I feel like i've been seeing a torrent of photos depicting signs announcing a stores entire staff quitting in protest of their shitty working conditions. Nobody seems to be talking about it but are Americans starting to experience class consciousness?
there is for sure something happening and you're right that type of article is buzzing around everywhere right now. I wouldn't be the least bit shocked it's related to increasing the min wage discourse and that fake as fuck idea that people are "JuSt liVinG oFf GoV HaNd oUTs" and shit. Could even something like the Cato Institute is attempting to push on top of everything else. The thing is, almost all of those jobs are extremely low paying, bad or no benefit service/food type jobs. After the pandemic hit people realized really quick how low they were on the totem pole and I don't blame anyone for not wanting to go back to work in those places. It's a thankless, highly underpaid job and many of those places are making hand over fist in revenue.
It's not the calamity they're trying to make it seem, obviously. And right now should theoretically be when the market forces meets the demands of labor, but we also all know that is a fairy tale used to convince people that this capitalism shit actually works like they say on paper. I just reallllly fucking wish we could build a bigger, diverse labor coalition and demand more and actually get something out of it. There is also serious problems right now (worse than usual) at the border and for work visa immigration so now farmers are posting sad stories how no one wants to work on their one step above plantation for peanuts.
good post btw, lots of good comments here.
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exactly. it's sad and tragic but at the very least it did at least make more people, especially people who haven't worked those jobs how utterly insane it works right now. Some people wont ever truly get it or benefit from not admitting to it, and i'm not going to go as far as to say it created actual class consciousness in most people unaware of that concept, but at the very least *some * people finally got why we need both a higher min wage and better social services to kick in. The UI and rent moratorium were absolutely crucial in making sure the country didn't actually enter in a chaotic, deep depression. I mean we could easily argue we never left the depression, especially after '08, but it could always be worse!! The other thing is we're not out of the clear yet, there is plenty of ways it can go south as shit reopens more and more, even with our high vaccine rates.
it's still absurd how they called medical staff heroes and that was it. Not advocating for permeant wage increases and stop making them work 12+ hours and the completely artificial and manufactured doctor shortage.