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Everyone should know that labor day internationally, GLOBALLY, is May 1st, in honor of the labor movement and the martyrs who were killed by the US government in the Haymarket Affair in 1886.
The reason they made it a different date in the USA is so they would distance themselves from what they did and so people would stop connecting May 1st and the labor movement, so people wouldn’t suddenly get a martyr remembrance day and all come together and think about hanging the rich every year.
The Haymarket affair was a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago. The rally began peacefully in support of workers striking for an eight-hour work day; it was held the day after a May 3 rally at a McCormick Harvesting Machine Company plant on the West Side of Chicago, during which police killed two strikers by opening fire at the crowd as it surged to the gate to confront strikebreakers.[2]: 190 Many others were injured. At the Haymarket Square rally on May 4, an unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at the police as they acted to disperse the meeting, and the bomb blast and ensuing retaliatory gunfire by the police caused the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; dozens of others were wounded.
Yes, it’s funny how a labour uprising in the US on May 1st ended up becoming the most important holiday in communist countries. Meanwhile, the Haymarket Affair is basically forgotten in the US.
It’s also ridiculous how people today think that an 8-hour work day is some natural thing that happened because everybody agreed it made sense. The reality is that the bosses thought that a 12 hour work day made sense, and it took protest and violence to convince them to change their minds.
Anybody who wants a 4 day work week or a shorter work day needs to be aware of their history, and know that the only way to get there from here is massive union organization, and probably violence (mostly violence inflicted on the workers by the powers backing the status quo).
Yes, it’s funny how a labour uprising in the US on May 1st ended up becoming the most important holiday in communist countries. Meanwhile, the Haymarket Affair is basically forgotten in the US.
A century of propaganda will do that to a populace.
Of all the people that claim they sleep for 8 hours like they should, how many do you think actually do? Like it’s not reduced to 6 hours for some reason? Trouble falling asleep? Wake up for the kids? End up fucking for 30 minutes? Wakes up 8 times from traffic noise?
Idunno, I actually sleep more than 8h often. Today was ~9.5 (from 23:00 until 8:30) The thing that makes it possible for me is (1) WFH so no commute, (2) no kids, (3) “white-collar” job so I can just sleep in and start working a bit later.
I realize that this is incredibly privileged and not everyone can sleep like that. But it is definitely possible too.
Average maybe 5, last few years, maybe less. Was horrible at first, now im coping by just going outwardly insane.
I’m not really complaining cos im self employed and secure as a result. Most people seem to be experiencing the same but only barely survive
The idea that people should be getting 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep is a bit of a myth.
Sure, a lot of people don’t sleep as much as they should, but it’s not like 8 hours is a magic number, or like interruptions haven’t been a factor in sleeping since proto-humans first climbed down from the trees.
In the past in England it was normal to have two periods of sleep in a night. In hot countries an period of sleep during the hottest part of the day is normal.
Now it’s 6 for sleep, 12 for work and 6 for the side hustle…
We are tired
9 August or 7 September. Either way I don’t see how it is labor day.
The US celebrates Labor Day on the first Monday of September. It was established by the government through President Grover Cleveland in 1894 as an “apology” of sorts for the fallout of an anti-police-brutality protest (keyword Haymarket Affair) but actually to intentionally distance the day from the labor rights movement that established May 1 as what would be International Workers’ Day. This separation was reinforced for the next hundred+ years because the class war never ends.
When the 40 hour work week was brought in, working men were expected to have a wife at home to do all the household labour.
“8 hours for what we will” gets eroded pretty quickly now that both of you are expected to work.
It’s also non-consecutive. 8hrs split over morning & eve feels much shorter
gotta take away commuting time as well
And lunch used to be included in the 8 hours of work. And paid. Now it’s an unpaid hour you can’t really use.
Wholesale theft.
How early do you get up? I only get up in time to grab a coffee and a snack before work.
No small kids, I take it? Take away about 5–7h every day from the “what you will” pool. And/or rest pool.
Ah, well, I’ve been self-employed working from home since 2005, so I get up anywhere between 7:00am-9:30am depending on how bright it is outside
Yeah how the fuck am I supposed to get 8 full hours of Rimworld without someone here to cook me chicken tenders?
This feels like billionaire propaganda. “Everything’s balanced and fair, we already give you 16 off. Work hard in the eight you give us” or something
It is literally a labor slogan dating back to the 1800s.
Does that mean it can’t be used as propaganda in modern times?
Outside any further evidence I’m fine to say it’s not. Especially when the criticism seemingly stems from a lack of awareness of historical labor movements.
It educates people on the fact 8/8/8 wasn’t always a thing and the only way we got it was through unions and activism. I think an intelligent person can easily draw a line between progress being made 200 years ago and how nothing has changed the 8/8/8 agreement since.
To me that’s empowerment to fighting for 4/4/4 or 30 hour work weeks or anything better than our current dated set up. It tells us we can fight for a better future and present.
Labor Day is just a government worker holiday, everyone else other than banks just get fucked
8 hours to pay the landlord, 8 hours to pay the other bills, 8 hours for everything else
Tell St. Peter I can’t go,
I own my soul to the company store.
0 hours for corporate busywork.
8 hours of work is too much
2 hour of commute + 8 of work is basically 10 hours away from home
10 hours + 8 to sleep + 2/3 to do chores = 20/21 hours of your day, so you have max 4 or 3 hours to ““enjoy”” (you will just unwind from work and enjoy little or nothing) and this is without counting overtime work to meet the end of the month
FUCK EVERYONE WHO WANT THIS! We deserve way better!8 hours of work is too much
If you feel strongly enough about that, you need to do what the organizers did to get to that 8 hour day: organize workers to form powerful unions, then go on strike, survive confrontations with the police where many people die, keep battling for several decades, and then eventually your shorter work day will maybe become a reality.
