Group Assigned Readings

1
Group Assigned Readings

• A summary so far

2
Post-Fordism Globalization

• NAFTA article sets the stage
• Decline in manufacturing and rise in services
• Search for cheapest source of doing business
• Haitian sweatshops are an extreme, but not
  uncommon, example
• Call centres, Wal-Mart, etc. are are jobs that
  ex-manufacturering workers must take
• Decrease in their stability and standard of
  living

3
Post-Fordism Globalization

• Rise of large multinationals
• Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Monsanto (farming), Disney,
  etc.
• Download costs and risks to smaller players
• Independent contractors run the Haitian factories
• Franchisees
• Individual farmers
• Their size and influence perpetuates the spread
  of cost-cuttingmore for less

4
Post-Fordism Work Systems

• McDonaldization of Society
• Efficiency
• Calculability
• Predictability
• Increased control
• Use of non-human technology (except when human
  labour costs 38 cents an hour)
• Many examples of this in call centres, fast food,
  sweatshops, farming, prisons

5
Post-Fordism Feminization

• Mexican women, Department store work
• Cheap labour supply
• Rise of precarious work
• Undervalued and invisible labour at work and
  at home
• Occupational segregation
• No women in big ticket areas of department store
• Women make less in home-based enterprises

6
Other Issues Class, Race, Gender

• Segregation of labour market and occupations
• Oppressed races, women and lower classes
• In jobs that are less stable and pay less
• Create competition for other workers and also
  fighting to maintain their own jobs
• Culture/emotional management
• Identity and culture become another tool to be
  maximized or controlled

7
Community

• Segregation works against communities
• Loss of communities due to job loss, shrinking
  farming community
• Use of part-time and flexible scheduling works
  against communities
• Isolation works against communities

8
Community and Resistance

• Workplace communities make jobs better
• Families and communities make it possible for
  some people to work
• Unions, NGOs, International awareness groups
• Those most in need of help are typically outside
  labour laws or minimum standards