can save it.

Sir Chris is still in control of his charity, so really all that money he gave them is still in pursuit of his own goals, the charity is only spending money it makes through its investments. So whilst it sounds so generous to donate billions to charity and I'm sure it brought him great publicity, it's little more than a tax-efficient way to attempt to bring about societal changes that society didn't ask for.

I'm sure it was also nice that whilst he 'donated' billions to the charity, when it came to his divorce settlement, that was taken out of his 'personal fortune' which amounted to less than a billion.

So don't give him that much credit.