this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
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Ford wasn't responsible for the forty hour week - the modern equivalent would be describing the fight for fifteen as an initiative pushed by Amazon. Amazon only raised warehouse pay because they saw the writing on the wall.
Politifact seems to think this attribution of the forty hour week is a conservative meme https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/sep/09/viral-image/does-8-hour-day-and-40-hour-come-henry-ford-or-lab/ but it doesn't really reflect the truth. Ford's policy change also only happened two years after Woodrow Wilson was elected and a big policy debate in that election had been Teddy Roosevelt's endorsement of a 40 hour week.
Wikipedia has a pretty solid breakdown of the history of the 40 hour week and the foundations for the change were laid decades to a century earlier by various labor movements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day