A lot of the debate about WorkChoices, quite properly, revolved around not just the severe distraint that the legislation placed on bargaining power in the employment relationship but also on its failure to accord employees basic civil rights in the workplace. Much of recent thinking on employment has revolved around extending the rights proper to civil society to the workplace - and reframing a perspective that saw rights only at issue insofar as they revolved around liberal principles of contract. But basic rights within the workplace should just be a baseline, as it were. I don’t agree with all of the arguments in his paper, but I’m pleased to see David Coats from The Work Foundation publishing a provocative piece for the new(ish) Australian thinktank Per Capita entitled Quality of Work and A New Politics of A Quality of Life. [link to pdf]
The principal goal of progressive politics is to create a society in which people have the capabilities to choose a life that they value. Allied to this of course is the profound conviction that unless certain goods are provided collectively – education, healthcare, infrastructure and physical security for example – then some citizens, generally the poorest and most vulnerable, will fall by the wayside. The opportunity to choose a life that one values is inevitably diminished if an employee is condemned to insecure poorly paid work with limited opportunities for progression. “Bad work” in this sense is a significant constraint on individual liberty.
There’s no doubt, I think, that work continues to be central to our late modern society not just in terms of the creation of wealth, but also in enabling or potentially enabling fulfilment, creativity and self-actualisation. Much of the time that potential goes begging. Without in any way minimising the basic need for fairness at work, what can we do in public policy terms to ensure that all of us have much more of a chance than many of us presently do to enjoy autonomy and fulfilment through our paid work? How can we make what is central to so much of most of our day to day lived experience far more of a political issue? Even as many of us find it far more difficult than it ought to be to escape the demands of labour, how can we ensure - collectively and as a society - that that labour is meaningful? And how can we achieve all those things when work and labour are still so prone to the frontier of managerial and class control, power and authority?
I recall a few years back when someone’s benefits were stopped because they didn’t take up a job offer put through Centrelink’s (acting as a headhunter) books. The job was in a brothel, and not as the accountant.
Nice paper!
As Coats intimates towards the end of the paper (and as Mark suggests at the end of his post), bad work and the consequent denial of liberty is itself a consequence of the essential absence of democracy in the management-labour relationship in the typical capitalist firm (and a lot of public sector organisations as well). This is an issue on which radical democrats have a few things to teach social democrats.
Dave Bath, that sounds like it would be an urban myth - do you have a link?
My answers to your questions -
“what can we do in public policy terms to ensure that all of us have much more of a chance than many of us presently do to enjoy autonomy and fulfilment through our paid work?”
That’s an easy one - make sure that the union movement doesn’t get its grubby paws back into workplaces. Allowing individuals to fulfil their potential through rewards for effort/performance is the overwhelming key to fulfilment through paid work. Nothing more soul destroying and de-motivating to be paid a generic wage for a generic job with no incentive or reward for someone who takes pride in what they do.
“How can we make what is central to so much of most of our day to day lived experience far more of a political issue?”
Errrm - I assume you got that back to front? You meant to say less rather than more? Keeping politics out of the workplace seems like a great outcome to me.
“Even as many of us find it far more difficult than it ought to be to escape the demands of labour, how can we ensure - collectively and as a society - that that labour is meaningful?”
There is no escaping the demands of labour - it is part of a two-way contract. You provide labour - and with that comes rights and responsibilities (demands). It is up to you as an individual to determine where the right balances lie and what it is you are seeking from your employment. Are you just in it for the money? Are you an un-paid volunteer? Are you motivated by learning and discovery? Everyone’s different - but if you expect to be given something by your employer, then there are demands that you must live by.
“And how can we achieve all those things when work and labour are still so prone to the frontier of managerial and class control, power and authority?”
Another easy one - give more power to the individual to negotiate the labour ‘contract’ that most suits their individual circumstance. My contract will be very different from yours - my motivations are different.
“to create a society in which people have the capabilities to choose a life that they value.”
While that sentiment is noble and unobjectionable (I only differ in the methodology we should employ), I am puzzled by the tone of the questions Mark poses at the end of the post.
In the absence of a technological revolution that moves us beyond the requirement to work for a living, some jobs are always going to be worse than others, some jobs are always going to be boring or poorly paid or insecure. There is no possible way everyone can have a secure, meaningful job they love that enables “fulfilment, creativity and self-actualisation”.
Given that goal is unattainable, I think it’s obvious any attempt to reach it will have many deleterious effects. We can try for more realistic goals, though, that will at least mean moving closer to the ideal.
