On
September 14, a young woman in Louisiana named Beth McGrath posted a
selfie
Facebook video
of herself working at Walmart. Her body language shows a nervous
energy as she works up the courage to speak on the intercom and
announces her resignation to shoppers. “Everyone here is
overworked and underpaid,” she begins, before going on to call
out specific managers for inappropriate and abusive behavior. “I
hope you don’t speak to your families the way you speak to us,”
she said before ending with “f**k this job!”
Perhaps
McGrath was inspired by Shana Ragland in Lubbock, Texas, who nearly a
year ago carried out a similarly
public resignation
in a TikTok video that she posted from the Walmart store where she
worked. Ragland’s complaints were similar to McGrath’s as
she accused managers of constantly disparaging workers. “I hope
you don’t talk to your daughters the way you talk to me,”
she said over the store intercom before signing off with, “F**k
the managers, f**k this company.”
The
viral resignations of these two young women are bookending a year of
volatility in the American workforce that economists have branded the
Great
Resignation.
Women in particular are seen as leading
the trend.
The seriousness of the situation was
confirmed by the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report
showing that a record 2.9 percent of the workforce quit their jobs in
August, which is equivalent to 4.3 million resignations.
If such a high rate of resignations
were occurring at a time when jobs were plentiful, it might be seen
as a sign of a booming economy where workers have their pick of
offers. But the same labor report showed that job openings have also
declined, suggesting that something else is going on. A new
Harris Poll
of people with employment found that more than half of workers want
to leave their jobs. Many cite uncaring employers and a lack of
scheduling flexibility as reasons for wanting to quit. In other
words, millions of American workers have simply had enough.
So serious is the labor market
upheaval that Jack Kelly, senior contributor to Forbes.com,
a pro-corporate news outlet, has defined the trend as, “a sort
of workers’ revolution and uprising against bad bosses and
tone-deaf companies that refuse to pay well and take advantage of
their staff.” In what might be a reference to viral videos like
those of McGrath, Ragland, and the growing trend of #QuitMyJob
posts,
Kelly goes on to say, “The quitters are making a powerful,
positive and self-affirming statement saying that they won’t
take the abusive behavior any longer.”
Still, some advisers suggest
countering the worker rage with “bonding
exercises”
such as “Gratitude sharing,” and games. Others suggest
increasing
trust
between workers and bosses or “exercis[ing]
empathetic curiosity”
with employees. But such superficial approaches entirely miss the
point.
The resignations ought to be viewed
hand in hand with another powerful current that many economists are
ignoring: a growing willingness by unionized workers to go on strike.
Film crews may soon halt work as
60,000 members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage
Employees (IATSE) announced
an upcoming national strike. About 10,000 employees of John Deere,
who are represented by the United Auto Workers, are also preparing
to strike
after rejecting a new contract. Kaiser Permanente is facing a
potential
strike
from 24,000 of its nurses and other health care workers in Western
states over poor pay and labor conditions. And about 1,400 Kellogg
workers in Nebraska, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Tennessee are already
striking
over poor pay and benefits.
The
announced strikes are coming so
thick and fast
that former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert
Reich
has dubbed the situation “an unofficial general strike.”
Yet
union representation remains extremely low
across the United States—the result of decades of concerted
corporate-led efforts to undermine the bargaining power of workers.
Today only about 12 percent of workers are in a union.
The
number of strikes and of striking workers might be far higher if more
workers were unionized. Non-union workers like McGrath and Ragland
hired by historically anti-union
companies like Walmart might have been able to organize their fellow
workers instead of resorting to individual resignations. While viral
social media posts of quitting are impactful in driving the
conversation around worker dissatisfaction, they have little direct
bearing on the lives of the workers and the colleagues they leave
behind.
One
example of how union organizing made a concrete difference to working
conditions is a new
contract
that 7,000 drug store workers at Rite Aid and CVS stores in Los
Angeles just ratified. The United Food and Commercial Workers Local
770 negotiated a nearly 10 percent pay raise for workers as well as
improved benefits and safety standards.
And
when companies don’t comply, workers have more leverage when
acting as a collective bargaining unit than as individuals. Take
Nabisco
workers
who went on strike in five states this summer. Mondelez
International, Nabisco’s parent company, saw record profits
during the pandemic with surging sales of its snack foods. So flush
was the company with cash that it compensated its CEO with a whopping
$16.8 million annual pay and spent $1.5 billion on stock buybacks
earlier this year. Meanwhile, the average worker salary was an
appallingly low $31,000 a year. Many Nabisco jobs were sent across
the border to Mexico, where the company was able to further drive
down labor costs.
After
weeks on the picket line, striking Nabisco workers, represented by
the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers
International Union, returned
to work
having won modest retroactive raises of 2.25 percent, $5,000 bonuses
and increased employer contributions to their retirement plans. The
company, which reported a 12 percent increase in revenue earlier this
year, can well afford this and more.
Taken
together with mass resignations, such worker strikes reveal a deep
dissatisfaction with the nature of American work that has been
decades in the making. Corporate America has enjoyed a stranglehold
over policy, spending its profits on lobbying
the government
to ensure even greater profits at the expense of workers’
rights. At the same time, the power of unions has fallen—a
trend directly
linked
to increased economic inequality.
But
now, as workers are flexing their power, corporate America is
worried.
In
the wake of these strikes and resignations, lawmakers are actively
trying to strengthen existing federal labor laws. Business groups are
lobbying Democrats to weaken
pro-labor measures
included in the Build Back Better Act that is being debated in
Congress.
Currently,
corporate employers can violate labor laws with little consequence as
the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) lacks the authority to fine
offenders. But Democrats want to give the NLRB the authority to
impose fines of $50,000 to $100,000 against companies who violate
federal labor laws. Also included in the Build Back Better Act is an
increase
in fines
against employers that violate Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) standards.
The
Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, which is a business lobby group
that wants anything but democracy in the workplace, is deeply
concerned about these proposed changes and sent a letter
to lawmakers to that effect.
It
remains to be seen if corporate lobbyists will succeed this time
around at keeping labor laws toothless. But as workers continue to
quit their jobs, and as strikes among unionized workers grow,
employers ignore the warning signs of rage and frustration at their
peril.
|