Jay H.People think they miss manufacturing jobs. They don’t. They miss social benefits guaranteed by a union.
40 hour work week? Union won.
Worker’s comp insurance? Union won.
Overtime pay? Union won.
Cassandrich@jhankins This is absolutely true, but I do think people miss feeling like their labor is producing something useful to people like themselves, rather than being a complete and utter bullshit job making their boss even richer and making people like themselves deal with more and more bullshit in their everyday lives.
@dalias also a great point!
fedops 💙💛@fedops @jhankins The idea of a jeans factory in the sense that exists now, producing millions of units with the intent that most be thrown away for tax writeoffs and most of the rest worn a few times and thrown away, is obsolete anyway if we want a world that will continue to be livable.
Imagine instead though that labor were about developing and operating manufacturing technology to produce only what's wanted on demand, materials that last and that can be efficiently reclaimed when they don't, etc.
Instead of jobs to convince & manipulate people to shop for garbage.
@dalias yeah that would be nice. And in itself a much bigger change than "just" leftshoring manufacturing jobs again.
I don't think the phone sanitizers currently at the helm grasp this though, and it won't be in their interest anyway Seeing as they wrongshored everything for their own profit in the first place.
@jhankins
@dalias am frequently thinking back to how quality and long-lasting products were made 100+ years ago. Let's say a cast-iron range, or a trolley car.
A worker was probably at least somewhat proud of their product. But even then capitalism alienated them from this feeling through hardships of labor and existential dread.
@jhankins
Kinene⭐🐻
knack@dalias as someone with a pretty good understanding of tax in one or two jurisdictions - in which tax jurisdiction does it make sense to make things you _intend_ to throw out (as distinct from paying less tax as a result of making less profit because you couldn't sell as many as you made)?
To be clear, I'm not doubting you here, but it seems like a really strange way to structure tax law.
sbi@dalias @fedops @jhankins I have done both and I can tell you that jobs in factories are much harder than the desk jobs most of us are used to — even if they happen to be more meaningful than many desk jobs are (which most aren't). If you want better conditions in your job, then you do not want to build cars on a conveyor belt or saw jeans. No, you just want: better conditions in your job. (It would of course be great of the people at the conveyor belt would get better conditions, too.)
Space Hobo@spacehobo @jhankins Factory yes, but factory is also pretty much entirely junk work (see downthread). I had in mind roles that are actually involved in building the infrastructure of human civilization, not mass produced garbage to convince people to buy, and that actually involve human skills, not using a human as a more expendable substitute for an expensive machine.
Jay@spacehobo @dalias @jhankins
100% true, but OTOH it now _has_ hit office work (certainly in my case), which (in theory) should help the "workers by hand or by brain" (as UK Labour's old clause IV had it) that they're all on the same side...
100% true, but OTOH it now _has_ hit office work (certainly in my case), which (in theory) should help the "workers by hand or by brain" (as UK Labour's old clause IV had it) that they're all on the same side...
ResunaCharlie Chaplin, Modern Times.
Eli the Bearded@resuna @spacehobo @dalias @jhankins
How about Lordstown strike of 1972? Besides tedious work, the workers also had an unsympathetic union leadership who didn't feel the same need to "make a difference".
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