Author Topic: "Great Resignation" labor movement and strikes  (Read 483 times)

guest55

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A Generation of American Men Give Up on College: ‘I Just Feel Lost’
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The number of men enrolled at two- and four-year colleges has fallen behind women by record levels, in a widening education gap across the U.S.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/college-university-fall-higher-education-men-women-enrollment-admissions-back-to-school-11630948233?st=8il0uebem3xdam8&mod=ffoct22

Zea_mays

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The question is, will this trend lead to permanent lifestyle changes after the pandemic is over?
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Focus on money lessened throughout the COVID-19 pandemic

A series of three studies examined the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on materialism, finding an overall decrease in the importance people place on money. This research was published in the journal Psychology & Marketing.

Materialism refers to “beliefs that link wealth and consumption with personal achievement and happiness.” Various studies have found negative associations between materialism and well-being. Higher media consumption enhances the advocacy of materialistic values. As well, in consumer-oriented societies, reminders about one’s mortality enhance materialism. Lockdown restrictions throughout the COVID-19 pandemic increased media consumption by up to 27%. News stories shared narratives about illness, death, and survival, increasing reminders of mortality. Thus, it could be possible that the societal and behavioral changes that emerged with the pandemic enhanced materialistic values.
https://www.psypost.org/2022/03/focus-on-money-lessened-throughout-the-covid-19-pandemic-62711

Regarding that last point, I've seen studies claiming that in non-consumerist societies throughout history, reminders of mortality and low materialist desire is correlated with religiosity.

Zea_mays

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More solidarity:

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Americans quit their jobs this summer at rate never seen before. Gen Z led the charge. The children of Occupy Wall Street — footsoldiers of the Third Force — went full Johnny Paycheck on their crappy minimum-wage employment.

“This is a fight response,” a career coach told The New York Times. When people are triggered, they go reptilian: fight or flight. And flight’s not an option when you’re cornered. Across a scorched-earth economic landscape employees looked their bosses in the eye, and their bosses blinked. Because the power dynamic was reversed and everyone knew it. For once it was the workers who had the leverage.
[...]
The way people were quitting — trumpeting their departures on social media — should have been a clue that this wasn’t about laziness. It’s the opposite of lazy to quit out loud. That is fury talking. It’s a statement that this is not about me.
[...]
The Mandarin word for it is “tang ping” — literally “lying flat.” Young Chinese, beaten down by an authoritarian system and yearning to live a more relaxed life, spread themselves against the earth like a measuring tape, becoming “the metric of all things,” as one protester put it in a social media post that was quickly deleted by the state. Clearly, the pushback against degrading overwork is not just a Western thing. Rather, it’s a sign, as one tang ping enthusiast put it, of a “global unraveling.”
Note: these anti-consumerist countercultures are fundamentally anti-Western, regardless of where they are taking place globally. Which civilization invented the commercial and industrial system that now exists in China? Which civilization is being rebelled against by both the Antiwork and Lying Flat countercultures? Hint: Western civilization.

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“I opt out.” Those are powerful words. Consider the mighty, status-quo-toppling impact of this passive gesture if everybody did it. The new activists have found magic in inverting the old mantra of the capitalist hustle.

Don’t just do something: stand there.

To do nothing, even for a short while, is an active rebuke of the creation of capitalist value.
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And this has been the one upside of the otherwise grim blight on the world that is this pandemic: the disruption gave everyone time to reflect on their workaday routine. And a lot of people came to the same conclusion: Why the **** should I take the prime of my life and simply hand it over?
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To be crystal clear here, this is not about not wanting to work. We humans are working dogs. We prefer to work than not to work, studies show.
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And the average employee comes to understand: You do not own me, day and night. I give my service to you, on my terms.

So celebrate this moment of opportunity born of crisis. Maybe these are the first growing-pain heaves along the road to what a new definition of a successful life actually looks like.
https://www.adbusters.org/article/gen-z-will-you-whack-capitalism-into-a-new-orbit

Opting out of Western civilization isn't enough. To end it, you need to get to work for something to counter it.

guest78

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Even your boss wants to quit
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The Great Resignation is seeping into the corner office, with 70% of C-level executives telling Deloitte pollsters that they seriously might resign for a job that better supports their well-being.

Why it matters: If the boss who sets the rules is feeling burned out, it's no surprise that many of the rank and file are also restive.

