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No matter how valid the premise is, that headline kills this article. It should say, "Want More Productivity? Start with yada yada..."
this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
609 points (98.9% liked)
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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I would literally take a life for that work balance.
40-50hrs a week isn't a life worth living
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Start paying people enough that they can actually live instead of struggling just to keep their heads above water.
Lol. This country just voted to move in the opposite direction of this. We voted for less worker rights. Less power for the average person.
At this point, we'll need to start utilizing our 2nd amendment right if we want to get anything better than what we have. People died to give us the 40 hour work week. Looks like that's going to have to happen again for any further improvements.
Smarter countries did it without the bloodshed. America isn't that smart.
My dipshit coworkers think trump will actually be good for unions. Mfers.
I'd like to add that 32 hour weeks is pretty much purely something that works for white collar work. It's considerably harder to implement in blue collar settings.
Is the reason it wont work in blue collar settings that it'll inflate prices of stuff too high? Possible making the country fall back in a global stance on pricing on exports, etc (not competitive)?
Only other reason I can see is if they need people at the workplace 24/7, but they usually hire more people to make that schedule work (which in return ig increases prices of whatever they are producing).
The mental gymnastics required to believe that hurt my brain.
Your premise is flawed in the first sentence - "Want happier employees?" No American employer cares about that in the least. Being happy at being allowed to keep their job and keep showing up to collect your meager pay is about all you can expect.
4 weeks is still not on par with other civilised countries. Living here in the UK now, 5 weeks is standard. When I was in the Netherlands I was getting six.
Know what really hurts?
Running into foreigners in your own city who tell you about how they're on a multi-week vacation to America and they'll probably do it again to another country again next year. I've had that happen multiple times while out at bars in my city.
Meanwhile, I've barely crossed state lines in my entire adulthood because it's hard to even get a 3-4 day extended weekend.
America sucks y'all.
Join a union. I work part time in America. After just one year of working I had 3 weeks of vacation. After 3 I now have 4 weeks and am taking my 2nd international trip of the year and 3rd vacation trip of the year.
Or better yet, unionize your own workplace with vacations as the primary demand
Unfortunately the leading point of view from employers
Is that if an employee is happy with their job... THEY ARE NOT WORKING HARD ENOUGH.
They feel that ONLY those who hate their jobs .. are efficient
Don't forget the healthy dose of salary and humane treatment.
i dont WANT happier employees i want MONEY!
Only 4 weeks? For an entire year? That's brutal.
Pay enough for them to afford two kids, a house and a car without dual-income and don't have them work so many hours they can't enjoy them.
4 weeks vacation is too small.
Make it 8. Rest is fine.
Also worth mentioning from the article,
I work fully in the office. But I think remote work is better for work-life balance. I don't have the option to work remote
Well, why not? Covid showed how great this can work .. but so many companies went back to 20th century norms as soon as the pandemic ended*
- AS per https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/who-pandemic-not-emergency-1.6833321 the global emergency ended on May 2023 - almost two years ago to the day, but covid itself still circulates.
My experience is that in person and remote favors different sorts of tasks. For me I have both so I think hybrid is the most 'productive', though I'm much happier with the 'remote'.
So on pure productivity, I could see some roles favor in-person.
But if you want to more cheaply recruit and retain, favoring remote is certainly going to help.
I really want a new normal of shorter hours, though that might be a trickier discussion so long as we have very highly utilized labor pool.
Productivity has been universally higher on every job that moved to remote, tracks those metrics and makes them public.
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That goal is too modest. We shouldn't settle until Keynes prediction of a 15-hour workweek is fulfilled.
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