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You can thank the unions of the past for the forty hour work week, the very concept of a weekend, paid sick leave, and the lack of child labour. They fought for
by wesselbindt 2y ago
You can thank the unions of the past for the forty hour work week, the very concept of a weekend, paid sick leave, and the lack of child labour. They fought for these rights, often risking their lives* in doing so. Mocking them is extremely distasteful.
* Yes, "lives", not just livelihoods. See for example the haymarket massacre.
- pydry 2y agoThe unions which won the forty hour work week and the weekend did not employ "polite" striking tactics. They aimed to levy as much damage as possible. Yellow unions, on the other hand...
- wesselbindt 2y agoIf this is indeed a yellow union, I stand corrected, of course. What makes you say it is?
- robertlagrant 2y ago> Mocking them is extremely distasteful. Unless time travel is involved, the people mentioned in the article did not achieve those things.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoOrganized labor did, which this is, and you can't build anything without labor (much to the chagrin of investors and anyone else making their living off of imaginary numbers in a database).
- robertlagrant 2y agoThis is a category error. The people in the article did not do this.
- wesselbindt 2y agoThat's not what category error means.
- robertlagrant 2y agoSubcategory: the people mentioned in the article striking over a weekend with a public holiday in it. Supercategory: all organised labour ever. Category error: thinking a joke about people striking over a public holiday weekend is mocking all organised labour ever.
- beaeglebeachedd 2y agoI thank the inventors and capitalists for making industry efficient enough to make those things possible. If anything unions are parasitic drag on that.
- wesselbindt 2y agoThat's ahistorical at best. Compare worker's rights in capitalist countries which had strong unions and in ines that didn't and you'll see you're wrong.
- andrepd 2y agoAgain: if it weren't for organised labour those "efficiency gains" would manifest as bigger profits for the owner class, not as better working conditions or more leisure or more money for the working class. As, indeed, we've seen for the past 50 years in the first world: weak organised labour and skyrocketing inequalities between labour and capital.
- robertlagrant 2y agoThis is a bit simple, though, as it discounts the existence of competition. The best job security is other employers, and the best prices come from the existence of other providers.