What can we the people do to change how work happens? What can we do to fight late-stage capitalism?
I work a job that I have relatively little qualms with. I'm a hair stylist and I actually love what I do, but it's because I have good hours that I have control over, a clear roadmap of pay raises in my future, and kind and understanding bosses who do just as much work as the rest of us and foster an environment of learning and passion for our craft.
But I didn't always have this and still keenly remember having the shit beaten out of me by the food service industry prior to taking up cosmetology.
The long hours in hot kitchens, the burns, the repetitive strain injuries that I still suffer from, inflexible hours, no one ever being quite upfront about when I might get certain benefits. Sitting in your car in your work parking lot dissociating after you get off at 10pm because your shit apartment with shit roommates that you can barely afford on your shit income is almost just as bad as the hell you just came out of.
It feels a long way off now and I'm grateful. I got lucky enough to have a safety net to fall in when I burned out, quit everything, pick up the pieces and start down a new path. And I know not everyone gets that chance. If I had a genie in a bottle, one wish only, it'd be to end having to work yourself to death and have every human get their needs met.
So what can we do? What can we do to change shit conditions? I know good places to work can exist now, but I think it's out of all of us in my workspace having a passion for our craft. I would honestly cut hair for free if all my needs were covered from other sources.
How do we organize, not just on a job to job scale, but on a whole? Unionizing is a good start, but how do we get beyond to the greater good? Who do we have to pressure to recognize that access to free food, water, housing and healthcare (among other things) is a human right? That working most of our lives shouldn't be the default?
What can one person do to fight this? Or a group? How big of a group fighting does it have to be to make a difference?
Society needs to change. What steps need to be taken? Do we even know?