Rethink Work

Changing how we think about work

Introduction

Changing how we think about work and how much work is needed for a good life

  • faviconThe (ongoing) fight against workplace AI surveillance — A shift to virtual work during the pandemic and recent advancements in AI technology have led to worries about increased surveillance, with very few guidelines on how companies deploy the technology. The technology also isn’t foolproof, which can be problematic [2024]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Remote Working, Technofeudalism, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: The Week    

  • faviconLos Angeles gave families $1,000 a month in the biggest basic income pilot in the country, reporting positive results for the recipients. Participants reported fewer housing burdens, better food security, safer home situations, and were more likely to secure full-time work than remain unemployed [2024]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: UBI   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Business Insider    

  • faviconSleeping in the office is making a comeback? Elon Musk would approve – but what about having a life? There is a wider belief there that asserting your right to leave, leisure and a life outside work is a duty, not a self-indulgence, since these were hard-won, historic social gains [2022]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: Leisure, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconGreece’s forced six-day workweek exploits workers and will leave the economy worse off in the long run. The policy, pushed by market fundamentalists and driven by economic pressures, and an aging population, serves as a cautionary tale for global labor. Workers in other nations should take this as a lesson and preemptively refuse to follow suit [2024]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: Productivism, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: GR   
    Source: Jacobin    

  • faviconWealthy nations rely on a large net appropriation of labour and resources from the rest of the world through unequal exchange in international trade and global commodity chains. Southern wages are 87–95% lower than Northern wages for work of equal skill. While Southern workers contribute 90% of the labour that powers the world economy, they receive only 21% of global income [2024]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Research   
    Comments   
    Country: DE,  UK,  US   
    Source: Scientific Journals    

  • faviconThe 32-Hour Work Week is Not a Radical Idea – While CEOs are making nearly 350 times as much as their average employees, workers throughout the country are seeing their family life fall apart as they are forced to spend more and more time at work [2024]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: How to be Human, Technofeudalism   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: CounterPunch    

  • faviconWorkers are less likely to go on strike in recent decades because they are more likely to be in debt and fear losing their jobs. Study examined cases in Japan, Korea, Sweden, the United States and the United Kingdom over the period 1970–2018 [2023]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Research, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Source: Scientific Journals    

  • faviconCorporate dictatorships rule the lives of perhaps 80 percent of working Americans. These corporations, with little or no oversight, surveil and monitor their workforces. They fire workers for expressing leftist political opinions on social media or at public events during their off-hours. They terminate those who file complaints or publicly voice criticism about working conditions [2019]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Worker Rights, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Common Dreams    

  • faviconHow Worker Ownership Builds Community Wealth And A More Just Society – Community wealth building initiatives are taking hold in cities across the world, strengthening worker pay, local economies and democracy [2023]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Worker Ownership   
    Comments   
    Source: ZNetwork    

  • faviconWhat Will Leisure Mean to Us in the Future? It may require significantly transforming our deeply ingrained biases holding a life of work above all things else, and setting ourselves free to enjoy a more active, stimulating form of leisure, comprising the work we as individuals are driven to do [2023]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: How to be Human, Leisure   
    Comments   
    Source: Farsight    

  • faviconBy forcing the working class to rely on the private labor market for survival, austerity ensured the survival of the wage relationship where the workers are structurally disempowered by state-increased precariousness [2023]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Wage Slavery   
    Comments   
    Source: Dissent Magazine    

  • faviconWhy Young People Are Joining Unions Again – A workplace is, at the most fundamental level, a microcosm of the political system. There are those who hold power, the bosses, and those who don’t, the workers. When unions are powerful, workers have something akin to a voice in the direction of their workplace [2018]
    In: Trade unions    
    Topics: Worker Rights, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Source: Common Dreams    

