Division of White-Collar Labor

The division of labor has developed immensely since its origins in factory assembly lines. As Greenbaum states in "Windows on the Workplace",  "This was a decade of isolating people, tasks, and jobs essentially separating the 'head' of information work from the 'hands' of data processing. More and more tasks, particularly those in clerical areas and in the back offices were being treated like manual work. Data processing by definition dealt with information that had been coded and cut up into bits of data" (46). Having worked in the back office of an energy trading company over the summer, I completely agree with Greenbaum's analysis of the situation. When I first looked back at the bureaucratic structure, it was quite obvious that there was a division of labor in order to accomplish the work necessary to make sure the deals were completed in a timely manner. One group of traders were assisted by their own contracts group, profit and loss group, derivative settlements group, and physical settlements group. Within each of these groups, each worker was assigned a particular task in order to make each group run as efficiently as possible. For example, I was in charge of settling all second day option premiums, calculating daily price curves, and calculating present value to close out trades that had yet to expire. What I find most interesting about this division of labor, is that the job that I was working requires a college degree, and in order to advance to the position of manager of each individual group, most likely a masters in business administration. It is interesting that the division of labor can now be separated in areas that require higher level thinking, and points out the fact that every industry is susceptible to the breakdown of labor.

Tracking Trukers

In Chapter 8 of Baase, the author informs the reader that truck drivers have had tracking systems installed in their long-haul trucks. While Baase admits that these tracking systems have a number of advantages, he claims that the disadvantage of having such a system that intrudes on the trucker driver's privacy outweighs the potential advantages of increasing efficiency, saving money, and providing more detailed information about trucking routes. He continues by saying that when these devices were first introduced, truck drivers would wrap foil over the transmitter or parked under bridges in order to take naps on the side of the highway. If Baase wants to make a point that these devices are not necessary in managing drivers work schedules, he should most likely not use drivers taking naps during working hours an example of why truck drivers were upset that these systems were installed. It seems absurd to me that these drivers were upset that they could not take unscheduled naps just because their actions were now being tracked. Granted, I would never want to be a truck driver due to the long, monotonous hours, employees of these companies should not be upset that they can no longer sleep on the job. In addition, if I were a truck driver, I believe I would be happy that the company I worked for knew what was going on. I believe that not only is efficiency increased by knowing details about the truck and his load, but also personal safety for the driver. When the company has knowledge regarding the speed, upcoming road conditions, and mechanical defaults, I would feel much safer than if I was driving on somewhere in America with poor cell phone service and know one knew how to find me if my truck crashed. In fact, I believe most would agree with this notion of increased safety, as many Americans have opted to put programs like OnStar in their vehicles so that they can be tracked in case of an emergency. 

Response to Modern Times

Sims makes a very good point in his assessment of the privacy in the workplace issue. His assertion that people can avoid a lot of hassle by simply keeping their personal lives out of work is simple and succinct. For some reason, before reading Sims’ post, I never considered the fact that workers would have nothing to worry about at work if they were doing what they were supposed to be doing. If I knew I was doing nothing wrong, I would not be worried about my boss reading my emails or monitoring my keystrokes. But if I waste my days at work on Google Chat bad-mouthing the boss or recounting my debaucheries from the weekend before, I might have something to worry about. The fact that employers and required to inform employees about monitoring should be a sufficient enough warning for those who are prone to engaging in unproductive activities during the work day.

“Re: Lessig Reading: Shaping Our Lives”

In response to Sims’ post I would like to offer up alcohol as another example of what Lessig is talking about with smoking. The law requires you to be twenty-one in order to drink and there are certain qualifications needed for a bar or a liquor store to sell alcohol. It is also socially unacceptable to be plastered in a social setting, most of the time. I would like to try and figure out why alcohol is more socially welcome than smoking. One could make the argument that cigarettes are much more addicting than alcohol and that cigarettes destroy your body, but what about alcoholism and liver diseases. I am not bashing drinking, I am just presenting the surgeon general’s point of view. Also, outside of the United States it is not uncommon for children to have a drink with their parents at meals. In fact it seems like the United States is the strictest on alcohol out of most countries. Perhaps it is because there are much more antismoking campaigns and cigarette addiction is a much more glaring problem than alcoholism. Maybe it is like the breast cancer piece where domestic abuse is a much harder problem to solve than breast cancer.

