No work is less valuable than others.
all work is equal
this post was submitted on 31 May 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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The ONLY risk of a minimum wage or Living Wage is that companies that highly skilled workers earning the same might move to less skilled jobs. For this, the only rational action is to pay your skilled workers accordingly. FAIR PAY is not difficult when an executive team earn millions or billions.
When the minimum wage was instituted, the intention was one full-time worker would be able to support the family of four suburban lifestyle. They've been gaslighting us for a long time.
Well I come from a long line of bucket crabs
So... Putting in effort to advance yourself should not be rewarded? I don't get it.
A rising tide lifts all boats.
If you want them to flip burgers for you, pay them what you'd want to make flipping burgers for them.
Yeah it's weird when people typically assume you would resent people getting something you don't have, or getting it with less effort than it took you - because they would resent this and they assume your mind must work the same way theirs does.
Oddly, though, they’re all massive bootlickers and will try to find any reason why billionaires are totally fair and good hardworkers. TheyMre just pathetic.
Oddly not tho. Surprisingly I also see this very clear assumption coming from people who are very anti-billionaire.
I’m a software developer. My old roomie is a truck driver. I’m devastated he makes almost as much as I do.
He has to drive a truck 5 days a week the entire year, no matter the weather. He deals with accidents, annoying customers, breakdowns, tight spaces, heavy goods. Workdays often drag out, and sometimes he didn’t manage to get home and had to sleep in the truck or at a motel. People are dependant on his work, if his truck doesn’t arrive, a store might not get food, and the attached community will suffer. He takes half an hour to commute to work.
I work from home. I have a few set meetings daily, but I schedule my time on my own. Three times a week I take some extra time to go for a run through the forest with my dog. I’m safe, my bed is always nearby. My commute is the thirty seconds it takes to crawl into clothes and to my office. If I miss my work we at worst have to delay a product launch by a little.
I’m happy with my pay, no doubt, and I wouldn’t want a pay cut. My friend deserves much more though. It’s bananas to me that he doesn’t catch up with me despite all the overtime and such. It’s incredibly unfair.
The truck driver's job is much harder to do day in and day out. It's also much more necessary. However, it's also significantly easier to train a truck driver than it is to train developers and there's no infinite upside potential for delivery like there is with software projects in some cases (unicorn startups) and there are so many other expenses to run a delivery company that a software company might not have that they need to run on pretty thin margins, otherwise we're all paying more for all of our food.
First job where I worked as a dev, they took on 3 of us on the same time, all entry-level. One of us was a physicist who was laid off by the university since the government reduced spending on academia. Absolutely an intelligent person. Didn't last past the probationary period, he just didn't get things naturally on his own, he needed a lot of guidance. Over the years I've seen that nearly half the people hired into entry-level roles don't learn to become independent enough by the end of their probationary period to be retained after it. Sometimes it's seniors too, they've worked at a place that just cranks out very similar solutions day in and day out (e.g only done frontend and only with one framework, or only a bunch of CRUD applications in one single tech stack) for like 7 or 8 years, that place has a downturn and then they apply for a job elsewhere and they just don't adapt.
Not everyone's cut out to be a truck driver either, but once someone has learned to drive trucks, they can drive trucks for another company too. Whether your new employee starts pulling in profit on the first week or you need 4 months to determine if there's a decent chance of them being a net benefit by the end of the first year has a lot of bearing on how badly you want to retain your existing talent.
Anyway, in my country only the top talent at a couple of companies gets paid significantly more than truck drivers. A junior developer might make less than someone who just started driving a truck. Places like the US just have highly inflated salaries for devs because they're expected to work in high cost of living cities and compete like crazy for their jobs.
Exactly my feelings. Software dev, get paid more than many people who actually keep others alive, healthy, educated and comfortable. This is not how things should be
Driving is the easy part. Finding a bathroom at 4 am on Sunday. Taking a break without someone asking you a question. Just seeing your family with energy after a 12 hour day. That's where trucking sucks.
I was not CDL driving but I hauled New York Times from the print site on one side of Ohio to a distribution hub on the other side. I spent a lot of hours on the road 6 days a week. You aren't kidding about trying to find a restroom at night and all the hassles from construction, other drivers, detours, ect. If it weren't for highway rest areas and truck stops, there would be basically nothing for drivers at night.
I always had an overnight bag with me, but thankfully never had to use it. Nothing but respect for drivers, the nation runs on their backs, we really should be taking better care of them.
Might want to edit your first line, where you say you're devastated that a trucker gets paid almost as much as a software dev. You explain it very well as you go on, but I'm surprised you're not getting more kneejerk douchevotes from people who scan the first line and just infer the rest in the most negative way possible.
