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this post was submitted on 04 May 2026
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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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My union had been fighting for 32 hours for years. Right when I retired, the college agreed to 36.
I'm "lucky" to have the option of a compressed 4x10 work week
the Friday off is beautiful. if I had a commute, doing that 20% less often that would be a big plus too. but the fact that this is presented as a perk and not a standard option, as well as the requirement to often work on my "weekend" (Friday aka unscheduled day) kind of makes it less of a perk
They pay overtime for that "weekend" work. Right?
yes, I am hourly and get paid for my OT. unfortunately not above base hours at 1.5x rate though, that's only at the legal requirement of over 44 hours. bit of a mistake on the company's end, there, as it doesn't encourage OT since if I'm only going to work 46ish hours this week, why even bother since I'm only making 1.5x on two of those extra six hours
I am always a bit surprised when people ask me that tho lol because like fuck no I would not work for free
Wth 44? Time and a half? Jesus, when did it stop being 40 and double?
it hasn't been doubled my whole working career. though to be fair I'm only in my 30s. I am aware of a couple companies that did double time on Sundays, which predictably resulted in employees gaming the system to sit in the office on Sundays and watch Netflix.
"good" companies around here will pay overtime over your base hours, which is typically 40 hours. the legal minimum is to pay 1.5x regular rate after 44 hours. pretty much every company does the legal minimum of 1.5 times regular rate for overtime
I'm used to it being morethat overtime was not allowed unless explicitly requested of you. Unapproved overtime was verboten! How times changed.
Different companies have different policies based on their needs. I worked at a factory that couldn't get enough skilled labor in the door, so they instituted mandatory overtime for two years: everyone had the option of 5 days at 10 hours or 6 days at 8.5 hours. Everything beyond 40 was time-and-a-half, but if you didn't work at least 50 hours in a week, you got written up.
Some people absolutely loved it because it was "extra" money, but a lot more left for other factories, only exacerbating the problem.
You know how easy it would be to unionize a workplace as chronically understaffed as that? Holy shit
automation industry is a bit different when not in a recession. over time is almost always available. every project could get done sooner, especially with automotive customers
Out of curiosity, assuming a lot of this discussion is US-based, which I'm not, do you have the work from home options there very much? I know managers in my organization often work 4-4.5 days but a day or half a day is at home.
Others that can work most of their job from their home! Not sure what this is looking like in other countries these days (I'm in Australia). Obviously depends on the job!
I'm in Ontario, but a lot of our customers are plants in the US or Mexico and some of our suppliers are in the US.
WFH seems quite common. all of our meetings are done over MS Teams anyways (which is a very effective format for technical reviews with multiple people presenting and sharing info). a lot of our suppliers clearly have salespeople or technical experts that are working from home (or in the case of sales people, probably travelling). it's actually maybe slightly more rare than not that somebody turns their camera on and it's of a meeting room with multiple people. we have customer meetings weekly for active projects and there's anywhere from 4-20 people from the customer's end in the call. some of them are clearly in the plant or office judging from background noise, but the office staff are sometimes WFH. it's less common for staff at manufacturing plants though, given the nature of the job, including the office staff.
within my role (automated machine design), WFH is not super common. older managers are reluctant to hire staff who ask about remote work options, in my experience, despite themselves making use of that flexibility as appropriate (i.e. "not feeling great today and will be working from home").
within my circle of friends family and acquaintances, I'd say maybe 25% are work from home? and the majority of those are in tech (software, IT, etc) or "boring office jobs" like non-customer facing bank staff. most of the people in a similar role to me actually work in the office, I'm the exception among my friends. obvs everyone in trades or customer service is on site, call that 60% of my circle. and then maybe the last 15% is hybrid