The World of Work in Canada

1. The World of Work in Canada

2. ISSUES Tonight • TRENDS IN WORKFORCE • WOMEN AND WORK • CONSUMERISM • INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

3. PERSPECTIVES ON WORK • STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONAL-consensus, cooperation, function • Conflict-power, domination • Symbolic Interaction-status dynamics • Feminist-patriarchy • Post Modern-fragmentation

4. Work and Identity • Work and Identity. • Work defines: opportunities, incomes and lifestyles.  • Work believe it or not, still occupies half of ourwaking hours.. • In a lifetime, one spends one year having sex, one year on the toilet…30 years working.

5. Work in Canada • THREE PHASES: See Daniel Bell (1993) • EARLY INDUSTRIALISM • FACTORY INDUSTRIALISM • POST INDUSTRIALISM

6. A HISTORY OF WORK IN CANADA I • The first Industrial Revolution began in Britain in late 18thc. • Turned peasants (serfs)into wage-earning factory workers (proletariats)..see K. Marx.

7. MID 20TH Century • ASSEMBLY LINES • FACTORIES • SYSTEMATIC PRODUCTION • UNIONISM (8hr day, worker rights protected)

8. MANAGERIAL STRATEGIES FOR ORGANIZING WORK I • Taylorism, or scientific management, involved identifying the components of jobs and giving management almost complete control over how they were carried out. • The human relations school of management developed out of studies showing that friendly supervision and attention to the social environment increase workers’ co-operation and productivity.

9. TECHNOLOGY AND THE SERVICE INDUSTRY I In today’s service economy: • Information technology is used to reorganize work and improve a firm’s productivity and efficiency. • Telecommunication enables the globalization of work. • Management often uses computers to help control the work process and employees.

10. TECHNOLOGY AND THE SERVICE INDUSTRY II Whether technology positively or negatively affects work depends on: • outcomes desired by management; • the type of technology a company can afford; and • whether workers are given a say in its implementation.

11. UNIONS II • Public sector and other service workers have the most potential for increased unionization. • The rise of non-standard work and the ease with which companies can move their businesses to other countries raise serious challenges to unions. • The union response to this challenge will decide whether they grow or decline.

12. Trends in the Workforce: • INFORMAL Work • UNDEREMPLOYMENT • TWO TIERED ECONOMY • LESS STANDARDIZED WORK • DE-INDUSTRIALIZATION

13. ISSUE 2:Women and Work • From the expressive homemaker to double day of labour. (I.e. Meg • See Luxton’s, More than a Labour of Love (1980)

14. Current data:Canada • Women in 2005 earned just 70½ cents • Compare this to the 72 cents women in the 1990s

15. WAGE GAP EXPLANATION • FIVE KEY: • Patriarchy, • Status Dynamics, • Power at work, • Interaction, • Glass ceiling, objectification..

16. DO MEN AND WOMEN MANAGE DIFFERENTLY? • Some research shows that women managers are more interactive and people-oriented. • Other research finds that management strategies depend more on organizational context (e.g., position in the organizational hierarchy) than on gender. • There is growing consensus that no real differences exist between men’s and women’s managing styles.

17. Nancy Bonvillian- • Women and Men: Cultural Constructs of Gender (3rd ed). • THESIS:Women and Work-modernization increases women’s oppression

18. Bonvillian on Social Development • Hunter and Gathering • Horticulture – • Agriculture – • Industrialism and capitalism-

19. From Agriculture to Manufacturing • In the early 1900’s most jobs were in manufacturing and agriculture, • Women worked side by side with men • More equality according to Bonovillian

20. However, by the 20th century.. • Women’s work increasingly became secondary supplement to man’s income. • WOMEN WORK…was associated with the invisible labour in the home..

21. Important material change: The Type writer • INCREASED WOMAN’s OPPRESSION • W. F. Ogburn, Social Change (1933) • -Material culture affects non- material culture.