“Re: Sweating out the Words”

In response to Alali’s posts I definitely agree that the current operations of some large businesses without unions show us exactly why unions are needed. The unfortunate situation is that as soon as unions start to form, the companies are already seeking out locations that are more desperate and that will ban labor unions. So as soon as the workers of an oppressive employer begin to demand their rights as workers they loose their jobs and are in the same desperate situation as before the company offered them a job. Perhaps some people would say, “why don’t the desperate countries not let these corporation is if they are so bad?” Well I think it is because of two reasons. On the one hand there is sort of a prisoner’s dilemma situation in if all the developing countries decide to ban large corporations they will continually worry about a country abandoning this pact so no one will ban these corporations. The other side is for the country to develop from within but these countries do not have the capital to do this and up to this point there is no goodwill source of capital. People are not machines as some corporations seem to think but as long as there is this nasty problem of hypermobile personal capital and a line of increasingly more desperate countries there will continue to be this endless cycle.

Re: Lessing Reading: Shaping Our Lives

I agree with Sims that there are certain instances in which it is appropriate for the government to intervene and create legislation that influences social norms. However, I believe that this is a slippery slope. No one disputes that government intervention is sometimes necessary, but the frequency of such intervention and their degree of influence on social norms can become worrisome. In America, the self-proclaimed “Land of the Free,” I think the government should make every effort not to influence public perception of social norms and allow citizens to arrive at their own conclusions individually. Sims uses the example of cigarettes. While cigarettes do have adverse side effects, I do not think it is the responsibility of the government to warn citizens against the dangers of cigarette smoking. One could similarly argue that the government should denounce tanning and it should be regarded as a shameful activity because it can lead to skin cancer. The fact that the tanning argument seems silly and outlandish is just further proof of the government’s influence on social norms. Tanning is acceptable even though it is dangerous, but smoking is not.

Re:Sweating out the words

In response to Alali Dagago, I also agree in properness. It is deserving other thing to operate in said country and hire employees so minuscule, they cannot provender themselves or educate their children so they are not cornered in the downward spiral of wage slavery. It refers to the similarities between owning and renting a person, and denotes a hierarchical in which a person chooses a job within a coerced set of choices, primarily working for a boss under threat of starvation, poverty or status diminution. There, a Mexican, most likely a young woman, stood by a table or hunched at a computer, handling your paperwork and earning as little as 80 cents an hour for her time. A generation ago such work was done within the country that generated the paperwork. Women in the United States did most of the keyboarding then, and many still do, for $7-$10 an hour. But in the late eighties, their jobs began emigrating as employers discovered satellites and other telecommunications technology. Before these innovations, a company interested in cheap Third World labor would have had to ship hard copy abroad at great expense in transport and turnaround time. Now, paper is optically scanned and the images zapped to computer screens thousands of miles away, where the relevant information is keyed in by foreign workers and the digitized material speedily returned to the home office.

Re:Branding Breast Cancer

In response to “Branding Breast Cancer”, let me define the breast cancer in general. Breast cancer is a cancer that starts in the cells of the breast in women and men. Worldwide, breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer after lung cancer. The breast is composed of identical tissues in males and females, breast cancer also occur in males. Incidences of breast cancer in men are approximately 100 times less common than in women, but men with breast cancer are considered to have the same statistical survival rates as women. I agree with Kellyeichman that all means necessary should be used in order to raise capital for breast cancer research in order to find cures and treatment for this disease that has many impacted the lives of so many. Nowadays, FEMARA is helping more women than ever before. An international, clinical trial showed that FEMARA is more effective than tamoxifen at reducing the risk of cancer coming back in postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive early stage breast cancer based on 24 months of treatment.

Windows on the Workplace

Windows on the Workplace talks about how computer systems were designed to peel away the high-tech sparkle surrounding such critical issues and toward a place where we can find ways to analyze change in order to make better options. Today we are perpetually told a prolongation of this tale which takes the form that the Internet will generate new high-tech jobs by creating new services in a new economy. Technology was held up as a model of progress and advancement. The Internet evolved over time, as people in a variety of occupations and places around the world worked to shake the bugs out of each type of hardware and each development in software. It also took time because there were many people and companies involved. We are anticipated to believe that technology comes along with an inevitable force, which is a sort of technological leap of faith. We need to reshape the debate in order to have a clear picture of the world around us. Office work and workplace social activities have carried meanings beyond the obvious need for income. I also found that windows is marketed to organizations that place it on computers in cubicles that lack windows that look out on the world. Apparently, workers who have had computers and other office technology plunked down on their desks have reason to believe that advances in technology have changed their working lives. Moreover, the changes in work and office technology take many shapes, often beginning with the redesign of a job so that pieces of it can be done faster and more cheaply.

