We Were Kind of Duped: The Brave New Wold of Work

"Most of us thought we would work and have kids, at least that was what we were brought up thinking we would do — no problem. But really we were kind of duped. None of us realized how hard it is."
- CATHIE WATSON-SHORT, 37, on women in the work force from the NY Times today.

I've got news for you, Cathie, there's been a whole lot of dupin' goin' on, and not just women. Below is my review of Crossing the Great Divide: Worker Risk and Opportunity in the New Economy by Vicki Smith, which I reviewed on Amazon in July of 2001.

THE BRAVE NEW WORLD OF WORK, July 6, 2001
In "Crossing the Great Divide," Ms. Smith explores four organizations and sizes up their employment and personnel practices against the rhetorics of social science and global economy theorists. What she finds is a much more complex picture than the theorists allow for.

In and of itself, this is a great service to readers interested in the "Brazilianization" of the Western work force(see Ulrich Beck's "The Brave New World of Work for a good companion read), because, as Smith notes, most of the writing on this phenomenon tends to either demonize those companies who practice "perma-temp" strategies as exploitative, or to praise them as leading-edge companies which are reacting to the exigencies of global capitalism. An example from Smith's book may be helpful.

One of the companies where she conducts research, a new company which she pseudonomously calls "Reproco," contracts with firms (such as law firms and other organizations) to provide copying service -- a complete service including copiers and copy machine operators. The machine operators are paid a little more than minimum wage, are shuttled from one location to another every six months, are given little chance of advancement, but they are given training in interpersonal relations, scheduling, business goals, etc.

For many Reproco employees -- most of whom worked in low-paying jobs in the service industry flipping burgers and have a high school education or less, this training gives them insight into business and handling business relationships that they never had before. So, while the constant shuttling from location to location works to prevent the formation of unions, the lessons in business practices activates a new sense of self-regard and potentiality the employees have rarely experienced.

Smith then contasts these workers at "WoodWorks" an old economy "extractive" business in the Pacific Northwest which manufactures building materials (plywood, studs, etc.) The workforce has been downsized through technology upgrades and in reaction to the global market, and employees hopes for lifetime employment are coming to an end.

"Woodworks" has employed a quality control program which attempts to engage workers more fully into all aspects on the business -- from understanding balance sheets, improving manufacturing quality -- as a means to creating teamwork. Theorists have charged that the devolution of authority makes workers work harder than ever, that it disrupts traditional worker/employer identities in ways that privelege employers and disadvantage workers, and Smith does find evidence of that.

Yet at the same time, she notes that workers, under the gun of the global economy, choose the quality program as the best option in that it demonstrates their desire to keep the factory productive so that they can maintain the lifestyles and their local economy. Many workers to whom she spoke claimed to have learned much about business from the training programs, and some thought they could use this training if (or when) the plant finally shut down. While middle-class managers found the quality program an affront to their business acumen -- just another program cooked up by some distant consultant that didn't understand their business -- the plant workers, with some notable exceptions,were willing to try and some found the knowledge they gained useful.

The third case study "Computech" looks at a high tech firm with "MicroSerf" temporary/permananent employment practices. The fourth, and the most dispiriting of the 4 organizations examined, is a special job search service for out of work executives based in Sacramento. It is the most dispiriting because the executives -- for instance a nuclear engineer, an environmental consultant -- are told they must become non-specialist multi-taskers, remodeling themselves in lieu of the latest buzzwords of the employment market.

Smith points out that this rhetoric is a roundabout way of telling the mostly 40 years plus people who frequent this organization that they need to lower their sites and to get used to lower wages and less job stability. She also notes that most of them do not find the jobs at the salaries with the benefits they want. There is no upside for these workers, it's almost all downhill.

Smith does a good job of putting a human face on the Brave New World of Work. She demonstrates today's workers are more resourceful, and their reactions to their new work situations more complex than are presumed by theorists. Not exactly earth-shattering -- people are always more complex than theorists would have it, but a nice corrective to the high-flown rhetorics and partisanship usually encountered in such discussions.

In short, Smith shows us examples of the willingness of business and government to renege on the "worker-citizen" model (the post-war Keynesian model) and substitute to "worker-capitalist" (the post-modernist conservative, Friedman model). She treats the devolution of risk downward, examines the American "jobs miracle" (where lots and lots of low-paying service jobs are created for those who can stay out of the vast penal colony) through the real work lives of real American workers.