I found this subreddit about six months ago when I was job hunting and have been lurking ever since. I joined reddit just to tell my story.
In early 2021 my wife was diagnosed with metastatic cancer… meaning it's treatable but not survivable. At the time I was working for $20/hr as a gardener which was doable cus we have a good housing situation but had no benefits including no health insurance. I had been working there 7 years at that same rate and obviously it wasn't going quite as far as it had in the past. When I had asked for a raise a few months prior to my wife getting sick, they straight up told me it wasn't worth it to them.
After a couple months my wife told me it wasn't going to work with me working full time and suggested that I ask to go part time. I immediately decided to quit and it was the best decision I ever made. However, I was only able to do that because of all the stimulus money and the generosity of friends and family who ran a go fund me for us. Also I live in a state with paid family leave so I took advantage of that. Also, no income meant we could be on medicaid and that covered everything she needed health care wise. This allowed me to stay home for the summer while our two elementary aged kids were out of school. It also allowed me to start a master's degree online, the first year of which serves as a certification.
I put off going back to work as long as I could and started applying to jobs with the new cert this spring. Eventually, I got a good union job near my house that pays $31/hr and ramps up to $44/hr after 3 1/2 years. Also the benefits are good, company pays health insurance premiums, we have life insurance, I now have disability insurance, and retirement benefits for the first time in my life. That is all because it is union. I started over the summer and so far it's been good.
Obviously, we are extremely privileged in a lot of ways. Supportive friends, family, and community, a good union job with good union benefits, an affordable housing situation. We are white, so my wife doesn't suffer the type of medical racism that people of color in her situation do. Given the reality of our situation, it is about as good as it could be.
But here is the antiwork moral of this long-winded story:
I shouldn't have to go to work 40 hours a week!
I don't want to have to work. Going to work forty hours a week makes all of our lives less good. This past year where I have been at home studying and taking care of my wife and kids has been so much better than the alternative of working full time. We were even able to take a cross-country road trip earlier this year. But obviously we were going to run out of money eventually and now that we have I am forced back into the labor market. Again, I'm lucky that I was able to go back to school (and acquire a bunch more student loan debt, but at least a little better than half is theoretically going to be forgiven), and I'm lucky now to have a good union job. But my family's collective life would be much better if I wasn't compelled by threat of medical debt and homelessness to sell my labor to the highest bidder. And if it isn't clear, I am definitely not doing so voluntarily.
The upshot is that even having a good union job isn't a solution to living under capitalism. If we have to work, then we definitely need to organize and negotiate collectively. But we shouldn't have to work if we don't want to and we shouldn't be forced into poverty if we can't.
We need broader economic reforms…. housing reform, universal healthcare, UBI, disability rights, and all the other things that reside in my current blind spots. But none of those things are going to happen until we get organized at the local and eventually national level. I know it isn't going to be easy or fast, but I feel hopeful sometimes, that our current moment of resurgent labor organizing could eventually become a larger political movement for working class rights.