If you haven’t already heard, the business world is all in a tizzy over a new workplace trend. Workers are no longer as willing to go ‘above and beyond.’ It’s a little harder post-pandemic to convince your workforce to be on call in their off hours, take on extra duties that they didn't originally contract for, or put in long hours of unpaid overtime. Instead, they are doing exactly what their job description says and then going home. Imagine that.
Corporations used to squeezing their employees for all their worth until they burn out refer to this as “Quiet Quitting.” That term is 100% economic gaslighting. That this new label is being applied to literally doing your job is infuriating. It says so much about how completely our discourse suffers from late stage capitalism Stockholm syndrome. It’s been completely normalized to demonstrate a kind of slavish devotion to your employer as if they own not only the time and duties they pay you for, but a big slice of the rest of your life on the side.
That’s not loyalty. It’s servitude.
Especially when none of the loyalty goes the other way. Wage theft alone is bigger than all other kinds of theft — muggings, B & Es, car thefts — all added together, but it isn’t even officially treated as a crime. With no help from the police, victims must independently navigate a complex Department of Labour bureaucracy in hopes of possibly some day seeing wages they were legally owed, while the perpetrators suffer not so much as a slap on the wrist. As a result, this sort of employer crime has become a workplace norm.
To avoid providing severance packages to departing employees, corporate culture has also developed a tool they call “Constructive Discharge” — essentially making your work experience so constantly miserable that you quit because you can’t stand it any more.
Hardly the sort of behaviour to inspire workers to go beyond the call of duty.
Public agencies that exist to protect workers are clearly indicating their intention to side with employers on this topic. When the Labour Relations Board of Alberta learned about some scaffolders who refused to work “voluntary overtime” at the end of their ten hour shifts, they ordered them to do it against their will. I’m sure they could find the dictionary page that holds the definition of the word “voluntary” on it, but what the bosses want, the politicos provide. Who cares if you’re tired at the end of a long day and more likely to have a workplace accident, right? Your contract didn’t specify that you had to do it, but you still have to do it. Can’t have you (quiet) quitting, now can we?
Especially since opening the floodgates to a disease that causes widespread disability has had an entirely predictable impact on the workforce. Long Covid has already driven four million people out of their jobs in America alone, and every repeat infection increases the odds of more following suit. That means a lot more slack that the remainder have to pick up, so it’s not a convenient time to talk about work life balance. As if there ever was one.
One would hope that the people who tell us the invisible hand of the market sets appropriate prices for goods through supply and demand would retain this position when a decrease in the supply of available labour pointed to a rise in its value. That’s not happening. Prices for virtually all goods, including basic survival needs like food and rent, are rising dramatically, but wages aren’t keeping up. They weren’t keeping up before Covid came along, but now it’s turbocharged. A lot of that inflation is corporate price gouging which uses supply chain issues as a convenient excuse to hide behind, but human capital remains badly undervalued. Go ahead and try using the supply and demand argument to call for a living wage and tally the laughs, blank looks and scowls you rack up.
So what exactly do those making these decisions expect people to do? Well before the enormous current spike in inflation, full time work at minimum wage wasn’t enough to afford rent in 91% of Canadian cities and 100% of US ones. Can’t afford a place to live? If you find yourself homeless, you can expect police to use violent force against the tent city where you’re likely to end up, throwing your last remaining possessions in the trash. Food insecurity is at historic record levels and continuing to grow.
Does our economy really expect discarded people to simply lay down in a ditch and quietly starve after working tirelessly to help some billionaire afford a fifth yacht? It certainly seems like it.
Unless we refuse to take it. Collectively, en masse. Show me employers who go above and beyond for their staff. Where’s the hashtag about #Loud Retaining?
Don’t let them dare to call not sacrificing your well being to someone else’s profits any form of quitting.
It’s straight up acting your wage.
Don’t let them forget it.