this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2024
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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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My mom was a nurse. For her there was no down time. Usually she couldn't even stop to eat lunch. She'd just grab a granola bar or something and keep going. Hospitals are dangerously understaffed.
Yet there were still some people who would stand around chatting or whatever while her arthritic ass ran around the floor taking care of people.
So some people knew it is healthy to carve out downtime instead of relying on management to give it to them.
In most lines of work, that's perfectly fine. In a hospital, someone can die if there isn't enough help.
But again, this is entirely the hospital management's fault for failing to properly staff their hospitals.
Someone can also die if the nurses burn out and quit because their job is not sustainable.
Understaffing is a system failure, not a personal failure.
But it’s not the fellow nurses responsible for hiring and scheduling enough help.
This is one reason why unions can be so effective for nurses.
I reject the idea that HCW, or any kind of emergency or life support workers for that matter, should be treated like slaves because of the consequences to others if they are treated as fairly as other workers in less urgent lines of work.
Agree. It's yet another case of underpaid and understaffed industries. If nobody wants to do a job because it's too long and hard, it's because 1 person is being expected to do the work of multiple people.
Okay, and…? Do you think people in the business of saving lives shouldn’t get downtime at all, just all go from clock in to clock out? Like it’s a concentration camp instead of a hospital?
Your mum sounds like she’s awesome, but she remind me so much of mine. Self-sacrificing to a fault, and potentially like she struggled to internalise that she needed breaks, because otherwise “someone (could) die”.
Whoa, not what I was trying to say at all. Nor was I implying that OP or anyone else here is lazy.
There's a huge difference though between not getting a break and not being willing to do what is expected of you (within reason), and this isn't really something that can be generalized so easily.
Again, I never meant to imply anything about any particular person, so I apologize if it came across that way.