Freedom

Shorter Work Weeks Work

- Adam Clare
work and smile

Working less is better for everyone involved, including the employer. Iceland just ran a multi year experiment from 2015-19 to find out if a four day work week would damage productivity or improve it. Unsurprisingly, productivity didn’t go down and in some jobs it even went up. Tell your boss you should only work four days a week!

The trials led unions to renegotiate working patterns, and now 86% of Iceland’s workforce have either moved to shorter hours for the same pay, or will gain the right to, the researchers said.

Workers reported feeling less stressed and at risk of burnout, and said their health and work-life balance had improved. They also reported having more time to spend with their families, do hobbies and complete household chores. 

Will Stronge, director of research at Autonomy, said: “This study shows that the world’s largest ever trial of a shorter working week in the public sector was by all measures an overwhelming success.

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Three Years of Privacy Thanks to the GDPR

- Adam Clare

computer screen
Three years ago today the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was enacted in the EU to protect you from morally questionable digital surveillance, and trust me, we’re all better off for it. Essentially the GDPR stops large companies from tracking you across the web and using that information to change your behaviour. When companies are collecting data they must disclose what they are collecting and why, plus they need to ensure that the data is well protected.

The immediate success of the GDPR led other jurisdictions to follow with similar policies to protect people, including in Japan, Chilie, Kenya, and more.

Over the BBC they cheekily posted a list of the biggest offenders of the GDPR (which shows why the legislation is needed).

4. H&M (35.3m euros)

H&M was fined by German regulators in 2020 after it was found to have been secretly monitoring hundreds of its employees.

If workers took holiday or sick leave, they were required to attend a meeting with senior staff at the retail giant on their return.

These meetings were recorded, and made accessible to H&M managers without the knowledge of staff.

The data collected from the interviews was used to make a “detailed profile” of workers, which then influenced decisions concerning their employment.

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Malaysia Stops Jailing Addicts, Helps Them Recover Instead

- Adam Clare

lighter and joint

Addiction is tough and it can happen to anyone. In Malaysia they are changing their drug laws to reflect this reality by providing rehab for users instead of locking them up in prison. Malaysia has tried the now-classic and irrefutably irrational “war on drugs” approach and found that it didn’t actually solve anything. Hopefully this current change in law within the country inspires others in the region to rethink their approach to this vital health care issue.

Home minister Hamzah Zainudin said the change of approach towards drug abusers and addicts – from prison sentences to rehabilitation and treatment programmes – will happen this year and would remove the stigma they carry in society, which looked negatively at abusers and drug addicts.

“Besides that, it will also facilitate their reintegration into the community and give them a second chance,” he said in conjunction with the 38th National Anti-Drugs Day on the National Anti-Drugs Agency’s (NADA) Facebook Live session today.

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Alphabet Union Wants Alphabet to Behave

- Adam Clare

The workers behind the unionization efforts at Google are expanding to take on the whole Alphabet, the parent company of Google. They’ve formed Alpha Global to be a common voice for issues facing Google workers around the world and for people who are being negatively impacted by the actions of the Alphabet mega-corporation. If this union is like ones from a hundred years ago then all of us will benefit from the efforts to reign in the power and aspirations of a company that is practicing great overreach into all aspects of society.

“The problems at Alphabet — and created by Alphabet — are not limited to any one country, and must be addressed on a global level,” says UNI general secretary Christy Hoffman. “The movement launched by tech workers at Google and beyond is inspiring. They are using their collective muscle to not only transform their conditions of employment but also to address social issues caused by increasing concentration of corporate power.”
…
“The power of these global tech companies is such that they’re in every part of our lives,” says Fionnuala Ní Bhrógáin, an organizer with the Communications Workers’ Union in Ireland. “If they’re acting in this way nearly entirely unchecked by governments then there is no hold on what they can do. That power needs to be checked, and it’s only through collective action that workers are able to do that.”

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Tired of Google’s Control Over Your Life? Try These Instead

- Adam Clare

computer screen
I’ve been using Duck Duck Go instead of Google search for years and don’t regret it. There are less ads and the search results include more diverse sources – plus I don’t get trapped in Google’s filter bubble. Over at No More Google they have compiled a list of services you can use to get Google out of your life. Like reducing meat in your diet, reducing Google in your life doesn’t have to be absolute. Just do what you’re comfortable with, maybe that’s no longer using Chrome or maybe it’s switching away from Gmail.

Richard Stallman outlined many reasons you shouldn’t use Google, here’s a snippet:

Censorship

  • Amazon and Google have cut off domain-fronting, a feature used to enable people in tyrannical countries to reach communication systems that are banned there.
  • French blogger Claims YouTube Tried to Censor Juncker Interview.
  • Google has agreed to perform special censorship of Youtube for the government of Pakistan, deleting views that the state opposes.This will help the illiberal Pakistani state suppress dissent.
  • Youtube’s “content ID” automatically deletes posted videos in a way copyright law does not require.
  • YouTube has made private deals with the copyright industry to censor works that are fair use.More information.
  • Google shut off Alexa O’Brien’s Google Drive account, denying her access to it, because her reporting on Chelsea Manning’s trial included copies of al-Qa’ida propaganda that was presented as evidence.
  • Never trust a remote storage company to keep anything but a spare backup copy. When you store that, put your files into an archive and encrypt it so that the company can’t tell what’s in them — not even their file names.
  • Vox lawyers got Youtube to take down criticisms of a video published by Vox, and threaten the critics with punishment, too.
  • The videos were almost surely fair use, but Youtube decided against the critics anyway. This shows how Youtube’s general submission to the copyright industry constrict’s people’s rights.

Check out No More Google.

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