6 ms·

small but important correction... > However, when society industrialised, a rigid, five-day, 40-hour workweek arose in factory settings ummm... no. More like

small but important correction... > However, when society industrialised, a rigid, five-day, 40-hour workweek arose in factory settings ummm... no. More like the 6 day 16 hour per day work-week arose in factory settings. The five-day, 40-hour workweek was fought and died for by the labor movement.

jdminhbg 4y ago
- idiotsecant 4y ago
  Productivity gains do not lead to increased worker benefit, they lead to increased owner benefit. Organized labor leads to increased worker benefit.
  - throwayyy479087 4y ago
    This is demonstrably untrue - looking at the tech industry for example. Salaries are enormous with no unions. You shouldn’t state opinions as fact.
    - uoaei 4y ago
      I think you've misinterpreted GP. Tech salaries started high, and that is mostly a scarcity problem. The market will correct that in due time without labor organizing because the profits go to the owners, not the workers. The owners are the ones who decide what happens with the profit (reinvestment, their employees' wages, their own wages, etc.).
      - barry-cotter 4y ago
        Yes, with a powerful union you can restrict entry so there are fewer workers. The workers who are allowed in get a better deal. The people who are kept out by the union suffer and the consumers suffer through lower production and higher prices.
        2000UltraDeluxe 4y ago
        No need for that. The golden c64 generation will start with early retirements in a few years. Younger generations have less interest in IT (on average) and will yield fewer and fewer tech workers.
        barry-cotter 4y ago
        What I describe is the mechanism by which unions increase wages for their members. It would be good if you could explain what you were trying to say and its relevance.
        2000UltraDeluxe 4y ago
        Less workers means scarcity and implies better wages and conditions.
        barry-cotter 4y ago
        Yes. You get less workers by restricting entry. That reduces output but increases union workers bargaining power, making society generally poorer but the members of the union richer.
        idiotsecant 4y ago
        It's not necessary to restrict the number of workers - only to refuse to work if the owners allocate too little of the resulting profits back to the workers. This is in fact the whole point of a union.
    - kaibee 4y ago
      This greatly depends on which part of the 'tech' industry you're in. Yes, if you're at the top, salaries are enormous, but uh, vast majority of people in 'tech' are not receiving enormous salaries.
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    Nah, depends on the ability to coordinate. Communist governments can suppress wages even with enormous productivity gains, like post 1949 Shanghai. Capitalists mostly can’t though. Even with non state puppet unions completely illegal as in the PRC or Vietnam competition for workers leads to rises in wages. Maintaining a cartel without being able to enforce contracts to that effect is hard with fewer than 10 conspirators. Once you have more than 100 people bidding for workers’ labour it’s impossible. Unions aren’t necessary for increasing wages. We can tell from countries that they’re illegal.
    - idiotsecant 4y ago
      Unions are necessary, as we see when we look at the US. As productivity has increased workers are receiving a smaller and smaller piece of the resulting wealth. Not coincidentally labor is less organized now than it has been in almost a century. If you have power you get resources, simple as that. Individual workers usually have almost no power - they may get a little bit of power temporarily when their skill is heavily in demand but that isn't enough to counteract the inherent power imbalance capital possesses.
- OkayPhysicist 4y ago
