Roger Alcaly (who used to be a leftist, I believe) has an article in the most recent NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS on the new wave in corporate organization. Though it's got some interesting facts, it's pretty poor. He's praising the phenomenon of (some) corporations giving more power or privileges to their employees: his favorite case is United Airlines, which is actually (part) owned by some of its employees. (He never mentions that the flight attendants are not part of the deal, or were last time I heard.) Other examples, which are very different from the UAL case, seem like simply piece-rates merged with (some) job security, i.e., simply a management schme. He ends by criticizing Clinton for vetoing a bill that (it seems) would have opened the door for new forms of company unions. A few more comments: the current era in the US seems quite similar to the 1920s. As Sandy Jacoby documented in his "Employing Bureaucracy: Managers, Unions, and the Transformation of Work in American Industry, 1900-1945," the phenomenon of large companies establishing paternalistic "welfare capitalism" (a decentralized and corporation-based "welfare state") was the exception rather than the rule in the 1920s. In general, the state of management/worker relations became worse for workers. Similarly, Alcaly admits that the new "welfare capitalism" is seen only in a small minority of corporations. Downsizing, stretch-out, out-sourcing, and speed-up seem to be the rule, now as in the 1920s. However, pundits (then and now) love to emphasize the minority of cases that make capitalism look good. Alcaly sees the downsizing (etc.) as contrary to corporate self-interest. In fact, it's against _everybody's_ self-interest. If we could just get away from our old habits of thinking and get together, everything would be hunky-dory. Here's an example of utopianism, Louis! I think of the cases that Alcaly describes as simply a new version of the primary labor market: some workers are under what Andrew Friedman called the "responsible autonomy" system of management and are paid relatively well (the primary jobs), while the others work because they're afraid of unemployment and they're under intense supervision (the secondary jobs). These two segments are symbiotic and cannot be separated, so that it's impossible for all workers to become primary-sector workers. This because part of the reason why primary labor market relations "work" (in terms of productivity and profitability) is because people are glad not to be in the secondary jobs. Also, the secondary sector provides cheap inputs that allow the primary-sector employers to pay higher wages. Also, there's no guarantee that capitalists won't find ways to replace the high-paid primary workers with low-paid workers elsewhere in the world; in fact, that's the general direction of the system. The problem underlying all of this is that work relations under capitalism are inherently conflictual. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ. 7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA 310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950 "It takes a busload of faith to get by." -- Lou Reed.
