After last year's "great resignation" (The Great Resignation), which marked a significant wave of resignations, this year a new trend on the labor market and in labor relations entered the scene, called "quiet quitting". Like many of today's trends, it started on TikTok, and in fact it boils down to refusing any tasks in the workplace that are not contractually prescribed and basic. Overtime hours, calls outside working hours, but also more demanding tasks are rejected. Also, the expression of any enthusiasm towards the company or the imposed tasks is rejected. In short, I do what I'm paid to do.
The trend, of course, started in the United States of America and has already attracted the attention of the world's most important media, but also caused a kind of panic in personnel departments, or human resources, as it is called today. Re-examinations of methods of communication with employees and ways of dealing in general have begun, all in fear of a possible drop in productivity. Financial Times columnist Sarah O'Connor reminded jittery HR managers that nothing serious was going on. Namely, people continue to work normally. And not only that, refusing overtime and more intensive work than expected does not necessarily lead to a drop in productivity. Depending on the sector and the company, quite the opposite trend can happen.
The story of "quiet dismissals" also reached Croatia, and a report on the phenomenon was published on RTL. There we learned that the "preachers" of that practice believe that it is a matter of mindset, a new philosophy of life that allows you not to smoke corporate cigarettes. However, among the interlocutors was Katarina Peović from the Workers' Front, who reminded that these are old union demands and that there is actually nothing decisively new in this trend. What is new is the fact that many young people have forgotten, or actually never even knew, that this is a traditional custom that has almost disappeared. However, the reality to which these customs - those of trade union association - corresponded has not disappeared. And it's no wonder that the world's business press is asking: do "quiet layoffs" mean that Generation Z has discovered industrial action?
It seems that she did not discover the industrial action itself, but the motives that historically stood behind it. Or something more precise: she discovered that she doesn't have to listen to everything their bosses tell them. The trends of recent years in workplaces and on the labor market suggest that we are in a kind of historical gap. Younger generations have discovered that labor relations are not given by the arbitrariness of employers and that resistance is a normal reaction, but they were not left with the traditional tools and education that would serve to optimize that resistance. In a period where unionism seems a bit anachronistic, it is normal to reach for available tools like TikTok trends. However, the very occurrences of these trends suggest that the time of the left and trade unionism has not passed and that we should not look for some drastic innovations. Old school trade unionism will seem sufficiently new and attractive to younger generations. Union and TikTok can work together.
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