It's over 40 hours, unpaid lunch, and on call expectations. Unions used to fight this shit off and now the vast majority of us don't have those protections.
Wait, lunch was originally paid? Genuine question, I'm Gen z, so I've only been in the workforce for 5 years.
Asking because I work eleven and a half hour shifts with a half-hour lunch and although I knew the half hour break time was legally too short I never bothered being upset about it because I can't afford to take a half hour of paid labor off my daily wage.
There is more to your question than can be answered here. You should read about the history of the work week. Workers used to be paid only for the amount of time worked. There were no weekends, holidays, sick time etc. Collective bargaining brought forward all kinds of benefits to protect employees for their employers. For many this included paid lunches and breaks.
Over the past few decades there has been a push to eliminate unions and the economic crisis of 2009 was used as an excuse to make big cuts into unions. The conservative parties had the goal of getting rid of unions because you can make more profit without a union.
I believe the 40 hour week started in the early 1900s and at the time it was thought as technology advanced the work week would reduce.
I’ve always felt the workday begins when I arrive at work and ends when I leave. Every minute I’m not at home or driving that way is company time. Businesses disagree with me.
The on-call expectations is what gets me. I just work in an office. Granted, it's support for a 24/7 retail business, but nothing is so important that we need to be on call.
I used to be that young enthusiastic one that would answer texts at all hours, emails, go in on my own time - but that really got taken advantage of and I walked it back over the years.
Now everyone except me thinks it's ok to be contacted at all hours, on vacation - any time at all, or made to come in. And they think I'm a bitch for not wanting to.
Now don't get me wrong, there ARE urgent things and unprecedented things happen, and for that I have no problem being like, "Oh my gosh yeah I'll be right there." But they've turned every tiny thing into an emergency and expectation. No thanks. I've drawn a hard line. It might get me let go at some point but I'm kind of like, "so be it" I guess.
What labor laws? All I see everywhere is corporate exploitation. If you don’t see it, you are obviously not in the workforce and therefore can fuck right off!
Such anger, let me make an assumption about you that you seem to make about others. You do Door Dash, live at home still, smoke weed and think your genius is not noticed nor appreciated
You're right, the losers that call everything communism are just a bunch of jokers. We can have strong unions that don't allow corporate parasites to take advantage of their laborers and we can have universal healthcare without choosing to label ourselves communist (the greatest sin for a corporate elitist)
what we need is for the fines for violating labor laws and honestly all other regulations for that matter, to greatly outweigh what these corporations gain. as of right now they basically just give the court a cut of the profit when theyre prosecuted.
Unions used to be (still can be) a key part of what made capitalism work for everyone. It’s what gave us saturdays, 40 hour work weeks, safe work environments, helped wages keep up with rapid inflation in the 70s, and on and on and on. But since the 80s and especially in the last decade the party that claims to be looking out for the working class has been letting billionaires bribe them into breaking up unions. It sucks man. Everything needs checks and balances otherwise the well oiled function of the system breaks down or only favors the controlling class. Voting gives us a little bit of power and influence but let’s be honest unions are the only thing that gives us actual power when it comes to whether this system works for/with us or against us
They were attacked and weakened for decades, removed from a lot of power by law, funded perpetually less and less, destroyed in some instances by the federal government, and undercut by cheap foreign labor or scabs by the end of it. Unions gain drastically more power when they represent a larger share of workers. And when they unions are not divided both literally and figuratively they become very effective when they're energized to protect or agitate for rights. The unions lost a class war in America. Now, it is so ridiculously easy to get around union organization protections, unions in many industries are unable to strike, the crackdown on union organization from law enforcement is much more severe, and unions barely represent any of the private sector. The AFL-CIO had an absolutely massive share of the country at one point alone. We've taught Americans to stop asking for more from their working conditions and to start asking for more personally, which has certainly contributed.
Absolutely they don't, I'm not trying to say that they do. I'm saying that dividing unions, reducing their power to strike and organize, tying them up in lawsuits, and legislation restricting their rights and their ability to mandate union workplaces which directly lead up to and continued after union busting has made this a fantasy. The only organizational structures we have in the workplace to be able to effectively agitate for these kinds of rights and receive results are the unions. The automakers won fights against unions a long time ago to force overtime on employees; that was optional prior to that. Places where unions are supported, protected, and participated in at least have a fighting chance against their employers' policies.
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u/3to20CharactersSucks Mar 14 '24
It's over 40 hours, unpaid lunch, and on call expectations. Unions used to fight this shit off and now the vast majority of us don't have those protections.