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this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2025
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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.
founded 2 years ago
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Working from home sucks. Yeah I said it.
I'm a software engineer, and yes, there are days that working from home really does help with concentration and focus on a particular project, but unless you're a contractor, tasked with "build this and come back when it's finished", building anything is typically a collaborative process. You know what sucks for collaboration? Working from home.
There are no tools that can sufficiently replace what the office offers: interaction, chance conversation, camaraderie and socialising with the people with whom you're trying to build The Thing. It's why people still go to actual conferences and no one cares about gigantic Zoom calls masquerading as real interaction. Slack sucks, Jira sucks, Teams suuuuuuucks. They'll do in a pinch, but they'll never offer real collaboration. For that, you still have to be in the same building.
That's not to say that offering remote work isn't great. There are people who work best in isolation, but that's not all of us. I'd argue that it isn't even most of us, and headlines like this "working from home makes us thrive" aren't helping. They're objectively bullshit. Having been in software development for 25 years, I can categorically state that the more remote the team I've been in, the less organised, the more disjointed and disconnected it is.
And don't get me started on the whole "overemployment" trend, where people try to hold down two jobs by doing neither well at all. Yet another "perk" of remote work I guess.
I personally love remote work and I get that it isn't ideal for some people. I need to read more studies to understand, but I do wonder if a lot of the benefit (in some cases) comes from enabling people to do time theft. Letting people work at their own pace, take breaks as needed, do some chores, avoid commuting- all leading to better overall quality of life, happiness, health, and therefore productivity. Could we get a lot of the same benefits by moving to a 5 or 6 hour work day?
I don't think work from home should ever be taken off the table since for myself (and many others, clearly) it helps improve focus, happiness, etc. But I think that if we stand to gain more from working in person with other concessions made them we should explore those.
I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the phrase "time theft", but I largely agree. The real benefit of hybrid work is flexibility, and I'd never want to take that away from anyone. I just object to the constant parroting of this lie that remote necessarily means more productive. I've never seen it, but I've seen many many cases of the opposite.