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from the you-can-start-tomorrow...-and-finish-next-friday dept.
Over at the Harvard Business Review there's speculation that the paradigm of people working full-time for a single employer has outlived its usefulness:
Our vision is straightforward: most people will become independent contractors who have the flexibility to work part-time for several organizations at the same time, or do a series of short full-time gigs with different companies over the course of a year. Companies will maintain only a minimal full-time staff of executives, key managers, and professionals and bring in the rest of the required talent as needed in a targeted, flexible, and deliberate way.
There are two reasons such a flexible work system is now plausible. The first is societal values. Work-life balance and family-friendly scheduling are much more important to today's workers, and companies are increasingly willing to accommodate them. The second is technology. Advances in the last five years have greatly improved the ease with which people can work and collaborate remotely and companies and contract workers can find each other.
The opinion piece goes on to list how workers, employers and society in general will benefit from this shift. What seems to be missing is speculation on the down sides, both to employers and contractors. Originally spotted on The Eponymous Pickle.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday September 07 2015, @04:34PM
"the whole point of working for someone else and the whole value of an employee is that they are exploitable."
No, it is supposed to be an agreement between 2 parties, to the benefit of both. If all the benefits go to the employer, that's not employment any more, that's slavery.
"employers like to do things that cost them money?"
Of course not. But they often do. They make mistakes, sometimes very stupid, easily avoided mistakes. They get into races to the bottom. They could invest in people, and get back their investment and then some, but they're so afraid of being exploited by employees and of the expense of training that they won't. So they lose out.
A big mistake is treating employees like slaves. There are many employers who can't get past the mindset that people are naturally lazy and prone to thievery and must be constantly prodded to do work, constantly watched to make sure they aren't stealing any company property. If the employer can't trust that most of the workforce is honest and will see thievery as hurting everyone, including themselves, that's the employer's fault.
These slave driving employers never absorbed the lessons of the US Civil War. It's instructive to consider why the Confederacy lost despite having more good, arable land, and having the advantage of being the defender. Certainly both sides made many mistakes, and the Union was especially afflicted by bad generalship, but none of that is as important as the underlying severe imbalance in economic might. Why was the Union so much more populous and stronger? In a word, slavery. Slavery is a poor way to run an economy, guaranteeing that economic output will never come anywhere close to what a free society can do in the same position. The South worked every angle they could stomach, but there was a lot they couldn't stomach. One was the off-limits, obvious idea of considering that maybe, just maybe, the slaves could do so much more for the nation if only they were free. Instead, the Confederates embraced this idea of the "Southern Gentleman" being somehow more manly, virile, stronger and tougher than ordinary men. That thinking cost them dearly, as they preferred aggressive battle tactics with glorious assaults and charges, when their strategic situation called for a very different overall approach to the war. Perhaps the biggest decision they made in that direction was the replacement of their careful, defensive but very competent general with a reckless attacker just before the loss of Atlanta. What didn't help about having a competent aggressive general operating in the most important theater, is that encouraged them to think more aggressively. Despite being on the defensive, many Civil War battles feature Confederate attacks on Union defenses. It was aggressive, hot-headed thinking that had them even try war in the first place. They knew they were overmatched before the war started, but they wishfully hoped that the North might wimp out.
"most businesses using flex time wouldn't profit from it"
Then why do they want to do it? They got the cost benefit analysis wrong? Or, is is another of those ploys to make workers more "reliable" by "investing" in making them more dependent?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 07 2015, @07:35PM
No, it is supposed to be an agreement between 2 parties, to the benefit of both. If all the benefits go to the employer, that's not employment any more, that's slavery.
And it is. The point about exploitation is that's what the worker brings to that table. If their labor isn't exploitable, then there can't be an agreement. There's no slavery here.
Of course not. But they often do. They make mistakes, sometimes very stupid, easily avoided mistakes. They get into races to the bottom. They could invest in people, and get back their investment and then some, but they're so afraid of being exploited by employees and of the expense of training that they won't. So they lose out.
But that's a case by case basis. If a large portion of employers are doing that, then something else is going on.
