Analysis Shows 'Quiet Fleecing' of US Workers–Not Quiet Quitting–Is Real Problem | Hacker News Reader

Analysis Shows 'Quiet Fleecing' of US Workers–Not Quiet Quitting–Is Real Problem

commondreams.org

80 pointswahnfrieden21 comments

The general acceptance of the term "Quiet Quitting" tells us quite a bit about how we currently view the relationship between labor and employer.

Somehow we have accepted the idea that showing up when you are supposed to and doing the tasks you are required to is not "doing your job" but rather "quiet quitting".

It does not seem that these people are goldbricking or maliciously complying or really doing anything wrong at all. They are just doing their jobs. Doing the minimum required is a bad career move, but it's certainly not "quitting" or somehow stealing from your employer.

Part of me thinks it's just the media trying to manufacture conflict and rage for more clicks.

Somehow we have accepted the idea that showing up when you are supposed to and doing the tasks you are required to is not "doing your job" but rather "quiet quitting

I agree that the notion is ridiculous. Ridiculous to the point where it looks like bait.

I don't think "Quiet Quitting" even means doing the bare minimum. One could be performing their job duties comprehensively and to a high standard within their contracted hours, and that seems to be considered "Quiet Quitting" because they aren't doing overtime working on tasks outside their job description.

This is exactly the issue, in the past, if you worked retail you were able to make a nice living. I had a few Uncles (WW2 veterans) who did very well in retail as a salesman. They were able to buy single family homes and put their children through college.

Now, the majority of people in retail need EBT Cards just to avoid going homeless. Walmart even helps their employees to get on EBT. Time to reel in these companies.

Well you better "reel in" the entire internet then. Can't put the genie back in the bottle, and turning a profit running a retail establishment is dying in most cities, and already dead in some (NYC for example). Where do you expect these pay raises to come from? The robots are coming, they are coming fast, and they will replace all of us (perhaps even the ones who program the robots).

We’ve already seen hundreds and thousands multiples productivity gain through automation without fewer people working. It’s been to the benefit of owners and investors

I don't know what's quiet about it. Every day, every week, every month, every quarter, every half, every year everybody wants progress from advancing productivity of their employees. New processes, new systems, new terms, new bullshit shoveled on people faster than they can join their next zoom. It's to the point where most people are just trying to keep their heads above water with constant meetings, 24x7 if they want. It's been out of control for a while now. People are not quietly quitting, they are suffering in silence and being overrun by their middle manager slave drivers. Fleecing is a nice way to put it. It's more like child abuse if you ask me.

Real problem is elites in this country from both parties made it clear they are much more concerned about wage growth than anything else. This whole last 14yrs of extraordinary asset inflation, which by the way they conveniently don’t take into account into the calculation of core CPI by some opaque terms like “hedonic adjustments”, didn’t bother Fed that they should perhaps slow down buying bonds and stop QE. Oh but the moment the worker wages finally started to rise, Fed which at this point is an extension of the elites (I mean what gives a guy who was a well connected lawyer in his past life to decide when to raise rates) decided it is time to raise the rates hard. Bunch of scumbags.

I'm likely going to get flamed for this but its just an opinion...

These types of articles always imply there is a smokey back room of fat cats that are plotting to screw over their employees.

Aren't we driving this behavior by flocking to stocks that are unreasonably profitable? A lot of us here probably have at least some market investment that we want to see go through the roof and the most likely way for these companies to pull that off is to keep their expenses in check.

Have you ever been in a management position? That's a legitimate question and not trying to be argumentative.

I ask because I was surprised and appalled after getting into management and almost immediately being included in meetings whose sole goal was to discuss ways to squeeze the employees more or cut back on their total comp in a way that they wouldn't immediately notice. These weren't even "fat cats", these were just execs working at regular companies who were making less than what I've seen reported as FAANG total comp for engineers in their second year. It wasn't even effective for producing greater productivity as any engineer with talent moved on for a better paying job or, if they were talented enough, moved to a FAANG where they rationally offered better rewards for better output.

There is a cultural standard in many American corporations where the executives and management class below them seek to squeeze every ounce of blood from their employees not because it is a rational choice for improving profit, but because merely because they can. My take on it so far has been that at some point in the past this _was_ actually a rational choice because there was a lot of value being paid out to employees, but the employee base has been squeezed of all excess for so long that most executives are just cargo culting based on what their predecessors did.

> most executives are just cargo culting based on what their predecessors did.

It's underappreciated the extent to which the average business is simply mirroring the practices which were common previously. The golden ticket outside of digital for the last ~50 years in American business has been cost cutting. This meant squeezing employees, making larger businesses with theoretically better economies of scale, and increased outsourcing.

You sound like a rent seeker who, you know, is seeking for more rent.

I urge you to think of the people and not only of your investment portfolio. A lot of good honest people out there are periodically told they are not doing enough while they have been on the brink for years.

Would you want that for your parents? Would you want increased stock profits on the back of millions of families?

I hope everyone is aware that the origin of capitalism is liquidity preference in combination with a permanent money system aka 0% interest on cash.

What this means is that everyone, even the poorest people on earth are capitalists, they just have very little influence over the economy and they gain very little from it.

The only difference between the poorest and the richest is the order of magnitude. Millions of tiny little "schemers" can be worth thousands of millionaires.

The prisoners dilemma works as follows. People have the option to consume and invest or to save money. The goal is to create a bigger stockpile of money just in case the rest of the economy decides to abandon you. This means people prefer retiring at the end of their life rather than taking a few years off in their younger years. As people save more and more there has to be more debt as well to prevent deflation. People are worried that they end up being the one in debt so in response they start saving too. If everyone starts saving, and nobody consumes or invests the economy reaches a standstill.

So no, the problem isn't buying stocks. As ironic as it might sound, that is the "anti-capitalist" part.

Capitalism's defining feature is a prisoners dilemma where people are saving without investing, resulting in a constant need for more public sector debt.

This is why organizing is so powerful (and obviously the rich are also organizing)

"Quiet Quitting" is BS, and not a thing.

It is not quitting if you're not doing work while you're not being paid.

It is not quitting to not answer calls from your boss when you're not being paid.

It is not quitting to work "only" your assigned hours.

Many people no longer want to enrich the Pharaoh. They want more beer and wheat in return for building that damn pyramid. I mean what is the point of making someone like Bezo's even more richer. All that profit rake-off should have been shared with the workers.

The productive outpute of a worker has increased. This doesn't mean that the worker has become more productive. This means that the combination of the worker and the tools they are using (ie capital) are more productive. If the only thing that has changed in this equation is that capital is purchasing better tools to make their workers output more than it isn't particularly surprising that workers aren't seeing those productivity gains in their wages.

Discussing worker productivity somewhat misses the point, the worker doesn't care about company productivity at all, they care about being able to provide for themselves. It's quite plain that corporate profits went up and cost-of-living went up, but wages did not. There's no avoiding the working being disatisfied with this circumstance.

I'm not making a moral argument. I'm making an economics argument. It's like asking why a ball fell off of a table and saying gravity and the person who pushed it somewhat misses the point because I wanted the ball to be on the table.

Workers historically have gained access to those productivity gains through organizing against owners however the US is highly atomized already

Increasing productivity via capital investment typically requires workers gain skills to use this capital. Also, the source of that productivity gains caused by capital investment is the labour of workers producing those capital goods, not the investment of currency.

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