Earlier quoted context omitted.
There should be a separate white collar workers union.
[flagged]
Why is it a zero-sum game to you? Why not advocate for all workers in the name of solidarity? There's no enemy but the class enemy.
The Brief Origins of May Day
111–120 of 260 posts
Re: The Brief Origins of May Day
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure. And that is why protesting looks so ridiculous. The oppressed working class, making six figures typing away in a well furnished office.
We are what is called the labor aristocracy in socialist discourse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_aristocracy It is still labor and we are still exploited - most the revenue we generate goes to capitalist interests, not us, the laborers, which are the creators of all revenue. It's just that we have it comparatively good and so are less inclined to seek out systemic change - a less favorable reading would be tha…
Uhm, my revenue goes to the shareholders of my company. Among those shareholders are me, my colleagues and the state.
Re: The Brief Origins of May Day
#113Re: The Brief Origins of May Day
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
What makes solidarity between workers possible is the homogeneity of their labour. This condition is not present for tech workers. Labour market conditions are completely different from those of say, a meat processing plant or a factory assembly line.
Most of us have way, way more in common with a meat processing worker than we have in common with the people who sign our pay checks. The wealthy class makes multiples of your salary in passive income and their marginal tax rate is lower. You work and fork over 40%. They do nothing and pay 15% or less. You put your retirement money into a 401k. They put their retirement money into a “charitable foundation”. You draw…
I said nothing about belonging to different economic classes.
My point is simply that if you are 1 of 50,000 in a meat processing plant, you do not really have any way of competing with your fellow workers. You might try to work harder and faster, but then you end up raising the bar for all, and you now have to maintain the new pace. And once the rest catch up with your pace, the pay for all will be lowered again.
In tech, every job is slightly different, and there is a real opportunity to meaningful differentiate yourself from the rest and compete in a much more dynamic job market.
Also, who are the ones hurting currently? The juniors or the seniors? Seniors are mostly doing fine. Juniors are the ones hurting. And juniors would have an even harder time, if you transitioned to a unionized system, because entry requirements would be raised significantly to account for the fact that you cannot fire people so easily.
Re: The Brief Origins of May Day
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
We are what is called the labor aristocracy in socialist discourse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_aristocracy It is still labor and we are still exploited - most the revenue we generate goes to capitalist interests, not us, the laborers, which are the creators of all revenue. It's just that we have it comparatively good and so are less inclined to seek out systemic change - a less favorable reading would be tha…
Uhm, my revenue goes to the shareholders of my company. Among those shareholders are me, my colleagues and the state.
[flagged]
Re: The Brief Origins of May Day
#116Re: The Brief Origins of May Day
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know, there's a lot more to the working class than just manual labor. Anyone that depends on a wage to live is a worker, and we all share the same struggles.
The same struggles, like the quality of the office coffee machine? Bike subsidies from the employer too low?
No, things like: we obtain money by working rather than by pumping assets. We pay income tax rather than capital gains tax. Our employers are always asking for more while paying less. We do not individually have enough assets to make individual lobbying efforts EV positive, but our employers and the largest shareholders sure do. Politics is an expense for us but an investment for them -- unless we join together.
Structurally we are more similar than different, even if tech workers have had it good for the last while.
Re: The Brief Origins of May Day
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the union makes us strong
[flagged]
Making the generous assumption that there is a gap in your cultural knowledge and sharing the source of these two lines with background context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_Forever
Re: The Brief Origins of May Day
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Why is it a zero-sum game to you? Why not advocate for all workers in the name of solidarity? There's no enemy but the class enemy.
Because there are conflicts of interest. Factory workers create the products which create profits. I am paid with these profits, if the profits go down engineers loose their jobs.
If Factory workers longer and more efficiently my job becomes more secure. So obviously I want a union which advocates that factory workers work longer hours, it is clearly in my interest. The same goes for strikes, if factory workers strike they endanger my job and reduce the size of the engineering department, reducing my chances to get promoted.