Are working conditions getting worse?

[Hugh Mughnus]

 

Statistically at least we are working far less hours? I'd say as a condition that's fairly significant?

 

Note: this statistic is factors out unemployment. It's only among employed people.

 

 

yes, minijobs, 1-day contracts and 0-hour contracts are the best thing ever

 

 

Can you explain the relevance to the graph I posted? Even if more people were taking mini jobs and short contracts, their total working hours needed to sustain themselves is going down. That is important.

 

That said statistics show relatively stable employment in full time permanent jobs (2015 excluded) which is contrary to your claim.

 

Additionally, gender and racial wage gap is actually closing in Canada contrary to popular belief. This is despite decreasing union membership (represented by a % of employed workers).

 

How are any of these things not good?

 

You may be jaded based on personal experience but the statistics are there to support better overall working conditions.

[poblequadrat]

please delete my previous post as i swore i'd never get into an internet argument again and also i'm too jaded to discuss economy seriously

 

there are actual marxist economists out there, some of them spend way too much time thinking about the theory of value but others say interesting things and others even are good at explaining things

 

and you can always go for david harvey. anyone who's concerned about the economy and feels they are somewhere on the left should pay attention to david harvey because if you're a hardcore marxist you can disagree with him on various stuff but otherwise he's good at explaining why we're unhappy about the economy and puts out a lot of stuff for laymen. top guy.

 

personally i don't give a shit so excuse me while i retreat to anime

[poblequadrat]

the absolute level 0 intro to harvey and left-wing economics in general

[Hugh Mughnus]

[QQQ]

That first paragraph sounds like my job all over. I've taken 2 days holiday this week just to get a breather and I've considered seeing a doctor about having time off for stress and/depression but I fear for my job security and need the money.

 

I work in a call centre cancellations department and I've been there for just under 3 years. Every month for the past 6 months or so our targets have risen so our workload has increased but I am earning less (it is commission based). One month they actually reduced the amount we earn per sale (it's a sales environment) while simultaneously pushing the target to qualify for the payment higher. So they quite literally told us to work harder for less pay. Staff moral is so low but the higher ups don't give a fuck. Not to mention we are understaffed most of the time.

 

When I first joined we had a sales target of 8%. In the past 6 months they have gone from asking us to make 16% to over 30% now, with 40% as a stretch target. Any less than 20% and you don't get any commission at all. Not to mention the other penalties in place.

 

I'm trapped there because the money is better than I will get elsewhere but I'm not sure how much longer that will stay true at this rate.

 

tldr: I hate my job.

 

[/endblogpost]

[delet...]

yae anime.

 

+ yes working conditions are getting worse and i would say that getting less hours than you need on top of falling wages in real money terms is a damn good example of this. By virtue of their income levels, policy makers though are completely insulated from this reality and think everything is great cause all their investment properties and share portfolios seem to be going great guns. This is where the money that should have gone to the workers has instead been thrown into an asset bubble, never to be heard from again instead of cycling back through the economy.

 

Also, he's dead wrong on home ownership, it's tax exemptions in my country for example that drove investment in the housing sector, so where traditionally it would have gone into savings accounts to be reloaned out to entrepreneurs or industry or into consumer spending, now it's there's this housing bubble with increasing concentration of ownership of the housing stock with rents taking a larger and larger share of income. Apparently in london the average rents are now 52% of take home pay (up from 48%), so this has been happening all over the anglo countries this push to drive the false economy of an housing bubble. He should be pleased that there's fewer home owners shouldn't he, as under his implied suggestion this should be helping the worker as it would be more like the situation in germany and switzerland (lets forget that france has higher home ownership (same level as the australia) but no housing bubble (outside paris, and that it driven by foreign investment) due to more reasonable ideas about what an home means to society, and when i looked it up switzerland had a 44% home ownership rate). correlation not causation leads to bunkum etc.

 

nwae, another academic that tries to fit reality to his ideology. Not that i disagree with everything he said, i just wouldn't trust his potential solutions. Marxism scares me more now than it has done in the past, the more i find out what it's adherent hope for. Intollerable imposition of an ideologically driven straightjacket, whose stricture will come from a similarly sainted grouping of 'thinkers' as we currently have fucking up the world on hehalf of the banking sector.

[Hugh Mughnus]

lol do you even research stuff before you post?

Also it's quite important that this discussion depends largely on the country one is employed in.

 

Not just the country actually... right down to the very city. Look at detroit

[delet...]

i've updated my post several times, and nothing i wrote is wrong, hence your general nancy trolling of it because it annoys you because you are one of these people that makes plenty of money so really shouldn't have anything to say in this thread at all.

 

Also, you should have to 'research' whether you think your working conditions are getting worse stephen. I think you would bloody well know. Especially when you've been working as long as i have and have some perspective on these things.

