Pandemic effect: movement against regular work is growing in the world

Irina Ziganshina

We have never worked as hard as we did during the pandemic, and there has never been a better time to rethink the way we think about work. Two years after the outbreak of the coronavirus — much of that time spent telecommuting for most of us — people around the world, especially those in low-paying jobs, are seriously tired. Mental instability and emotional burnout have led many to wonder if the employer is to blame. Many, having answered this question in the affirmative, quit. Others have gone even further.

A kind of "anti-worker" movement is being activated in the West, aiming to end the modern economic order. The main message of his supporters is that the labor market is artificially inflated, and companies make employees their slaves, depriving them of the full cost of production. This does not mean that the theorists of the anti-labor movement call for the abandonment of labor in principle. No, they simply believe that people should organize themselves and work as long as necessary, instead of working hard for the employer, creating excess capital or goods.

If before the fight against work was a radical idea professed by marginals, then with the onset of the pandemic it spread much more widely, and the anti-labor movement rose by leaps and bounds. His online base is the Antiwork subreddit , a forum on the popular site that shares stories of employer abuse, asks for advice on how to negotiate pay increases, posts news of ongoing strikes, and just memes. Among the participants are people from different countries, although the majority are Americans. Antiwork is growing very fast: if by March 2029 there were 100,000 subscribers in the community, now it is 1.7 million. According to the moderators, every week there are 20,000-60,000 more subscribers, the subreddit receives hundreds of messages and thousands of comments every day. The importance of the resource is also evidenced by the fact that publications such as The Guardian , The New York Times , BBC devote their materials to it.

The name and philosophy of the subreddit goes back to several sources. One of them is the essay "The Abolition of Work" by the American anarchist publicist Bob Black, who in turn refers to Plato and Xenophon. “Many workers are fed up with work (…) Perhaps there will be some movement towards a conscious, rather than just intuitive, refusal to work.” Black's idea is to do only the necessary work, and devote the rest of the time to family and personal hobbies.

Antiworkers do not oppose all forms of work at all: they reject "jobs as they are structured under capitalism and the state." “The point of Antiwork is to start a conversation, to problematize work as we know it today,” the forum says.

What is being done here is more than just theorizing. Last December, Kellog's, whose union went on strike, said it would hire new non-union workers. In response, Antiwork members bombarded Kellog's with fake job applications. It is not clear exactly how much this solidarity action affected the company, but a little later Kellog's and the union reached an agreement.

“Due to covid, business as usual has been put on hold,” Tom Juravich, a labor research expert at the University of Massachusetts, told the BBC. “In moments like this, people have time to reflect. Power structures have become more severe and controlling, and people have felt it.” Especially obviously, the covid revealed deep-seated inequality for people employed in jobs with a lack of adequate earnings and social guarantees. Those whose work is associated with the lack of paid sick leave, high demands from superiors, working with clients, inadequate safety measures in the workplace, leading to infection with covid. But even more professionally successful people had a hard time: increased demands from employers coincided with the need to share space with children and other relatives who found themselves on a distance.

Some experts believe that covid was simply the last straw that overflowed the cup of patience. Keith Bronfenbrenner of Cornell University says: “Employees had an amazing threshold of tolerance for abuse by their employers. But when these abuses went so far that people were forced to risk their lives, when employers asked to work harder than ever, and received huge profits from this, it went beyond all limits.”

Of course, not all Antiwork participants are ready for drastic measures: someone just wants a hired job with more favorable conditions, others begin to work for themselves. It is unlikely that the situation will change dramatically overnight, but it is clear that many working people are at a turning point. And there are already signs that employers, wary of massive layoffs, are starting to respond with incremental improvements.

One of the historical parallels of the Antiwork movement is the period of inflation and economic recession in the United States in the 1970s, when strikes took place in the country, the participants of which demanded not only higher wages, but also better working conditions. That movement was not widespread. Rising unemployment affected the resolve of the strikers, and efforts to radically change working conditions for fear of losing what little they had fizzled out. However, this does not mean that any attempts to improve the situation are doomed. Changes for the better are possible, even if they are short-lived or very slow. As was the case with the “Occupy Wall Street” campaign, which formally failed, but continues to resonate in all other “occupiers”.

Statistics show that the unwillingness of working people to play by the rules of the system has already played a role. In the US, there is a shortage of skilled workers in almost every industry as people refuse to return to work until they can afford it. The US government estimates a global shortage of 40 million skilled workers and forecasts losses of trillions of dollars if the trend continues. American hiring managers complain that people do not show up not only for their scheduled interviews, but also for work on their first day of work. There is a small chance that at least the current attitude to work the pandemic will be able to change. The main thing at this stage is that all working people unite in an attempt to put pressure on employers and make them work not only for themselves, but also for their subordinates.