Getting to an 8 hour work day required a lot of blood to be spilled. I personally doubt that today’s workers are motivated enough to put in the work and sacrifice required.
2 hour of commute + 8 of work is basically 10 hours away from home
Forgetting the hour lunch that isn’t paid, so to get your time you spend 2 hours commuting, 8 hours working, and 1 hour “on break”, so that’s 11 hours of your day gone just because of work. With sleep, you are already down to 5 hours to do literally everything else your life requires. Grocery shopping, home/car/lawn maintenance, budgeting/planning bills, etc. God forbid you have kids and you have to figure out how to keep another human alive in that 5 hours on top of keeping yourself alive…
See, the commute is meant to be counted into it… xD
9/7/1926?
Is Nancy not entitled to the sweat of her brow??
The problem is that transportation and transitional period always encroaches into sleep or atwill times, never with times. Have is why we’re always push for 30h work weeks. It’s still a lot imo but it’s still manageable.
That’s why I sleep on the train 🧠 🧠 🧠
Same, but we shouldn’t have to imo lol
We probably need closer to 10hrs of sleep (e.g.).
I think a 24 hr workweek is pretty ideal, distributed as one prefers (3x8 up to 6x4), so 4hrs work per day not counting Sundays.
4/10/10 is what we should strive for in the current age I think.
We’d have to double to triple the workforce in logistics and construction and other necessary sectors. A reduction in work hours necessarily means a reduction in standard of living - even with CEO wages factored in - because the overhead of necessities grows compared to societal achievements. We need the same amount of food delivered and the same amount of houses built, but now it takes two to three times as many people to do it. The same applies to doctors or teachers, so the additional workforce would come from other segments - which finally means reduction in standard of living for the average citizen.
This assumes steady productive output. In some sectors, this assumption is wrong, but I think it’s a fair assumption for logistics and construction.
Putting all essential jobs together (health, education, construction, logistics, agriculture, food retail, utilities, public administration, plus the required manufacturing and IT infrastructure) is already 50-55% of the workforce. In order for everyone to halve their workday, we’d all have to exclusively work only for the status quo. Which means no watches, no smartphones, no TV, no cinema, no museums, no parks.
A reduction of work hours would be nice, no question. But we also have to remember that the work goes somewhere and time/energy/resource efficiency matters on a fundamental biological level. We have to be a productive part of society for it to function, and while this is usually co-opted by capitalists to extract money, it remains a fact of life.
E: We’re already having healthcare only because we’re re exploiting healthcare workers to the maximum. Even at the current status quo, treating them fairly would just not work. We’re already in a state of broken equilibrium between what we need and what we want. The healthcare workforce would have to double only for them to have a 40h work week.
And then there’s people with three jobs who still can’t make ends meet. I propose we make the 40h week work for everyone first before we reduce further.
‘…while this is usually co-opted by capitalists to extract money’. You just solved your own problem. Fairer taxes means more money for healthcare, social services, logistical services and essential services.
Under your proposal, we continue with ever-increasing productivity with ever-decreasing living standards until all the wealth is concentrated in one cunt’s wallet.
Also, you’re going to quickly find we’ll soon beg for the ability to maintain the status quo once climate change really gets going. Which capitalism has caused, by the way. Both the problem and final solution, fittingly enough.
the additional workforce would come from other segments - which finally means reduction in standard of living for the average citizen.
This is a great point, one also addressed by Kropotkin in The Conquest of Bread. However, you’re assuming all labor meaningfully contributes to our standard of living and produces “societal achievements”. I’m not so sure about that, I have yet to see any benefit from e.g. the advertising industry.
As Kropotkin and Graeber both argue, capitalism breeds many bullshit jobs that help capital accumulation but don’t actually contribute to a better society. Transferring those workers to necessary jobs alone would allow us to work less without a meaningful loss in standard of living.
Will that get us to 4/10/10? Probably not, but I like to be a little aspirational. If you only demand a workable 40h workweek that’s all you’re getting, if that. Any further demand will simply be met with “but we already gave you what you wanted you ungrateful peasant!” :)
We can do what we want to. We decide. If we want that, that’s what we get. The only ones who don’t want that are the land/production system owners and the system of capitalism.
There is nothing inherently “normal” or “natural” or “good” about the system under which we toil and slave, except you would be hard pressed to believe it when you speak to people because they are so deeply indoctrinated in that mode of thinking that they will fight to keep it. For some fucking reason.
so I work retail which means labor day is just an excuse to have some kind of sale. And of course I didn’t get labor day off. Anyway someone unironically said to me ‘you must be pretty busy because everyone is off today’
‘except for me! (:’
she didn’t say anything else for the rest of the transaction lol. it’s like they forget we too are humans who are WORKING on LABOR day
Did you get holiday pay at least? I dont think I got holiday pay even when I worked retail. My husband got 8 extra straight hours, and was paid time and a half for the shift he worked yesterday (unionized labor).
I dont think retail does anything like this. Fuck retail. I know exactly what you went through, and it is why youll never see me shop on a holiday.
yeah thankfully I do get time and a half, and I thibk my store also gives an extra 4 hours of pay for anyone who works on the day. It’s definitely better than nothing and I don’t mind the extra money :3c
its just the insensitive folk who remain ignorant to the fact that everyone else around them is living a life as varied as theirs that gets to me.
but same! honestly if I could I would even like shut down my entire home and spend the day out in the wild so I don’t have to give work to the people making sure utilities are still functional too. those Homies also deserve a break, and a hell of a lot more than time and a half
In Finland you get 2x pay for working Sundays and Holidays. 1.5x for Saturdays.