  If the length of our work week followed productivity, the workweek would be at 13 hours today. Your claim is completely and utterly baseless.
  - jdminhbg 4y ago
    You can easily work 13 hours a week if you are willing to enjoy early 20th century living standards! The gains from productivity are distributed between extra leisure time and extra material benefits.
    - srveale 4y ago
      Ah yes, the 20th century standard of owning a home with land and providing for a family of 8, easily affordable on 13 hrs per week.
      - jdminhbg 4y ago
        In the middle of nowhere with no car or household appliances or health care where half of your food comes out of your garden, of course you can afford that. You could also afford to live in a fire trap tenement house with your family of 8 in two bedrooms, although said houses are now illegal so you probably can't physically do that anymore.
      - googlryas 4y ago
        When has providing for a family of eight been the norm in america? I assume you're thinking something like two kids plus all four grandparents living under one roof? That's never been the norm.
        barry-cotter 4y ago
        Most of the 1600s and 1700s for New England. Quebec for longer, possibly the end of unit 1800s. That’s average number of children per woman, not an extended family. 1800s Ireland, which was probably poorer than the US has been since 1600 had similar fertility.
- ojkelly 4y ago
  The 8 hour day [0] did not happen because employers were nice, it was a hard, often bloody, fight in countries all over the world. Spain put it into law in the 16th century, most of the world didn’t get it until the early 20th century. Increases in productivity probably help, but you could say the same thing about the last 30 years — a time when globally wage growth has been flat for most. Time again, history shows labor rights are demanded not given, except for the few industries where people are most valuable asset of a company. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day
- hopperific 4y ago
  You comment is greyed out, even if it's correct. At least your holding up a flag for the remnant.
fritolaid 4y ago
in tech, we don't really have 40hr/wk. It's more like 80hr/wk. And work on weekends. If you have a position that requires 40hrs/wk or less and no work on weekends whatsoever, consider yourself lucky. I hear stories about colleagues being overworked on continuous basis.
- oakesm9 4y ago
  I assume this is referring to the US? I don’t know anyone who does much over 40 hours in the UK, let alone anything close to 80 hours. A few might pick up urgent tasks on the weekend, but only when needed and not regularly.
  - Macha 4y ago
    I've worked for US companies on their EU offices for nearly 10 years, and there's definitely much less of it here, but I've definitely ran into some US employees who have been less than impressed at how unavailable I am outside hours in that time
  - seadan83 4y ago
    I think also depends where in the US. In Seattle, a lot of tech workers are with Amazon. When I worked with Amazon, over two years, there were perhaps two weeks total where I worked less than 50 hours. In that job, and in several that followed, the office was for collaboration, meetings, maybe an hour of actual work, and then at home was where the second workday began in a quiet setting & you put in 3-5 hours additional coding (plus whatever on-call threw at you).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- huile 4y ago
- maccard 4y ago
  And meanwhile I hear stories of people clocking in 40 hour weeks on a continuous basis. The reality is that both exist.
christophilus 4y ago
And Henry Ford.
- musicale 4y ago
  Didn't actually die for the 40-hour work week, but he did institute one at Ford, possibly because he thought it would increase productivity vs. a 48-hour week and drive demand for cars since workers would drive places on the weekends.

