There is much more to life than work. We all have families, friends, and a beautiful world to enjoy. We need more time off to enjoy it.
The most obvious indication that “representatives” only represent capital… They never talk about 4-day work week. NEVER.
“We’ll talk about it, it’s on the list. Right after ending daylight savings and rounding up all the brown people”
*daylight saving. No “s” at the end.
4 day week. 6 hours a day. Including paid 1 hour lunch as productive as we are now vs when 9-5x5 was first established.
Given how much efficiencies we have gained, shouldn’t we all be working much, much less? Like maybe one or two days a week, and just a few hours? Where did all the efficiency gains go, other than into the pockets of billionaires?
The thing is, our captains of industry and finance are so fucking hard for infinite growth that we’ll never see a reduction of work hours due to the efficiency, because the efficiency gains are going to be dumped straight into increasing profit.
The only way we’re getting paid the same to work less hours is if we start hunting those people down.
Frankly we should be starting the negotiations at 2 days and let them talk us up to 3.
Americans certainly do,its fucking shocking how little time you guys get off
Yes, but it evens out when you look at our healthca… shit.
Yeah, but don’t forget how the police protect us from mass shoo… fuck.
well at least your tax money is being used to fund nice places to hang out and not just car-centric infrastructure…
Well don’t worry at leady yous get free educati…oh nevermind
The thing is, it’s not that Americans don’t have time off, it’s that we don’t have GUARANTEED time off.
It all depends on who you work for.
The only guaranteed days, generally, are New Years Day, July 4th, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. Some employers, but not all, make exceptions for New Years Eve, the day after Thanksgiving, and Christmas eve.
But again, it depends on who you work for. The banking and financials industry get President’s Day, Memorial Day, and Labor Day. “Bank holidays”.
In the end, nothing is guaranteed, employers are allowed to do what they want. Service industry? Fuck you, you’re working.
Technically, today is Labor Day and I could have had it off, but I volunteered to work so I could take tomorrow off for doctor stuff.
“It all depends on who you work for.”
Then it’s complete byllshit then? Any company at any time can just change it whenever they like. Man,im sorry to say it,but America is bullshit
Oh, definitely… and get this…
My employer is very reasonable. Time off when I need it, vacation time, sabbaticals, etc.
My WIFE’S employer, not so much.
So if I want to take a 2 week vacation, totally do-able. My wife can’t.
So I can pack up and go to the Bahamas for 2 weeks. But I’d be going by myself. “Bye baby! See you in 2 weeks!” She can’t so much as drive me to the airport.
Bummer. How many week does she get? Like three Tuesdays a year or something mental I bet
LOL @ weeks. TBH, I don’t know what she gets, and the process to apply for time off is so inscrutable, she may as well not have any at all.
Yeah my German friend tells me of his coworker that he hasn’t seen since early this year, out sick. Can’t be fired, and no replacement. Or take a week off and be sick the following week. It’s not without its drawbacks but significantly better than what we have here.
Here, we tend to be afraid to take sick days.
I’ve been with the same company almost 20 years, and I’m that time have taken so little time off, I have accumulated 75 days. But I just had a child a couple years ago, and this year I took 8 days off throughout the year, since she brought home so many sicknesses. One of those required 3 days off, and I actually got a doctor’s note because it was 3 consecutive days and that’s the policy.
It still came up in my review. I basically got a “barely passing” score with “needs to be more reliable”.
I’m sorry are you saying after 20years you accumulated 75 sick days?
Why is that? What’s you sick entitlement?
Yeah, considering how much more efficiency we’ve gained, we should all be working much, much, much less.
And not just the obscenely rich parasitic class of billionaires like fElon who supposedly do “work” running/ruining companies like xitter and Tesla, etc…
But how does line keep going up then???
We deserve way, way, way more dead politicians and ceos to enjoy our time off.