“what can we do in public policy terms to ensure that all of us have much more of a chance than many of us presently do to enjoy autonomy and fulfilment through our paid work?”
Have lots of jobs available (for greater choice). Improve our education systems (to improve abilities and opportunities). Have the highest economic and productivity growth possible (so people can get more for their work effort). Make saving and investing easier (so more people “escape the demands of labour” in the long run). Reduce barriers to entry into business (so people can more easily work for themselves instead of a boss). Reduce the tax take (so people can spend more on what makes them happy and fulfilled).
The Per Capita quote Mark provides above sounds like a rather sad throw back to 1970s progressive thinking. Take this for example:
“Allied to this of course is the profound conviction that unless certain goods are provided collectively..”
Liberal democratic governments both left and right realised some 30 odd years ago that government needn’t provide services and consequently we’ve had a bevy of privatisations that on balance have delivered cheaper and better service.
Fatfingers is also right in noting that some jobs are by their very nature boring and not the right place to be looking for self-actualization and personal fulfillment. How do you presume a chicken sexer, garbage collector or factory process worker find these things in his/her work? How do you know they want them in their work?
It is also worth noting that Australia’s minimum wage is much higher than the OECD average and this must be acknowledged when we talk of “poorly paid work” and that Australians now change employers regularly; very few of us have no option other than to stay in a job that makes them unhappy.
“And how can we achieve all those things when work and labour are still so prone to the frontier of managerial and class control, power and authority?”
With all due respect, I’m afraid this is Sokalian academic-speak that is devoid of clarity or meaning.
I can’t quite make out what you mean by “Sokalian”. It’s an adjective that is devoid of clarity or meaning.
Why’s that obvious, fatfingers? And what are these “many deleterious effects”?
Liberal democratic governments both left and right realised some 30 odd years ago that government needn’t provide services and consequently we’ve had a bevy of privatisations that on balance have delivered cheaper and better service.
We’ve had a bevy of privatisations which on balance have delivered very crappy and highly priced services. Connex, ABC learning and Transurban spring to mind immedidiately, but you’ll be able to think of a multitude more depending on which state you live in. As for privatisation being the popular idea du jour, it is a tired sacred cow of the 80s and 90s that, according to some econonomists’ opeds I’ve read recently in the overseas press, is now in decline. (Due, of course, to the disastrous service provided by the likes of Connex, ABC learning, etc.etc..) And a good job, too.
I wish SOMEONE would tell Julia Gillard, though.
D’oh! That was me.
Also, I was referring to JG’s “we musn’t upset the Private school lobby” op-ed in the AGE today, rather than her IR policies.
“Why’s that obvious, fatfingers? And what are these “many deleterious effects”?”
Ask Nick Gruen or Jason Soon to give you a Friedrich von Hayek primer. In fact the unintended and deleterious consequences of policy and regulatory responses to perceived problems is now widely understood in mainstream neoclassical economics so I’m surprised you pose such a question.
Trying to attain the unattainable is self-evidently a bad idea. You waste time, energy and other resources. It’s likely counter-productive. Depending on what it is, it can be dangerous to yourself and others. The only benefits will acrue by reaching good outcomes in the process of failing to reach the utopian one, so we might as well aim for those in the first place, as determining the way of getting to them is doable.
The precise deleterious effects of trying to make every job a great job are up for debate, but I’d wager much higher unemployment, lower economic and productivity growth, and disincentives to invest are obvious ones. These clearly go against the solutions I outline at the end of my last comment.
I can’t follow that logic at all, fatfingers. Have you read the linked paper? What Coats is suggesting encompasses maximising autonomy and choice in how work is carried out, open and respectful relationships between employers and employees, and a safe and healthy workplace. I can’t see how a better workplace culture underpinned by a robust system of workplace rights would cause the sky to fall in. More broadly, why exactly are we so afraid of industrial democracy?
Thanks for the patronising advice. Maybe in neo-classical world, doing absolutely anything in terms of regulatory action is verboten as it might lead to unspecified “deleterious consequences”, but in fact a very wide range of policy initiatives are taken all the time outside Hayek-land, and it’s hardly impossible to calculate what consequences might result when those initiatives are specified plainly. Just because you’re completely complacent about others’ conditions of work doesn’t mean that the rest of us have to be. Again, I’d suggest you actually read the paper to which I’ve linked if you’re interested in having a serious discussion about this. If you’re just interested in making ideological points, then I would understand that you wouldn’t bother to trouble yourself with any actual empirical evidence.