    57% of employees in the Deloitte survey said they were fed up enough to quit too.

Driving the news: A report released today by Deloitte and market research firm Workplace Intelligence found that C-suite executives feel as frazzled and depressed as the workers who report to them. In a poll conducted in February...

    76% of higher-ups said the pandemic has negatively affected their overall health.
    81% said improving their own equilibrium is more important than advancing their career right now.

Some execs are pushing for changes. 83% said they'll expand their company's well-being benefits over the next 1-2 years, while 77% said companies should be required to publicly report "workforce well-being metrics."

Asked if they'd taken any steps to help staffers mellow out, 20% of C-suiters said they'd banned after-hours emailing, and 35% said they make employees take breaks during the day.

    35% send notes coaxing employees to take time off and disconnect — and 29% say they're trying to set an example by doing this themselves.

Yes, but: There's a big disconnect between how the higher-ups perceive their efforts and what workers say.

    84% of C-suite execs said they thought their workers were thriving from a mental health perspective — but only 59% of employees rated their own mental health as "excellent" or "good."
    91% of the honchos said they saw themselves as caring leaders — but just 56% of workers thought their bosses cared about their well-being.

"What we found was that the majority [of C-suite executives] want to do something about it, but they just haven't done something about it," Dan Schawbel, the founder of Workplace Intelligence, told Axios. "So it's been more talk and less action."

    The answer isn't just to tack on more mental health benefits but to reassess everything about how the workplace operates — including child care and remote work options, Schawbel said.

Between the lines: The Deloitte findings ring true to executive recruiters. "What we see is that people are resigning to try to find a better place, a better work-life balance, a better culture," Shawn Cole, founder of Cowen Partners, tells Axios. "That's the 'great reshuffle,' as we see it."

    Women executives have been hit particularly hard with job overload during the pandemic, and a disproportionate number are job-hunting — or stepping aside.
    A recent LinkedIn survey found that mid-level managers and directors want a four-day workweek even more than their reports.

But the "C-suite is an island" where corporate wellness policies — like unplugging and ignoring email — don't necessarily apply, Cole said.

    "To some extent, that's what they're paid for," he noted.
    "They really need to set boundaries for themselves" to stay happy and focused, Cole said.
    Finding a new job isn't always the answer: "The grass is not greener," particularly for a CEO.

What's next: C-suite burnout could potentially translate to more enlightened workplace benefits and policies — or not, as an economic downturn puts more focus on the bottom line.

Methodology: The Deloitte survey, conducted by email from Feb. 8-21, involved 1,050 C-suite executives in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia and an equal number of staff employees. Respondents were "provided with a small monetary incentive" for participating.
https://www.axios.com/2022/06/22/ceo-csuite-burnout-pandemic-great-resignation?utm_source=pocket-newtab

guest78

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Re: "Great Resignation" labor movement and strikes
« Reply #19 on: September 04, 2022, 01:56:24 pm »
How 'Quiet Quitting' Became The Next Phase Of The Great Resignation
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"Quiet quitting" is having a moment. The trend of employees choosing to not go above and beyond their jobs in ways that include refusing to answer emails during evenings or weekends, or skipping extra assignments that fall outside their core duties, is catching on, especially among Gen Zers.

Zaid Khan, 24, an engineer from New York, popularized this trend with his viral Tiktok video in July.

"You are still performing your duties, but you are no longer subscribing to the hustle culture mentally that work has to be our life," Khan says in his video. "The reality is, it's not, and your worth as a person is not defined by your labor."

In the U.S., quiet quitting could also be a backlash to so-called hustle culture — the 24/7 startup grind popularized by figures like Gary Vaynerchuk and others.

"Quiet quitting is an antidote to hustle culture," said Nadia De Ala, founder of Real You Leadership, who "quietly quit" her job about five years ago. "It is almost direct resistance and disruption of hustle culture. And I think it's exciting that more people are doing it."

Last year, the Great Resignation dominated the economic news cycle. Now, during the second half of 2022, it's the quiet quitting trend that's gaining momentum at a time when the rate of U.S. productivity is raising some concern. Data on U.S. worker productivity posted its biggest annual drop in the second quarter.

So, why is this trend on the rise? Watch the video above to learn whether quiet quitting is hurting the U.S. economy and how it's being seen as part of the Great Resignation narrative.