22. 20th century stages in women’s work • 1900-1914-Cult of Domesticity • World War One Rosie the Riveter • World War Two. Rosie the Riveter • 1946-Late 1950’s -Domesticity returns

23.    1950’s Women work - • BECOMES LESS VALUED, MORE INVISIBLE…but MORE CRUCIAL.. • Post World War Two and particularly following economic booms and busts

24.   Since 1960s : • More women in the labour force • Pill and the sexual revolution • Second Wave feminism • Third wave feminism

25. Now Dual Income Families Vital • As fertility declines following the introduction of the pill in 1963, we see a corresponding rise in female labour force participation

26. ISSUE THREE CONSUMERISM and Capitalism

27. Consumerism • A term used to describe the effects of equating personal happiness with purchasing material possessions and consumption.

28. Commodity Fetishism • It is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Karl Marx and Thorstein Veblen • Karl Marx calls capitalistic consumption-Commodity Fetishism

29. Veblen.Commodities as Veblen goods • Consumerismcan also refer to economic policies that place an emphasis on consumption. • The value of a commodity increases with its price…see `COOL THREADS’ VIDEO

30. Consumer Sovereignty? • …should dictate the economic structure of a society (cf. Producerism, especially in the British sense of the term).

31. Theory of consumer choice • In a liberal, democratic society, which is the institutional framework ofa marketor "capitalist" economic system, • This translates into an ideology of CONSUMER SOVEREIGNTY.

32. Consumerism, Conflict theory and Hegemony • Consumerism- is part of the general process of social control and hegemony • Consumerism is part of bourgeois `false consciousness’

33. ECHO CONSUMERS • Canadians under the age of twenty—the "Echo Generation," as they're often called—make up a quarter (26 per cent) of the country's population.

34. ECHO GENERATION-Y • Once an ignored demographic for advertisers, • ECHO GENERATION- • Now the most marketed-to generation in history

35. MENTAL LIFE • Constant bombardment of marketing messages that have become a ubiquitous force in MENTAL LIFE • SEE WOODSTOCK 1 vs. 2

36. Consumer culture • There has been a rise in consumer culture affecting all including children. • THIS IS: The Branding of Culture

37. The Averages: Two year old child can name products I. ByFour years, they can evaluate a product II. By Six years old they can distinguish products by brand.

38. Brands as Symbols Expensive brands better, • III. By age eleven has a child started to perceivedeceptive advertising, • IV. By Sixteen years can/or not make a reliable judgment about qualities of product and truthfulness of sales pitches.

39. Consumerism=More Work • Studies show that in 1992, UK labour force survey • 60% working-people spend more andmore of their lives at work…

40. ISSUE FOUR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT)

41. Question –conflict theory vs. functionalism • Does information technology increase or decrease social stratification?

42. The Digital Divide • The phrase "digital divide" has emerged as a public policy issue in Canada.

43. DIGITAL DIVIDE • There is an increasing for need knowledge • However, access to information available is contentious • Those who can afford computers and time to understand how to extract information is reduced under neo-liberal economics

44. Who has the Technology? • Statistics Canada reported that in 1998, about 36 per cent of Canadian households were connected (Dickinson and Ellison, 1999). • Private sector surveys put this figure over 50 per cent in 1999.

45. LABOUR MARKETS II • Labour market segmentation theorists argue that where you enter the labour market may limit your chances of getting a better job. • Good jobs are found mainly in core-area industries. Firms tend to be capital-intensive, large, and highly unionized. • Bad jobs are found mainly in peripheral areas. Firms tend to be small, labour-intensive, and non-unionized.

46. McCauley • See…Theoretical Foundation for Work and Professions in Jacobs and Bosonac eds., The Professionalization of Work

47. Professionalism • CREDENTIALS • POWER(control of information? • SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

48. PROFESSIONS • Professions are occupations in which people: • control bodies of abstract knowledge; • enjoy considerable autonomy at work; • exercise authority over subordinates • supposedly focus on helping clients. • Professions act as labour market shelters that protect members’ access to good jobs. • Semi-professionals such as nurses and teachers exercise less control and autonomy than professionals. and clients; and

49. JOB GHETTOS • Job ghettos are created when discrimination by employers traps some women, people with disabilities, members of visible minority groups, and young and old workers in bad jobs. • Discrimination makes it relatively hard for these groups to enter the primary labour market, which offers upward mobility and the best jobs.

50. Morgan, 1994. • By the late 1980s… • The social welfare consensus that marked the post-war period in North America was beginning to come apart • The end of Keynesian Economics… • "