I’d support what Andrew and ff said.
In my life, I’ve had full-time permanent jobs in highly-unionised workplaces (i.e. the APS). I’ve also had casual work with private employers.
The latter is meant to be worse than the former, and the left is always bemoaning the ‘casualisation’ of the workplace. What a pity we can’t all have 9-to-5 jobs in the public sector, eh?
And yet, I personally found the casual work to be far more amenable in many ways. I didn’t have to don a suit and tie and be out of the door by 7.30am every weekday; I didn’t have to hang around at work if there was no work for me to do; I had much more freedom to work in my own way rather than have a manager defining every aspect of my “valued behaviours” (to quote from a recent public service selection criteria).
I would argue that the way forward for the left is not the imposition of ever more regulation — detailed and prescriptive awards, unfair dismissal laws and so on — but rather by the Nordic-style approach:
Incidentally, that’s a good paper by Coats, and thanks Mark for posting about it.
Andrew wrote:
That’s the crux of the problem that the paper is attempting to answer - exactly how is power transferred to the individual. Whether it’s acting collectively or being empowered to act individually. This will to a very large extent depend on the industry involved and the capabilities of those individuals.
It’s easy for a bunch of time-wasting professionals on the net to dismiss the concerns of people who are very much on the weak side of workplace bargaining because many of us have never been there. However, that doesn’t mean that we can simply dismiss the very real issue of workplace bargaining power as simply handing the reins over to every individual and hoping it’ll work out.
Largely, if you have language or literacy issues, are poorly educated or are in a financial position where threats of dismissal are potentially devastating, you will never be “empowered” no matter how much individual liberty you are granted. Individual liberty and power are not the same thing.
Paulus, I’m not arguing that full time jobs are necessarily better than casual jobs. In some instances, casual workers do have more effective autonomy at work because they’re more lightly supervised and less caught up in pointless bureaucracy. But not always. I think Coats has suggested a useful way of rethinking a lot of the judgements and policy approaches we have to securing meaningful work, and I think it’s a stimulating provocation for a debate.
I also think David Rubie has put his finger on the crux of all this.
I haven’t read the paper. I was responding to your outline of things to discuss. Right from the start, I said I was puzzled by your extrapolation, but I realise I should have said why.
It’s because you said things like “how can we ensure - collectively and as a society - that that labour is meaningful?” That’s not talking about “maximising autonomy and choice in how work is carried out, open and respectful relationships between employers and employees”. You went a lot further, seemingly seeking answers as to why we can’t reach a utopian ideal.
And I never said the sky would fall in, only that your stated objectives would get further away rather than closer if we pursued counter-productive policies.
Moving on, I see a key contradiction in your logic. If we want to “maximise autonomy” for workers, would we not minimise it for employers?
“Open and respectful relationships”? Firstly, why should the government care? Secondly, if an employee doesn’t feel respected and that outweighs the benefits of their job, they should get another. The best chance of them having that opportunity is low unemployment, and putting additional burdens on employers will act against that.
“a better workplace culture”? Government cannot dictate culture.
And what exactly do you mean by “industrial democracy”?
To which we can add, if you have responsibilities for supporting dependent family members. Tyrants of all stripes have long known that even individuals who are absolutely fearless in the face of threats to their own wellbeing can be got at when their nearest and dearest are also at risk.
That idea that they are identical is a very powerful component of classic liberalism. In fact of course, power confers liberty, in both the positive and negative senses.
I do love reading the comments and views expressed by smacky bacon and Andrew. Keep at it. They are excellent education aids. Very useful and accessible as in ‘now, how does this statement match your own life experience. After you have worked in the group on your own life experience, take the statements/arguments, and apply them to your wider family and friends. Discuss. Don’t forget to elect a spokesperson to report the views of your group.’
Short, succint and competent representations of the relevant arguments. It saves a lot of time being able to print out, copy and distribute, rather than having to copy articles from the usual range of excellent sources.
Thanks guys. Most helpful.
No, there’s only a contradiction if you see the employment relationship as about maintaining or giving away power. I strongly suggest you read the paper.
As to why government should care, I’d have thought the economic benefits of a more productive and contented workforce would be obvious. That’s leaving aside what I see as questions of justice.
My comment was a response to fatfingers at 18.
“Secondly, if an employee doesn’t feel respected and that outweighs the benefits of their job, they should get another”
Ahhhhhhh, obviously spouted from a position of relative privilege while failing to recognise or acknowledge that for some this is far easier said than done.
