Thursday 9 February 2017

Post No. 986 - A Few Quick Thoughts



When I started work four decades ago, workplace conditions had evolved as a result of union activity [link], and there was a clear knowledge of rights and expectations. Now, as a result of neoliberalism, work is basically insecure, with much having degraded to a bestial “dog eat dog” competitiveness – not just between companies, but between individuals for access to jobs that effectively mean survival in the modern world.
Now, there can be an advantage in greater flexibility, and that was one of the problems of the old award system, but we have – as with privatisation – thrown the baby out with the bathwater, and created a situation where the cure is worse than the (perceived?) disease.
Nowadays, job insecurity - and lower employment - gives employers enormous power to do almost (there are still some checks and balances here in Australia) anything they want, but workers are cutting down on their spending as a result, and the markets that employers want to capitalise on with what they view as “flexibility” are disappearing – as a direct result of their actions.
I’ve been thinking of writing an article on this, along the lines of a working title of “Competition: a case of too much testosterone?”, arguing that our predominantly patriarchal society has biased us into a fallacious view that competition is “the only” way to ensure efficient delivery of goods and services, whereas a more matriarchal approach, allowing for some cooperation and flexibility, would actually be better for society – not only in terms of efficiency, but also in terms of the nature of society, the effects life had on personalities, and the richness of non-work life (which is much, much, much more than solely families).
As an example of that, the effort required to win bids for work in the water industry is truly extraordinary – every privatised water authority has their own sets of forms, companies refer to have well established relationships with key people in water authorities (which, to some extent, is possibly because decision makers are not making decisions on the basis of the forms they have create, but on personal knowledge of individuals), and there can be frequent contact to clarify questions during the tendering process (which I consider an indictment on the quality of specifications/briefs being prepared by water Authorities these days, possibly as a result of less real life [aka “practical” experience [the day I get out of engineering, I’ll start writing some articles on these sort of issues for LinkedIn … ]). These costs become part of the overhead which is passed on to consumers in the next successful bid.
I had hoped that the use of panels might be a way of getting out of the extreme competition trap, but it doesn’t seem to be, and I’ve now realised that the failure is because work still gets concentrated into a few companies who sell their capabilities better than others – not that they necessarily actually HAVE better capabilities, but they certainly sell what they have better.
That leaves us with the excess of competition, and no consideration whatsoever of a more cooperative / collaborative approach aimed at the betterment of society. (As an example of one – unworkable, sadly – idea: maybe have all the technical experts in a pool, which is then allocated to the successful companies, who retain their admin and project management teams. That way, we get the best technical solution combined with the best management solution. The point is that there are a lot more talented people around on this issue than me: if they were to put some time and energy into better options than endless and extreme competition, I’m sure we could come up with something that combined the best of competition and collaboration – maybe not initially e.g., panels], but down the track … )
I doubt I’ll have the time and energy to write that article properly, so the preceding few paragraphs is it :)
One of the other outcomes of this addiction to excessive competition is the slow erosion of workplace rights and conditions – not as a result of some malicious, one-off act, but because of – basically – people’s fears around survival, in the modern sense.
The reason people (a) have smartphones for work, and (b) leave their phones on after hours, is – in a nutshell – because they FEAR not being more responsive to managers’ / clients’ demands / expectations / whims. In other words, they are competing with an image that someone else may be more addicted to work, which could cost them their job / a client’s project …
An excess of competition, starting with an imbued bias …
This erosion crops up in many other areas as well. One example is companies taking and keeping photos of workers homes when the workers want permission to work at home. Now, the Privacy Act is quite specific on this sort of thing: companies can only (in Australia) access your information if they have a valid need for it, and to the extent that is necessary. Thus, for instance, companies can ONLY access your ID documents if they have a valid need for that, and they can ONLY scan that when sighting the documents will not suffice [link]. (This is one of my major objections to signing up to facebook: it has NO right to some of the personal details it asks for.) In the case of companies wanting to be sure that a workers home situation is a safe and appropriate place to work, photos could be sighted, but there is NO need for those photos to be kept on file – and there are considerable risks in allowing such photos to be stored (I’m thinking of situations where real estate agents have put photos showing furniture of tenants up on websites [illegal, in Queensland – quite rightly], which has led to some women being tracked down by abusive partners and seriously assaulted), not to mention the inherent gross invasion of privacy - particularly of others who live in the house.
What is the solution? Well, perhaps the pendulum needs to swing back a bit, towards respect for workers’ inherent dignity as human beings – i.e., for workers’ rights … and maybe towards managers who are more competent at human interactions and issues.
Perhaps people also need to acknowledge their fear, and actively work to reduce their lifestyle vulnerabilities
One of the reasons I have been thinking of this is because I am reading “The Pope’s Last Crusade”, by Peter Eisner (pub. William Morrow, of HarperCollins, New York, 2013, ISBN 978-0-06-204915-5; bought on special at “The Book Grocer” in Traralgon during a lunch break on a recent work trip). This book is about the role that a US Jesuit, John LaFarge (Jr.), known then and later for his work against racism in the USA, had in the Catholic Church’s Pope Pius XI’s “Hidden/Lost Encyclical”, condemning antisemitism, racism and the persecution of Jews, which would have built on that Pope’s earlier statements against Nazism and Fascism (e.g., here) to provide a powerful voice against the barbarity and horror of the Holocaust – much as an earlier condemnation had led to a halt in the murder of disabled – and an inspiration to other nations to resist Germany. Instead, the Vatican was silent, and left open to – valid, in my view – criticism.
It’s a fascinating book, well written, and gives a good insight into what was happening inside key sections of the Catholic Church – including some concerning personality influences.
One of the other concerns that the book raises is the utter RUBBISH that the Catholic Church believes and propagates in relation to Paganism (which it, hypocritically, in my view, refers to as “Neo-Paganism”). Largely, this comes down to the denial of other Deities under a close-minded charge of idolatry – and, again, given the truly extraordinary extent of iconography in the neochristian tradition (beginning with crosses and the – offensive, to some – crucifixes), this is open to a charge of hypocrisy. I have come across this extraordinary hostility – all based on misperceptions and outright lies – in my involvement in the interfaith movement in Australia (less so, with the international interfaith movement), and it has left me wondering if it is worth trying to bash my head against the brick wall of neochristian bigotry.
What is NEEDED is for neochristians to extend the same respect and willingness to listen that they give other religions to Paganism, so that they can learn the TRUTH of what Paganism is about (see also here and here) - and some of that will continue to disturb the neochristians, as it inherently challenges anything that belittles the experience of living in the world, but some of it (particularly the social activism, and the environmental activism which is INHERENT to Paganism) would resonate with parts of the Christian world.
Finally, while I am on a cranky run, as a trans woman I object to some of the things the trans community appears to be supporting – things like unisex toilets, which I refuse to use on safety grounds, and the appalling trend towards gender neutrality, which is an active denial of the affirmation of myself as a woman that is so crucial to my wellbeing.
It is also a continuation of the stupid avoid pronouns and titles approach of the early (2nd wave – in the 60s and 70s) equal gender rights movement, which I personally consider has allowed sexism to simply hide, and stay present and very, very, very active over half a century later.

I apologise for publishing these posts twice, but Blogger keeps changing my formatting. I can either publish it and then correct it, or save and close the post and correct it when I reopen it, but that leaves an extra copy in my "drafts" folder ...

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Tags: competitiveness, economy, history, human rights, racism, society, sexism, work,  
First published: Thorsdagr, 9th February, 2017
Last edited (excluding fixing typo's, Blogger's change of my formatting and other minor matters): Thursday, 9th February, 2017