Work Reform

Sadly not a member of one, though I'm a union member. How is stuff in there?

When workers are not exploited, there are fewer in precarious situations. Consider the following scenario.

You have to work 12-hour long shifts, 6 days a week. Travel to and from work takes one hour each way. You need to sleep 8 hours. Eating takes up an hour (let's say 30 min breakfast&lunch, 30 min dinner).

That leaves you with effectively 2 hours a day that's for yourself. And that's excluding meal preparation times, so you'll likely prefer to microwave. And if you're a parent, you have even less time. You also don't have much of a "weekend" to recover. So you cut on sleep and that will directly impact your wellbeing. That won't help raise children in a safe environment. Nor will other coworkers and people be that thrilled to deal with a constant grumpy person. And nor do you want to be this person!

Now, how much do you then make? Let's say you make $10 an hour. You'll thus earn $720 a week, but most of that will go to groceries, travel costs like petrol/electricity, energy and utility, and rent/mortgages. So you'll en up with barely any reserves to stock up... so if there's a crisis, you're fucked, and need to go into debt - and who will profit from that? The banks and CEOs, again.

Let's say also that there are 1,000 employees, of which 900 workers, 75 mid-range and 25 CEO-board. The workers earn $10, the mid-rangers $15, the CEOs $115 an hour. Together, that all makes $13,000 an hour.

Most of the profit made, goes to the CEOs. When we divide income far more equally and remove those excess bonuses, and enable shorter travel times by good urban planning, we can imagine a scenario like this:

You'll work 4 days a week, 6 hours a day, 30 min both ways total for travel. Dinner can now be prepared instead of microwaved, and that's healthier and cheaper, so let's say food total takes 1.5 hours now. That leaves you with 8 hours for yourself. Much better.

You work 24 hours a week, of which most hours now productively spent at work instead of dozing off and counting the hours. And due to co-ops distributing the income much fairer among all, you might earn $20 an hour.

Let's now assume there are no CEOs, only workers who all can decide, although some do the day-to-day administration and can be directly recalled.

All earn $13 an hour. The workers significantly benefit, while the mid-rangers also benefit from the much better work-life balance. It's also conceivable that with this improved live standard, they will be able to produce more, and eventually, go beyond $15 an hour for all... perhaps $20.

Hence, a co-op not only improves wellbeing for all, but also for society. Reduced healthcare costs, reduced travel time costs and waste of fuel, and so on. But in my view, wages are part of the problem; a gift economy with a give-it-forward system would be ideal, with market co-op democratic socialism (with independent trade unions) a close behind.

“Rather than require specific outcomes–such as achieving maximum share price–fiduciary duties are largely about conduct, process, and motivation,” says Harvard Business School Professor Nien-hê Hsieh in the online course Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability.

A fiduciary duty does not require the CEO maximize shareholder profits in the long-term or short-term. It requires obedience, openness, care, and not acting to enrich themselves.

its also nice that you can’t be fired because so-and-so doesn’t like you or your attitude. You can even yell “pedophile protector” at the President of the United States while on the job, and still be sure you have a job the next day haha.

True, although I was at a dollar raise a month. The framing in the story was purposefully "I just ask for sth. very small" so that's how I read it. Dollar raise per hour is much more meaningful, but quite a significant increase

If you work full time (~2080/yr), then $700 amounts to $0.33 (33¢) per hour, or about $27 per biweekly paycheck. Any union worth their salt will certainly get wages increased by more than that. Unfortunately, for a lot of people at or near poverty, that $27 makes a huge difference.

Same thing with fighting anti-union activity by your employer - yeah, it's federally protected and you'll likely win in court and get back pay, but few can afford to not get paid for the intervening months while it works its way through the system.

Unions aren't even that expensive, here they cost about €4-20 a month, depending on your net disposable income and whether you study or not. At worst, that's €240 a year.

Take into account that with a union I might get a 5% raise instead of 3% on €30k, and it more than pays for itself (an extra earn of €600, minus union fees that still yields an extra earn of €360).