Ever considered just how easy it is for an unskilled worker with poor english skills to simply go out and find another job? Ever been in that position? Ever considered that with rent to pay, bills to pay, the need to eat etc that it is not as simple as you like to make out?
OK Mark I’ve read the paper and it is clearly based in pre-Hawke/Keating economic reform thinking and is full of glaring errors and highly questionable assumptions. Take this for example:
“The opportunity to choose a life that one values is inevitably diminished if an employee is condemned to insecure poorly paid work with limited opportunities for progression.”
The best way to ensure choice is to have a robust growing economy, such as the one we have today, and consequently a highly competitive labour market. If someone doesn’t like a job they get another one. I’ve done this myself several times. The “bad employer” eventually goes out of business or adopts more worker friendly practices.
Our present strong economy is a result of reforms instituted by the the Labor Right and opposed by the Labor Left. If we take people like Coats too seriously we’ll once again hamper business with red tape and end up with high unemployment.
It is perhaps salient to note that in countries where workers arguably have the best legislative protections, such as France, chronic high unemployment is the norm.
“And yet, I personally found the casual work to be far more amenable in many ways. I didn’t have to don a suit and tie and be out of the door by 7.30am every weekday; I didn’t have to hang around at work if there was no work for me to do; I had much more freedom to work in my own way rather than have a manager defining every aspect of my “valued behaviours” (to quote from a recent public service selection criteria).”
I had the luxury of trying to stretch out pay from busy weeks over periods when I wasn’t offered any work; I had the freedom to come to work when I was needed, whether I liked it or not; I didn’t have to don a suit and tie because I had a uniform; I could choose to ignore any or all of my managers’ attempts to define me, assuming I had other work lined up; I had the ‘luxury’ of trying to sleep in after a night shift while my children, and the rest of the world, got on with their lives. The list goes on.
Or in the real world, the bad employer’s business model depends on high turnover of workers, keeping wages down.
“Ever considered just how easy it is for an unskilled worker with poor english skills to simply go out and find another job? Ever been in that position? Ever considered that with rent to pay, bills to pay, the need to eat etc that it is not as simple as you like to make out?”
Polly - I’d suggest that is a ‘lowest common denominator’ view that doesn’t hold for the vast bulk of the population in an economy nearing full employment. We should no nore set IR laws for the bottom 5% than the top 5%.
There will always be unfortunates at the bottom of the employability ladder - I feel sorry for them, we need a welfare system to look after them if they fall off the ladder, we need a good education system to hopefully get them back on the ladder. But once on the ladder - we don’t need collective bargaining from self interested unions to undermine their ability to maximise their reward for effort.
Category error. Collective bargaining works where collective-self interest obtains better results than individual self-interest.
‘collective-self interest’ - oxymoron alert
Of course, we all know that unions could never act as disciplinary organs upon their members in the interests of employers and thus keep pay and conditions lower than they might be if the workers were collectively organised but not ‘represented’ by a professional union official. No, that could never happen.
So Geelong were behaving oxymoronically in last year’s Grand Final?
That’s some nice sarcasm, dj, keep it up. Screaming “but but but closed shops! Closed shops!” is no answer to my argument that collective agreements tend to produce higher wages and better/safer conditions.
If you’re thinking that I am disagreeing with you Liam, then you’re mistaken.
“Polly - I’d suggest that is a ‘lowest common denominator’ view that doesn’t hold for the vast bulk of the population in an economy nearing full employment”
And that comment would seem to presume that the good times roll on forever. In bad economic times even those with higher skills levels can find it difficult to just go out and find another job.
I made no argument for or against regulation, BTW, my point was the apparent glossing over of the fact that it is not always easy to just ‘go get another job’.
I’m happy to be mistaken, dj.
Sorry, I’ve been denied a decent stoush once today and was hoping for one here…
Thats an interesting claim. I guess that might be true for some low wage paid jobs in an environment of high unemployment. Otherwise the overheads of getting new people and lack of productivity in the gaps where you don’t have enough people are going to be more than the alternative of higher wage costs. Is unemployment that high already?
That does assume that union holds the same interests as the members it represents (eg is it in the interest of the union or its members for the union to sell information about its members to third parties for marketing purposes?). Or that its even possible to accurately represent the interests of large numbers of people without compromising individual interests too much.
Even within a small group of 15-20 people, the pay/conditions that people want can be quite different even though they’re doing quite similar jobs.
