Lecture January 27, 2003

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.

This page last revised 02/12/03