Parenti and Labor

Chris Johnson
During high school I always stayed busy playing a lot of sports so if I wanted to try and make a little extra money on the side; it was pretty hard for me to find a job that would fit around my schedule. During one off season a friend of mines dad was given the contract of cleaning the local elementary school so he began searching for workers. Since it was something that worked well with my schedule I decided to do it, and I essentially became a “janitor”. The job was pretty easy; we would drive over after school and just divide all of the work up and make sure everything was clean. Although my friend’s dad was in charge, I rarely ever saw him except for the occasional drop in to tell us what we doing wrong. We were paid like $7 an hour which wasn’t terrible at the time, but I guarantee you that my friends dad was also making a pretty good amount…for doing almost nothing. This type of thing happens everywhere in our capitalist society. Workers do all of the work, while it’s the people who are higher level that enjoy all of the benefits of the work. In class we talked about Perenti and his ideas on our capitalist economy. He found that the average private sector employee works 2hrs for themselves and 6 or more hours for their boss. With capitalism workers are paid substantially more than the value they create, and corporations exploit their labor in order to accumulate capital. How is it that people can work so hard but get paid so little? The fact is that workers are doing the work of two or three people, and only getting paid barely enough for their own. So if labor is so important to accumulating capital, why do things like this continue to happen?

Modern Times

Traviers Herndon
I found it ironic that the Modern Times video in scene one, for the begin credits it stated that it was “a story of industry, of individual enterprise- humanity crusading in the pursuit of happiness”. There would be no happiness attained in this style of industry or workplace conditions. The video showed the men headed to their big factory jobs in a flock as sheep would be running amongst each other. The president was sitting in his office doing a puzzle, reading a newspaper and taking surveillance of the work being done by everyone but himself. I couldn’t believe Charlie Chaplin went to the bathroom and he couldn’t be granted the chance to break in the bathroom. There was a surveillance of the rest area. I saw the idea of social division of labor in detail throughout the video and displayed with the industrial workers and their tasks versus the task of the man over them. The industrial workers had so much more required of them and the work proved to be potentially stressful. It was somewhat funny to see that there was a machine invented to allow workers to work and eat at the same time. Though it seemed like something to enhance the effect of the film, I think that bosses would seriously consider machines of this nature to eliminate the lunch just to get as much out of a worker as possible in a day’s work. It would be a sad predicament if workers were no longer entitled to some time for themselves to eat. I never understood how the machine would really work anyway but I find the video in general a harsh reality for any worker and it’s sad that even with the times improving the technology to do work, doing work can still be as equally as portrayed in the Modern Times Video.

Crisis of The Worker

Lily Syafikah Mansor
Works absolutely fundamental things for us to stay alive as we get paid from works and thus we could live our life. There are many types of work in our world. Every single work has its own specific task and field. For instance we have engineer that built the houses but also at the same time we have another engineer that done their work in part of industry. Capitalist might say that they had provided many chances of getting job but the true is there are part of this world where people are not been hired. For people in third world country their life seems miserable as they unemployed as thus they don't have money to buy essential things to survive. Thus Capitalist see this as an opportunity for them to pay the low wage to the workers as the worker of third-world country seem do not have another better option between working and get low wage and no paid at all. It is like they have force choice. Capitalist might claims that they have done a good thing in provided more jobs to the people that needed it. It is undeniable that they had done a good thing but the true is people suffered from the priority of capitalist which is making profit. This is because as the capitalist trying to maximize the product, they have to keep move fast as the line moving non-stop. Capitalist also hire a manager to keep an eye of the workers and make sure that they done their job. this probably makes them uncomfortable as their action have been watched .the worker also deskilled and uncertainly they don't have chances to improve their skills as they do the same job over and over again. In my opinion, they should given chances to gain knowledge and skills. So that it could help the community and they also could done various job instead of doing the same job for entire life thus also can developed the economy of the country. For me, capitalism might be good in provided job but the situation for the worker just could be the same as the owner and the shareholders will gain the extra profit while the wage of the labor will stay the same. If there is increase, it even no t reaches 1% of the profit.

