Pen-ners: Please send comment, critique on the following. Sally Lerner
A CONSULTATION WORKSHOP ON
The Implications of Changes in the Nature of Work
for Approaches to
Education and Income Distribution in Canada
October 29-30, 1993
Kitchener, Ontario
SUMMARY REPORT
Sponsored by
University of Waterloo:
Centre for Society, Technology and Values
Faculty of Engineering
Faculty of Environmental Studies
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
Communications Canada
THE IMPLICATIONS OF CHANGES IN THE NATURE OF WORK
FOR APPROACHES TO
EDUCATION AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN CANADA
Sally Lerner
University of Waterloo
Introduction
Basic changes are occuring in the nature of work, in North America as well
as in the European Community. Information technology has hastened the
advent of the global economic village. Jobs that Canadians once held are
now done by smart machines and/or in other countries. Contemporary rhetoric
proclaims the need for escalating competition, 'leaner and meaner' ways of
doing business, a totally 'flexible workforce. What a large permanent
reduction in the number of secure adequately-waged jobs might mean for
communities, families and the individual Canadian is not being discussed.
This Workshop brought together a group of people from a variety of
backgrounds to discuss what changes in the workplace, in educational
institutions, and in income distribution mechanisms will be required in
Canada as a result of these new realities. Workshop participants developed
a research and action agenda to address these challenges. They also agreed
to serve as an on-going network to conduct needed research, promote
informed public discussion of the issues, and bring other interested people
into these activities. (A list of Workshop participants is attached.)
The Workshop secured sponsorship at the University of Waterloo from the
UW/Social Sciences and Humanities Grant Fund, the Centre for Society,
Technology and Values, and the Faculties of Engineering and Environmental
Studies. Communications Canada also provided support. This report on the
Workshop and on subsequent network activities will be circulated to
participants, sponsors and other interested parties.
Background
Rapid technological change and the globalization of economic activity (The
Economist, 1993) are re-structuring the North American economy, and with it
the nature and future of work. In North America, permanent loss of an
estimated hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs has occured during
the past decade (Ide & Cordell, 1992). With much of the service sector now
in the process of being automated and computerized, there is a clear
question as to whether secure, full-time, adequately-waged employment will
be available to the Canadian workforce, at least over the next 20-50 years,
or whether "jobless growth" will become the norm (Province of Ontario,
1989). The latter conclusion is steadily gaining credence (Globe and Mail,
1993).
This conclusion, and the statistical trends that engender it, are part of
the public record (Economic Council of Canada, 1990). The implications of
this problem/opportunity situation must now be addressed for two
fundamental societal tasks: [1] the distribution of income (i.e. of the
'social product'), traditionally tied to work for wages with which to
purchase goods and services, and [2] education, where objectives and
methods have traditionally been geared to creating 'employees' of varying
levels of ability. In Britain, where structural unemployment has been seen
as a problem for more than a decade, analysts such as James Robertson
(1985; 1989) early on began a serious dialogue about what social changes
are needed to meet this challenge.
Responses to Changes in the Nature of Work:
Rethinking Income Distribution
If there are going to be fewer secure, full-time, adequately-waged jobs in
the future, justice dictates that we cannot continue to penalize and
stigmatize people who cannot find such positions. Alternative,
socially-acceptable mechanisms for distributing income must be studied and
adopted. The positive aspect of this situation is that many jobs are so
dirty, dangerous or monotonous that their elimination or automation can be
welcomed. However, society's current responses to these structural changes,
as well as to cyclical unemployment, are not notably effective.
[a] One response is the family with two wage-earners, neither of whom alone
could provide an adequate income but between them sometimes can, even
working at low-paying, part-time, intermittent jobs. The child-care and
youth-supervision needs created by this response have not begun to be
adequately addressed by decision-makers.
[b] Another traditional response is retraining for school dropouts and
people made redundant by layoffs and closings. The contemporary puzzle is
'retraining for what?' While basic educational upgrading for an unemployed
person is increasingly recognized as the best investment in a world of
rapidly-changing skill needs, the problem of fewer available jobs,
especially for those with only a high school education, still remains.
[c] Job sharing, another approach, spreads the work but not the wage.
[d] Mounting large public or private sector projects that create (usually
temporary) employment is a constant temptation. While some projects address
real societal needs, others are promoted at least partly for their
job-creating function (e.g. a pipeline to bring Lake Huron water to
southern Ontario; six-lane highways between Toronto and Cambridge;
soft-coal mining in Cape Breton) and can involve negative environmental
impacts.
[e] In Canada, we are accustomed to dealing with cyclical recessions and
regional economic problems by supplementing earned income with various
types of government transfer payments. Where employment and wage levels
have historically been high, as in Ontario, economic self-support is almost
universally perceived as the norm and recourse to any but universal
transfer payments is seen as deviant and the mark of failure. In areas
such as the Maritimes, where limited employment opportunities have been the
norm, government transfer payments are, relectantly, more accepted as a
necessity. In all cases, the damage to individual mental health and to
family functioning caused by unemployment is well-documented (Kates, 1990;
Fineman, 1987).
