Thanks for subscribing to /c/[email protected] ! Now that we’ve grown (and are growing) so quickly, I’ve had some calls to discuss what this community is for!
What we stand for
As the sidebar says, Work Reform aims to increase the share of rewards reaped by the workers (as opposed to capitalists - be it shareholders or owners), and make work more equitable. We do NOT aim to abolish labor altogether - I personally don’t think that’s a viable societal system. There is no known system in human history where majority of the population can subsist without doing anything in return.
What we need to do
I see a few things necessary to reform the current economic system - let’s call it Awareness, Advocacy and Action:
- Awareness means getting people to realise that the corporate propaganda they’re hearing isn’t the whole truth.
- Advocacy means going out and telling people to join the cause, form a local union, etc.
- Action means taking organized action - writing to politicians, organising dialogues and strikes, etc.
What this space can be used for
In short, all of the above!
- To raise Awareness, you can post anything that talks about the issue of wage disparity. That means venting about scummy practices, that means posting news that counters corporate propaganda, and that means posting memes and screenshots of relevant tweets.
- To engage in Advocacy, you can post news about organised action taking place elsewhere that we can celebrate or contribute to.
- To take Action, you can start a local chapter of your union, organize/engage in online campaigns, etc. This space can be used to help gather people for that purpose.
I personally think the most important thing now is to get more people to rally behind the cause (which means Action and Advocacy). But some of you have really good ideas on taking Action. So feel free to use this space for that purpose.
As it grows, we can discuss how best to use this community as well, so the rules may evolve over time.
Are you the same people that started the subreddit? Or just borrowing the name?
Not the same - I started using lemmy after the reddit changes and thought this place deserves a workreform community as well!
Ah that is positive, in case you’re not aware - the community over there was started by bankers after the successful takedown of antiwork as a means of coopting the movement and deradicalising it. They were completely successful.
Have receipts.
I’m not sure about that - I was part of the original antiwork sub, but it was clear that the sub consisted of a mix of folks - there were the “literal” antiwork folks who want to abolish paid labor, and people who wanted better wage equality. After the whole Doreen incident, the latter split off into workreform.
This is inaccurate. The founders of the workreform subreddit had absolutely nothing to do with the antiwork team, they were Canadian bankers. This was exposed and then a lot of fuckery occurred to hide it with usernames and moderator positions juggled around. Some people from antiwork’s team were either gullible(like doreen) or simply could not do without being in a “position” and got themselves added to it later added giving it credibility, that or they were collaborators all along, we will not find the truth.
The original evidence for this is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/GreenAndPleasant/comments/sdpsaj/a_post_on_rworkreform_that_pointed_out_how_the/huegc4h/
I also have a very long list of posts about it that were removed for the following 6 months after its creation.
I also have the discussions I had with Belle and Kumquat about this at the time, as I was very much attempting to help in the power struggle that was occurring internally to takeover the subreddit and fill it with liberal powermods, helped along by Spez pushing them on the team presumably on the advice of Ashooh and the outside influence of the shits at Goldman Sachs that saw the subreddit as a threat.
What was your username on the antiwork team? Were you actually on the team at the time of these events or was that more or less before it? A person I shall not name also had an alt on the team when it all went down, all the discord comms and modmails were saved should they ever become useful.
You misunderstood me - when I said I was “part of antiwork”, what i meant was that I was a subscriber (and somewhat frequent) poster, but I was never a moderator of anything on reddit. And by “folks”, I meant people who participated in the sub, not the founders or mods.
I know about the whole debate with the founders being CIBC bankers. I honestly don’t know what’s the true story with the mods. What I do know is that the name, description and stated purpose of “work reform” is more in line with my personal views than “anti work”. antiwork started off as an anti-labor movement and as the sub grew, the mods didn’t really keep the discussion on track, so it became this weird hybrid sub that was supposed to be antiwork, but had 70% workreform and 30% antiwork posts. Admidst the discussion after the Doreen incident, it was clear from the comments within the sub (from users, not mods) that there were strong antiwork voices as well as strong workreform voices. It was just the catalyst that gave the workreform participants a chance to split off.
The only moderation experience I have on reddit was a few years ago, and I stepped down after the sub got past >25k subs because I just wasn’t interested in dealing with reports. I have no intention of becoming a “top mod” or whatever here, and I’m not that interested in admin/mod drama and shenanigans. Lemmy is a new start for many of us old-timey Redditors, and I created this community because I couldn’t find one that gels with my philosophy on work, and I believe it’s something that affects enough of us that we should talk about it.
If you believe in the stated goals of workreform (addressing wage inequality and capitalism, as opposed to abolishing labor altoghether), you’re welcome to participate here and mod if you want!
Ok I see my misunderstanding here. In that case, let me offer an explanation for why you should be more radical.
There’s a reason that the banks and ruling class were worried about antiwork. It’s not a coincidence that this came out and then not long after a coordinated attack between the billionaire media forces and wreckers in the community to heighten the drama happened alongside the creation of a space (by yet more financial bros) to coopt the split they created and deradicalise the movement.
The negotiating position of “workreform” is weak. They are very sophisticated at stringing workers along with reasons that workreform can’t happen, and it leaves workers in a weak position begging for change.
The negotiating position of “antiwork” on the other hand? It had no intent to negotiate. It terrified the ruling class because it showed a position that was essentially “we will abolish you”. It scared them because they knew that if such a movement continued they would be forced to make changes happen, or face the reality of that abolishment.
The fear here is significantly important. A movement that strikes fear into the opposition drives them to change, a movement that does not is unlikely to see much success beyond individual victories - and they like that.
Consider another scenario - which of these messages do you find to be more effective rhetoric for the urbanist movement? /r/fuckcars or /r/automotivereform ?
That’s a fair point, but antiwork as a brand is effectively a laughing stock now. Anybody who wants to discredit the movement now and in future will simply point to the Fox News interview. If the conspiracy theories were true, the false flag operation worked.
My original point still stands - the antiwork sub is a mix of people with different goals. That’s not sustainable. fuckcars as a movement is more homogenous, so it works.
Yeah I’m not suggesting antiwork can be rehabilitated. It can’t. Spinning off of /r/fuckcars into a “fuck work” direction could work, particularly because “fuck work” doesn’t have to mean abolishment of work, it works better than the original antiwork messaging for the average person while retaining its edginess. It can also more inclusively unite black and red aspects of the left, one of the major reasons antiwork collapsed was its anarchist team getting sectarian and kicking communists out of the subreddit. Kicking the people most invested in educating people leftwards out of a space effectively causes a space to move rightwards. They tried to U-turn on that when the crisis hit, and we tried to help, but there were so many forces pushing and pulling in different directions by that point as well as a completely contaminated modteam with several liberal powermods added by reddit, and on top of that reddit were clearly helping the takeover happen as they wouldn’t take action against obvious manipulation occurring. It all spun into a very losing battle.
On the plus side sectarianism across the site pretty much stopped afterwards, it only continued in spaces like 196 where the vast majority are liberals or socdems (and children) rather than actual leftists. Everywhere else on the site it ended and basically every mod team joined one server together to agree on anti-sectarianism needing to be a key pillar. So I guess that’s a positive.
I like the cut of your jib.
Out of the loop: What’s the Doreen incident?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/anti-work-reddit-abolishwork-fired-b2002606.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10448117/Dog-walker-30-works-20-hour-week-goes-viral-promoting-anti-work-movement.html
Here’s the full interview - you can see the Fox news host get nicer and nicer as he realises that this is going to be a slam dunk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yUMIFYBMnc