Technology and Workplace

written by Aizat. (Work)

Majority of people saying that the advancement in technological development nowadays really helps a lot in making their lives to flow smoothly without any major obstacles. Adding to that, some of them even drastically stating, without any technology to help them around, there are no more explicit reasons to live in this chaotic world. It's hard to separate the connections or bonds which exist between the technological development and workplace. Why? Likes the example given by Greenbaum in her book entitled "Windows on the Workplace", "workplaces can be found in homes, in cars, on mobile phones, in airport lounges, and in variety of settings" (Greenbaum 5). From what I believe, she simply tries to say that the great progression in today's technological development allows human being to perform work from any part of this world. This statement alone proves that there exist a strong connection between the technological development and workplace.
Although I agree with the fact that technologies bring an infinite amount of advantages to human as a whole, however, the way I visualize this matter change completely as I ask myself these such questions: what is happening to jobs and what is happening when technologies are designed, produced, and then used in real work situations. The introduction of technologies to working environment causes people inevitably to lose their jobs day by day without them even noticing it for the reason that people in general have put their belief on the words saying that technologies will help to ease their work conditions. This was exactly as what Greenbaum wrote, "most workers are learning that they need to jump from job to job and be prepared to be self-employed"(Greenbaum 5). Apart from that, work skills get re-engineered, basically to lower salaries and dividing up work so that pieces of it can be programmed into software and databases. In conclusion, should we still put our full support or faith on the argument articulating technological development will solve all of our problems and ease our working style?

Let the Computers Work For You

Traviers Herndon
The idea of self service and utilizing computers has a positive and negative effect on the workplace. As described in Greenbaum, usage of technology and the objectives of management would cause changes within the workplace. The management objective in any company is to minimize liabilities to make the largest profit possible and this is essentially what these companies that I have observed are planning to do. The Alaska Airline planned to take away ticket counters and allow self help kiosks that would shorten the length of time that it takes to check in and help with previous issues of lifting tons of luggage daily by employees is now done by customers for themselves. As for the cell phone check in that plans to use barcodes to convenience for the line waits involved in boarding an airplane, this is another push to optimize the convenience of the customers and save money for the airlines. The last idea that involved the pizza industry was to turn to using text messaging to order which will help the call volume drop and lower the waiting time to order. Though all these issues have their positive aspects that allow companies to be more efficient in one or another, the largest and more considerable thought about this issue is the amount of job cuts and pay cuts that will take place. For every machine that can do a job, there could be a person cut from the business because the labor will no longer be necessary. This will not interest producers because they will figure that the profit will rise because less skilled labor will be needed by a human despite the potential rise of unemployment as more and more industries may decide to switch to technological advances that don’t require the old jobs that humans occupied.

Options

written by Ikhwan Jamaludin (respond to 'Freedom and Choice' handout)

Determination can be done if we have an option to choose. If there is an option to choose, of course, we must want to choose something that better than the other option. However, what if we do not have an option to choose, and even worse we force to choose the only option that we have? Everyone has a right to choose and we are free to choose in our life as a right of freedom. I like to respond with the handout given by Professor Perry titled' Freedom and Choice' where he stated that, choice and freedom is not equal. He also relates that freedom is not equal only to choice but it is also not equal to work. After I read this article, I realized that there is a different between 'free to choose' and 'force to choose'. Options are just a medium between 'determinations' and 'choose'. In this medium, the distinction is occurred in a 'choose' side, where we are not always free to choose, instead sometimes we are forced to choose even we have an option. It means every choice that we have is seem to be not completely free to choose and also not completely forced to choose. Let relates back to choice and work. For example, if we work as a cashier in a restaurant or let say we work in a five star hotel restaurant and we have an option to work as waiter or waitress but, we are not interest to it because it is not that what we wish to do and we do not like to do that particularly job. In the other case, we do not have any other jobs option instead of being unemployment with no pocket money. Moreover, it is hard to find any other jobs at this circumstance. In this situation, we do have a right of 'free to choose' but we are not completely have it likewise we are 'forced to choose'. We are able to do other work but we do not have an option that is similar in what we able to do. So, it is clearly stated, the differences between 'free choosing' and 'forced choosing'. We still have a right to choose as well as free choosing but there also forced choosing in it. In the process of choosing, determination will take place and it depends to the person who has right and freedom to choose.

