this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2023
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If not for labor unions we would still be working 12+ hour days. The 8 hour workday and the weekend is all thanks to the courageous efforts of labor advocates.
Yep, 16 hour workdays were not uncommon historically (there’s a reason non-US countries remember May Day).
If you search up 16 hour workdays now, you’ll depressingly find people framing it in a positive light. Capitalism is trying to make workaholism the norm and required to survive.
When I lived in the UK I always found it interesting how people tought "working hard" was a good thing, especially as most of my professional experience until then had been in The Netherlands, were the objective is to work SMART.
Working hard as an objective is almost literally the opposite of being efficient: it's wanting to work more rather that work less and produce the same or work the same and produce more.
Then again it's not surprsing that a society were the Owner class is almost 100% composed of people who were born in wealth would glorify the most shortsighted, short-termist and incompetent way of looking like employees are producing more.
Unsurprisingly the productivity per capita figures of the UK are way worse than those for The Netherlands.
Time not spent generating revenue for yourself and/or someone else is unacceptable.
And now kids in Arkansas get to experience the grind.
We have so much to be thankfull for to those that came before us. Standing on the shoulders of giants, how easily we forget.
The goverment started recognizing some of these rights after they were won by unions. Then they regulated unions to death, since we've got these nice laws now. Then they started rolling back the legal protections.
And people still have the nerve to say the government is protecting workers rights.