Veldig bra.
Trond Andresen
><http://MondeDiplo.com/2002/03/16work>
>
>Le Monde diplomatique March 2002
>
>END OF THE NEW WORKPLACE
>
>Smiling serfs of the new economy
>_______________________________________________________
>
>Will the crash of Enron, following the dot.com debacle, end the abuse of
>the 'new economy' employees in the United States, who surrendered their
>basic rights in the interests of company shareholders and even had to make
>voluntary 'contributions' to their firms' political friends?
>
>by IBRAHIM WARDE *
> * Research associate at Harvard University and author of
>Islamic finance in the global economy, Edinburgh
>University Press, 2000
>
>_______________________________________________________
>
>Workers in the United States work harder than their counterparts anywhere
>else in the industrial world, with the exception of the South Koreans and
>Czechs, according to the latest International Labour Organisation (ILO)
>statistics. In 2000 the Americans put in an average 1,979 hours in the
>workplace, an increase of 36 hours on 1990 (1). This is puzzling since in
>the last 10 years the US has enjoyed great economic prosperity and had a
>substantial rise in productivity, two factors that were always assumed to
>mean less work and more leisure (2).
>
>But, as Benjamin Hunnicutt, a historian of work and leisure at the
>University of Iowa, says, "work has become a new belief system, a new
>religion". According to economist Juliet Schor, people work longer hours
>(or hold more than one job) to keep up with the steady decline in their
>purchasing power, and be able to afford to buy everything they feel they
>ought to own (3).
>
>Such overwork leaves little time for family, leisure, community or civic
>duty. Time is increasingly absorbed by the workplace. Sociologist Arlie
>Hothschild has found that, for many employees (women in particular), "work
>is home and home is work". The workplace provides a sense of community,
>while the home is increasingly defined by dysfunctional relationships (4).
>
>Whether as a cause or consequence of this, the model of human resource
>management popularised by new economy giants such as Microsoft, Oracle,
>Cisco, Apple or Amazon companies that to the global elites, epitomise
>technological and social progress strives to fulfil all the needs
>(physical, psychological, emotional) of employees. The corporate campus
>the word suggesting a convivial cocoon, as well as a young, laid-back
>ambiance was a workers' paradise, with child care, exercise facilities,
>cafes, therapists, grief counsellors, laundry, post office, bookstore,
>break rooms stocked with soft drinks and aspirin, and even a concierge
>service attending to special needs (ordering flowers or buying theatre
>tickets).
>
>The objective has not been to decrease the workload of employees but to
>allow them to overwork in the best possible conditions, since well-being
>improves productivity. Such golden cages look glamorous, especially from
>the outside. In the rankings of favourite employers that have been a
>staple of the business press, old-fashioned criteria such as good pay and
>benefits or lifetime employment were out, and new perks in. At the height
>of the economic boom, favourite companies were those where work was fun.
>People in a recent Fortune survey singled out three criteria: "a sense of
>purpose, inspiring leadership, and knockout facilities" (5).
>
>These traits, says Dave Arnott, a Dallas Baptist University professor,
>mirror the three defining characteristics of a cult: devotion, charismatic
>leadership and separation from community (6). In such companies, obsessive
>workaholism has been justified by the sense of a grand mission (building
>the future, changing the world) and by an "us versus them" ethos (them
>being most often the competitors, the government or the trade unions)
>fostered by competition. The financial factor is simply a by-product of
>the great adventure. As the clich goes, "It's not about the money, it's
>about the future" (7). Salary may not have reflected the amount of work,
>but employees have stood to benefit, via their stock options, from their
>contribution to the bottom line, and presumably to the value of the stock.
>And in the new economy that for a while seemed to defy the laws of
>gravity, the sky was the limit (8).
>
>Commitment to the firm has been bolstered by devotion to the chief. It is
>not surprising that Steve Jobs (Apple), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Larry
>Ellison (Oracle), Jack Welch (General Electric) or Herb Kelleher
>(Southwest Airlines) became folk heroes whose superstar status was
>rivalled only by the biggest pop culture icons (in sports, movies or rock
>music). Their every deed was mythologised in hagiographies and fawning
>media profiles. And their presumed charisma (from the Greek: gift of
>grace) earned them the right to expect their employees to go the extra
>mile (9).
>
>Separation from community has happened because of the amenities on those
>corporate campuses. If a company caters to all needs, why would employees
>need to leave the workplace, except perhaps to sleep, and why should they
>interact (or to use corporate jargon, interface) with the outside world?
>New technologies (magnetic identification cards, surveillance cameras,
>pagers, cell phones, email) put employees on a short electronic leash.
>Their whereabouts are known and they can be reached at any time.
>
>At Cisco, a company that just announced that the productivity of its
>employees had to increase by 50%, the head of human resources called for
>an update of the idea of work/family balance. The goal should be
>integration, not balance, so that employees move seamlessly between
>on-the-job and off-the-job duties throughout the day. The blurring of
>private and professional is actively promoted at Southwest Airlines: the
>company employs both the spouses of 821 couples, and actively promotes
>relationships among its employees through its own singles group, Mingle
>(10). The problem with this new social contract is its one-sidedness.
>Since the firms are primarily dedicated to the creation of shareholder
>value, they are prone to constant shedding of employees, which, for the
>downsized, means the simultaneous loss of job, family and community.
