I am very compelled by all of this.

BUT

I have a bunch of questions. The one I think of first is layered: can this last?

If so, how? What does it turn into? A lot more people taking jobs they can do basically part time to give them more time to start their own businesses/side hustles/whatever we call alternate revenue streams now. I'm guessing that is the answer and have been told that here at least once recently.

BUT

I'm wondering how lots of companies can/will function if major chunks of its group is only kinda sorta working there? Does everything go full KPI crazy and turnover rates get higher as more companies make the call to casually run people off when they don't hit numbers?

Does the concept of stay, learn, grow, move up essentially die off in more industries than it already has? Is that what we want? I'm thinking it leads to even worse/more out of touch top management, hilariously unqualified/unskilled middle management (IE: more middle people who can't do the work that the people they manage do), and a peanut gallery of workers who dgaf about anything they're doing as long as they can hit the likely insufficient KPIs/numbers the bosses came up with. Volume over quality type stuff. And good luck getting that peanut gallery to help fix broken things/contribute to progress. It'll just be 'do 5 whatevers every *insert period of time here*' and then go watch Ozark, look at investment graphs, make your podcast with your cute significant other, or whatever you do.

See!? Layered! Loaded! Land minds all around. Maybe it is much easier than I'm making it out to be and I just don't get it since I grew up in an era where a few of my older uncles and aunties were just starting to go to college and get (mostly terrible) office gigs. Now, I'm surrounded by people my age who mostly tried to do the college --> job --> keep getting promoted even if it means you have to switch gigs thing. Some are doing amazingly well..most of them work way too much even now (20-ish years in). I'm fortunate as well but I'm kinda in limbo and asking a lot of above questions. Others are not..some of their own doing (they don't work hard, communicate well, and/or they move around too much so they can't ever get momentum enough to actually move up anywhere or even start off at a higher place). Some just got stuck in the wrong gig or industry and it just didn't work out.