A big mistake is treating employees like slaves. There are many employers who can't get past the mindset that people are naturally lazy and prone to thievery and must be constantly prodded to do work, constantly watched to make sure they aren't stealing any company property. If the employer can't trust that most of the workforce is honest and will see thievery as hurting everyone, including themselves, that's the employer's fault.
I don't see the point of this argument since that is frequently the case in fact as in perception. If employers trust those particular people, then they just steal more rather than less.
That thinking cost them dearly, as they preferred aggressive battle tactics with glorious assaults and charges, when their strategic situation called for a very different overall approach to the war. Perhaps the biggest decision they made in that direction was the replacement of their careful, defensive but very competent general with a reckless attacker just before the loss of Atlanta.
At that point, just prior to the burning of Atlanta with an outmatched army, the different overall approach would be a negotiated surrender of the entire Confederacy. I don't see it as being analogous to the current situation with employers and employees with societal intervention heavily in favor of employees, but having the unintended consequence of destroying some of the pricing power of employees.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday September 08 2015, @03:26PM
"If employers trust those particular people, then they just steal more rather than less."
I'm saying that it's a lot better to head off thievery by creating an environment of cooperation, a sense of community, so that people do not want to steal, rather than resort to more surveillance or searches or other measures of that sort. In a company where everyone is pulling together, the thieves and slackers among the workers will be caught by their fellow workers. If management has instead created a hostile environment of workers vs the company, and is seen as being thieves themselves, the honest workers will not help stop the thieves. For example, if management likes to dock pay for flimsy reasons, things like "No pay during employees' bathroom breaks, we're paying you to work, not use the toilet", workers will retaliate.
"different overall approach would be a negotiated surrender of the entire Confederacy"
The war need not have even happened. The slave states surely realized that they were badly overmatched and could not win a war, if the free states were determined to fight. That was the only question to be answered by war. Would the Union fight? Before the start, they tried to negotiate a peaceful split. When the Union would not accept that, using their numbers to vote down all such proposals, the Confederacy opted for war. Near the end, when everyone could see that the Confederacy was losing, they tried to negotiate a surrender, but they wouldn't make any substantive concessions. Their offer was to turn the clock back to the legal and political situation at the start of the war. They were desperate to rejoin in time to vote down the 13th Amendment.
"I don't see it as being analogous to the current situation with employers and employees with societal intervention heavily in favor of employees"
Is societal intervention heavily in favor of employees? Why do you think so? Since the 1960s, things have tilted more and more towards employers. What happened to "9 to 5"? It was turned into 8 to 5, with an hour break for lunch. But what did people do for lunch before that change? Lunch was on paid time! It didn't stop at 8 to 5. Now, wage theft is all too common, with employers having turned salary from an employee advantage into a liability, and pushing people to work 50, 60, or more hours per week for the same pay as for 40 hours. Over the years, there have been a steady stream of small changes that collectively have taken the gains in productivity and put it all in employers' pockets, with nothing going to the employees. We've also seen unions steadily beat down. Admittedly, unions have their share of problems, and stupid and unfair demands, but something has to push back against corporate greed. If not unions, then what? Perhaps a revolution. Indeed, that is one of the chief fears of executives, that some among them will push too far, and spark a revolution that sweeps them all out.
But this inability to agree on the facts is one of the biggest problems society faces today. The political right in particular has taken a dangerous, weak course by resorting to propaganda when their best arguments proved wrong. What is the reason, really, to deny that Climate Disruption is real in the face of all kinds of evidence that it most definitely is real? Would admitting that really cost a lot of jobs, as they like to claim? No. Rather than admit they made mistakes, many have adopted this attitude that apologizing or admitting to mistakes looks weak, and refuse to ever apologize or admit error, even going as far to resort to propaganda campaigns. (One thing you've got to give Perry is that he at least was willing to admit it, saying "oops". Of course he was paid back for that by his supporters abandoning him.) I've heard some of them still claiming even today that Iraq really did have Weapons of Mass Destruction all along, and that the reason we didn't find them was that they were smuggled out to Syria when we attacked. Really? Then why haven't our intelligence agencies been able to find them? Are they incompetent? Or is it another conspiracy along the lines of they found them but are keeping it quiet? If that is so, it sure screws W.'s legacy. Surely they would instead shout this from every rooftop, to shore up the conservative brand. The Republicans are looking ever more and more like the Party of Stupid. The liberal media hardly even has to try, the Republicans make themselves look bad more effectively than any media smear campaign could.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 08 2015, @06:04PM
I'm saying that it's a lot better to head off thievery by creating an environment of cooperation, a sense of community, so that people do not want to steal, rather than resort to more surveillance or searches or other measures of that sort.
