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The Brief Origins of May Day

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Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#11
The US does have a rich history of labor movements and it's sad that they've been diminished - arguably because of perceived and actual corruption in living memory - while working conditions for many haven't really improved.

In the UK, also a nation with a very rich history of labour movements and philosophy (Engels family owned factories in Manchester, which he and Marx used as justification and evidence for many of the points made in Conditions of the Working Class), has also seen a recent decline in labour movements - but that's partly because working conditions have improved so massively in recent decades: employment rights, statutory holidays and minimum wage have all improved.

However, in recent years something has changed, and I think a lot of people are now looking at holidays and working conditions in other countries: France (a socialist republic), Germany and Canada all seem to have better work/life balance, strong productivity, remain in the G7 and the roof hasn't fallen in.

I do wonder whether the rise of zero-hour contracts and the gig economy, the debate in the US over tipping as a basis for not paying a higher minimum wage, the lack of holidays and so on, might lead to more interest in either new labour movements or reinvigorating the old.

What's interesting for me is the productivity data shows that many businesses that need knowledge workers to function make more money and grow faster if they allow more work/life balance, but the messaging from the leadership pushes back against it. RTO and 5 days working weeks seem to be less effective than nomadic/remote work and 4x10 or even 4x8 working weeks. AI should, in theory, make that even more possible, but I don't think that's how most in the upper echelons of the Fortune 500 or FTSE 100 want it to work out.

It's going to be an interesting thing to watch/be part of in years to come, but history tells us transition moments are often violent: can that violence be avoided?

Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#14

The US does have a rich history of labor movements and it's sad that they've been diminished - arguably because of perceived and actual corruption in living memory - while working conditions for many haven't really improved. In the UK, also a nation with a very rich history of labour movements and philosophy (Engels family owned factories in Manchester, which he and Marx used as justification and evidence for many of…

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Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#16
Why don’t labor issues resonate more with tech workers?

I know that we’re not a monolith and are actually a heterogeneous mix of opinions, but there frequently talk about job dissatisfaction (career burnout, comically stingy equity grants, etc).

But when organizing comes up, it’s usually treated with disdain because so many have bought into highly individualistic hustle-culture and the narrative that unions only exist to help lazy freeloaders

Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#19

Why don’t labor issues resonate more with tech workers? I know that we’re not a monolith and are actually a heterogeneous mix of opinions, but there frequently talk about job dissatisfaction (career burnout, comically stingy equity grants, etc). But when organizing comes up, it’s usually treated with disdain because so many have bought into highly individualistic hustle-culture and the narrative that unions only exis…

The vast majority of tech workers I know come from comfortable middle class suburban backgrounds, so I'm not surprised they're anti-union and anti-labor.

Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#20

The US does have a rich history of labor movements and it's sad that they've been diminished - arguably because of perceived and actual corruption in living memory - while working conditions for many haven't really improved. In the UK, also a nation with a very rich history of labour movements and philosophy (Engels family owned factories in Manchester, which he and Marx used as justification and evidence for many of…

> RTO and 5 days working weeks seem to be less effective than nomadic/remote work and 4x10 or even 4x8 working weeks

It does depend on how you measure it. Given diligent workers you could argue that working from home is better for 'on task' work, than the distractions of the office - however some of those distractions create value for companies that's hard to measure.

I've lost count of the number of times I've had the polite - how are you type conversation - via a chance encounter in the office, that has lead to an idea or new connection that moved something forward, ( have you tried X? Have you talked to Y ).

These don't happen when you are on task working from home.

For companies which are knowledge based - this sort of spontaneous creativity happens more when people are all together and less when people have to intentionally reach out.

Companies aren't just the simple sum of the individuals and a lot of the creativity happens off-task.

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