>Turns out that seventeen months of watching our bosses make
>real time calculations of how much our lives and the lives of
>our families were worth was a transformative experience for
>American workers. A united, organized working class has the
>power to transform this country and after decades of
>traditionally anti-worker conservative and ascendent
>neoliberalism successfully marginalizing the influence of
>unions, they screwed up and poked the hornet's nest.
>
>https://news.yahoo.com/striketober-american-workers-battle-for-power-amid-labor-crunch-202634154.html
>
>'Striketober': American workers battle for power amid labor
>crunch
>Christopher Wilson
>
>Workers in Hollywood have a tentative agreement to stave off a
>strike that would effectively shut down the entertainment
>industry as workers across the United States flex their muscle
>in what activists are calling “Striketober.” The unrest
>comes as the nation is beset by labor shortages, potentially
>giving workers more power than they have had in decades when
>dealing with corporations.
>
>The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees
>(IATSE) was set to strike Sunday night but came to an
>agreement with Hollywood production companies over the
>weekend, although the deal still needs to be approved by
>members. More than 60,000 workers, including costumers, makeup
>artists, camera operators and set builders, were threatening a
>walkout as they negotiated a living wage for the lowest
>earners, more rest periods and compensation from streaming
>productions.
>
>“We went toe-to-toe with some of the richest and most
>powerful entertainment and tech companies in the world,”
>IATSE International president Matthew Loeb said in a
>statement. “Our members stood firm.”
>
>However, many of those IATSE members have expressed
>dissatisfaction with the deal and said they might vote it
>down. Work will continue until the ratification vote in a few
>weeks. The vote earlier this month to authorize the strike was
>nearly unanimous, just one example of widespread labor
>militancy across the country.
>
>More than 10,000 John Deere workers in Iowa, Illinois and
>Kansas began striking last week, citing soaring profits for
>the company and a 160 percent raise for the CEO as they work
>to renegotiate their contract. Representatives from the farm
>equipment manufacturing company and the United Automobile,
>Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America
>returned to negotiations Monday, the fifth day of the strike.
>Union leadership had reached a tentative contract agreement
>earlier this month, but it was soundly rejected by workers.
>
>Meanwhile, more than 28,000 health care workers at Kaiser
>Permanente in California and Oregon voted overwhelmingly this
>month to go on strike if their contract demands are not met.
>They would join other, smaller health care strikes already
>ongoing around the country, including one conducted by more
>than 2,000 workers in Buffalo, N.Y., who walked out on Oct. 1
>seeking better pay, working conditions and staffing.
>
>Workers in a wide range of industries — from breakfast
>cereal manufacturing to whiskey distilling to home health care
>to coal mining — have walked out in recent months. Earlier
>this year, workers at Nabisco and Volvo reached new contracts
>after strikes. According to the Labor Action Tracker project
>at Cornell, dozens of strikes have been started in October
>alone.
>
>“The pandemic pushed a lot of buttons for people,” Todd
>Vachon, a labor expert at Rutgers University, told Yahoo News.
>“We saw a lot of unrest around workplace safety ... and even
>nonunion workers walking off the job and organizing in ways we
>haven’t seen in a long time.”
>
>Over the last several decades, worker compensation has lagged
>well behind productivity, and CEO pay has risen sharply in
>comparison to that of the average worker. But labor activists
>say pandemic-related shutdowns and relief programs such as the
>expanded unemployment insurance and stimulus payments gave
>Americans a chance to assess their situations.
>
>Millions have switched industries, and many who left the
>workforce and took on child care responsibilities have yet to
>return. In August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported
>that a record 4.3 million Americans quit their jobs,
>especially within the service, hospitality and retail sectors.
>All of this comes during a time when public sympathies have
>shifted toward labor.
>
>According to a September Gallup poll, support for unions is at
>its highest point since 1965; 68 percent of Americans now say
>they approve of unions, up 20 points from a low in 2009. That
>includes 90 percent approval by Democrats and 66 percent
>approval by independents.
>
>At the federal level, President Biden has consistently touted
>himself as pro-union, even encouraging Amazon workers to
>organize earlier this year. Labor activists have called on
>Congress to pass the Pro Act, a piece of legislation that
>would make workplace organizing easier, but it’s unlikely to
>overcome Republican opposition and the Democratic refusal to
>remove the Senate filibuster.
>
>“People are choosing not to take the jobs that are being
>offered, so that builds some power and leverage for unions and
>bargaining that they haven’t had in decades, really, to be
>honest,” Vachon said.
>
>“ can bring in replacement workers, and that
>makes the strike less effective. But when there’s folks
>refusing to take the jobs being offered, the strike is a lot
>more powerful of a weapon because it actually shuts down the
>production and the facility and brings the employer back to
>the table more quickly.”
>
>In addition to the organized strikes, there have been waves of
>workers walking off the job in nonunion positions, such as
>fast food workers protesting allegedly unsafe working
>conditions and low wages despite being lauded as essential
>workers.
>
>Allynn Umel, director of the Fight for $15 campaign, told
>Yahoo News that “the hypocrisy between being called
>‘essential’ and the need for workers to sacrifice
>themselves and their families over the course of the pandemic
>has been fueling a lot of frustrations that workers have been
>facing.” Low-wage workers, Umel said, “know this is a
>moment where they want to make it clear that the pre-pandemic
>status quo of unlivable wages and terrible working conditions
>are no longer acceptable."
>
>All of these factors have combined to form what former
>Secretary of Labor Robert Reich called a “national general
>strike,” as workers potentially gain more power than they
>have had in decades amid labor shortages and widespread
>dissatisfaction with income inequality.
>
>Workers, Vachon said, “are withholding their labor because
>they don’t like what’s being offered, and that’s
>essentially what a strike is.”
>
>“It’s not organized by any organization, and they’re not
>all communicating about it across the whole economy. But
>what’s happening is there is a de facto general strike, and
>that just increases the economic power of the workers who go
>on real strikes.”
>
>
>