It's better, unless you can't do that, for example, being unable to easily fire people who aren't contributing to this environment of cooperation and other labor policies that discourage such cooperation.
Now, wage theft is all too common, with employers having turned salary from an employee advantage into a liability, and pushing people to work 50, 60, or more hours per week for the same pay as for 40 hours.
So why should I care about "wage theft"? It's an offer of employment that you can take or leave, even after you've worked there for a while. And recall here, that we're complaining about developed workers who are competing with a vast pool of labor that works for a fraction of the cost. Of course, you're going to have to take a haircut on your wages. Adapt or be unemployed.
Over the years, there have been a steady stream of small changes that collectively have taken the gains in productivity and put it all in employers' pockets, with nothing going to the employees.
So what? You should be glad that they're still employing you rather than several Chinese workers in your stead. The problem here is that all those rules created over the decades which hypothetically protect employees, instead destroy the demand for developed world labor. The very tribulations you describe were created not just by competitive pressure from the developing world, but a half century of terribly misguided labor policies which made the basic problem worse.
We've also seen unions steadily beat down. Admittedly, unions have their share of problems, and stupid and unfair demands, but something has to push back against corporate greed. If not unions, then what?
I don't see that a pushback against corporate "greed" is a good idea here. My view is that US labor should take a considerable haircut in order to stay competitive. My view is also that no matter how we wriggle on the hook, we will be taking that haircut. The decline of labor unions is an example.
What is the reason, really, to deny that Climate Disruption is real in the face of all kinds of evidence that it most definitely is real?
How disrupting and how real? I think a big part of the problem is that climate disruption (as opposed to the observed modest global warming) is primarily a power grab by ideological opponents. The political right would be in support, if it were their idea.
I think the level of attention and resources to climate change which has been devoted, is actually harmful to both our well being and the environment because it distracts from our most important problems, like the work relationship which had degenerated so much over the decades. We can afford to have a world temperature 10 C higher than present. We can't afford to have that and a labor relationship so dysfunctional that we can't adequately respond to the climate shift.
I've heard some of them still claiming even today that Iraq really did have Weapons of Mass Destruction all along, and that the reason we didn't find them was that they were smuggled out to Syria when we attacked. Really? Then why haven't our intelligence agencies been able to find them?
What makes you think intelligence agencies haven't been able to find those WMD? It's not in the current Obama administration's interests to give even slight credence to such a notion. It's worth noting here that the Saddam Hussein regime routinely moved its air force out of the country during its various wars with Iran and the US-led coalitions. So it's not a stretch to suppose that they would have done so for other things that would be politically inconvenient like old WMD designs, some uranium refining equipment, or residual biological weapon stocks.
I don't think that Hussein had an active WMD program going. But he probably kept some old materials around so that he could restart some of the programs quickly when sanctions would have fallen. The 9/11 attacks and the Bush administration's rush to judgment short destroyed that strategy.
The liberal media hardly even has to try, the Republicans make themselves look bad more effectively than any media smear campaign could.
No kidding.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 08 2015, @06:17PM
Is societal intervention heavily in favor of employees? Why do you think so? Since the 1960s, things have tilted more and more towards employers.
Obvious counterexamples in the US: 40 hour work week, disability protection, very hard to fire people even at will, a variety of strongly enforced laws against discrimination, health and safety regulation, increased social safety net programs (such as unemployment insurance, increased Social Security benefits, and Medicare/Medicaid), environmental regulations (which protect workers against workplace exposure), and Sarbones/Oxley (provides somewhat greater clarity into the inner workings of your employer, if they meet the criteria of the law).
But what has also happened is that those laws decrease demand for US labor. And that decrease in demand is what gives employers much of their current power. It's actually rather intuitive. The stronger the demand for your labor and the less competition from other sources, the more power you have over employers.