Lessig Reading: Shaping our lives

In the Lessig reading, Lessig talks about how our lives can be monitored on a day to day basis. Lessig uses the example of smoking. Smoking is regulated by the market because of the price and quality/quantity of cigarettes available. The law regulates smoking by designating certain areas that are non-smoking and by making it illegal for people under 18 to buy cigarettes. Social norms regulate smoking too – it's not socially acceptable to smoke during meals, in someone's car without asking, etc. Architecture of cigarettes regulates smoking too (how they are designed and built – ex: nicotine makes them more addictive, putting a constraint on the smoker). It is interesting to see how something as simple as a cigarette is a way people can be monitored. This monitoring of our lives also changes who we are and shapes us into characters we might not want to be. Yes, the smoking laws are in place to help those in our society who are against smoking. But at the same time these laws are shaping our society and individuals in our society. The social norms are able to be changed from government intervention. Allowing the government to step in to regulate some activities such as smoking is important. However, there are also issues that do not need to be regulated by the government and should be left alone to let society dictate the outcomes. In all, Lessig addresses a very important point of how monitoring of people comes in all shapes and sizes. It is not just through a computer or wire tap, but can be done indirectly.

Windows on the Workplace

As we stand in the twenty-first century being bombarded with phrases like “thanks to advances in technology” or “with the advent of computers” it is almost as if we are expected to believe that technology comes along with an inevitable force. Windows on the Workplace takes us behind the news stories of the highly efficient, high-tech workplace and shows us the ways in which technologies such as computers, mobile phones, and the internet have been adapted by management to reshape the way work is done. In tracing the introduction of new technologies, organizations use them to benefit from both increased profits and more intense control over the workforce. Windows on the Workplace takes as its starting-point the experience of office workers and their own accounts of work. This also includes interviews with a wide range of workers, including young people entering workplaces in which the expectation of stable, long-term employment is no longer the norm. The purpose is to locate their experiences and expectations within broader social and economic patterns, and to show how these patterns are constantly changing. The ways that freelance, part-time, and temporary work is created, and the form it takes as management outsources jobs around the world. Technology alone also determines the way work is organized and outsourced. In exposing the myths about how technologies are really created, she gives readers some insight into alternatives. This updated edition offers ample evidence about how internet related jobs, skills and pay scales are not increasing as the media claims, as well as how work-time has expanded to fill work and home life.

"Modern Times"

“Modern times” is a movie that takes an old fashioned look at the current employee lifestyle in a business or company. The movie looks at a manager’s position and how it relates to the workers of a company. As the workers continuously fulfill a task on a conveyer belt, a manager stands there and watches until the worker makes a mistake or does something he or she is not suppose to do. This parallels to modern day managers who try to know their employees every move in the workplace. The fact that the manager in the movie was literally standing over top of the workers is referencing the idea that a manager’s eyes are literally your eyes in a sense. Everything you see and do so does your manager. This concept is directly related to computer monitoring is a company. When a person is employed, they can be monitored and videotaped without the worker’s consent. Most workers do not really know this. This is why it is a good idea to keep your private life private outside of the workplace and to also make sure that you do not write anything to anyone that you wouldn’t mind your boss reading. For instance, if you get a funny email from a friend and decide to forward it on to your best friend, you never know where it is going to end up after that. It could end up in your boss’ hands and he sees your email listing down the page and thinks you support the degrading of animals for example. In all, it is just best to understand how monitored you are in the workplace and to keep your private life out of the office.

