this post was submitted on 06 Jun 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.

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[–] Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 36 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Sounds like some surplus value generated from labour is being extracted by the people owning the means of production

[–] JackFrostNCola@aussie.zone 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think this is the first time i heave read an entire sentence written in corporo-management-speak that has made sense logically without falling in a hole of words that 'mean nothing but sound business'.

[–] Kellenved@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 days ago (2 children)

That’s commuspeak not corpospeak, as in, it is a central tenet of communism

[–] JackFrostNCola@aussie.zone 1 points 1 day ago

Fair enough mate, it all just sounds like a zoom/teams meeting nightmare to me

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[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 4 points 1 day ago

Because those nursing aids aren't working on wealthy people. The circumstances of a worker is proportional to the level of threat and inconvenience it presents to the elite if they aren't in good shape.

We need more friction against the corporations, be it the implication of force, strikes, or quiet quitting.

0000

Should America's economic system be replaced in the future, a key thing to do is to eliminate most of the difference between the poorest and wealthiest. That would require standardizing incomes, capping wealth accumulation, workers voting for leadership, and using universal benefits such as free shelter and food to prevent coercive workplaces.

Our current economy is an creature that inherited the properties of feudalism, and wasn't explicitly designed to be good for civilization. Creating a whole new system with deliberate intent & mechanisms is the best path forward.

[–] SooperGoose@thelemmy.club 3 points 1 day ago

Capitalism cannot function without paying workers less than their labor is worth, thus creating "profit" margins for rich people to steal from

[–] Alwaysnownevernotme@lemmy.world 29 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Nursing homes are often owned by investment trusts who have to pay out to their investors based on profits, so the managers of the trust take it upon themselves to outsource the maintenance, management, and labor to other entities they control. At a healthy upcharge, the menials who perform the tasks associated are not even an afterthought. They work for a faceless corporation that is puppeteered by the same people who own the nursing home, who rents it's facility from a real estate trust they also own, allowing them to extract as much value as possible from each level of the operation while limiting liability.

[–] TwoBeeSan@lemmy.world 19 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Worked in them for about 7 years.

You are correct.

We had one where could never get ANY supplies 1 year in despite a 25k lump sum buy in by residents. even before paying month to month rent.

My expeince is management will play the "heroes work here" type behavior and take advantage of people's passion for elderly to then underpay then and mistreat them to the degree they do.

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[–] Leviathan@lemmy.world 27 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I feel like half these problems would be fixed if everyone woke up and unionized. Corpos would have no leverage left.

[–] SippyCup@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago (4 children)

The Pinkerton agency has entered the chat.

If you're curious, yes they're still around, yes they're still doing it, and they're owned by Securitas now.

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[–] minorkeys@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 days ago

How have you been alive long enough to write this post but not see why? People exploit each other for power and wealth and so not care that they hurt people or the suffering they cause. Those best at that are the CEOs and senators and leaders of nations, the most powerful positions there are, are held by psychopaths, sadists and narcissists. They convince us all that fighting back is futile, immoral or illegal. We could topple it all and every day we choose to get a latte and spend another 9 hours grinding away our time on this earth just to stay alive.

It's all a fucking scam by rich ppl who are the most capable of the worst kinds of human beings.

[–] Skyrmir@lemmy.world 182 points 3 days ago (21 children)

Daycare is a crazy one. Insanely expensive, yet the workers are damn near indentured servants.

[–] Dettweiler42@lemmy.dbzer0.com 86 points 3 days ago (3 children)

It's honestly a major contributor to the labor shortage. For anyone with a decent job, it's significantly cheaper for the spouse to just stay home until the kids are old enough to take care of themselves.

[–] nutcase2690@lemmy.dbzer0.com 126 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (7 children)

Don't let the media force you to twist your words-- it is not a labor shortage, but a wage and cost of living crisis.

"Nobody wants to work anymore" == "I pay so shitty wages that no one can even afford to come work for me."

