“widespread economic exploitation”

• https://survivingtomorrow.org/corporations-are-now-fining-employees-for-quitting-a85eff948817

Добро пожаловать в будущее! (Welcome to the future!) I’m vaguely picturing the SpongeBob rainbow meme here.

You’re gonna get back in the cube farm because you’re told to. Then if you decide you’re still gonna hippity-hop across the market for better opportunities — ha ha — no, you’re not.

If you chose not to believe this warning:

• https://theintercept.com/2022/07/29/bank-of-america-worker-conditions-worse/

That’s 100% on you. If you thought the Great Resignation would last forever and Corpo America would take its lumps, ha. You played yourself.

Stay or pay.

That’s the new threat corporate vampires are laying on the working contributor class.

In America, where Mammon is god and everything must be slaughtered on the altar of shareholder profit, quitting has become the newest source of revenue, costing some employees tens of thousands of dollars just to break free from their greedy overlords.

The most common stay-or-pay clause is called a Training Repayment Agreement Provision.

Yes, it’s a literal TRAP.

-Surviving Tomorrow, Ibid.

This is part of the Feudalism 2.0 plan. You get trapped in your living situation, trapped at work, trapped financially, trapped by debt and bon voilà — you are trapped full stop.

Trapped in a home or an apartment + trapped in a job + trapped by finances / debt = trapped. Full stop.

We need to acknowledge this and stop tiptoeing around the topic.

• https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2022/12/04/its-being-trapped-full-stop/

The stories are harrowing and utterly infuriating.

*The New York Times dug up tons of awful cases:*

The nurse who had to pay $10,000 to her employer after she quit her job at a nursing home that was understaffed, overworked, and unsafe.

The software engineer who was sued by his former employer for $30,000 after he left his job at a start-up that was struggling to survive.

The truck driver who is facing a $15,000 bill from his employer after he was fired for failing a drug test. He said that he was not informed of the contract when he was hired, and that he was addicted to opioids after a work-related injury. (He is now homeless and unable to pay the debt.)

Can you imagine such a nightmare?

-Surviving Tomorrow, Ibid.

Yes, I can imagine such a nightmare. The biggest obstacle we have here IMO is a lobotomized population. You try to warn about such things and you get:

• That might happen to those people and ain’t it sad, but it would just NEVER happen to me.
• ThAt’s JuSt a ConSpiRacY TheoRy!
• Companies need their money. You must just be a commie.
• Oh well. I’d rather focus on who Taylor Swift is dating.

I mean . . . what can you do when people don’t care about saving themselves? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Imagine your spouse gets sick and needs to go overseas for treatment.

Or your parent is dying and needs you to move back home for end-of-life care.

Or you just hate your job and find a better opportunity.

In a democratic, fair-rules market, you’d just get up and go.

But in the demonic rules-free-market corporatist gongshow that is American corporatist capitalism, it’s just one last chance to turn an unearned profit off the labor of others as they head out the door.

-Surviving Tomorrow, Ibid.

Yeah, in a free market, sure. You get up and go. This was part of the promise of “at will employment.” You can get fired for any reason or no reason but you could also quit for any reason or no reason and that’d be that. Now it seems you can be fired for any reason or no reason but if you try to quit, no no no, naughty peon. That is now allowed! Crony capitalism is designed to make sure John & Jane Q. Public are slaves to Corpo America, DC, Wall Street, and various other cronies.

In your opinion, the Great Resignation is finished? Oh yes, and it has been for quite some time now for white-collar workers. Quite frankly, Corporate America has not been shy in saying that it wants to hold the balance of power again. When you have collusion between Corporate America, central bankers, and Capitol Hill, who do you think is going to ultimately prevail? John and Jane Q. Public or the rich and powerful?

Is there a backlash against it? I definitely believe so. I think we can say there was a Great Resignation and now there’s a Great Backlash against it. The economy has boom and bust cycles, sure, but I think at this point, we see some CEOs really taking a sort of impish glee in punishing employees with RTO mandates and conditioning job seekers by putting them through the ringer during the interview process. It’s terrible.

• https://washington-mail.com/a-great-backlash/

The punishment extends to: you get in here and you stay in here. If you try to rebel, you’ll owe us money.

Originally published at https://causeyconsultingllc.com on December 3, 2023.