Re: "Branding Breast Cancer"

In response to “Branding breast cancer,” I agree that the values behind the idea of advertising breast cancer awareness have been changed over the past couple of years. The idea of raising awareness for breast cancer is a smart thing to do and helps our society gain respect for the deadly disease that takes so many lives. However, many companies have taken it upon themselves to actually exploit people’s good nature and try to make money off of them. When a person hears about breast cancer, it takes a person with very low ethical values to not want to help those with the disease in some way. Whether this is giving money or sporting a ribbon to show your support. The fact that clothing companies have branded items that are associated with breast cancer awareness is a shady area. It is hard to say if these companies actually care about breast cancer awareness or they are just trying to make a few dollars. Maybe each company should donate all the profits from these shirts and clothing items to a charity supporting breast cancer awareness?

Re: "Sweating out the words"

In response to Alali’s “Sweating out the words,” I agree with the mindset and attitude Alali has towards fowl working conditions imposed on outsourced labor. I feel that many businesses have taken a turn for the worse and moved away from focusing on actual business practice. Instead, they try to become the most successful business by minimizing their total costs. To do this, businesses look for countries that can perform the same tasks but at a much lower cost. This type of business strategy is inhumane and treats humans as if they were animals or robots. It is unfair to take advantage of those in other countries by exploiting their low standards of living. Yes it is cheaper to use these people, but it takes jobs away from US citizens at the same time. In all, companies and large corporations need to take a look at themselves and re-evaluate their business strategies and ethical values. Are the slightly lower costs really that important that others should suffer their entire lives and generations to come also suffer?

“My former employment and Braverman”

I forget what class it was but I found the discussion based on for lack of a better word “crappy” jobs and if they offer the employed freedom. In response to this I would like to describe one of my former employments. One summer six years ago I found myself in need of my own source of income and having hardly any previous work experience I realized that my choices were mostly in either the service sector or in manual labor. This is when my father had the bright idea to volunteer my services to the landscaping company that trimmed our lawn. Not knowing what I was getting myself into and not having much of a choice, I agreed since the pay was not terrible and I would get the chance to be outside. Looking back on it I now realize how pertinent the idea of the division of labor and its profound effect on worker efficiency plays in all forms of business. Much like the film “Modern Times” film that we watched, each person had his own task to take care of and this prevented us from getting in each other’s way and prevented slacking. Furthermore, in accordance with Braverman’s perspective, the management, a skinny, scruff, reincarnation of Mick Jagger named Chuck, was mainly in charge of conceiving tasks, designing, and planning our route and what needed to be done to each property. This removed all thinking on our part except the minimal amount needed to accomplish our tasks. As workers, or what Braverman describes as non-professionals, our sole purpose was the execution of tasks. Fortunately or us workers, there was not the problem of management ignorance that Braverman touches upon since Chuck had been in lawn care most of his life. Finally, I suppose that technology aided our division into menial tasks as there have been various machines and mowers that are made for specific tasks.
As far as the level freedom in the lawn care industry, I will base my evaluation of freedom as my growth and my development of capacities. I feel like I gained very few skills that I did not already posses. So I suppose if I am to judge my freedom in this respect I was not very free. However, I did learn a great deal about myself and what lines of employment I knew that I never wanted to go into. I also gained a perspective on how fortunate I am to have opportunities to choose what profession I want to pursue rather than choose my profession by a lack of another alternative. So I guess that in my particular case I was free because I gained knowledge from my experiences and “grew” as a person. However, I do not think that my fellow co-workers were free, as they had no other viable alternative. I believe that this is why they often reminded me of how lucky I was and to take advantage of all of my opportunities.

“Categorizing Corruption in Capitalist system and evaluating prevention tactics”

