pomegarnett:

gameboygirl:

compagnoenjolras:

vulned:

santorumsoakedpikachu:

cultural-fenianism:

temple-cat:

Vintage IWW 4 hour workday prints

Can you imagine? Would give us so much more rest and free time.

The average office worker is only productive for 3 hours a day.

Every article talking about this study talks about how bosses can squeeze more labor out of workers, or how workers can squeeze more labor out of themselves, but the reality is that the human brain only has so much capacity to focus on unpleasant tasks, and people generally won’t work more than that without the threat of force (like in manual and service industry jobs where work is easily quantified and workers are being monitored all the time to make sure they don’t slack off; the threat of being fired and losing one’s ability to eat is the threat of force). People in hunter-gatherer societies do about that same amount of work.

@whynotrobin

The working day isn’t only about productivity, it’s about keeping you busy too, so you’ll have no time do to other things (like study, discover that you can fight back capitalism, organize, things like that).

I wanna print these off and propagate them via wheatpasting in the city.

note that the IWW ppl are called “wobblies” and from what I last heard tell of:

Just heard from a Wobbly friend:

“The IWW is now officially a union that endorses prison abolition, mass anti-fascism, and community self defense. The union will also now formally refuse to apply discriminatory labor laws towards members who have been formerly incarcerated (current US labor law says that people who have been convicted of a felony are not able to hold certain positions in a union). This prompted the need to form a special committee in order to prepare for the legal ramifications of such a decision. Additionally, there’s also now a dedicated fund to provide financial assist to formerly incarcerated members for attending organizer trainings, conventions, and other union events for political development.

And finally, per a series of resolutions from the union’s Gender Equity Committee, the membership voted to form an organization-wide Conflict Resolution Committee on Matters of Gender.”

Working less would improve society as a whole. More free time means:

• Healthier populace. People will be less stressed and able to spend more time on self-care, feeding themselves properly, resting, exercising, and doing things they enjoy.
  
• Better childcare. Less time at work means more time with the kids. Other members of the community will be more likely to be able to babysit to give the parents a break at times.
  
• Smarter populace. Taking up new hobbies and attending night classes will become more feasible, giving people more skills and broader knowledge.
  
• Better-traveled populace. Bigger trips would require a discussion on vacation time, but working fewer hours / fewer days a week does allow for more day or weekend trips.
  
• Better communities. Volunteer work takes time and energy working 40 hours a week takes from us. Without such long weeks, a portion of a community will volunteer more.
  
• More productivity. This may seem contradictory, but people who are healthier and better rested are more able to focus and think clearly. Which isn’t to say people who can’t focus aren’t healthy, just that a better state of mind helps. And as previously mentioned, people cannot maintain productivity for a full 8 hours – we do better in shorter bursts. 

Combine these work hours with universal basic income and employees can be paid less to match the shorter hours without risking their livelihood. Work income would be a supplement to allow them to do more – more vacations, more gifts, more games music / films / clothes / paintings / materials for their own crafts etc. And people always want more.

But a healthier, more educated, and better-traveled populace is more difficult to exploit. They won’t be so easily coerced into buying what they don’t need or blaming others for their misfortune. Greater equality is a threat to those in power, and so they will fight against anything that will further society’s needs.