this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2026
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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.
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Don’t stop there.
My grandfather was at one point a regional manager for a coffee distributor. He got cancer. The company was self insured in such a way that they had to foot his medical bills. They did.
Post recovery, my grandfather describes his remaining time with the company as miserable. For example, they reassigned him to a notoriously bad region while not providing any relocation assistance. Expectation likely being that he would underperform as a remote manager for their worst region. He didn’t.
Following about six months of a toxic work experience, they took him out to dinner to let him know in public that his role was being discontinued. He wasn’t being fired, but he’d be required to accept a demotion into a sales position if he wanted to stay. He did not stay.
Decades later, one of the C-suite members retire. My gramps was close with this guy, who could not speak “off the record” until now. The guy said that C-suite had it out for gramps, viciously so. They wanted him to quit, because they knew that cancer often comes back. They did not want to pay another set of medical bills, so they made gramps life miserable to try avoiding the potential expense.
So, how do you protect people like my gramps in this situation?
Your solution is still better than nothing, but it should go further.
Yet another reason to be dissatisfied with employer provided health insurance. They want to be the provider of health insurance coverage so that its availability can be used as leverage against workers, and if you need to actually use in any significant way you'll be punished.
That sucks. Yet somehow it seems like one of the better outcomes in America. I feel like now they'd just find some reason to fire the person or lay them off and thus not cover the medical bills to begin with. Hell, my wife was fired during the maternity leave the company offered because she actually took it rather than I guess just being so grateful that she worked through it.