[–] Qwazpoi@lemmy.world 36 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I've run into dozens of people who are complaining about how they have applied to literally everything and never heard back or get rejected for things like gas station cashier and yet those places always put up the help wanted signs. Shortage seems like a fabrication when these places hire nobody and keep the ad up

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 21 points 3 days ago (2 children)

When I.T and nurses are complaining that they keep getting ghosted and can't find work? That feels like a major economic failure signal to me. It's freaking mad.

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[–] SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 51 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (5 children)

I read an interview, probably from NPR, but I can't find it at the moment. The upshot was that caring for infants is insanely expensive, since they need one-on-one care pretty much continuously.

But parents can't afford that cost, so, essentially, the price they charge for infant care is a loss-leader, and parents of older children (who need less supervision and thus more favorable staffing ratios) subsidize the cost of caring for infants. Daycare operators are barely keeping afloat.

Edit: Ah, here it is: Baby's first market failure

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[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

You don't understand, the CEO needs a lot of money, to bribe cops when he rapes children.

[–] architect@thelemmy.club 2 points 1 day ago

They get paid so awful drug addicts and gamblers are mostly doing that job. One that my family pays (i have no say in this) has wrecked two of the grandparents cars, stolen hundreds of dollars, and now us bringing their kids with them when they work. I’d rather be dead than used like that.

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 76 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (19 children)

What's funny in a sad-not-haha way, is that labor for caretaking of small human beings is the enormous untenable driving cost here.

Parents can't afford the rates, daycares can't afford living wages for the caretakers. This is an endeavor, like many, that the Hand of the Market(TM) is OBVIOUSLY unsuitable for solving.

The "funny" part: Parents would gladly do this job for free as they have for centuries and millennia. This problem was already solved, and wouldn't be an issue if every member of the household wasn't forced into full-time 40+ hour work plus hunting for side-hustles, and being taken away from their loved ones for most of their waking friggin lives, just to survive.

How many generations deep are we now? Where so many kids spend so long in daycare from infancy that they never even get to form a decent bond with their own parents? How healthy is that, for anybody, much less larger society?

"Parenting as a Service" is peak capitalistic hellscape...

Edit: spelling

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[–] wpb@lemmy.world 35 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

What's not to understand? The owning class owns the facilities and sets both the prices and the wages, and they will do this in the way that maximally benefits themselves, i.e., maximizes profits. It's a really, really basic feature of capitalism (yes, also whatever super duper special unicorn flavor of capitalism you think works better than "crony" capitalism).

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[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 days ago

Vocational Awe

There are certain jobs that people really want to do. No matter how little the job pays, there will be people willing to do that job. Often these are the most important jobs.

That's not a good match for a purely capitalist system where someone can't survive on their salary. Unions are one way to fight this. Traditionally nurses had strong unions, but these days no union seems to be particularly strong. The other way is for the government to get involved and say that certain jobs are important enough that they get special exemptions from the purely capitalist system. That could mean different minimum wages, special tax exemptions, or all kinds of other things.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Boomers built an economy based around raping the wealth and futures of their children, to fund their retirement.

They consistently voted for politicians and policies that would benefit themselves at the expense of everyone else, in basically every economic sector.

Of course they don't pay their orderlies well either.

That would mean their 401ks wouldn't go up by as much.

Only now that the most grotesque frontman conceivable is helming the logical conclusion of their mindset turned into policy, are they starting to regret it all.

The pathological narccisist gerontocracy society.

Healthcare is the only sector with actual job growth now.

Everything else is collapsing.

The turned the entire country into basically a big retirement home supercomplex that you can't opt out of.

[–] Dozzi92@lemmy.world 20 points 3 days ago (1 children)

My friend was the director of a daycare, and she's leaving because she works 60 hour weeks, has no help from above, and her pay is literally canceled out by sending her kids to camp over the summer. And obviously they won't pay her more. And she's the head of the daycare. It's insane.

[–] Mountainaire@lemmy.world 25 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It's because private equity capitalists took over daycares, nursing homes, funeral services, and veterinary clinics. They're leeches on even the most indispensable aspects of society.

[–] LeonineAlpha@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

Just based on the outrageous "strata" fees on "owned" lots for pre-fab/trailer parks (not the rental pad lots, totally different(same?) Story)

More per month just to get your (wife's, ass) grass mowed than to maintain my ancient building....

