Braverman Ch 13, 13, 15, 16

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Braverman Ch 1-3, 13, 15, 16

• Background Concerned repetitive and mundane
  nature of work

2
Key Concepts

• Labor, labor power
• alienation
• Social division of labor
• Division of labor in detail (Manufacturing
  division of labor
• Surplus Labor

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How to get surplus profit Time

• Division of labor in detail Taylorism making
  the process of work the same as if machines
  leading eventually to MacDonaldism, cant go
  whole way if machines cost moregt labor.
• ii) Mechanization machines do more work, labor
  does less.
• iii)Lengthening Time Speed up work faster
• iv) Stealing time office space taking their
  weekends away taking ideas

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scientific management TAYLORISM

• standard operating procedures
• Fordism

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De-skilling
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Negative aspects

• industrial health' disorders
• Deskilling a tendency under capitalism for work
  to be degraded
• Work innovations go down The following quote
  speaks to the reluctance of lineworkers to do
  'their best' when their best will undoubtably be
  taken without any thanks

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Reuben Roths study of GM in Oshawa

• Interviews with workers

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self concept, identity

• Our identity is gotten mainly through work. The
  structures around us shape how we see ourselves.
  The career sets out a progression of steps and as
  we follow it, we usually feel we are doing
  things right. If the career goes off track, gets
  subverted from the outside, or we lose our job,
  we usually feel we have lost part of ourself, we
  feel worthless.

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Ch 13 Universal Market
10

• Ch 13 describes the dependence of out society on
  buying things, on commodities
• This leads to our dependence on money.
• It also creates a large service sector, going
  past factory production of thread, cloth, when
  people used to sew their clothes, to the cloth
  itself, and on to people you can hire to organize
  your wardrobe.

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Commoditification

• i) conquest of all goods production by the
  commodity form
• ii) increasing range of services and conversion
  into commodities
• iii) product cycle invents new products and
  services, atrophy of competence

12
Summary

• When you move into a money economy, you use the
  concept of commodity Work can be bought, the
  usual measure is the time that goes into the
  product. Managers need to increase profit,
  because capitalism is competitive. Manufacturers
  fight for market share one way is by reducing
  the costs of the product. They get more work out
  of people, either by having them work longer or
  harder without paying much more or increasing
  productivity through mechanization or
  intensifying the labor day,.
• This often leads to a struggle over work time.
  Workers will fight to limit what they give to the
  management, while factories lengthen the day if
  possible to they intensify the pace of work.

13
Universal market
14
Time Crunch

• Canadian statistics revealed that people work too
  many hours and thus have too much to do. Whereas
  one in ten respondents in 1991 worked 50 or more
  hours per week, one in four does so now during
  this same time period, the proportion of
  employees working between 35 and 39 hours per
  week declined from 48 of the sample to 27
  (Duxbury Higgens, 200376).

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• In fact people average same amount of time at
  work over pst decades.
• Dispersion of work hours increased
• Veblen wrote Theory of Leisure class, referring
  to elite having more leisure
• Now it is reversed those in top earning brackets
  work longer hours. Poor have more time
• Busiest occupational groups professionals
  managers, men l/3 gt50hrs/week women1/6.

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24/7

• Who knows concept? Refers to working nonstandard
  hours. In US 40 work most of hours outside usual
  9-5, M-Fri. (work by Presser)
• 28 dual earner couples at least one partner.
• 1/3 employed Americans work on weekends
• Reasons Growth of service economy, more women
  employed, also choice of parents. technology
  enables,

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• Taking a job working the night shift (24 million
  Americans) offers increased stress,
  higher-than-average divorce rates, poor
  productivity and even legislation that could
  impact the drive home.

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Time at work impacts on family lives Francine
Deutsch study Halving it All (1999)

• 23 Couples in which both husbands and wives were
  employed fulltime. Choice avoid or cant get day
  care
• women who worked non-day shifts, 38.7 reported
  childs father the principal caregiver, esp. pre
  schoolers,
• Preschoolers mothers non-day shift was
  complemented by a fathers day-shift Occupations
  that heavily rely on shift work are pre
  dominantly working class occupations
  manufacturing, health care, fire fighting, police
  ,correctional work, service work.
• the prevalence of shift work within working-class
  occupations, combine d with the financial
  advantages of parental care sugge st that blue
  -collar worke rs might be
• among those who most often alternate work shifts
  and share the care of their children.
• Time at work impacts on family lives
• It shapes and reshapes family lives into packages
  that support the work place.
• Many have examined this important phenomenon, and
  when you read Hochschild and the article by
  Salaff and Hardwic, and you write your final
  papers you want to think past your work place
  experiences to how it shapes family lives as
  well.

