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The reason CEOs want workers to Return To Office is because they want you to quit
(www.fastcompany.com)
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this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
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- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
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Overall, employers hold almost all the power in their relationships over employees.
Depending on individual and conditions, some may find themselves with the privilege of slightly improved bargaining power, but no assumption is stable or reliable, and ultimately employers have the final word. A company always may find other workers more easily than, in the greater balance, individuals may find other job positions.
Workers have no inherent or intrinsic value in the relationship. Companies value workers only for their labor, and do so under systems of labor commodification captured beneath the whims of the market.
This (emphasis mine, for clarity) is not accurate. There are currently more jobs than people, and people of certain positions have enormous power in job negotiations.
And workers only value companies for the pay. This isn't really an argument about anything
Your quote mining is not honest.
A job opening being posted offers no important information about the situation inside any company, nor about the count of applications that have been received, nor the count that has been ignored or rejected.
For most of us, not having a job represents having a much higher risk of death. The conditions of workers are essentially conditions of work or die.
If you think workers have as much bargaining power as companies, then you are, frankly, deluded. You may personally not notice the depth of the disparity, due to your having certain privileges, but you are still giving a distorted representation of your own conditions.
Workers literally have more bargaining power than employers at the moment, be I'm not deluded about that. I work in retention and partner with recruiting daily.
You have argued that because you have encountered an abundance of job listings, therefore, employers have less bargaining power than employees.
Job listings are not a scarce resource. Any employer may create any number for any reason merely by choosing.
Your argument is fatuous.
The entire structure of the relationship between worker and employer is based on inequitable balance of power. Workers must sell their labor to employers in order to earn the means of their survival, in order to avoid destitution, homelessness, and starvation. Employers, in turn, benefit from a disciplined and stratified working class, and from a reserve army of labor.
The prevailing principle for workers, under the employment system, is work or die.
I'm not talking about seeing lots of job listings. I'm talking about the realities of recruiting personnel and the demographic and structural changes that cause those realities
Sorry you're having trouble, but your experience is not the broad reality. There are more jobs than people and workers haven't been this empowered since post-WW2
There is no system in which this is not the case, and that has nothing to do with your bargaining power.
You are now being dishonest, by insinuating that I have presented an argument from personal experience, and also that you have presented a structural argument.
Both suggestions are false.
You have given no structural argument. I have given one, and have not appealed to personal experience.
As I say, job openings is not relevant. A job opening is not a resource of limited supply.
Any employer may post any number of job openings at any time, and also may eliminate any of them, at any time, and also may eliminate any job, at any time, dismissing whoever is holding it.
Indeed, an employer may also post a job opening, and simply reject every applicant, or even ignore every one.
Yes, there is, obviously. As long as distribution of basic needs is decoupled from the system of organizing labor, everyone may survive even if not providing labor.
It does, completely, for reasons I already explained. Only one side of the bargaining relationship is being subjected to grave threat.
Serious question: are you currently working as an adult in the professional world?
Because this is not what "jobs" are.
A job is a social relationship between a worker and an employer.
A job opening is a declaration by an employer of being willing to receive applications. If any application is accepted, by a job being offered to an applicant, then the applicant may accept the job, and may hold it, as long as the employer remains willing to maintain the employment relationship.
A job opening is only a declaration.
Do you understanding the meaning of bargaining power?
Please think about the substantive meaning of the concept, and then provide a clear explanation, based on your understanding.
Now, do the same for a company declaring a job opening. Explain the meaning, clearly.
Please offer an explanation of how you may arrive, in general, at a sound conclusion, about which side of a negotiation has more bargaining power.
Now, please provide a meaningful argument that job applicants have more bargaining power than employers.
You have so far attempted to poison the well, but have not provided any genuine argument for your stated conclusion.
Job applicants are the girls on tinder. Many options and the choices are mutually exclusive.
Employers are the guys on tinder. More of them than girls and some of them will not get girls (filled positions).
The girl has her choice of guys, and can select for a higher standard. So can employees.
Really not complicated. Basic supply and demand.
No. Sorry.
Either you are trolling, or you are simply extremely thoughtless in forming your beliefs.
You reveal a complete lack of understanding of social structure.
You have rifled through a handful a variations of the same general theme, attempting to argue, or perhaps attempting to avoid arguing, that employers have less bargaining power than employees.
The employment relationship is not a relationship of mutuality or parity between the two participating parties, employer and employee.
A business is a social structure, which is completely different from an individual worker. Meanwhile, the billionaires who own businesses, and through them accumulate private wealth, have no shared interests with their workers.
Each business may expand to employ arbitrarily many workers, but workers have only limited time to sell.
Businesses control the entirety of resources in society that the population requires to survive. They profit from the labor of workers, who sell their labor to earn the right to live.
The number of job openings is not related to the bargaining power of employees.
It cannot be overstated that your comparison to romantic partnership is so utterly absurd.