erm_what_

A lot of PPE used in hospitals in Covid areas also doesn't filter exhaled air. It's assumed that the air is dirty and infected and only the wearer needs to be kept safe.

This has also lead to a lot of people buying FFP3 etc masks with filters and not realising that they've often bought ones that don't filter what they exhale.

That was to avoid tax, not because they weren't capable of making a profit, so a bit different

If you ever get called into HR for something you didn't do, then a union rep can accompany you as a third party witness and to give you advice.

There are a lot of protections you can get from having someone on your side who can't be easily threatened, leveraged or bribed by your company. They don't work for your boss, they work for/with you.

Privilege can be a prison too. Someone working at a top company will probably live with at least some fear of being fired. Not only for the huge loss of income, but for the mark it leaves on their CV that would make getting a new job harder. Companies use that to make them work long days under huge stress.

Unions are like the friend you talk to about work who gives you great advice, except they have the power, knowledge and connections to follow through on that advice.

Depends on the job for sure. I'm the only developer in a startup and I have more than a week's worth of work every week and an ever growing backlog of ideas from the team and customers. Even when I worked for a big corporate I always had a solid 7 hours of work a day. I wish I could meet these people you talk about and ask them how they do it.

Absolutely, and 8 hours of coding a day is a good way to burn out. But work is also meetings, architecture planning, designing tests, testing, devops, documentation, databases, UX, front end, back end, reading API docs, upgrading packages, building CICD pipelines, roadmap planning, teaching, learning enough about sales, marketing and the customers to be able to build the right software, and so much more. That's just this week so far...