[Hugh Mughnus]

Herp de derp

 

How does my employment or how much I make discount the, you know, statistics?

 

And what the actual fuck do you think you know about my own working conditions which are quite fucking shit thank you very much. My employees have it quite nice but I'm treated like shit.

 

Disappointed in your head flapping you're doing here.

[delet...]

yes, belittle people's posting when you don't agree. great work. all the world's problems would be overcome if only we were as compassionate and lateral of thought as stephenG. Might as well tell us to eat brioche.

[Hugh Mughnus]

Anyone that argues that historically working conditions are getting worse is "special".

 

100 years ago you had to work 12-16 hours ago farming land just to ensure your family and those around you would survive.

 

Now some of us work a few hours and can buy a bloody steak and go home and watch anime for fuck sakes.

yes, belittle people's posting when you don't agree. great work. all the world's problems would be overcome if only we were as compassionate and lateral of thought as stephenG. Might as well tell us to eat brioche.

 

And attack me personally and pretend like I'm some sort of entitled brat that just walked into a career.

 

Oh right you're the one that belittled me and continues to do so.

 

Great work

 

Edit: and to claim I'm not compassionate? Are you kidding me? You have absolutely no idea what kind of charity work I'm engaged in. Again another personal belittling attack.

[peace 7]

When it comes to "work", I don't believe such distinction should be made between work and life. Ideally, everything is about living a good LIFE and being happy. So if you have a shitty job, it's A PART OF YOUR LIFE that's shitty, and that needs to change if you're serious about wanting to live a life without being miserable for 1/3 of the day, for the next 20+ years.

 

In the past 5 years, I've lived in Hawaii, Joshua Tree, Canada, Egypt, and Japan-- I worked in all the places I've lived. The point is that there are tons of opportunities everywhere- one just has to search with heart! Be honest to yourself, and move towards doing what you want to do forever. Do you procrastinate instead of work? If so, find a way to make a living from doing what you do when you procrastinate.

 

Different countries can open up lifestyles that you maybe didn't know existed, so researching and meeting people of different cultures is the only way to have as many options as possible to choose from. Like writing a good track-- you gotta have a wide vocabulary. And your life is your masterpiece album, so work on it to impress yourself, like you got signed to Warp in 1998.

 

In Egypt, for $500~700/mo., you can rent a 2~3 bedroom apartment, large living room, furnished, TV, AC, washer dryer, and have a maid, with change leftover to buy food and hash. In Tokyo, NY, or London? That's like a studio, with change leftover to buy bananas. Point is, if you save up, other countries might suit you better than your original homeland.

 

Also, if it's about money, there are a lot of jobs that are high pay, like cleaning up corpses or medical testing. Or in Fukushima, you can cleanup with a radiation suit for $800 A DAY. Or sell weed. Point is, "the main job" is just viewed as such, and other opportunities are everywhere. Graveyard shift jobs tend to pay more, but for the basement musician, that's the easiest time to stay up! Get paid better for doing less work, cuz it's late? Sweet.

 

Anyway dyudez and dyudettez... Lotta opportunities in this world. There are places in the world where you can just buy a boat and fishing rod and supplies for a few thousand dollars/pounds/whatever, then you can just live off fish and live on the boat. The whole idea of having to live in the city and be part of some bullshit system, is even more bullshit than the system. We are humans, and we can live and be happy, anywhere we want to on this planet. Visas are bullshit. We have a right to freedom of living-- don't believe the lies that imply that you cannot live in your best interests, as if you are a good person, humanity benefits from you being free.

 

Never forget how free you really are. If you ever feel stuck in your life, just know that you're not. You might be stuck in your situation, but that's because you keep returning to it. This world has an ideal place for everyone, and we all have the power to realize such paths towards true happiness.

 

Zeus has invited you join him. Will you???

 

Godspeed~~~

[peace 7]

Another good, no experience job is construction, which generally pays $20/hr for carrying heavy things and transporting materials.

 

What?! Ju gonna pay me $20 an hour to cruise around in my company ride AND I get a free workout? Sweet.

[Berk]

It's like being in a perpetual state of Rubin Farr threads.

 

lol

 

[Schlitze]

Work is a waste of my fuckin day. I'm sittin there starin at the computer and i'm like ''i could be golfin right now, i could be doin anythin apart from bein here''

Sure i'm from Boston.

Only solace i get is my walkman mp3 player and i keep having to take the headphones off because people keep walking into my office every 30 seconds askin dumb shit, i'm like 'mudda fucka i'm about 2/3rd through Fluere here and you choose now to ask me this?'

[joshuatxuk]

Employers are asking more and more from their employees, burnouts have become a common phenomenon, stress is part of everyday life, salaries can't catch up on the cost of life, social benefits are a luxury, etc.