Heart of Working

written by Ikhwan Jamaludin (work)

Working is something that we want to do and we wish to do but, it is not something that we force to. By watching the first part of Modern Times, it shows the reality of the capitalism world. The doctrine of the capitalism is basically referred to the profit making. It means, capitalism does not care of anything except for profit making. Like what Professor Perry said in his lecture, concept of profit making is from money to commodity to more money. This concept tells us to the idea of the importance of profit making in term of commodity with ignoring other things such as welfare of employee, environmental care, or etc. This idea was pictured clearly in Modern Times movie. In this movie, we can see all the labors were working with specific division type of work as in detail. Each specific work will be conducted by at least one worker or more and they will responsible in what are they doing. Division of labor in detail will cause the deskilled of labor. It means, they cannot expand their ability or talent in doing other jobs that may they can do better with it. This particularly problem has been explained by Harry Braverman in 'Labor and Monopoly Capital' where he explained in the chapter of Scientific Management; the first principle of Capitalist management is "the dissociation of the labor process from the skills or workers". Besides that, every movement of the workers always is being watched by the employer like there is no freedom for the workers is also one of the examples of the Capitalist Scientific Management. This problem is shown clearly in the scene when Charlie was stopped by his boss from taking a short rest at the toilet. This circumstance was related to the Harry Braverman's third principle that is "the use of this monopoly over the knowledge to control each step of the labor process and its mode of execution". Nowadays, the concept of Capitalism is being used by the countries that have power in economy and politics even we know this concept has something wrong with it. For them, Capitalism is sweet and acceptable, but for me it is not. Capitalism has some problems and we admit it, even we cannot do anything except we have power to avoid it.

Behind The Modern Times

Lily Syafikah Mansor
~Work~

Most of us were laughing when Prof Perry showed to us the Modern Times, a story from Charlie Chaplin. No wonder people said that he was a great comedian actor. I could tell. The video seems visualize what are we studying and help me understand better on the division of labor and the division of labor in detailed. In this video, it is distinct that the division of labor had existed long time ago. We could see that in the video they divide up the work by section and the worker do different types of work. Like Greenbaum said "the labor process is what economists refer to when they talk about how work is divided and who gets to do what". This video also includes the element of social division of labor in detail .This also kind of work rationalization like Max Weber describe that work rationalization which meant breaking down each task into smaller and simpler steps, creating specialized ,narrow, and repetitive work procedures. We could see that Charlie had done the part of product for the whole day. It is what the real worker had been through. They do the same task over and over again. Capitalist may say that it is a good thing to do as it will increase the amount of product and thus it could make more money and the chain of M-C-M' will stay moving. They also claim that this is good as they can provide more jobs to the deskilled worker and they could pay the low wage as the worker is deskilled. For me, this is something that unworthy to the worker as they unable to gain knowledge and improve their skills. They also could not do various work as their work only limited and restricted on certain things. Are they having any options? Capitalist might say that they are free to choose the work or else quit the work if they want. It is true that they have freedom to do so but is their choice is force choice or free choice? We also can relate this to the video that prof. Perry showed to us before this, life and debt. The worker in Jamaica, are they having force choice or free choice? It seems to me that they don't have any better choice but keep on working at the Free Zone even though they did not get the paid as much as they want to live on their life. The Capitalist seem want to gain profit by increase the amount of product but pay the worker with low wage. At the end of the video of Modern Times, it showed that as the capitalist want to increase the production, they try to maximize the work and makes everything seems so fast. At this point it is like quantity much more fundamental than quality because the worker have to move fast as the line keep on moving, non-stop. They might make mistake and work under pressure as the works become a burden for them. Plus, the video also showed that the manager keep an eye of the worker in everything that they do even in the restroom to ensure that the worker keep doing their work. For me this is something that violates their privacy. The worker also a human, they need time to have a break. They aren't a robot that could do work non-stop. At this edge point, it seems that economic democracy (ED) might be another alternative instead of capitalism as the ED divides the profit among the community compare to the capitalism that give the extra profit to the shareholders and the owner while the worker still get the same paid. Capitalism is uncontrollable and it is hard for us to stop it as M-C-M' chain keep growing.