My comment is posted as a suggestion that the fact that unions might not represent the interests of workers is a two-edged sword - the workforce might actually be far more interested in better pay and conditions, and greater industrial democracy than the union leadership. So, as you say, this does not undermine the argument about collective bargaining.
Liam,
I agree with you on collective agreements. Employees should have a right to colective bargaining. Moreover there is actually some evidence that this is in the employer’s interests all. We can’t assume that all regulation is bad but much well intentioned legisaltion does have adverse uninteneded consequences, for example teenage unemployment, suicide and depression where minimum youth wages are too high.
That’s the traditional Marxist critique of bourgeois unionism, Chris, yes. All I was trying to point out is that the choice proposed by Andrew—that an employee, disgruntled with their employer serves their interest best by quitting—is inadequate. How disgruntled do you have to be before you start singing “take this job and shove it”?
In reality they have many further choices: individual or collective negotiation, where the benefits of either outweigh the other. High-status employees can often afford to negotiate individually and can be stifled by collective agreements, it’st he other way for low-status employees.
Heh. It’s in nobody’s interests to have Kevin Reynolds in charge of anything.
Yep, the fallacy in the “get another job” comment is the lack of bargaining power to start with. You shouldn’t make any presumption that there are stacks of “good” employers out there recruiting low skilled workers for low wages.
As an aside, it’s interesting to note how unwilling people are to get to grips with what Coats is actually arguing rather than having a traditional Aussie IR stoush. Not particularly surprising though.
God yes dj. Don’t start me on sweetheart deals in Australian unionism.
I’ll be in it Mark. From the paper:
This is also the constant argument of one of my favourite British provocateurs, Chris Dillow: that the ideology of “managerialism” in business and government, as opposed to administration, is a crucially negative force on people’s lives.
I don’t think any of the libertarians will go anywhere near it. It’s too much like hard work for starters. Plus, every libertarian knows that your social status and personal freedom ought to be tied directly to your wealth, otherwise where is the incentive to create that morally virtuous wealth in the first place?
It seems the paper is out to exploit that cognitive dissonance, but will fail simply because none of the “defenders of personal liberty” ever acknowledge that the approach has costs for those who cannot convert their liberty into power. Largely because (as amused pointed out above) liberty can come from power, but converting powerless liberty into power is much more difficult without collective action or perhaps violence.
Another way of looking at it it, David, is that debates over liberty aren’t the exclusive province of libertarians! I think Coats is trying - rightly - to reclaim liberty for social democrats. You’ve correctly pinged why libertarians aren’t particularly attracted to any concept of workplace liberty, but that’s no reason why we should allow them to have sole rights to framing these conversations.
I’d add also that the reason vulgar libertarians shy away from arguments about obtaining everyday justice, especially in the workplace, is because modern libertarian arguments about law are so thin. “Libertarians” of the right these days have entirely abandoned the old anarchist contempt for organs of the State dispensing justice.
Yes, freedom depends on the “rule of law”. But who has access to it, where does it come from and how? Vulgar libertarians at this point generally fall back onto traditionalism.
“As an aside, it’s interesting to note how unwilling people are to get to grips with what Coats is actually arguing rather than having a traditional Aussie IR stoush. Not particularly surprising though”
Actually Mark - I thought I addressed Coats’ arguments very well in my first post. His paper is a thinly veiled attempt to justify the position of trade unions in a modern IR world. Note how he weaves in the story about unions doing well in Sweden, and relatively poorly in Germany.
His central message to us is “work is good for us, but only if it is good work” - but how to do this?
Coats then says;
“The question is not so much whether the government should intervene but how government should intervene. It should be self-evident that governments cannot legislate high quality secure jobs into existence.”
What?
Governments can’t enforce job quality but they should intervene anyway?
He then goes onto to talk about how governments should intervene;
1) minimum standards for procedural fairness - tick, already done
2) have a minimum wage - tick, already done
3) “create the conditions for the development of social capital through worker voice institutions” - Ahhh the real agenda. Find a role for unions in a new age of industrial relations.
no thanks
Andrew, I thought you addressed Coats terribly in your first post.
You’ve well spotted that the industries which have the most prominent unions are the ones in which wages are low, incentives are small and the tasks are soul destroying, but you’re mistaking cause for effect. If your aim is to keep unions out of workplaces—and as a political motivation there’s nothing wrong with it—it’s up to you to propose ways in which work can be made less alienating.
Coats seems to assume that you can always make bad jobs good. Perhaps instead we should be trying to automate them out of existence, and separately (which does not require employer involvement) providing better mature education services so people will be able to find something better. More autonomy is generally better for job satisfaction, but linked to that is a higher level of responsibility and higher skill levels.
