Ethical Issues related to “The End of Employment
as we knew it”
January 27, 2003
Premise of lecture; “these changes are altering our personal
lives.” (Reich, page 94 in kit)
Overview of lecture:
1. complete Mosco’s overview: focus on deskilling and electronic
monitoring
2. 2. Reich’s overview: changes to our assumptions about work
1. More on deskilling: Menzies’ view
(kit, p. 78, “It’s asset
stripping applied to the social environment
at large.”
“
If degradation of skilled work is one
way in which networked economics facilitate
increased control and power over workers
[i.e., deskilling], the enhanced monitoring
capacity afforded by these technologies
is another.” (Barney, Prometheus
Wired, p. 155)
kinds of electronic workplace surveillance:
1. performance monitoring (bulk of
work is in digital form which when
saved can
be measurable in quantitative terms.
(e.g., counting of keystrokes)…surveillance
constant and relentless.
2. behaviour monitoring (e.g, monitor
e-mail and Internet use, listen in
periodically on conservations),
Ethical Issue: is this deskilling
and surveillance “right”? what
is the result of monitoring? Possibly
feeling degraded, felling stressed, increased
vulnerability to repetitive strain injuries…
OR do we just take this as part of
our taken-for-granted lives? (the hegemonic
control of our values??)
3. Reich’s Overview of 3 periods
in American labour history:
Pre-employment (pre 1850’s)
- few had a fixed wage, people worked as
family units (or slaves). Little
differentiation between home and work (still true for
most workers in the world); paid
for tasks done
- in U.S. people’s independence valued
(e.g., Abraham Lincoln as role model—didn’t
want to work for someone.
Employment (1850’s-1990’s)
-
Unions protected workers’ wages
and working conditions (1/3 in unions)
- stability in rest of work force.
Implicit
rules of employment (the taken-for-granted assumptions):
1. steady work with predictably rising
pay.
2. limited effort (paid for time
put in); efficiency prized--theories
of
Taylorism
women raised children + did volunteer
work
3. wage compression, and the expansion
of the middle class (in 1950’s
1/2 of American “middle-class)
Post-employment (1990’s-21c)
1. end of steady work (only 10%
in unions); earnings unpredictable;
multiple jobs;
reliance on contract faculty (e.g,
universities)
2. necessity of continuous effort
(pay based on your market value)
3. widening disparities between
wages in firms: “incomes at op have grown
twice as fast as those in the middle.” (kit
p. 92)
ideals of “personal responsibility
and freedom of contract” similar
to pre-employment period. (image of frontiersman” a
powerful post-employment cyberspace
image0
BUT significant differences;
Pre-employment; sellers sold in
local markets and could set their
prices
+ relied on communities for help
in need
(early social assistance)
Postemployment: buyers go global,
and communities are not there for
help
in time of need….
Outcome: great for buyers, not
so good for sellers (who have to
cut
costs
and add new value)….
As Reich says, “we’re not
just consumers..” (p. 94)
If “sellers” (other workers)
are squeezed out, they aren’t able
to “buy.”
Menzies’ critique—don’t
accept the hegemonic power of this kind
of work; concentrate on real people in
real places. We understand ideology when
we can put a face to it: stories move
us out to real issues…in
her article she ends with the personal
narrative
of the women who works for Pizza
Pizza.