 

Is it just me or do employers want the most perfect and devoted employee and that employee won't receive much in return? I have a feeling that jobs with security and good conditions are very rare or exclusive to certain professions.

 

I remember people saying countless times "you'll see when baby boomers will retire and there will be plenty of new jobs available". From my experience, when someones retires or quits in a workplace, his tasks are simply distributed to the other employees. Young workers who just graduated happen to learn really fast and eventually become more competent than longtimers. Of course, the longtimers will keep their salary and social benefits while the employers will never doubt their skills.

 

 

I quit a government for a lot of the reasons above. I work for a land surveying firm run by a fairly liberal / progressive woman but that said we're still not exactly that progressive work wise. We're better than a lot of industry peers who work their crews into mandatory overtime, but that said our vacation and 401k options aren't great. That's the only thing I miss about my state job - but that job was literally purgatory, and complacency is a huge part of the environment. I was literally told I would not get a raise, despite working harder and gaining more skills, unless I got library science degree and the debt that came with it.

 

The other reason I like my job is that it's very straightforward work, we don't "sell" anything per say, it's very like engineering or similar fields, there's a quality aspects and competition but it's way less stressful and bullshit free compared to a lot of jobs my friends have in the tech industry.

 

The thing I find most alarming is the lack of, well, 9-5 jobs with ladders to climb if you work hard and vacation perks and hour limitations, etc. Texas is very anti-union so we're high in people without job paid health insurance and/or suitable wages to match cost of living. That said, a lot of very pro-union states (many of which are rust belt states now) have work situations were lazy employees have no consequences and burnout is high for people trying to make a better living or simply get a good job. If you do want to make a great living, you will have to sacrifice a social and family life in many cases.

 

I dunno, I kind of toy with the idea or living somewhere cheap and working less hours so I can have more time with my family and to spend on my hobbies. Because right now Austin, and many other fast growing and trendy cities, is so fucking expensive it's depressing. Developers and high income transplants have literally made it too costly for middle class residents. They literally can't build affordable homes for a family with the medium income, and affordable housing is behind and also only a plus for those who are unemployed or poor. In other words, even if you live in your means, have a decent job and likely a degree, you cannot expect even a modest house to live in within the city you work in. And if you get a house in the burbs, you will suffer from 2+ hours of traffic a day because the city, as with many other US cities, has poor public transport. And even those are hard to get. My friends literally had to write sob story letters to get a house, because they were competing with retirees and/or developers who had hundreds of thousands in cash. Many of my friends, even those making 40k a year, still rent or live with roommates. Likewise, friends of mine who are artists and musicians have to work or stay in school for loan and grant money, unless they have parents footing the bill. It's a frustrating enviroment but fuck I love living here otherwise.

 

tl;dr: cost of living increases are probably my biggest gripe, besides the shitty state of American working conditions and social benefits (or lack thereof)

[Hugh Mughnus]

Yes sadly cost of living outpaces wage increases by quite a bit in most places.

 

Like you I've kind of toyed with the idea of dropping it all and moving somewhere cheaper. I was offered to teach English in Vietnam and I was so tempted lol.

[ambermonk]

Different countries can open up lifestyles that you maybe didn't know existed, so researching and meeting people of different cultures is the only way to have as many options as possible to choose from. Like writing a good track-- you gotta have a wide vocabulary. And your life is your masterpiece album, so work on it to impress yourself, like you got signed to Warp in 1998.

 

touché

 

[ghOsty]

I work for Target and they actively manipulate employee schedules to minimize labor costs so our manager receives monetary bonuses. They also prevent employees for reaching the hours necessary to be eligible for the company health insurance. Without the affordable healthcare act we would not have health insurance at all.

 

Despite this, management forces employee enthusiasm and commutation. They give poor reviews for the tiniest fuck ups (also to prevent raises). I get harassed by supervisors because I pace myself and don't hurry up.

 

It's a lot of bullshit to put up with for 8.50 USD per hour, and no guaranteed hours. I'm living at home on 400 dollars per month. I fantasize about shooting myself in the head on their doorstep a lot.

 

Seeing as Target is based here they're fucking everywhere here, I don't mind shopping at them but I don't think I'd wanna work at one these days. I tried to get a job at one near me a few years back when I was desperate for a job and tbh I'm really glad I never did get hired. From all I've heard it seems like a pretty shit job and that their views on work/life balance are pretty terrible with constant demands to work overnight shifts, etc. Fuck that.