None of these responses can be considered adequate to deal with the
problems associated with very long-term structural unemployment (Ekins,
1986; Lerner, 1990) . Yet Canadian society must develop ways to deal with
it in order to reduce its human costs, avoid its probable unpleasant
socio-political consequences, and provide a new framework for all Canadians
to contribute positively to societal well-being.
It is now imperative to identify alternative approaches to distributing
goods and services, and to study both the conditions for their
implementation and their probable impacts with respect to the goal of
societal sustainability. This was one focus of the Consultation Workshop.
Responses to Changes in the Nature of Work:
Rethinking Education
If obtaining secure, full-time, adequately-waged employment cannot, and
perhaps need not, be offered as the primary goal of everyone coming of age
in Canada, then the objectives, methods and very structure of formal
education need re-examination. This is, in any case, a time of questioning
the philosophy, delivery and effectiveness of education in Canada,
questioning driven by heightened parental concern about their children's
occupational futures in a competitive global economy with few buffers.
Without attempting to detail the voluminous literature on alternate
approaches to education, it can be said that few proposals have
conceptualized education as anything except a process with the nearly sole
objective of producing young adults whose major role in life is that of
'employee'. Most critics of our current educational system simply want
that objective achieved more efficiently and effectively.
It is now important to examine new directions for education in the context
of structural changes in the nature of work in North America. The second
focus of the Workshop was to discuss the issues inherent in designing a
new educational system that could provide not only the basic foundational
skills on which all learning depends, but also the broader range of skills,
interests and concerns that would enable people to play a richer variety of
roles in a society that has less need of 'employees'.
The Workshop
I. Identification of Issues to Be Addressed
Re-Framing the Issues, Building Consensus
At the outset of the Workshop, the urgent need for social innovation was
discussed in terms of breaking out of old forms, 'unfreezing' our
institutions so we can respond to change, re-defining ourselves and
deciding what is meant by 'quality of life'. Participants agreed that
issues related to basic changes in the nature of work must be accurately
stated (for example, the possibility that there will not be enough
full-time adequately-waged 'jobs' for all who want them) and a wide public
dialogue on these issues created.
The need is seen to establish the legitimacy of alternative views of the
problems and solutions, as against both the views of neo-classical
economists who believe the market will soon return the economy to
equilibrium and the 'collective denial' of those politicians who have no
solutions and therefore distance themselves from the issues. The emerging
problems must be addressed effectively by reapportioning resources and
re-designing institutions that no longer meet our needs, so that social
consensus rather than polarization can be created as people face what is
seen as threatening change. A new consensus could lead to new, hopeful
questions such as how to harvest the fruits of automation and distribute
them, and thus, of necessity, to new public policy. A major and urgent
challenge was seen to be that of how to prevent the destruction that ensues
when change evokes defensive tribal responses.
Equity issues were the focus of much of the initial discussion; there has
been increasingly too strong a trend to trade off equity for economic
interests. How to bring about a fairer distribution/redistribution of paid
and unpaid work, income, wealth, and power--and how to generate the
resources\to do this--were seen as the most fundamental set of questions
underlying the issues addressed by the Workshop.
Work: Paid, Unpaid and 'Own'
The question of how properly to value the unpaid work in society--child
rearing and elder care, housework, home repairs, community service,
volunteer activities of all sorts--was seen as particularly important. The
existence of less paid employment could at some point lead to paid
employment being shared more equally, leaving many individuals with less
income, but more time to engage in activities that are currently not paid
for. Options were discussed, including some form of job sharing coupled
with a basic income for all and with the proviso that individuals
contribute, or continue to contribute, certain amounts of their time to
socially-valued but currently unpaid activities.
All options for addressing the current and oncoming basic changes in the
nature of work will require explicit discussion of: what kinds work are
necessary for a society to survive and thrive, how that work should be
apportioned, what value should be placed on each kind, and what rewards
should be provided for each. The concern for equity in this context was
variously expressed: the gap between the highest and lowest wages in
society must be narrowed, workplace organization must become more
'horizontal' and less hierarchical, and people and communities must have
more choices about, and control over, their destinies.
The Need to Share Responsibilities
Externalizing the personal and social costs of restructuring the private
sector (mental illness, substance abuse, family breakdown, for example) was
seen to be as unacceptable as externalizing the environmental costs of
industrial activity (pollution, loss of habitat, human health effects). If
there are not adequately-paid 'jobs' for everyone, due to increased
productivity or exporting work out of the country, then all of us, but
especially those who reap the rewards of economic restructuring, have a
responsibility to provide resources to prevent the well-documented negative
effects on individuals of being 'unemployed' and stigmatized, and the
community consequences of all this.
