Creative Commons
As a writer, I get stuck every so often trying to find the right words to tell my story. Over the years, I’ve learned when to quit tying myself into mental knots over sentence construction, instead stepping back and rethinking where my story is going.
This process is essentially what millions of U.S. families are going through this year, with record numbers of workers shocking bosses, politicians, and economists by stepping back and declaring, “We quit!”
The corporate system has cheapened employees from being valuable human assets to a bookkeeping expense that must be steadily eliminated.
The mass exodus of workers that we’ve seen during the pandemic is tied to very real abuses that have become ingrained in our workplaces over the past couple of decades—poverty paychecks, no health or child care, unpredictable schedules, understaffing, forced overtime, unsafe jobs, sexist and racist managers, tolerance of aggressively rude customers, and so much more.
Meanwhile, corporate bosses across the nation have been sputtering in outrage at workers this summer, spewing expletives about the fact that, while the U.S. economy has been coming back, workers haven’t.
“Labor shortage!” they squeal, accusing the workforce of mass laziness. In their view, millions of furloughed workers got used to lazing around during the pandemic shutdown and now won’t return, leading to an abundance of unfilled jobs for everything from restaurant work to nursing to construction work. Thus, the bosses and their political dogs bark that “you people need to get back in the old harness and start pulling again.”
Adding a nasty bite to their bark, GOP governors in more than two dozen states have cut off people’s unemployment benefits, hoping to force them back to work. Some businesses have proffered signing bonuses, free dinner coupons, and other lures, while even such notoriously mingy outfits as McDonald’s and Walmart have upped their wage scale to draw workers.
Still, to the astonishment of the economic elite, record numbers of current workers in all sorts of jobs and in every section of the country are voluntarily walking away. There’s even an official economic measurement of this phenomenon called the “Quits rate,” and it is surging beyond anything our economy has experienced in modern memory. In April, four million workers quit; in May, another 3.6 million left; in June and July, 3.9 million said ¡adiós!
Conventional economic wisdom dictates that, after a devastating eighteen-month downturn, people would be clinging to any paycheck they can get. The “Quits” are so unexpected and so widespread that pundits have started dubbing this year “The Great Resignation.”
Why are such staggering numbers of Americans failing to do their jobs? But, wait, maybe that’s the wrong question. Maybe, instead, the corporate system’s “jobs” are failing the American people. Consider this: The most common comment by those who are walking out is, “I hate my job.”
Specific grievances abound, but at the core of each is a deep, inherently destructive, executive-suite malignancy: disrespect. The corporate system has cheapened employees from being valuable human assets to a bookkeeping expense that must be steadily eliminated. It’s not just about paychecks, it’s about feeling valued, feeling that the hierarchy gives a damn about the people doing the work.
Yet, corporate America is going out of its way to show that it doesn’t care and, of course, workers notice. So unionization is booming as millions who were laid off by the pandemic are refusing to rush back to the same old grind; now, millions who have jobs are quitting. This is much more than an unusual unemployment statistic; it’s a sea change in people’s attitude about work . . . and life.
People are rethinking where their story is going and how they can take it in a better direction. Yes, nearly everyone will eventually return to work, but workers themselves have begun redefining the job and rebalancing it with life.