Without alternatives, unskilled workers are going to cling to what they know. I once helped develop a product which would remove the need for a lot of human intervention in a job which is repetitive and done in a reasonably uncomfortable environment. It replaced unskilled jobs with fewer but higher skill jobs. But then during trials, “accidents” would mysteriously occur - eg waterproof computer boxes would be found in the morning full of water.
Liam,
As usual these on-line debates get bogged down because people argue from opposite poles without realising that there is overlap.
There is a role for unions at the very low end of the job scale. Some jobs lend themselves to collective agreements where there is little scope for individuals to perform at different levels. Thankfully those jobs are relatively rare - most jobs allow motivated workers to perform better than unmotivated workers - and therefore they should be rewarded better. Unions generally stand in the way of that.
I’m not arguing that we should get rid of unions - I am arguing that we’ve progressed a long way in minimising union influence where its not required. Coats seems to want to roll that clock back. That’s not a good idea.
Government can’t legislate away bad employers, Mark and Liam. The best thing it can do for low paid workers is ensure close to full employment and require employers to enter into collective bargaining with the employee’s bargaining agent.
The quest for utopia is why the capital “l” Left of yesteryear went down the socialist/Marxist path with rather unfortunate consequences.
Klaus K, did you have a particular point to make there?
Yes, some casual jobs are crap, and some casuals would no doubt rather be 9-to-5 in a secure job.
I was merely suggesting that not all casual jobs are bad, and sometimes workers actually like to have them. Indeed, one particular gripe I have is that so much of the white-collar world is only framed around full-time work. Fulfilling casual or part-time work can be bloody hard to find, unless you’re a recent mother (and even then can be difficult to get).
Paulus - agree with you regarding white-collar work and full-time work. Though I think it is progressively getting better. Especially if you are a mother coming back from maternity leave.
However, I think there is a big difference between casual work and permanent part time work though.
The hell it can’t. That’s the whole point of the rule of industrial law.
Well said Chris in your #52 second paragraph.
Yes, Paulus, my point is that your experiences aren’t representative, except perhaps for a particular class. I would rather see white collar workers ’suffer’ under full-time employment than accept the dehumanising effects of ‘flexibility’ for those in lower paid employment, if indeed that is the choice that must be made. What was clear from your comment was that you don’t appreciate what it means to occupy that sort of precarious position.
Mark wrote:
No, and thinking about it, the Coats approach is actually kind of novel, although the net libertarians will dismiss is as a “typically leftist reversal” as is their current fashion. Which is an argument I do not understand (other than as a way of shutting down argument itself when they realise they’re going to have to concede ground).
I don’t see many encouraging signs from the current government about re-instating those workplace freedoms that were lost under WorkChoices. Have we been seriously dudded or is there still room for debate on the way forward for industrial relations in Australia that isn’t framed in personal liberty or payback for the union movement? The language of individual contracts and the incorrect but successful conflation of the choices available to different echelons of the workforce make Coats’ points difficult to soundbite.
“I’d have thought the economic benefits of a more productive and contented workforce would be obvious.”
Mark, I’d dispute your assumption that achieving that is best done by governmental action. But feel free to convince me otherwise.
“[getting another job] is far easier said than done.”
Pollytickedoff, I wasn’t trying to be blase, but succinct. Also please notice that I still had the caveat of “and that outweighs the benefits of their job” - meaning if the so-called disrespect (love to see that objectively defined, BTW) is that much of a problem, they’ll move. If they don’t move, then clearly it’s not that great a problem (in comparison to the problems of moving; implying that government can do good by making it easier to move by actions I outline in #5).
I agree with Chris at #48 (maybe because he echoes what I said at #5) - the best thing for people who work is economic and productivity growth. Thus we should be wary of stifling that growth with clumsy, nebulous government policies, as a matter of natural justice.
Liam, you say government can legislate away bad employers. That’s a rather extraordinary claim, but let’s accept it for the sake of argument. The question then becomes, should the government even try? Do the benefits outweigh the costs? And please don’t pretend that the legislation necessary to do so wouldn’t have costs. In fact, thinking about it, I can’t imagine laws that would even get close that weren’t effectively nationalisation of everything (or fascist in nature).
That’s pure hyperbole, fatfingers. As Liam has pointed out (and as is obvious), the employment relationship is very comprehensively regulated right now. That’s been done without wholesale nationalisation obviously! Again there seems to be some sort of mythical template of “liberty of contract” vs. what - communism? sneaking into this discussion, and neither pole of that dichotomy has any relation to reality.