For one of my blog posts I would like to comment on one of the ideas prompted by the last reading guide on Schweickart and Rosen. I would like to link what Schweickart says about technology and the hypermobility of capital to what Greenbaum says about technological developments increasing the mobility of capital. Sckweickart blames this hypermobility of capital on the fact that the majority of capital in a capitalist society belongs to private individuals. These individuals can choose to do what they want with this capital, investing it wherever they please or nowhere at all. Schweickart further states that advances in technology only enhance this hypermobility of capital. Therefore, Schweickart is addressing both sides of this situation of technology aiding the hypermobility of capital. On the one hand, technology is breaking tasks down into such simple assignments that it takes very little training to school an employee on the workings of the system. Therefore, this lack of value of the basic worker due to technology provides the privately owned capital an opportunity to easily cut all ties with their present situation to look for other attractive opportunities. Schweikart also approaches the idea of technologically aided hypermobility of capital in terms of technology making the transfer of money and investments incredibly easy to remote places of the world.
Greenbaum’s argument is very similar to Schweikart’s in the sense that he believes that “cutting the head from the hands” to lower the defenses of workers against managerial control strategies is a product of the advancement of technology. Greenbaum continues by saying, “To modern ears, Taylor’s principles of turning work into a series of cut-and-dried rationalized operations sound harsh and even unworkable. Yet the bulk of office tasks…follow procedures that take the form of Taylor’s recommendations. Indeed, today much of the work that has been outsourced on the basis of the work having first gone through the grinder of Taylor’s principles.”(p. 57)
Given the direct relation of technology and the hypermobility of capital, I think it is important to offer up possible solutions to this problem. I feel like the main problem that the whole world faces is the effect of the hypermobility of capital on third world countries. When I say this I mean the rapid improvement in third world countries that seems to abruptly stop once multinational corporations find places of cheaper labor. I think this can be improved by protectionism as Schweickart suggests. But also a third party organization could set standards for leaving the countries that the corporations are occupying such as a minimum amount of time of occupation. However, you can make the argument that this will only delay the inevitable rather than making the corporation plan for a long-term stay in a developing country. The problem could also be approached from the other side. A third party could set up temporary visas for a developing country’s entrepreneurs to come to a place like America to learn how to conduct the operations of a business. Therefore, if a company succeeds in a developing country, the chances of the company staying in its original country will be greater. Unfortunately, this route also requires a stable economic system and a government that is not only free from corruption but able to fund an investment like this which is highly unlikely in a developing country.

"Sweating Out the Words"

In “Sweating Out the Words” Debbie Nathan addresses the conditions in the contemporary sweatshop: the informatics sweatshop. Companies have begun to outsource data entry to ununionized countries with cheaper labor. The economic leaders of these countries love this practice, some even going as far as subsidizing the cheapness of the labor for American companies with taxes from the salaries of the underpaid workers. While I am a fan of cheap labor and operating with the lowest possible costs, I also believe in decency. It’s one thing to outsource labor to countries where the U.S. dollar is much stronger than the national currency, thus allowing companies to save money on wages without compromising quality of life of the worker. It’s a whole other thing to operate in said country and pay workers so little they cannot feed themselves or educate their children so they are not trapped in the downward spiral of wage slavery. For example, I find it clever that informatics companies have realized that people are more efficient at data entry in a language they do not speak. However, I find it cruelly ironic that women who spend all day typing words for EDM in Mexico cannot even afford books to read. Cheap labor does not necessitate poor worker conditions, yet for some reason these almost always go hand in hand. As capitalists, we always forget that operations are not a zero sum game. Someone does not have to lose in order for us to win. We seem to think that the worse off our workers are, the better the company must be doing. Oh, a man passed out from exhaustion and starvation? Great news, we are definitely maximizing his usefulness! Employers hate unions, but every time they are allowed to operate sans unionization, they never fail to remind everyone exactly why unions are necessary.

"Modern Times in Connection with Baase's "Employee Monitoring"

“Modern Times” uses comedy to expose the commoditization of the factory worker. Ironically, the same points of contention that workers held with management in the Chaplin era exist today. In “Employee Monitoring” Baase addresses privacy invasion. The scene in “Modern Times” where the company president, in a very Big Brother-esque fashion, catches Charlie Chaplin’s character smoking a cigarette in the bathroom parallels the modern instance of managers having access to employees’ computers in real time, thus allowing them to make sure the workers are actually doing what they appear to be doing. While these techniques were developed to increase the efficiency of the factory, they actually take a toll of the factory since they cause employee demoralization. At what point does employee monitoring become unethical or invasive? Since management’s goal in such an environment is to increase productivity, a person coming from a management standpoint might argue that no such demarcation exists. Such a person might argue that while at work, the worker is the property of the company who is paying them therefore is required not only to do work, but also to do work as efficiently as possible. On the other hand, a person from a more humanitarian standpoint might argue that though the workers are technically the property of the company while at work, they are still people. These workers are people first and foremost and cannot be expected to function like machines. The humanitarian would criticize management’s narrow focus on the trees of productivity causing them to miss the forest of employee satisfaction.