A UBI will not reverse the power relations in the workplace – employers won’t find the threat of exit credible and they can always replace those who do exit.
Birnbaum and De Wispelaere, 2016 - Institute for Futures Studies and University of Tampere [Simon and Jurgen, Aug 16 “Basic Income in the Capitalist Economy: The Mirage of “Exit” from Employment” https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/bis-2016-0013/html?lang=en Acc 4/4/23 TA]
Exit as empowerment against employers? But could a basic income nevertheless play a key role in strengthening the bargaining position of workers? If a worker’s exit option is restricted by virtue of facing important challenges to move from one job to another, this unfortunately also has major implications for the bargaining position of workers vis-a-vis employers. Employers who are faced with a vulnerable worker threatening to use her exit option in most cases have very little incentive to accede to any of her demands, for the simple reason that replacing that worker with another one may be the cheaper option. Of course, in some such cases employers may choose to grant a worker a raise or better working hours or whatnot, but this amounts to a privilege being granted by the employer out of the kindness of her heart. This is a far cry from the change in the power relations between employee and employer, or evidence of increased bargaining power of the former over the latter, as argued by many of those who stress the potential of basic income to empower workers in such a way that they are free not to live “at the mercy of another” (Pettit, 2007; Thomas, 2016; White, 2011).