If we could stop arguing about literally everything else, no matter how important you think the issue is, we could really, really spread this message and have it stick across America broadly. At least the idea that we deserve more back for the amount of money we have cut from our work and lives to pay for the government, and the obscenely wealthy are the real enemies.
I encourage Lemmy readers who aren’t completely stuck up their own ass, to make THIS the driving message we take into the next decade and beyond, because it will take that long to shift this from an identity/ideology war back to the class war it really should be. If we can drive even SOME of the money out of politics and start demanding things like union protections, fair wages and guaranteed benefits, we could restore a lot of American might and start pushing the needle left again.
We don’t get to the finish line without circling the track, no matter how tiring it is. Nobody is coming. No charismatic leader is going to appear and suddenly lead everyone in a revolution and change everything overnight. We HAVE to stop feeling entitled to the perfect outcome, we have to work for that.
At this point, accounting for productivity gains not fairly compensated since the 1970s:
We should be working half the hours, or be making twice the pay. Otherwise, capital owners should face the alternative of an organized general strike until these simple demands are met.
If our elected officials refuse to represent us to bring about equity, we must take it for ourselves.
his name was Paul Volcker
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America is a corporate captured state, and its only captured more and more since Citizens United.
and you think they’re going to suddenly turn around and stop using you as indentured servants?
do you forget what the Republicans think of Europeans? they’re libruhl socialist cucks, remember?!
“How dare kids today want more time off. They’re just lazy” - Debbie, 68, retired.
Former occupation:Stay at home housewife.
What, you don’t think there’s work to do for a stay at home partner? From my observation, it’s one of the hardest jobs there are (that is if you actually take on all the home keeping duties as part of this - I’m not speaking about trophy-partners here).
When I was a kid, America was often contrasted against Britain in that they were aristocrats and nobles who would run roughshod over their people, but American democracy would lead people to the light.
Obviously that is a steaming pile of poopaganda, but as things develop I start to realize that it’s actually correct, it just only applies to one side, in that the “running roughshod” part has always been the case, and any laws made that supported the rights of workers were in place only as long as it took the capitalistocrats to lobby them back to nothingness, sometimes even worse than before.
I often think of that when conversations are held about logical, productive changes to the current way work is done.
Wherever there is talk of a 25-hour week, or a four day week, or any other measure that would improve quality of life while allowing work to get done as well - or sometimes better - this conversation quickly turns to how much less money these people would have to make and how the total number of hours of work per week would have to be delivered anyway.
It feels like somewhere there is an American capitalist with an uncut ruby the size of a cherry on their pinky and a freshly laundered wig of tight white curls raging at the perception that somehow they are being robbed of their due by this subhuman mass of parasites who are unwilling to meet the expectations of someone who could never meet those expectations themselves, and fully believe that obscene wealth and power are their right.
Anywho, I believe that the benefit that would come from normalizing 5-hour work days with a minimum wage of $20/hr is vastly underrated, and the resistance to that comes only from people at the absolute pinnacle of wealth, who are petrified that their influence and power might erode even a little bit, because they have not only seen what happens to people whose influence and power erodes, they have destroyed those people for their own gain. /rant
Today is Labor Day and I volunteered to work so I can take tomorrow off for doctor stuff.
I probably don’t need the WHOLE day, but if I’m going to get poked and stuff, might as well.
We’re not going to get it while there are enough stupid Americans to get distracted by culture war bullshit presented to us by the ultra-wealthy and political elite.
Germany has it figured it out. Come on America, copy the good things not the historically appalling.
Our dipshit chancellor, Monty Burns, is trying to screw this up for us all. Fortunately, we have many strong unions that all tell him to get fucked.
No but you see having to do a bullshit job all day almost every day is when life has meaning. How would life have meaning if I wasn’t doing a bullshit job all day almost every day?? That’s when life has meaning!!!
Jacobin writers must have the nice life of not being a debt slave.
Ok, crab in bucket. Way to completely miss the point.
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