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• Traditional Ideologies, Nontraditional roles
  fathers more time with children than average
  family.
• Time at work shapes and reshapes family lives
  into packages that support the work place.
• Many have examined this important phenomenon, and
  when you read Hochschild and the article by
  Salaff and Hardwick, and you write your final
  papers you want to think past your work place
  experiences to how work time shapes family lives
  as well.

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• The Case of Theresa and David parents of three
  children Veronica, age 12, Betsy, age 10, and
  Nicholas, age six. Theresa is an inhalation
  therapist who works 32 hours per week and earns
  32,000 per year. David is an installer for the
  phone company who works 40 hours per week and
  earns 31,000 per year. They have been sharing
  the care of the ir children by working different
  shifts since their firstborn, Veronica, was five
  and one-half weeks old. Currently, David works
  days from 700 A.M. to about 400 P.M. and
  Theresa works second shift four nights, from 330
  to 1130.

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• On a typical day, David is up first in the
  morning. He reports My day starts at 530 in the
  morning. I get up and take a shower, put wood in
  the stove if its winter time and then I eat
  breakfast . . . I make sure that her (Veronicas)
  light is on. I go upstairs and get dressed and in
  the course of my leaving I wake Theresa up to
  start her day. She proceeds to take care of the
  morning tasks getting the other children up,
  making all their breakfasts, and getting them all
  off to school. She does errands, volunteer work,
  or housework until Nicholas returns from
  kindergarten at 1130. She gets his lunch and
  spends a couple of hours with him until she needs
  to leave for work at approximate ly 245 P.M.

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• David gets home about 400. His evenings are
  full. He drives the children to their activities,
  make s their dinners, and cleans up. Four nights
  of the week, hes the parent who asks about their
  days at school, helps them with their homework,
  and plays with them. He handles all the bedtimes
  I make sure the showers are taken care of, then
  we have some type of a snack and then around 830
  I get Nicholas ready. I do half-hour increments.
  Nicholas between 800 and 830, Betsy between
  830 and 900, and Veronica . . . between 900
  and 930. At bedtime he spends time with all of
  them, but especially with the youngest, reading,
  talking, calming his fears. When bedtime is done
  , he makes the lunches for the next day, and then
  the re are a few minute s to relax. David and
  Theresa have an exceptionally egalitarian
  relationship. She claims it is 50-50, he says it
  is 60-40 in her favor, but both agree that each
  pitches in with what needs to be done regardless
  of the nature of the task.

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• Theresa says I dont think there are any male or
  female roles. If it snows and Im the one home, I
  shove l. If it snows and Im the one at work and
  David is home, he shovels. If I had a chance
  during the day to sort laundry into light and
  whites and didnt wash them, David will do the
  laundry. If he doesnt get to folding them Ill
  fold them. I think were both aware of what needs
  to be done.
• Nonetheless, she retains some aspects of a
  traditional maternal role . Shes the one that
  manage s the whole picture , keeping the family
  calendar, remembering a birthday is coming,
  planning the meals even when she doesnt cook
  them. Moreover, David sees Theresa as the
  emotional center of their family. Despite his
  developing capacity to nurture his children, when
  the children have problems, he still believes in
  a difference between mothers and fathers Theresa
  can just zing shes right there with them. I
  have to believe thats a mothers touch, some
  thing a father can work on and perhaps get, but
  probably never come into the capacity that a
  mother has. A mothers got that specialthey
  always know what to say at the right place at the
  right time to kids, whereas a father is a little
  bit more jagged on the edges. More than the
  economic benefits of avoiding paid daycare ,
  Theresa and David have been driven by the belief
  that their children would benefit from parental
  care. David says We were both very adamant about
  one thing and that was we wanted to make sure
  that our children were brought up by one of us
  and not by childcare...so in order to do that we
  knew we both couldnt work the same shift.
  Theresa agrees, and although they have missed
  time with each other, she expresses satisfaction
  in how theyve lived the ir live s as pare nts

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• For the few hours between the time Theresa leaves
  for work and when David comes home, their oldest
  daughter is paid to babysit for the younger
  children. Its worked out and I think thats why
  they (the children) are as good as they are.
  Because we have given one hundred per cent of
  what they needed.

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Stopgap workers youth in labor in fast food and
Groceries(Stuart Tannock)