You know nothing about my circumstances, Klaus K, and it is extremely arrogant of you to assume I “don’t appreciate what it means to occupy that sort of precarious position”.
Just for the record, when I put in my 2007-08 tax return, I will report an income of a little bit over $8k. Does that count as low-income, by your standards?
Over the last few years, I have had casual jobs where I didn’t know from one week to the next how much work I’d have, or even whether I’d have any at all. Does that count as precarious, by your standards?
Still, I appreciate what casual work I did get. You may not like the concept, but don’t assume everyone else thinks like you. And also, don’t assume anyone who disagrees with you must be rolling in money.
I don’t think so, Mark. Our current workplace relations laws may be pretty comprehensive, yet Coats still sees large problems that need to be fixed, presumably with stricter and farther-reaching laws. ‘Bad’ work (or employers) in this sense is ‘not good enough’. It’s not just a matter of getting rid of the employers that cheat and lie and bully (which is what our current laws attempt, and fail to do) for Coats. And what about the law-breaking problem? The stricter they get, the more likely they are to be broken. That’s where I got ‘fascist’ from - to really eliminate ‘bad’ work would mean complete oversight and draconian enforcement.
You are right that we shouldn’t really talk about the extreme ends of the spectrum, and that’s what I tried to do in #5 - “We can try for more realistic goals, though, that will at least mean moving closer to the ideal.” I set out quite reasonable methods of getting ‘better’ work that use the less-government-not-more framework. It is using greater liberty in certain areas to engender greater liberty in others. I thought I was answering you and Coats in the spirit of the post - policy answers to societal questions. I’ve seen precious little from the social democrats commenting here of the same.
The reason for that might be the limited (and blunt) tools available to government to pursue ‘better’ work, I don’t know. What do you all prescribe instead?
FF is right. As long as there are jobs that are: unpleasant to do, not worth much on the market, stressful….. the list is long.
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I do however think that many jobs are more stressful, more unpleasant than they have to be. Some jobs - teachers for example, should be worth more on ‘the market’ but aren’t. Some should be worth less.
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However I do wonder whether you can change this by political policy. The changes at Semco made by Ricardo Semlar seem to strip away a lot of the unpleasantness associated with hierarchies and what Marx referred to as ‘alienation’. The pleasant thing about this phenomena is that it was good for business as well.
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However reading Maverick I was struck by how hard it was to do and how it was accomplished by a cautious, step-by-step process that involved winning trust, experimenting and lateral thought. I don’t think a government agency is going to bring this about by legal decree. It might create regulations that irritate or impede. It might bring some positive benefits. But it might just create another battleground.
fatfingers, it still seems to me you’re not actually engaging with what Coats wrote:
I dunno Mark. I reckon it’s worth a try.
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Personally I think that it’s too moderate. How ’bout:
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VOTE 1
Chunk Shonk
He will make it legal for you to kick your boss every day.
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Ya gotta love Chuck.
I have a brother in law who is in a full time work, in a heavily union protected industry, who was inclined to bag family members, with casual positons, who whinged… on the basis, that their wage had a built in extra fund for all the conditions they were missing out on.
His attitude has changed since his own wife joined the ranks of the unempowered.
It would be nice to also see a change in heart from the unions who have failed this growing part of the workforce no less than the government and employers.
Some unions are getting better at it, joe2. But I read Coats as mainly suggesting this is the sort of agenda the union movement should be pushing. Contra fatfingers, he’s not laying out some sort of legislative program. What I think he’s trying to stimulate is some debate about all this - and a lot of that debate and discussion should take place at the level of civil society. Of course, that presupposes the recognition that (a) there is agreement that quality of working life is an issue and (b) that such issues should be addressed collectively. Obviously that agreement isn’t there with some people on this thread.
Quality of working life is more an issue than people generally appreciate. A study of British public servants found that those doing the more monotonous work and lacking control had higher rates of atherosclerosis. A recent Aus study attributed one in six depressions to work related stress. Work related issues kill many Australians every year. A study a few years back found that even an abusive email from the boss can send blood pressure soaring.
People in the workplace should be entitled to the same respect that they receive in wider society. I’ve worked for some shocking bosses, if they dealt with me that way on the street I would have started busting ribs. Most employers are fine but most people I have known have worked for at least one asshole. I think every manager should read “The No Asshole Rule”, a book by a Harvard Economist.
John, the British study is highlighted at the outset of Coats’ paper.
