Okay so I get that in theory but…

I recall a story of an American worker, of minority status if that helps (a black woman in the South), in a car assembly plant. She expressed sympathy to join a union, after which the suits “restructured job responsibilities”, which suddenly meant that she had to do a 2-person job… all alone. Did she succeed, or fail? I don’t know the outcome, but either way, she was set up to fail.

And I could see her agreeing to that. Being brought into the office, surrounded by suits, she was told that she could either lose her job outright, here and now, or agree to work by the new terms; at which point she will “fail” and lose it later.

I also recall an article somewhere that mentioned that a good manager is worth their weight in gold, and in particular more so than a good company climate. e.g. a company may offer “flex time”, but if your boss says that only whiny piss-babies would fail to show up prior to 6:00am, while those who are “success-minded” will be there sharp, prior to himself walking in the door (ignoring how older people legit have a tendency to wake up earlier in the day due to differences in their biological clocks, and how those without child responsibilities can make it to work easier without having to juggle the times that a school may open…), then “flex time” is revealed to be merely something on paper, without instantiation in reality under his guidance.

Though conversely, a boss who REALLY wants to keep someone, even if they have run out of PTO time and now find themselves sick yet AGAIN, will “find a way” to make something happen, despite how “company policy dictates that…”

So I don’t think it’s nearly as simple as all of that. Regardless of whose true “responsibility” something is, shit has a tendency to flow downhill. Though there are better places & worse places, and we all have the responsibility to find something that will work out for us, to the extent that we can make that happen - e.g. a black poor woman in the American South may have a more difficult time getting jobs elsewhere than a white upper middle or wealthy class cishet man with an ivy league education to point to (as e.g. George W. Bush did, despite his dad merely exchanging money in return for it, as the son himself failed his way through the actual learning process).

So, sometimes it’s “just smoke” yeah, but sometimes they back up the threat with firing someone too, to make way for someone who will kiss ass better than you were willing to.