1. WORK UNDER GLOBALIZATION AND FLEXIBILIZATION
Soci 302
Spring 2012
Instructor: Deniz Yükseker
Koç University

2. We have talked about changing organizational forms of business under the impact of globalization since the 1980s Now, we will talk about how “work” has changed under new conditions of globalization and flexibilization

3. Transformation of employment and class structures (this week)
Changing labor processes in manufacturing and service sectors (next two weeks)

4. Changes in Employment Structure in North America and Western Europe
Diminishing agricultural employment
Decline of manufacturing employment
Rise of producer services
Rise of social services
Diversification of service jobs
Rise of managerial, professional and technical jobs
Formation of a “white-collar” proletariat
Increase in educational qualifications required for jobs

5. Globalization and employment structures
Despite globalization, capital is mobile and labor continues to be much less mobile  no global labor market But there is a changing division of labor between countries  global interdependence of labor forces  hierarchical segmentation of labor across borders

6. In the North, companies
Downsize firms (keeping highly skilled labor)
Subcontact part of the work to transnational establishments
Use temporary or part-time workers, or informal firms as suppliers
Automation
Oblige laborers to work under more stringent work and pay conditions

7. Manuel Castells: integration of work process thanks to information technologies But disintegration of the workforce What are its consequences?

8. Class structure
Guy Standing: a more fragmented class structure has emerged under globalization and labor flexibilization:
The global elite
The salariat
The proficians
Core workers: “a withering working class” (the remnants of the working class in David Harvey’s “Fordism”)
The precariat

9. Precariat
Standing: precariat is a class-in-the-making Precariat is different from salariat: they have no trust relationship with capital It is different from proletariat: no social contract

10. Proletariat versus precariat
Proletariat under fordism
Labor market security
Employment security
Job security
Work security
Income security
Representation
Precariat under globalization
No labor market security
No employment security
Weak work security
No income security
No representation

11. Income insecurity: dismantling of the social wage Job insecurity: continuous rotation within a firm Labor market insecurity: no full employment policies

12. Different forms of precariat
Temporary jobs
Part-time employment
Jobs in call-centers
Internships
Irregular migrant workers
Can we think of other forms of precariat in Turkey?
To what extent does this term apply to Turkey?

13. Social and psychological consequences of precarianization
Guy Standing’s argument: Precarianization causes anger, anomie, anxiety and alienation Loss of self-esteem and social worth E.g. Tanıl Bora et al.s book Boşuna mı Okuduk? Beyaz Yakalı İşsizliği

14. Note: Read only the Chapter on “Precariat” in Guy Standing’s book, not the chapter on “Why is the precariat increasing”

15. What about youth unemployment?
Internatinal Labor Office (ILO) Global Employment Trends for Youth 2011 Update

16. During the crisis, youth unemployment increased more than in other age categories ( 12.7 percent)
Both in developed and developing countries, but higher in developed countries
In the Middle East and North Africa region, youth unemployment is an especially grave problem

17. Consequences of growing youth unemployment
Increasing temporary jobs
Increasing part-time jobs
Increasing rates of the working poor
Increasing ratio of discouraged workers (those who drop out the labor force)
Mismatch between the skill supply of youth and the demanded skills in the labor market
How is all of this related to precarianization?

19. Flexibilization of work and “character corrosion”
Richard Sennett’s classic book The Corrosion of Character (1998) (please read only chapters 1, 2 and 3, not 4-6, i.e. read only pp )

20. Sense of time
During the fordist period, sense of time was linear for workers
Attention to routine schedules of time
While routine was boring, it also allowed people to craft a narrative of their lives
During the period of flexibilization (of capital accumulation and work), linearity of time disappears
Change and risk-taking take precedence over predictability of working lives

21. What are the character traits of employees in the age of flexibilization?
Sense of loss of control over one’s life
Loss of control over work
“Motto of “No long term”!
“Keep moving, don’t commit yourself”
Short time frame of institutions and workplace social relations
“Strength of weak ties” in network relations
Discrepancy between qualities demanded at work and those demanded in personal/private life

22. Cont’d Assuming responsibility for what happens in one’s working life
Emphasis on flexibility in contradistinction to routine

23. Aspects of flexibility
Discontinuous reinvention of institutions (networks, delayering, downsizing, reengineering)
Flexible specialization of production (we already covered that ground in lecture 8)
Concentration without centralization (multi-tasking workforces, but concentration of power within/between organizations)

24. At the intersection of these three aspects of flexibilization is flexible work schedules
Flextime
Does flexibility mean more freedom?
Flexible work and flexible power “corrode character”
(letting go of the past, accepting fragmentation of lives)