jdminhbg 4y ago

idiotsecant 4y ago
Productivity gains do not lead to increased worker benefit, they lead to increased owner benefit. Organized labor leads to increased worker benefit.
- throwayyy479087 4y ago
  This is demonstrably untrue - looking at the tech industry for example. Salaries are enormous with no unions. You shouldn’t state opinions as fact.
  - uoaei 4y ago
    I think you've misinterpreted GP. Tech salaries started high, and that is mostly a scarcity problem. The market will correct that in due time without labor organizing because the profits go to the owners, not the workers. The owners are the ones who decide what happens with the profit (reinvestment, their employees' wages, their own wages, etc.).
    - barry-cotter 4y ago
      Yes, with a powerful union you can restrict entry so there are fewer workers. The workers who are allowed in get a better deal. The people who are kept out by the union suffer and the consumers suffer through lower production and higher prices.
      - 2000UltraDeluxe 4y ago
        No need for that. The golden c64 generation will start with early retirements in a few years. Younger generations have less interest in IT (on average) and will yield fewer and fewer tech workers.
        barry-cotter 4y ago
        What I describe is the mechanism by which unions increase wages for their members. It would be good if you could explain what you were trying to say and its relevance.
        2000UltraDeluxe 4y ago
        Less workers means scarcity and implies better wages and conditions.
        barry-cotter 4y ago
        Yes. You get less workers by restricting entry. That reduces output but increases union workers bargaining power, making society generally poorer but the members of the union richer.
      - idiotsecant 4y ago
        It's not necessary to restrict the number of workers - only to refuse to work if the owners allocate too little of the resulting profits back to the workers. This is in fact the whole point of a union.
  - kaibee 4y ago
    This greatly depends on which part of the 'tech' industry you're in. Yes, if you're at the top, salaries are enormous, but uh, vast majority of people in 'tech' are not receiving enormous salaries.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  Nah, depends on the ability to coordinate. Communist governments can suppress wages even with enormous productivity gains, like post 1949 Shanghai. Capitalists mostly can’t though. Even with non state puppet unions completely illegal as in the PRC or Vietnam competition for workers leads to rises in wages. Maintaining a cartel without being able to enforce contracts to that effect is hard with fewer than 10 conspirators. Once you have more than 100 people bidding for workers’ labour it’s impossible. Unions aren’t necessary for increasing wages. We can tell from countries that they’re illegal.
  - idiotsecant 4y ago
    Unions are necessary, as we see when we look at the US. As productivity has increased workers are receiving a smaller and smaller piece of the resulting wealth. Not coincidentally labor is less organized now than it has been in almost a century. If you have power you get resources, simple as that. Individual workers usually have almost no power - they may get a little bit of power temporarily when their skill is heavily in demand but that isn't enough to counteract the inherent power imbalance capital possesses.
OkayPhysicist 4y ago
If the length of our work week followed productivity, the workweek would be at 13 hours today. Your claim is completely and utterly baseless.
- jdminhbg 4y ago
  You can easily work 13 hours a week if you are willing to enjoy early 20th century living standards! The gains from productivity are distributed between extra leisure time and extra material benefits.
  - srveale 4y ago
    Ah yes, the 20th century standard of owning a home with land and providing for a family of 8, easily affordable on 13 hrs per week.
    - jdminhbg 4y ago
      In the middle of nowhere with no car or household appliances or health care where half of your food comes out of your garden, of course you can afford that. You could also afford to live in a fire trap tenement house with your family of 8 in two bedrooms, although said houses are now illegal so you probably can't physically do that anymore.
    - googlryas 4y ago
      When has providing for a family of eight been the norm in america? I assume you're thinking something like two kids plus all four grandparents living under one roof? That's never been the norm.
      - barry-cotter 4y ago
        Most of the 1600s and 1700s for New England. Quebec for longer, possibly the end of unit 1800s. That’s average number of children per woman, not an extended family. 1800s Ireland, which was probably poorer than the US has been since 1600 had similar fertility.
ojkelly 4y ago
The 8 hour day [0] did not happen because employers were nice, it was a hard, often bloody, fight in countries all over the world. Spain put it into law in the 16th century, most of the world didn’t get it until the early 20th century. Increases in productivity probably help, but you could say the same thing about the last 30 years — a time when globally wage growth has been flat for most. Time again, history shows labor rights are demanded not given, except for the few industries where people are most valuable asset of a company. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day
hopperific 4y ago
You comment is greyed out, even if it's correct. At least your holding up a flag for the remnant.

fritolaid 4y ago

in tech, we don't really have 40hr/wk. It's more like 80hr/wk. And work on weekends. If you have a position that requires 40hrs/wk or less and no work on weekends whatsoever, consider yourself lucky. I hear stories about colleagues being overworked on continuous basis.

oakesm9 4y ago
I assume this is referring to the US? I don’t know anyone who does much over 40 hours in the UK, let alone anything close to 80 hours. A few might pick up urgent tasks on the weekend, but only when needed and not regularly.
- Macha 4y ago
  I've worked for US companies on their EU offices for nearly 10 years, and there's definitely much less of it here, but I've definitely ran into some US employees who have been less than impressed at how unavailable I am outside hours in that time
- seadan83 4y ago
  I think also depends where in the US. In Seattle, a lot of tech workers are with Amazon. When I worked with Amazon, over two years, there were perhaps two weeks total where I worked less than 50 hours. In that job, and in several that followed, the office was for collaboration, meetings, maybe an hour of actual work, and then at home was where the second workday began in a quiet setting & you put in 3-5 hours additional coding (plus whatever on-call threw at you).
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
huile 4y ago
maccard 4y ago
And meanwhile I hear stories of people clocking in 40 hour weeks on a continuous basis. The reality is that both exist.

christophilus 4y ago

And Henry Ford.

musicale 4y ago
Didn't actually die for the 40-hour work week, but he did institute one at Ford, possibly because he thought it would increase productivity vs. a 48-hour week and drive demand for cars since workers would drive places on the weekends.