Private Equity got anywhere you could move also

So close yet so complete lack of critical thinking away.

[–] Star@lemmy.blahaj.zone 49 points 3 days ago (4 children)

As a nursing aide, it's because not enough of us are unionized.

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[–] bitofarambler@crazypeople.online 51 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (23 children)

the US lost so many battles against corporate monopolies that now 4 companies own the majority of the US healthcare system.

i suggest medical care abroad if you'd like similar or better healthcare at a much lower price. travel offers much more than a vacation.

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[–] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 38 points 3 days ago (11 children)

Why are Walmart employees using food stamps and medicaid when the family that owns Walmart are multibillionaires? It doesn't make any sense. :\

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[–] GirthBrooksPLO@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Its nearly time for a general strike

[–] LeonineAlpha@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Nearly??? So long overdue!!!

In the 1980s when Regean fired all unionized Air-Traffic-Control and replaced them using the military. USA workers did nothing, and that's when they lost the game folks! THAT was the moment, do or die, national general strike or.. They COULD still knock over the table and walk out of the casino.... any day now... in the last 40 years... maybe tomorrow... day after?...

PS Some kids cutting class on a Friday or Monday every 3 months is NOT a general strike!

The USA general population has been an insult to the entire world history of resistance and protest, since the late 1960s, so fuck you very much for abandoning your watch and dooming us all, you weak ass-hats.

[–] GirthBrooksPLO@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

It was the boomers who sold us out to Ronnie Rayguns and the Heritage pricks, then beat compliance into us.

Its a slow process, but people are coming around.

[–] slaacaa@lemmy.world 28 points 3 days ago (11 children)
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[–] BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

A job that requires wiping bums at any age should be very well paid.

There was a nurse in my province who killed eight nursing home residents at her job. She just enjoyed doing it. What a tragedy, to have someone use their power over you to kill you when you are most vulnerable.

[–] LeonineAlpha@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

(As far as we know)Women are a very small % of psycho(or-any-type?)killers. Like shabby mass (violent) slaughter attempts is absolutely a mostly-male thing

BUT

The tiny % of female psycho killers is mostly all elderly/disabled care, and when convicted 10s-100s of kills. And thats what an official thinks its easy to prove to a dead-beat-jury, so truth be told, some of those gals did 100s or 1000s!!!

So the rare "Venus-Libertina" of infrequent-occurence yet maximum-slaughter does indeed put men to shame

[–] HrabiaVulpes@europe.pub 14 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

If you can afford it, it will be exactly that expensive.

When government of my country passed a bill that gives monthly payouts of X per child to parents who both work and have at least one child, all daycare centers in the country raised their prices by X next month citing inflation.

Supply and demand do not set the price, when people have no choice but to buy anyway.

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[–] tburkhol@slrpnk.net 32 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Workers feel responsibility for the people under their care. Bosses exploit their guilt over untended people to reduce wages.

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[–] rexxit@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago

All this boils down to is that there is nothing more expensive than first-world human labor. Without a doubt, nursing homes are increasingly run by sleazy profiteers, but the reason you can't easily do better (i.e. find a high-quality nursing home) is because it's simply expensive to employ enough people, who have sufficient skill and work ethic, to give the elderly care.

Yes, PE in healthcare is destroying the country in every imaginable way. The answer in this case is more complicated than get the for profit companies out of nursing homes, which is necessary but not sufficient to solve the problem. The scariest thought is that there may be no good solution.

[–] Sunflier@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago

For the paycheck thing: the daycare takes the parent's entire paycheck because daycare is so expensive because the working class hasn't gotten a raise in almost 20 years. Providers need the second job because inflation is so high because people are getting what they voted for.

[–] slaacaa@lemmy.world 23 points 3 days ago
[–] speaksintv@lemmy.world 13 points 3 days ago (2 children)

For daycare at least, ours and most others in our city got bought out by one company. Even daycares no explicitly renamed after the company fall under its umbrella.

They raise rates 8% per year and added two new annual fees. Yet they struggle with teacher retention because they don't pay them hardly anything but charged us $3k/monthf or two kids full time.

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