Extracts:
Moreover, those at the bottom of a status
hierarchy are more likely to experience ill-health and have shorter life
expectancies than their higher status colleagues.
This is typical of primates, the lower in the hierarchy, the greater the expression of cortisol, a key stress hormone that at high levels does all sorts of wonderful things like induce glucocorticoid resistance leading to systemic inflammation, loss of immune response, shrinkage of the hippocampus, perturbations of prefrontal function, cancer, heart disease and probably other things as well. There are neuroscientists out there who will swear black and blue that it is very important to reduce chronic stress as it plays a leading role in driving dementias. For example, sustained major depression is a very real risk factor for latter dementia.
Wealth redistribution is not a solution, flattening hierarchical structures can help and let’s be honest here: the determinations of what constitutes status are rather subjective. Socio-Technical Work Design was aimed at helping giving employees more variety and involvement in the design of the work. However in Aus at least it seems to me that we are still very much in the strict hierarchical work design mode.
Globalisation has been a benefit but comes with cost. Increased competition increases stress and uncertainty about the future, it can turn employees against each other, it can lead to sudden changes wages and working conditions, it can make employers particularly ruthless in dealing with their employees. Doesn’t have to be this way and perhaps over time there will be a shift towards a “kinder, gentler” world and I must really stop smoking that stuff … .
Governments have to set minimum standards because there are employers who will do anything to make a buck, including working conditions that threaten the lives of their employees. It is the same with all human behavior: we must have limits because if we don’t someone will hurt someone else. Work and economics are no different, human behavior needs regulation. That’s why we have laws and I have never been able to understand those who argue that the elimination of industrial laws is a good thing. It is as if in economics there is something special about human behavior that makes it distinct from other areas of human behavior. Bollocks I say, industrial laws emerged precisely because of the bad behavior of bosses.
Mark says:
“I’d have thought the economic benefits of a more productive and contented workforce would be obvious.”
Are you suggesting productivity and contentment are directly proportional?
“The quality of work matters - we cannot create a society with wider opportunity and more equal life chances unless are are more quality jobs too.”
Coats is stimulating debate, it is true, but essentially maintaining the status quo. Work is out there to be done and “more quality jobs” would be great, if one was able to determine exactly he is talking about. It is all so subjective and fluffy.
Maybe “more quality jobs” could be created,for instance, by paying a reasonable wage to those who wash the bums rather than those who demand that they do.
I think Coats missing the point with “quality jobs”. Long ago I worked for a short period in an abbatoir. I was paid well but the work was very dirty. That didn’t worry me, I used to enjoy stopping in at the bakery on the way home with my work coat covered in blood and fat and watching people squirm. I enjoyed working there but for the bad equipment which was often dangerous. I typically work in offices and found that in that environment I was subject to more personal abuse and and dirty tactics than ever happened at the abbatoir.
The problem isn’t “quality jobs” but respect for all work, although it should also be said that SocioTechnical Work Design, originally from Sweden, does offer some good ideas about how to make working life more comfortable and meaningful for people. As one wit once observed: we should actually pay people more for doing “dirty jobs” because no-one else wants to do them. It comes back to status, I made more money in the abbatoir than in office work but the latter confers a certain respectability and many would choose that over a higher wage. Status again and again and again ….
There is a very well known correlation between job satisfaction and productivity in the academic literature. This is discussed in the paper, which you might care to take the trouble to read.
Agreed, joe2.
Again, I think there’s a bit of a misunderstanding here. “Quality jobs” aren’t equivalent to white-collar jobs, which may not be “quality” at all! What’s crucial to “quality of working life” includes a range of minima - including health and safety - and then on top of that, a culture of respect and fairness, among other things.
I have no wish to pick on this bloke, Mark, as a debate on this subject should have happened years ago.
Maybe a bit of defining terms might have helped on his part. You seem to be doing his work in defining “quality”, as well. It was a good read, but…
“There is a very well known correlation between job satisfaction and productivity in the academic literature. This is discussed in the paper, which you might care to take the trouble to read.”
I’ve already told you I read the paper and indeed quoted from it earlier. Don’t be so rude.
In my tertiary studies in business administration I learnt that the relationship wasn’t so clear cut and that workplaces with a certain amount of stress and conflict are often the most productive.
Thats a good point about defining quality. Because whilst there are some common points (not getting buillied by management), people have quite a wide range of what they think is a quality job. Although I’d absolutely hate it, some people I work with enjoy work that involve a lot of repetition and not being challenged by something new regularly.