  • faviconEvery company should be owned by its employees – There are serious benefits to the company for operating this way. ESOPs are a viable alternative to unions—there is no rift between the owners and the workers, workers are the owners! They are also exempt from paying income tax—though they tend to spend those dollars on their employees instead [2024]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: ESOP, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Independent Blogs    

  • faviconWhy Americans Care About Work So Much – Workism is rooted in the belief that employment can provide everything we have historically expected from organized religion [2023]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: Mental Health, Workism   
    Comments   
    Source: The Atlantic    

  • faviconFreedom From the Boss – The rules and rights associated with democracy only apply to people’s relationship to their government, not their employer. Citizens in a democracy remain subjects in the workplace — the place where most adults spend a large part of their waking hours [2017]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Worker Rights, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Source: Jacobin    

  • faviconOur Only Imperative is to Achieve – Philosopher Byung-Chul Han argues in ‘Burnout Society’ that a cult of individual achievement has led to mass burnout and depression across society. Resisting burnout is simple, but easier said than done: we must slow down, and rediscover how to think [2023]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: How to be Human, Mental Health   
    Comments   
    Source: Philosophy Break    

  • faviconWe think of it as an individual problem, but burnout is the result of conditions in workplaces, workplace culture. And it’s a result of society and the view that we have of how work plays a role in being a good citizen, being a good person and so on [2022]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: Mental Health, Workism   
    Comments   
    Source: NPR    

  • faviconAlmost half of Dell’s full-time US workforce has rejected the company’s return-to-office push. Close to 50% of Dell’s full-time workers in the US have opted to stay remote, even when that meant giving up the chance of promotion, a punitive policy Dell implemented to get employees back in the office [2024]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: Remote Working   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Business Insider    

  • faviconThe workers have spoken: They’re staying home. Companies might want people’s rumps back in office chairs, but according to a recent Gartner report, 48% of employees say their company’s mandates prioritize what leaders want rather than what employees need to do good work [2024]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: Productivism, Remote Working   
    Comments   
    Source: Computerworld    

  • faviconBurnout is a structural issue, built into the dysfunctions of the industry. Burnout is made out of individualism, and meritocracy, and doing too much with too little. It is built on the idea that if we skip a meal and work more hours, we might finally get ahead [2015]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: Mental Health   
    Comments   
    Source: Independent Blogs    

  • faviconThe Class Struggle in Silicon Valley — A generation ago, tech workers viewed themselves as billionaires-in-waiting, working extremely long hours at the expense of sleep and social life in the hope of making “a dent in the universe.” But deteriorating working conditions have led to a shift in perspective, sparking an unprecedented wave of worker activism [2024]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Workism   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: ZNetwork    

  • faviconJapan asks young people why they are not marrying amid population crisis — many young Japanese are reluctant to marry or have families because of concerns about the high cost of living in big cities, a lack of good jobs, and a work culture that makes it difficult for both partners to have jobs, or for women to return to full-time employment after having children [2024]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: How to be Human, Protestant Work Ethic   
    Comments   
    Country: JP   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconGermany trials the four-day workweek: “Free time is invaluable”– Over 30 German companies began trialing the four-day workweek for six months with over 1,000 employees taking part. The initiative has been led by the NGO 4 Day Week Global and the HR consultancy firm Intraprenör in partnership with the University of Münster [2024]
    In: Working hours    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Country: DE   
    Source: Welcome to the Jungle    

  • faviconSamsung, the flagship of South Korean capitalism and one of the world’s biggest electronics firms, is facing its first-ever strike. The global tech giant, which has refused so far to engage in dialogue, citing the union’s lack of majority representation [2024]
    In: Trade unions    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: KR   
    Source: Jacobin    

  • faviconOn the Tyranny of Being Employed – Contemporary philosopher Elizabeth Anderson argues that while we may think of citizens in western liberal democracies as relatively ‘free’, most people are actually subject to ruthless authoritarian government — not from the state, but from their employer [2024]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Worker Rights, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Source: Philosophy Break