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The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

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Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#161

> spectacles like the immense popularity of the "Anti-Work" thread on Reddit — have gone as far as to suggest this record-breaking trend is a movement of young, able-bodied Americans rejecting work altogether. I don't think this is the point of "anti work". The point is (to me) that people should be treated equitably at work and that work shouldn't be the center of our lives

No, the original point of the sub was always to end the current style of "work" – the idea that people need to be sitting in an office or breaking their bodies for 40+ hours a week doing something meaningless and uninteresting just to earn the privilege of living. Threads used to be about UBI, automation, unions, anti-capitalism, pursuing passions.

Then over the last year it has turned into a wall of (mostly fake) "my boss is bad" stories.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's up with all the language games lately? "Defund the police". No no, we don't actually mean defund the police... "Anti work". No no, we don't actually mean we're anti work...

In both of these cases "we" is a group of thousands of people with varying opinions. There are absolutely plenty of people who very much believe in defunding the police and ending work. As both movements have grown more popular we've naturally seen more people who agree with the general spirit of the movement but hold more moderate views.

The apologetics are always entertaining.

"True, the subreddit is called /r/antiwork. And yes, their motto (right at the top of their page) is "Antiwork: Unemployment for all, not just the rich!". But is it fair to call them "Anti-work"? Have you considered their moderate membership?"

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#163
post #2

"The Great Resignation" feels a bit like a phrase that folks have grasped on to and just attach the narrative they want to believe to it. Constant articles and such with very little data. Very frustrating as a reader. The idea that amid a pandemic and such that there are a variety of reasons seems backed up by the data, although I admit that's what I'm inclined to believe / seen.

> Constant articles and such with very little data. Very frustrating as a reader. Actual resignations are up slightly, but the idea that employees are quitting in droves is exaggerated. It’s higher than normal turnover, but the stories are written in ways to suggest that companies everywhere are gutted by employees leaving in bulk. I feel like “great resignation” was deliberately chosen to mislead people into thinkin…

No post body was provided.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 1% raise seems insulting imo.

It is

It's a clear signal, the company values you less than when it hired you. When leaving a company like that I find it best to frame it in a way that they were unhappy with you. "Hey look I know you are trying to spare my feelings, but that is 6 percent less than inflation, clearly you want me out of here but didn't have the courage to lay me off. Thanks for the heads up, I've found another role."

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

An additional and worthwhile addition: Black Lives Matter. The movement was never ONLY Black Lives Matter, or Cops Lives Don't Matter, or any of the other ways various opponents have decided to interpret the name to justify ignoring the societal criticisms of the protests. Truth is, words are tough, and the more complex and nuanced a topic gets to be, the more a pity simple phrase or title become impossible to be acc…

It wasn't ever about words, it was about how the media behind the movement wanted to spin it. Even the most conservative American agrees that abuses like civil asset forfeiture need to stop. It was anger being spun into an empty promise, yet again, from a party whose entire history is misery and subjugation.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#166
post #15
post #11

I rarely see any mention of how just so many people dying + becoming disabled impacts the job market. Historically big drops in available labor lead to improved labor negotiation (e.g. working conditions, wages). The "great resignation" is only one facet.

Worked great during the (surviving) workers during the bubonic plague. https://history.wustl.edu/news/how-black-death-made-life-bet...

Worked well if you liked counting money. But if you liked spending it...

"Thus the undisputed rise in nominal or money wages following the Black Death was literally ‘swamped’ by the post-Plague inflation, so that real wages fell." https://ideas.repec.org/p/tor/tecipa/munro-04-04.html

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's up with all the language games lately? "Defund the police". No no, we don't actually mean defund the police... "Anti work". No no, we don't actually mean we're anti work...

It's catchy, it attracts attention, and it makes people learn what the movement is about. It's one thing to say "defund the police", and it's another to say "penalize police brutality, take police funds and use them to fund social workers trained to disarm situations without using violence, etc."

“Reform the force”

It’s not hard to come up with a catchy tagline that doesn’t completely misrepresent the movement. Thing is, the movement is about defunding police. They’re not shy about that: https://defundthepolice.org/

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is

It's a clear signal, the company values you less than when it hired you. When leaving a company like that I find it best to frame it in a way that they were unhappy with you. "Hey look I know you are trying to spare my feelings, but that is 6 percent less than inflation, clearly you want me out of here but didn't have the courage to lay me off. Thanks for the heads up, I've found another role."

It really seems like you are most valued the day you are hired, with your value declining by the day.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#169
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

In both cases what you mean is not the default reading. Defund means to remove funds, and you meaning something else is not 'exactly that'. Anti means you are against something, so the natural reading is that you don't want that thing (work) to be a thing anymore, not the more convoluted meaning you say is 'exactly that' even though nobody unfamiliar can possibly guess at it from just the word anti.

If your "default" reading of any sociopolitical proposal is to assume it is an absolutist desire and not one more nuanced or practical under the hood, you have a wrong default.

"Defund the police" meaning "zero funds for the police" or "no police exist". "Anti-work" meaning "against all work" or "work" meaning "general expenditure of productive effort" or something.

You can look a little bit more into any slogan or label and see more of what it entails. Hell, some people might want to abolish police entirely or have everyone laze around in utopian bliss while not starving. Feel free to disagree with the former and see if the latter have any plan to not starve or if it's nonsense. I've generally taken each to mean "we should allocate public security and safety money differently" and "our current construct of the job as the sole driver of societal worth is bad".

So "default" to something more reasoned and nuanced and see if they are absolutist rather than the reverse. Pithy and descriptive tend to not go hand in hand so this applies often.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#170
post #157

> "Yet, despite all the quitting and renegotiating, the real wage for the average American worker — meaning the true value of their paycheck after taking into account inflation — fell by 2.4% in 2021." Because most are still not moving. If a worker won't leave under these conditions, there is no reason to ever give them a raise as you don't need it to retain them.

Should it be the worker's duty to constantly be searching for better opportunities and interviewing for new jobs while working - or the employer's duty to provide reasonable CoL raises so employees aren't driven away from the company?

The only "duty" your employer has is to extract as much value out of you for as cheap as possible. If you expect anything different then you are going to be taken for a ride.
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