Crossing the Great Divide: Worker Risk and Opportunity in the New Economy

Rating:
Summary: An Exposition on the New Work Order
Review: Deindustrialization, downsizing, retooling, and retraining, are just a few of the words that have crept into the American lexicon as related to work and occupations. From approximately 1944 to 1973, American workers and owners of capital participated in what pundits refer to as the "labor/capital accord." This unwritten "accord" has been generally accepted, after the fact, as an implicit agreement between labor and capital due to a need for compliant workers because of America's manufacturing preeminence after World War II; a war that left many of the participating nations with little or no manufacturing infrastructure. As America and the American worker stepped in, the world's light and heavy manufacturing fell to the country with the greatest intact infrastructure: America.

Given war arenas did not include American soil, i.e. the United States, the means to serve the world's manufacturing needs were simply retooled, from war machinery manufacture to consumable goods production, to fit an emerging economy; one that allowed the bourgeoning middle class to partake in wide-scale manufacturing work as not previously experienced in America. However, as all good economists, historians, and none-to-few sociologists have observed, the only constant is consistent change. With the emergence of 1980's and 1990's downsizing and outsourcing, American workers faced new concerns that impacted not only their pockets, but also their psyche. In this work, Sociologist Vicki Smith seeks to "address these issues by untangling the contradictory strands present in contemporary transformation of jobs and work organizations and weaving them back together into a coherent but variegated whole."

To accomplish her goal of providing meaningful answers, Smith examines three companies, "because they had undertaken one or more of the reforms I was interested in, such as an employee involvement, quality, or participative management program, or temporary hiring practices." The companies researched are Reproco, WoodWorks International, and CompTech. Of her first company, Smith writes, "Reproco had fashioned a service-delivery workplace that in key respects matched an ideal blueprint for a less hierarchical, decentralized organizational structure, one designed to enable workers to self manage and to coordinate their efforts." Of WoodWorks, International, a "timber-products plant in Madison, Montana" Smith writes, they "had been undergoing construction and cutbacks for a full decade before I began my research in 1992." In this case, she writes, "in distinct contrast to Reproco, then, work reform was introduced under conditions of economic and organizational crisis." This case is telling in that we witness how the potential loss of work altogether provides the substrate "for making individuals more flexible, heightening their engagement and holding workers more accountable for production and output." Such a position illustrates how companies can coerce workers into accepting certain concessions under the premise of some employment is better that no employment; an instance of this is observed as a textile mill in Anytown USA seeks to relocate to Hinter Country Earth to reduce wages and increase profits. In our fictional case, to retain possible lost jobs, workers or union members may accept belt-tightening concessions from the company as a compromise (Fictional names aside, this has and is happening in America). Of CompTech, "a high-technology company," Smith indicates that they employ, "a progressive or enabling approach to worker involvement, collaboration and team work, constant learning, and career development is deeply ingrained in the organizational employment practices at CompTech." She further writes, "although the company, like many others, has experienced a squeeze on its products and profits, top management has endeavored to preserve the company's progressive work traditions." In observing such policies in action, we note how CompTech has employed a key component in attracting and retaining solid employees: identity formation and maintenance. Consider the following, if an employee believes that they possess a level of imbrication in the company's core mission, they become, bifurcation or "obscured inequality" notwithstanding, a willing participant in the company's growth model; even if that model requires some "belt-tightening" at the worker's expense.

In addition to the aforementioned three companies, Smith visited a Sacramento, California "job search club organized by the California Employment Development Department" to better understand "uncertainty, risk, and opportunity from the other side of the coin: the situations of unemployed managerial, technical, and professional workers." In so doing, we obtain a peek behind the curtain of uncertainty as it relates to members of an arguably declining middle-class.

Outsourcing and job-relocation are quickly becoming the status quo in and among American businesses. Reading Smith's work, I considered Saskia Sassen's work titled Cities in a World Economy, and her argument, where she calls cities "strategic places," and "three types of places above all others symbolize the new forms of economic globalization: export processing centers, offshore banking centers, high-tech districts, and global cities." Applied to Smith's work, we see how there will be a need for retooling in a global marketplace where not only "place matters," but people matter. In so retooling, we, as thinkers in America will need to revisit how we have conducted business up to today. As we revisit social, political, and economic structures, we must also consider the future implications of a need for fewer employees in the global marketplace and what will a vastly unemployed populace do with the coming spare time?

Within these pages Smith does an admirable job of giving a voice to the disenfranchised, but nonetheless astute, worker. She not only highlights their ability to make due, as in the case of the Reproco photocopiers, she keenly allows readers, via qualitative research methods, to enter the lives of her respondents and feel their angst. An act not easily achieved. In one instance she interviews Madeline Cox, "a forty-six-year-old white woman with a bachelor's degree in environmental science." What Madeline shares is not unlike an ice-water facial, wherein the recipient is shocked into a new and ever-present reality. Madeline says in part, "most of us are facing the prospect we're not gonna make the salary we made before, not gonna have the promotability, we're not gonna have the opportunity."

While some researchers will argue whether her research is generalizable to other workplace settings and companies, Smith is quite cogent when she writes, "although four organizational case studies do not allow me to make definitive generalizations about the organizational conditions or political consciousness of all American workers, each does open a window into the mechanisms of a wide variety of workplaces where work reform is coupled with uncertainty and flexibility." For this reviewer, this work provides an enterprising researcher with a method for examining organizations to determine if like consciousness exist or is Smith's study relegated to these four case studies alone. I am of the opinion that this is a snapshot that may be found with merit in other places as it relates to uncovering worker angst in the "brave new world of work."

Rating:
Summary: The Brave New World of Work
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: The Brave New World of Work
Review: 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.