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Comment by elamje | Hacker News Reader

That is an exaggeration. We have the ability to choose careers and jobs, so we have the ability to choose a healthier lifestyle via career moves. If someone has locked themselves down with debt, children, unhealthy stress levels, etc. an employer is not the one that is held responsible at the end of the day. Part of being in a society that values the individual, is that the individual gets the praise in good times, and must own the blame in bad.

If you believe your employer should be taking better care of you, you can vote via leaving your employer. Who exactly should be responsible if not yourself, and how? Many people on HN sit at desks most of the day doing tasks that are laughably easier than what 2, 3, 4 generations ago were doing.

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If you believe you should be able to talk down the street without getting harassed or raped, you can vote via not dressing like a slut. Who exactly should be responsible if not yourself, and how? Many people on HN sit around trying to avoid sexual violence that is laughably less brutal than what 2, 3, 4 generations ago were doing.

Morally repugnant victim blaming by any other name smells just as foul.

If I understand you right, you're saying an employer has ZERO responsibility if their employees are overworked because the employee could always just "choose another job." This does not align with reality the vast majority of the time.

I was commenting on the parent saying "It's a sick reality.." That seemed a little over the top, when you can leave your employer if the situation isn't good. I know job transfers can be hard to find, and career moves are difficult, but it is reality that quitting your job is never impossible.

Technically correct answer, but missing the point about how job transfers/retraining are way more difficult than they need to be... hence people being "unable" to quit.

> you can vote via leaving your employer

You are implying that:

- There is a better choice

- That better choice wants you

Neither of which are a given.

> We have the ability to choose careers and jobs, so we have the ability to choose a healthier lifestyle via career moves

The greatest predictor for financial success in the U.S. is inherited wealth. The greatest predictor for longevity is financial success.

> If you believe your employer should be taking better care of you, you can vote via leaving your employer.

Please don't use "vote" as if our workplaces are somehow democratic. That said, you vastly underestimate the asymmetry in the employer-employee relationship. For people in IT, this is easy to forget because our business is booming and currently favours labour. For most people, changing jobs is hard, time consuming and a gamble.

After all, talk is cheap - especially during company presentations in the hiring phase. There is no guarantee changing jobs will solve the root problem if the new employer is a burnout shop (again), has toxic management (again), doesn't respect work-life balance (again), etc.

> Many people on HN sit at desks most of the day doing tasks that are laughably easier than what 2, 3, 4 generations ago were doing.

This glosses over the fact that while a lot of jobs 2-4 were physically grueling or repetitive, they were also in production. Those jobs created real, tangible value, in stark contrast to many of quaternary and quinary sector jobs today. Pay kept parity with inflation. Employers would train you and hire you without requiring college degrees. You had job certainty until you retired.

Since then, a lot of "externalities" have been socialised, humans have become "resources", productivity went up by 240% and wages stayed the same or decreased for 60% of the population in real terms.

> an employer is not the one that is held responsible at the end of the day

That view is historically and socially myopic as well as based purely on supply-side economic philosophy. Who benefits from that line of reasoning? Why should employers have no responsibility when it comes to treating employees fairly, humanely and with respect? Why should taxpayers alone bear the fiscal responsibility when burnouts, boreouts and work-related depression and suicide are epidemics - not to mention opioid addiction as a façade for depression?

And in China, firms like Huawei are touting how their employees are volunteering for 72 hour work weeks (Hint, they aren't). There is a backlash against it. The employeer is not an innocent party when they impose onerous working conditions, and voting with your feet, every time a new manager comes aboard or a reorg happens is not a stable situation for workers or humans anywhere to be under.

We need general worker protections because general employers do not protect their workers. I bet a century ago you would have used this line of logic to argue against the 40 hour week, or fire escapes.

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