Modern Times Review

written by Aizat. (Work)

I was really excited as I watched over the first two scenes of Modern Times video that featuring Charlie Chaplin as the main character. In fact, I even laughed pretty hard at the time I watched that movie not just because it was funny, but how it amazed me with so much connections with all the readings that we have done so far.
In this video, it portrays clearly with somewhat in Braverman reading when he says about the existence of division of labor derived from the earliest innovative principle of the capitalist mode of production. When we talk about the division of labor, we know that it is separated to two different matters which is the social division of labor in general and the social division of labor in detail. Again, in this video, the social division of labor in detail plays its main function in dividing up industrial workers such as Chaplin to do a specific task on his entire day apart from the overall production process. Well, I'm not saying that this is a bad thing to do because as we can see the result of the introduction of the social division of labor in detail in the industrial process helps a lot in increasing the means of production and the productivity produced by the workers. Nevertheless, I cannot agree to all benefits bring by this system up to the extent when it eventually altering jobs so that work becomes less important or less complicated and thus can be easily handled out by deskilled workers. Yes, these conditions do increase the job opportunities especially for many unskilled workers out there, however, in reality, things that they do not truly realize are that their chance or right to voice up their concerns regarding works that they do become zero. Subsequently, these workers have no other choice but have to accept the fact that they being paid by relatively low wages and if not they can be easily terminated or replaced with someone else who desperately need a job. Braverman wrote, "the subdivision of the individual, when carried on without regard to human capabilities and needs, is a crime against the person and against humanity". I agree to that the most without any further explanations but just based on the above example.
Also what saddens me when I get to watch this video are about the way capitalist economy forces people to use their labor energy up the maximum level just simply because it wants to gain a full profit out of each worker and consequently neglect the necessity of maintaining the employees welfare. Such example, we saw on the second part of this movie when Chaplin suddenly and unexpectedly acting very awkwardly as the result of the high tension swirled in his head or to be more exactly, in the workplace itself. Why is this happening to him? Answers to that, the social division of labor which was being practically applied by the based capitalist owner of that factory caused him to work harder and harder and, continuously employees monitoring by the employer caused the workers to work in great pressure.

Computers and Self-Service

Chris Johnson
One of the main ideas Greenbaum talks about in relation to technology in the work place is that it is not the technology alone that causes changes in work, but the technology plus management objectives. These “objectives” are to lower costs for the company and ultimately maximization of profits at all costs. As a result, technology is re-engineering jobs so that work becomes deskilled and divided up. This is exactly the case in the three NPR topics. The first involves the airline industry using an innovative way of taking tickets; getting rid of ticket counters and replacing them with kiosks. This move eliminates the use of employees to manual lift and check baggage and is said to “eliminate injuries,” but what about the jobs of these people? This new technology makes their labor less needed, and will probably lead to layoffs. Also since their jobs have become less skilled their wages could fall because they are now easily replaced. The 2nd issue involves using cellular phones to check in boarding passes. This also raises many of the same problems as the kiosk. If more and more people are using this new check in form this means that less and less workers are needed; work has been deskilled, divided, and replaced with a computer program. The 3rd and final issue deals with Papa Johns and other pizza companies turning to new ways of ordering pizza via internet or text message. To me this doesn’t have the potential to be nearly as great a problem as the others, because even if pizza’s are ordered via some new technology workers are still going to have to make them. However, with these new methods on the rise the need for large stores with many employees will fall. Many will look at these things and probably just say something like “that’s just being efficient” or “if it’s cheaper and faster why not go for it?” For me this is the real issue, because new technology does make things cheaper and more efficient, but are we willing to sacrifice millions of job for a couple dollars on production and labor costs?