Thanks for subscribing to /c/[email protected] ! Now that we've grown (and are growing) so quickly, I've had some calls to discuss what this community is for!

What we stand for

As the sidebar says, Work Reform aims to increase the share of rewards reaped by the workers (as opposed to capitalists - be it shareholders or owners), and make work more equitable. We do NOT aim to abolish labor altogether - I personally don’t think that’s a viable societal system. There is no known system in human history where majority of the population can subsist without doing anything in return.

What we need to do

I see a few things necessary to reform the current economic system - let’s call it Awareness, Advocacy and Action:

• Awareness means getting people to realise that the corporate propaganda they’re hearing isn’t the whole truth.
• Advocacy means going out and telling people to join the cause, form a local union, etc.
• Action means taking organized action - writing to politicians, organising dialogues and strikes, etc.

What this space can be used for

In short, all of the above!

• To raise Awareness, you can post anything that talks about the issue of wage disparity. That means venting about scummy practices, that means posting news that counters corporate propaganda, and that means posting memes and screenshots of relevant tweets.
• To engage in Advocacy, you can post news about organised action taking place elsewhere that we can celebrate or contribute to.
• To take Action, you can start a local chapter of your union, organize/engage in online campaigns, etc. This space can be used to help gather people for that purpose.

I personally think the most important thing now is to get more people to rally behind the cause (which means Action and Advocacy). But some of you have really good ideas on taking Action. So feel free to use this space for that purpose.

As it grows, we can discuss how best to use this community as well, so the rules may evolve over time.

For a task to move out of the domestic (home) economy, the hourly wage earned by the lowest paid family member must be enough to purchase goods or services that could otherwise have been done within the household in one hour. Thus, if a family has one child under school age, they can only afford to buy child care if one hour of child care costs less than the lowest paid person in the house, usually a woman, earns in an hour. But the child care, if provided by a profit-making business, will sell at the full value of the service. That is, the child care fee will include wages, profits, rent on the building, heating, etc. Suppose that the salary of the child care worker is $16 an hour, that a further $12 goes in profit and rent, and $4 in other overheads. Then if each child care worker can look after three children, the overall cost per hour will be on the order of $11. At this level it would not be worthwhile for a worker, who was herself on $16 an hour, to put a child into care service- allowing for tax deductions, travel costs, she would have almost nothing left over. If two children had to be put into care it would be impossible. It is no surprise then that private child care has initially been only affordable by households on higher wage rates. But this is clearly irrational from the standpoint of economizing on social labor. A single child at home ties up one adult, a single child in a kindergarten ties up only 1/3 of an adult, but since workers only get part of the value they create back in wages, something that would be socially efficient becomes privately unaffordable. There is a feedback mechanism here. So long as women are disproportionately tied to child care at home, their participation in the labor force is lower, and we have seen that this results in lower average wages for women. But this lower pay rate makes child care unaffordable and ensures that it is women, not men, who are likely to stay at home. The elimination of a gender pay gap thus depends, at a minimum, on the socialization of child care. The socialization of infant care, its move out of the household, is thus dependent on the provision of either free state nurseries or highly subsidized private ones.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/51867819

https://search.laborlab.us/

Australian dock workers are demanding a 28-hour work week with no loss of pay as the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation expands across the country's ports.

The AI push is being led by port logistics giant DP World, which the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) said has put workers' jobs "in the crosshairs".

The union said: "If DP World wants AI and automation, then they must pay the social dividend. The new technology doesn't have to cost our members their jobs or put their livelihoods at risk just so a terminal operator can boost profits."