>
>Ten hugs a day
>
>As in all cults, incessant indoctrination, through training sessions,
>retreats (usually in the employee's own time) and all hands meetings,
>instils corporate values and leaves little room for critical thinking. The
>corporate creed (mission statement, company goals and values) is recited
>as a catechism. House slogans and cheers, typically using sporting and war
>metaphors, are chanted with enthusiasm. Even clothing, often adorned with
>corporate logos, is a way of proving loyalty. At Nike, employees are
>encouraged to tattoo their ankle with the famous swoosh logo.
>
>To promote teamwork and bolster employee morale, there is now a cottage
>industry of counsellors, facilitators and job coaches whose own job is to
>explain to employees how to be themselves. As in chat shows (and in
>cults), the public confession dominates. Dubious human resource theories
>justify bizarre practices. At Health Care & Retirement Corp in Toledo,
>Ohio, employees were subjected to an 11-hour seminar on the art and
>science of hugging. Human resource director Harley King explained that
>"the average human needs eight to 10 hugs a day; the minimum is four."
>(But you have to get permission before you hug someone, and you can't just
>hug the most attractive people.)
>
>The new combination of overwork and loss of job security has demanded the
>use of newspeak of course: using the rhetoric of freedom and personal
>fulfilment, psychic income and title inflation could make up for
>stagnating wages. So, in the fast food industry, almost everyone is a
>manager. Many firms followed the lead of distribution giant Wal-Mart when
>it decreed that all employees (the majority of whom only earned minimum
>wage) would be called associates. Well, they are in a way, since their
>pension plan made them, if in infinitesimal proportions, corporate
>shareholders. There is also a suspiciously strong correlation between the
>actual concentration of corporate power and talk of employee empowerment.
>
>Combining constant lowering of costs, empowerment and emotional fulfilment
>of employees has often required ingenuity. In December 1999 the Bank of
>America, after announcing the prospect of 10,000 redundancies, sent all
>its employees a glossy brochure inviting them to adopt an automated teller
>machine. Adoption meant assuring, on their own time and at their expense,
>the weekly maintenance of an ATM machine in an urban or rural area. The
>brochure explained how to keep your ATM on the road to success; pick up
>any trash that may have been left behind, clean the screen and keyboard,
>make sure the lights are working and trim bushes. The initiative promised
>to be a win-win endeavours characteristic of the new economy: customers
>would enjoy shiny ATMs, employees would derive pride and satisfaction from
>their volunteer work and shareholders would gain value.
>
>But the California Labour Commissioner, noting the bank's naive
>interpretation of labour law, ordered it to compensate the volunteers for
>their time and effort, and provide them with cleaning and gardening tools.
>The bank was puzzled by this intrusion of the government and said the
>bureaucrats had misunderstood an initiative meant simply to boost employee
>morale and promote teamwork. The bank was outraged at the suggestion that
>it might have tried to lower its costs with the threat of layoffs. It also
>assured the world it never intended to use the ATM's hidden camera for
>quality control purposes (11).
>
>During the 1990s stock market euphoria, overwork reached its peak. A
>work-is-fun culture justified non-stop work in hot start-up companies
>headed for IPO (initial public offering) riches. Internet mythology
>glorified those who never left the office, sleeping two hours a night
>under their desk. For others, there was nothing wrong in working 16 or 18
>hours a day in a playful, festive atmosphere, surrounded by football
>machines, basketballs, frisbees and games and toys. For the self-defined
>individualists and libertarians, organised joy was de rigueur, and
>anything was a pretext to party with colleagues: going away, celebratory
>drinks and the obligatory Friday night drinking binge. The bubble has
>burst, but certain habits persist those pink slip parties where laid-off
>workers congregate to network with recruiters.
>
>____________________________________________________
>
>
>(1) Washington Post, 4 September 2001.
>
>(2) Daniel Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, Basic Books, New
>York 1976.
>
>(3) Juliet Schor, The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of
>Leisure, Basic Books, New York 1992, and The Overspent American: Why We
>Want What We Don't Need, Basic Books, New York 1999.
>
>(4) Arlie Hochschild, The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home
>Becomes Work, Metropolitan Books, New York 1998.
>
>(5) Fortune, 12 January 1998.
>
>(6) Dave Arnott, Corporate Cults: The Lure of the All-Consuming
>Organization, AMACOM, New York 2000, p 8.
>
>(7) These are the words used by venture capitalist John Doerr in Secrets
>of Silicon Valley (2001), a film directed by Alan Snitow and Deborah
>Kaufman.
>
>(8) Ibrahim Warde "The rise and rise of the Dow", Le Monde diplomatique
>English edition, October 1999.
>
>(9) Michael S Malone, Infinite Loop: How the World's Most Insanely Great
>Computer Company Went Insane, Doubleday, New York, 1999; Alan Deutschman,
>The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, Broadway Books, New York 2000; Ken
>Auletta, World War 3.0: Microsoft and Its Enemies, Random House, New York
>2001; Mike Wilson, The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison, William
>Morrow & Co, New York 1998; Janet Lowe, Welch: An American Icon, John
>Wiley & Sons, New York 2001.
>
>(10) Fortune, 10 January 2000.
>
>(11) The San Francisco Examiner, 23 December 1999; The San Francisco
>Chronicle, 23 December 1999.
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