 

I recently got out of working at a pretty shitty job myself though. Worked at the Skechers shoe store at the Mall of America for a long time, it was one of the most bullshit jobs I've ever had and if it wasn't for my best friend also working there with me (who's also now found another job) I wouldn't have lasted as long as I did. That company overall is really only concerned with numbers, and gives absolutely zero fucks about it's employees, and barely even gives a shit about their own products, I was overworked and underpaid selling mediocre shoes to awful people while being asked to stay super enthusiastic about it and push the shoes like they're the best fucking thing on the planet. They're also miserably trying to force their way into an apparel market (their apparel is overpriced shit and no one buys it, nor should they)... There's more about the place that made it so miserable as well, but I'll cut the rant short.

 

Been working at a Brookstone location for the past couple weeks, and so far it's actually been pretty cool (despite that minor schedule fuck-up I posted about last weekend in the fwp thread) Pretty laid back job, decent pay with a good bonus incentives. Sold a big ticket massage chair today and earned a $50 bonus.

[fenton]

 

 

 

work.consume.work.consume

 

yup

 

Such is life for pretty much every living thing I can think of. Only difference is humans get to consume entertaining things rather than just working to survive.

 

 

I think you'll find humans are the only animal to work unless your definition of 'work' is a made up drug.

[hoggy]

In answer to the original post, yes, capitalism naturally drifts towards squeezing as much as it can out of people over time

 

But it's the same in other jobs, like nursing, people are expected to be superhuman and somehow still have a smile on their face - that's the real crime about work, that you now have to appear to be happy all the time

[hoggy]

I'm grumbling again, sorry

[DerWaschbar]

you better turn that frown upside down hoggy

[poblequadrat]

That first paragraph sounds like my job all over. I've taken 2 days holiday this week just to get a breather and I've considered seeing a doctor about having time off for stress and/depression but I fear for my job security and need the money.

 

I work in a call centre cancellations department and I've been there for just under 3 years. Every month for the past 6 months or so our targets have risen so our workload has increased but I am earning less (it is commission based). One month they actually reduced the amount we earn per sale (it's a sales environment) while simultaneously pushing the target to qualify for the payment higher. So they quite literally told us to work harder for less pay. Staff moral is so low but the higher ups don't give a fuck. Not to mention we are understaffed most of the time.

 

When I first joined we had a sales target of 8%. In the past 6 months they have gone from asking us to make 16% to over 30% now, with 40% as a stretch target. Any less than 20% and you don't get any commission at all. Not to mention the other penalties in place.

 

I'm trapped there because the money is better than I will get elsewhere but I'm not sure how much longer that will stay true at this rate.

 

tldr: I hate my job.

 

[/endblogpost]

 

i'm signing off this thread but watch out because i had the exact same job for a while and i was in the exact same situation. to make things worse they started laying people off to save money, without hiring new people, which made the workload even crazier. turns out they're firing everyone in november, because the workload is so extreme nobody is able to do their job properly (there's someone who's literally talking care of 5 phones at once), so the main contractor isn't happy with the call centre and they're terminating their contract. but of course if you don't do these kind of tricks in order to reduce costs, subcontractors can't get deals because YOU'VE GOT TO BE COMPETITIVE WHICH IS WHY CAPITALISM SUPPOSEDLY BRINGS OUT THE BEST IN ALL OF US FOR EVER AND EVER!!!!!!111!!1!!!!!1!!!!!1!!11!! and also you've got to make money somehow as a COMPLETELY USELESS MIDDLEMAN, so let's cut corners everywhere! CAPITALISM IS SO EFFICIENT

 

it's like PFI buildings, it's "COMPETITIVE!=!=)!!(!(!)!!!!!" but what it means is that as a civilisation the most we can do is fucking academies housed in motherfucking trespa sheds

 

 

@ dleetr: I'm not sure Harvey is really commenting on house ownership, rather it's something he's citing as something the papers used to talk about at the time. He does criticise right-to-buy and stuff like that elsewhere, though, and also to him land ownership is one of the fundamental limits of capital, but that's where he gets all technical and academic.

 

As for whether he's imposing his theories on reality, Harvey is a geographer and economist so all he does is analyses, but he really doesn't get into politics much (he doesn't really say "let's form a party like so and so and do this and this", most of the time anyway). It's worth noting that he wasn't a Marxist originally, though! Apparently he became one while studying the situation in Baltimore in the 70's...

 

Anyway, even if you disagree with Marxism as a whole I think his "Brief History of Neoliberalism" is worth a read because the facts are there. I thought it was a pretty good book!

[Hugh Mughnus]

 

 

 

 

work.consume.work.consume

 

yup

 

Such is life for pretty much every living thing I can think of. Only difference is humans get to consume entertaining things rather than just working to survive.

 

 

I think you'll find humans are the only animal to work unless your definition of 'work' is a made up drug.

 

Work = effort required to survive.

 

work

wərk/

noun

1. 1.

   activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.