I don’t have trouble believing that working conditions in the US are sometimes dire, but I also suspect that r/antiwork and other associated subreddits are heavily influenced by foreign actors. I mean, why wouldn’t they?
/r/antiwork isn’t about improving working conditions, though. There was a huge drama about people splitting to some other “work reform” subreddit because they were tired of the, literally, anti-work tone that took over the subreddit.
They try to say it’s about something else, but the posts that hit the front page are always just being angry about something like a supposed text from someone’s boss or a piece of paper with a message taped to a wall. The effort to fake any of these posts is 10 minutes of imagination and prep, at most.
I believe the origins of r/antiwork are actually more literally "anti-work" like you mentioned. As in, moving towards a basic income post scarcity society where we don't have to work. It's a noble utopian goal but since we're so far away from it of course the posts make the problem feel intractable. As the subreddit grew there was a natural tensions between those that actually wanted to improve things and those that wanted to dream about a future and complain.
Well I've seen a huge number of r/antiwork posts and in my opinion they pretty much are all healthy.
They all tell stories of workers putting up with an unreasonable boss. I never see posts about workers criticizing all bosses or reasonable bosses, at least not that make frontpage.
I have a hunch it's actually to the long-term benefit of the economy if unreasonable bosses (emotionally abusive, sexually exploitative, illegal-action-requestinging, etc) are rooted out or rallied against.
I've always found the tone on r/antiwork to be immature and ineffectual.
It's telling that the vast majority of posts come from people working in jobs that would typically be taken early on in someone's working life, i.e. wage slaves. You don't really hear much from people who are established in their careers. It's true that wage slave jobs typically aren't very rewarding, but it's also true that most people have to work in unrewarding jobs for awhile until they gain the experience necessary to move up.
It appears to me that the folks in that forum feel entitled to skip over the whole part where they "gain experience in the world".
Not only that, but I've seen a repeating theme in which a manager makes a request of someone, and their response is utterly devoid of tact. Instead of just saying, "Oh, sorry I can't do that" or even just not responding and saying that they were busy and didn't see the message, they feel the need to become adversarial and "stick it to the man". I would argue that not only is it more effective to "take the high road" in such situations, it also takes less effort than adversarially engaging with your manager.
Like instead of starting a message with, "I already told you last week that I planned <some thing>, and in fact, I quit." Maybe instead try something like, "Hey, I'm so sorry, I can't tonight. I have that <some thing> at 7. Maybe Carter can cover the shift?"
Foreign actors are motivated to foment discount and internal conflict. This might actually lead to improving working conditions, but that’s not the goal.
Or maybe paid shills are insinuating that an international worker's rights movement is some kind of foreign attack on one specific country, in an attempt to discredit it so they can keep exploiting people.
Reminds me of what lengths Amazon went to, spending millions on union busting instead of paying people a living wage. I wouldn't put it below them to do a little astroturfing, it probably pays for itself.
Wow I think this is the first time it's been insinuated I'm a paid shill! Also being a noble genuine worker's rights movement AND a movement being amplified by foreign actors aren't mutually exclusive. If you want to cause internal strife of course it makes sense to pick a cause with credibility and grassroots support. Like I'm sure the US would jump at the chance to promote sweeping democratic reforms in its major opponents. That cause sounds pretty noble but the US's interest in promoting it is certainly not noble.
Also even the credible threat of something being the result of foreign influence, whether true or not, can already create the desired conflict. As we've demonstrated.
Back to the topic, I really have no opinion on whether r/antiwork has malicious influence. I have no idea on that. And either way the cause is still a just one. But my comment above was just noting that if it being influenced then those actors aren't "motivated to improve US working conditions", as the parent commenter said.
Since this alludes to my comment, as I was the one who said up the tree that that r/antiwork may very well have foreign interests working against the US, I'll say that my account is not anonymous, I'm not American, and I certainly have better uses of my free time than taking a few bucks from Amazon to shill anti-union propaganda.
I think it's safe to assume that nothing that happens in r/antiwork or anywhere near it will ever result in anything a sane adult could describe as "improvement". Not even by accident.
