“If we institute reasonable labor laws the economy will collapse” is a capitalist myth oligarchs tell the public to preserve the status quo. If the economy was able to survive laws preventing child labor or exposing women to radium or mandating fire exits for garment workers then it can survive laws that let people have two days off every week.
Why? Because I take the rest of the world into account when viewing our consumption and how we do things? Much of our products are produced in places that have no qualms about 7 day work weeks and 12 hour days , little healthcare, low pay, and very little concern for worker quality of life. Almost every major electronics brand sold in the US is built in places that have lockable factory doors from the outside of the floor and have suicide nets installed. Our food is factory farmed using low wage employees that work 10-15 hours a day, every day, for picking our food and packing our food. Our clothes are built in fast fashion factories in Malaysia and Thailand and other such places that regularly have massive safety issues. If we were to suddenly wean ourselves off the outside demand we have created for our products in this country cold turkey, it would be devestating to this country and its economy.
I think that should be absolutely disturbing. I think people absolutely should be disturbed by that. I think we should push for massive changes in how we consume products in this country and more awareness in what we buy and how we consume.
But don’t blame me for extending my belief outside the confines of the US and thinking that we should push for higher standards of living everywhere, and don’t blame me for being aware that if we were to instantly try to do that it would be QUITE the shock to the system.
If we institute reasonable labor laws and paid living wages all the way up and down the chain for what we , in the united states, consume… we absolutely will have a shock to the system. We still buy things from companies that don’t mandate fire exits for garment workers or factory floor workers. We just moved where those factories are and reward countries for keeping costs low.
To be honest, a government and a judicial system of said government is the only thing I do trust to protect free speech, and to set its limits when it is harmful. I do not trust any profit-oriented organisation, I do not trust oligarchs.
A government is the only true expression of the will of the people as a whole. All others are wannabe tyrants.
Studies have consistently shown that human productivity caps at or just shy of 40 hours per week. Not just efficiency, but total productivity. That’s been true for everything from breaking rocks to managing people to writing code. People tend to think they are being more productive at over 40 hours, but the sheer number of errors and injuries adds up such that for every hour longer work, almost two hours of productivity are lost in exchange.
And the comment here was about Twitter’s US employees. You wander pretty far off trail to bring OUS companies into the discsussion.
You were responding to @gatto’s question about American and/or California labour laws covering skilled white collar work done in America, in reaction to Musk’s crappy crunch-time mandate for 7 days straight work (“or you’re fired”). You tacked on the international supply-chain aspect when it become clear that your claim that the American economy would collapse if such a mandate was illegal didn’t hold up in that context.
In fact, unless Musk is making them work fewer hours per day the only reason he might not be breaking an existing law that effectively limits the days of the week worked to five is if he’s paying hourly workers some form of overtime. Since that’s not likely with salaried employees and since Musk doesn’t seem inclined to promise them bonuses for meeting his unrealistic deadline, that goes more toward answering @gatto’s question about why this can happen.
So, if California or U.S. law mandated some kind of bonus for overtime for employees in industries like tech based on annual salary, would it really make the country’s economy collapse? Or maybe, just maybe, would it make managers think twice about “crunch time” and make younger employees aware of what their time is actually worth?
Americans are going to start paying prices closer to the true costs of goods and services, domestic or foreign, sooner than anyone thinks. It won’t be because of corporate decisions taking advantage of Fed policy (as is currently happening now) but out of necessity driven by a number of factors, foremost amongst them outcomes from the climate emergency. But the American economy won’t collapse, just as it hasn’t collapsed now despite fossil fuel and monopoly capitalist corporations taking the opportunity of inflation to raise prices even further.
Also, just in case you were thinking about taking the following tack in responding to me and others, I’ll save you some keystrokes:
One of the things that was clear when I was working for a multi-national conglomerate with factories all over the world was that chasing lowest cost labor was a chump’s game. Eventually, all labor costs go up. If you plan a product based on cheap labor in country B, and it’s only profitable because of that labor rate, you better make all your money in the first couple of years - because that rate’s going to double. Then double again.
Pay your workers well and they will build a quality product that your customers will buy. Chase the lowest labor rate and you will have to move manufacturing every couple of years while constantly searching for new customers who haven’t been burnt by your shoddy quality.
I am not sure about US Laws but here in the west coast of Canada we do have an employment standards act which High Tech is explicitly exempted from following (along with some other professions,).
There have been arguments that it was necesary to attract companies, but there are also good arguments that no overtime pay and such standards for tech workers in unethical. (I favour option B)