It was intentional. A sign of a skilled writer, even. Irony works.
(Even if it does undercut the trucker roommate a bit. The double irony of privilege.)
Not sure how you know what was intentional without being the writer, but ok.
Not sure how you know they weren't but ok.
My thing is I don't want to be on top. I want to live in a society where I can be on the bottom and have a good life.
I, too, wish I could be society's bottom...
well I said can be at the bottom. Its polite to take turns.
Vers society.
Same dude same. I wanna be a maillady who pets kitties and does fart walks daily to deliver mail. And afford the basics.
Why is it too much to ask?!
I'm an EE with utility clients. If a lineman/wireman started making the same as me, I would feel the same way.
All the money is sucked out by equity holders.
This economy makes me think of Hamilton's "Dragon", where everyone sank most of their paycheck back into the company to get a high enough "stake", to even get a chance at a meaningful job, at said company.
I'm not even sure when this good little Republican became radicalized. I've done pretty well for myself and yet I would happily watch it all burn down to the fucking ground if it meant everyone actually got a meaningful standard of living and healthcare.
And the union would have more justification for negotiating a new even higher wage then they currently have.
It's kind of sad that people are so motivated by jealousy. Like why would I care if other people have it better?
The US was build on the "fuck you I got mine" mentality.
kids are indoctrinated from school to seek out "high skill" jobs and look down on anyone making less
I think jealousy gets a bad rap. It tells you what you want, and what you personally or society could work toward.
Jealousy and envy are not the same thing, although the nuance is subtle. What you're talking about is closer to envy. You can be envious of something or someone without the hostility that turns it into jealousy.
I disagree. I believe that you choose for it to be envy or jealousy by your definition.
It's not my definition. That is the subtle difference between the two words. But, most people use both words for the same thing, and most people only use the word jealousy for both things.
Merriam Webster has an interesting paragraph on the page for jealousy about it: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jealousy
You can also check the definitions of jealous and envious yourself, you'll see that one is defined through hostility of some sort.
The nuance is usually clear through context no matter which word you use, though. But I think that when you use it in a generic manner like you did, using the right word is best.
What my friend was conveying is that envy is the want for something--usually that another has--and jealousy is the fear of losing something that one already has.
The interchangeable usage, e.g. by teenagers, based on a vague understanding is just that (for adults it crystalizes into something normative though they're probably unaware of it, ego defense mechanisms lol).
And what I'm saying is, that's a choice.
All us unemployed IT folks should infiltrate all the local jobs that are considered minimum wage and unionize them all.
Solidarity!
rAmen, comrade! ✊🏼
Civility is what is gained. I work for you, I drive up your net value and I promise not to firebomb your property. In return you give me enough money to survive. They're not holding up their end of the bargain...
I have a big stack of old Styrofoam camping coolers, been saving them for a rainy day.
My thought, if you don't think someone preparing your food deserves to make a living wage to prepare your food, you shouldn't get that food....
I don't care how simple a job is time is not free, we should all make a living wage
if they started making what I make, I'd see if they were hiring!!!
Honestly dude. If food service paid well and had good working conditions I'd love to be a cook over an office worker.
Or from a more selfish perspective: an increase in burger flipping wages greatly increases your bargaining power in your own salary negotiations.
"For that wage I could just as well be flipping burgers, and that comes with much lower risk of personal injury."
Never forget that solidarity benefits you personally, no matter how much the owning class and media try to pit us against each other. Also death to Israel.
We all lift together.
I'd you are not management you should be in a union no matter your job (yes that includes cops).
yes that includes cops
Except cop "unions" aren't labor unions.
Labor unions exist to advocate for fair pay and treatment for workers.
Cop "unions" exist to make sure that cops consistently get away with crimes up to and including murder.
The former is the foundation required for a more just society, whereas the latter is a cancer killing any possibility of it.
Rising tide, boats etc. More flippant than I mean, I really do wish we could figure out a more equal society, and I do well enough. If I did worse but more people could not worry, I'd be okay with that too. As long as it was a society wide thing not just working classs gets kneecapped while the rich get richer.
I make waaaaaay too much money for the value I provide to society, especially compared to e.g. a teacher.
It’s something I am struggling with so much right now. A huge part of me (like almost every fiber of my being) wants to walk away and dedicate my entire life to something more meaningful, but I have 4 other people counting on me right now. In truth, I could probably still provide for them, but I wrestle with forcing them to drastically reduce their standard of living just because I am ready to.
It’s not like I’m rich or even comfortably wealthy. But in this society, in this economy, I am certainly uncomfortably wealthy.