For the past few months, social media has been buzzing with the latest catchphrase: ‘quiet quitting’. The expression does not mean exactly what it says, however, as it does not involve anyone actually leaving a job. Quiet quitters have taken to social media, especially TikTok, to reveal that what they are really doing is setting boundaries and claiming work-life balance. The premise of quiet quitting is that employees simply work for the stipulated hours daily, shutting off phones and ignoring communication with employers once their workday ends.
The reasons given by people who have embraced this phenomenon are varied and include, but are not limited to, overwork, burnout, prioritising their mental health and sticking it to uncaring bosses. While the new name is catchy and has gained a lot of traction, especially among young people, the concept of a silent rebellion against poor working conditions and/or meagre wages and salaries, while remaining on the job, has been around for ages.
Formally known as work-to-rule, it is an on-the-job industrial action, where workers do exactly and only what is in their contracts or spelt out in the written rules under which they were employed. Usually, it is instituted when collective bargaining between a union and an employer reaches an impasse.
While work-to-rule is a milder form of action than a sit-in, or a strike, it is most effective in industries where optimal productivity requires workers going beyond what is spelt out in their lists of duties. Hospitals, for example, would be very poorly run – to put it mildly – if doctors and nurses, and even auxiliary staff, simply worked for specified hours and doggedly took their designated breaks. In the case of schools, besides the likelihood of things degenerating into absolute chaos, education in general would suffer.
It is worth noting here that any worker who believes that he or she has suffered loss of agency can employ this method, as has been occurring among the TikTok generation. They do not need to be unionised, nor do they have to inform their bosses that they are taking action. As Guyanese we have seen (and heard) work-to-rule activity, particularly during visits to government offices, but perhaps have not recognised it for what it was.
Anyone who has been miffed at those clerks who close their desks and take a lunch break in view of long lines of customers waiting to be served, or office assistants who refuse to take files from one place to the next because, in local parlance, “duh’s nah me wuk”, has seen work-to-rule in action. Years ago, in certain circles, it was dubbed, “the public service mentality”, because it mainly existed in that sphere.
If one is on the receiving end of it, one’s reaction is usually to heap scorn on the workers, or to call them out as being lazy. Many of us are guilty of thinking and saying that the workers should leave the jobs so others could take them rather than do them with such lack of enthusiasm. The truth is that in most cases, the workers desperately need those jobs and often could enjoy performing their tasks if their working conditions were improved.
In some instances, the entire office or ministry is seen as slow or shoddily run and receives bad public reviews. The latter could serve to accomplish the workers’ mission, if the poor feedback results in the employer improving working conditions and raising salaries. However, this could only occur effectively if, in the case of a government agency, it has the necessary autonomy to make changes.
There is, however, a flipside – the not-so-well-known phenomenon ‘quiet firing’. If, for instance, an employer wants to get rid of a worker, but to avoid paying severance, the go-to mode is to treat that worker terribly, but within the limits of legality, so that he or she is forced to resign. The employer suffers no consequences and the job is now open to be offered to a better quality candidate, a younger person, or one the employer believes may be more malleable.
This is a likely eventuality that quiet quitters will have to learn to guard against, particularly given the current uncertain projections surrounding employment. Even though there is an apparent rebound from the downturn wrought by the two-year shutdown owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) is not confident that all is well, moreso in this region. In its labour overview on Latin America and the Caribbean, published on September 1, the ILO said the outlook for the rest of the year may be “complicated by greater informality and working poverty”.
The organisation posited that there is a need for much more formal employment than exists at present. It noted that although people are employed, one in every two is in a low-income, unstable job with no protection or labour rights. Furthermore, women, who make up the majority of workers in unstable jobs, are at greater risk in this scenario.
Appearances can be deceiving as the COVID-19 pandemic revealed when thousands of outwardly healthy businesses around the globe folded in the face of contracted spending. While no one should be expected to work under horrible conditions, this is a time to be wary.
