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this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2024
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A Boring Dystopia
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Kind of an odd article, as sometimes there really are reasonable times for a “promotion” with little/no pay increase.
A lot of manual labor and trades positions require experienced people to be management, supervisors, etc. When you take a promotion in a field like this you might have “more responsibility” but the same pay, and that makes sense. Why? Well - because you’re not fucking breaking your back or manning a line all day. I think most people who have worked one of these jobs sees that as reasonable.
Unfortunately, most journalists and many people making online posts about the topic are people who have really only ever worked behind a computer, or ever worked in a big city - so these articles tend to focus on that kind of “technocrat” job sphere where everyone is just some variation of “computer manager person”
You need to join a union.
What your spouting is corporate propaganda, designed to make you value your labor less. As is the "not making more than the others"-lie which oppressors have used to control their populations for ages.
But there are different perspectives to the situation, so for academical purposes, let's explore a few:
Labour market model; If you're doing work that requires skills, knowledge and/or combinations thereof that are harder to acquire, your rarity and thus value increases - you should be paid more in cash and/or benefits.
This includes institutional knowledge, how things are done at the specific workplace, including who to talk with and how.
Economics/value capture; If you're doing work that brings the employer more profits, such as organising, costing, budgeting or taking over tasks to let the employer scale up - you should be paid a part of those increased profits.
The case for cooperatives; If you truly would be equal, and comfortable, in a workplace there's much to be said that wage differences disturb that harmony, and you could see it as playing different parts in a commune.
This does however assume that you are all equally invested in the goal, it is profitable enough to compensate all of you fairly and equally, and enough that you are not wanting, or at least equally lacking. This is the case for situations like homesteads, communist society, and anarchist societies like Star Trek or The Culture.
Hmm...
From my perspective, the only reasonable way to get a promotion without increased pay is if you're working less (which 4-day week studies show isn't connected to weekly hours), and getting benefits to compensate.
I don’t think you actually understand union/communist philosophy if you think “rigid promotion structure where the managerial class always has more money and power than the laborer is super worker friendly
That... is not at all what I'm saying, nor implying.
I'm actually agreeing with you that the managerial system should not have more power and/or money, but if that class wants more labor from you it is only fair they cede some power and money.
I'm saying that not compensating someone for more complex labor, to benefit an owner, is never worker friendly.
You can compensate in other ways than money and benefits, and you can remove the exploitative/segregating systems by paying everyone enough and not extracting value (as owner profits do), but both require collective action.
And other things as well, like vision, plan and funding. But without collective action, the only incentive is for the owning class to squeeze you tighter and manipulate you to blame the worker class.
Thats… fine, and I agree, it’s just so odd that so many people read my comment where I said “well, in some circumstances it makes sense that a promotion wouldn’t automatically confer more money” and so many people just instantly made up arguments wherein they’re making me out to say that “you should do more work for the same pay!”.
It’s just bizarre, it’s frustrating a bit. Because a lot of these people view themselves as progressive leftists as I do - but they’re utterly incapable of visualizing any job structure other than their own, and they end up advocating for what is essentially a “money funnels up” system by making this implicit assumption everyone at the bottom of the totem is doing ‘less work’ than the people in the middle or the top.
So we’ve agreed this whole time, but I feel like in haste to ‘make a point’ there’s been some hostility
I apologise if there's been perceived hostility towards you. I aimed for being hostile of the rhetoric and framework of what has been active manipulation and corporate propaganda for almost a century, and probably longer in non-corporations.
The medium doesn't lend itself well to nuances, but I did not intend to aim any hostility to you as a person, only the rhetoric, and I'm very sorry if the delineation wasn't sufficiently communicated.