It was noted that our society has been premised on a social compact with
each generation that by meeting all the educational requirements and
playing by the rules, each person will have the opportunity to find work
that will pay enough to provide for personal security and the formation of
a family. When society cannot honour this compact, then it has a
responsibility to acknowledge the new realities and re-design work, income
distribution and education so that all members maintain a strong sense of
being productive and valued, of 'belonging' in the community. Ensuring that
people have the time, skills and resources to do their 'own work' in arts,
crafts, music, parenting and other activities that they find
self-fulfilling was emphasized as an important way to maintain human
dignity, mental health and community vitality.
Participants agreed that any institutional re-design will have to take into
account the demographics of an aging population, as well as the fact that
there will continue to be people in society who cannot participate in paid
work and who will always need help.
Striking a Balance
New ways of working and living must be designed to create or restore
'balance' at individual, community and societal levels. For example, while
many people in North America must (or feel they must) maintain so heavy a
work schedule that they have little time for family and leisure activities,
some now say they would prefer more leisure and work flexibility to more
money (Schor, 1992). However, this trend would not be found among the
increasing number of people who work long hours at low pay with little
security and almost no options. Thus, while job-sharing in its various
versions (including a shorter work week) was seen as a viable option for
bringing better balance to some individual lives as well as to the
distribution of paid work, it was not endorsed as a panacea. The need for
more research on its effects was later noted.
'Quality over quantity' was suggested as a future direction for Canadian
society. Participants discussed the need to move away from consumerism and
materialism, and suggested that the mass media, especially television,
promote and reinforce people's perceptions of material possessions as the
major source of a sense of self- worth. In the context of the probable
need to 'prepare for diminished (material) expectations', might people be
encouraged to develop a more balanced, less materialistic sense of what
makes for a good life, and to see reinvigoration of the 'civic common' of
publicly shared goods as a worthwhile goal? How socal solidarity can be
created in large urban areas was seen as an especially vexing problem.
Discussing the need for a balance between technological change and social
stability, participants questioned whether it would be possible to control
the pace or nature of technological innovation. In this context, as well as
others, it was noted that the nation-state currently has little power to
control the activities of some trans-national corporations. Discussion of
whether and how this imbalance might be corrected led to the research
suggestions noted below.
II. A Research Agenda
Following this general discussion of issues and questions raised by the
fundamental changes taking place in the nature of work, participants
identified research initiatives that would help to answer the basic
questions about those issues over which Canadians can have some control or
influence. They flagged the following research needs:
1. Determine what data we now have, and what additional research is
needed, on changes in the nature of work. For example:
onumbers and types of jobs lost and created, past and projected
oskills polarization, the fate of the minimally-skilled and unskilled
opart-time and contingency aspects of the organization of work
oshorter work life (early retirement)
ochanges in opportunities for women, men, youth, age groups
olater and less assured workforce entry for post-secondary
graduates as well as less-educated youth
othe alleged 'mismatch' between available skills and available jobs
Determine how needed data can be obtained. (Some participants cautioned
that devoting significant energy and resources to marshalling 'proof' that
there are problems could stall indefinitely any efforts to prepare for,
remedy and prevent them.)
2. Review European Community programs and experiments involving income
allocation programs and reduced working time.
3. Review the research on the outcomes of job training and re-training
programs to determine what we know about them (for example, the extent to
which there are more jobs and job placements a result of these programs;
who gets placed, for how long, in what types of jobs; basic educational
upgrading compared with skills-based programs) and what more we need to
know in order to assess how well they address present and future problems.
4. Examine existing and needed research on outcomes of 'active' and
'passive' welfare programs.
5. Determine what data we now have, and what additional research is
needed, on the social-psychological and economic effects of the changes in
the nature of work on individuals, families and communities.
6. Develop a long-term research program on the generational impacts of
labour market strategies (for example, effects on children of different
types of training for their parents, versus no training).
7. Review the research on the stress and health effects of an
individual's lack of control over job security, work decisions and work
organization.
8. Examine options to reduce polarization between the overworked and
the underemployed.
9. Create a "human well-being index" to compare with per capita income
indicators. Does well-being continue to rise indefinitely with income?
10. Examine all possible sources of revenue for programs of wealth
and/or income redistribution, including ways to close tax loopholes,
restrain the mobility of capital and capture a greater share of the fruits
of technological change. Research is needed to answer this question: if the
new technologies generated wealth, where did it go?
11. Review attempts elsewhere to tax the beneficiaries of
job-displacing technologies, movement of jobs out of the country, and
changes in work organization such as 'downsizing' and 'streamlining'.
12. Design research to develop a better understanding of the present
attitudes and arguments concerning the social responsibilities of
trans-national corporations.
13. Examine the decision-making processes of trans-national corporations.
14. Compare corporate codes of conduct and corporations' actual
implementation records in order to identify areas in which it can be argued
that legislation may be needed?
15. Explore ways to bring the arts into education and into the
community to help people live their leisure well.
16. Examine the education of technical experts and their role in
creating humane (or inhumane) work places.
17. Determine what the employment effects would be of moving to become
a more ecologically sustainable society.
III. Public Agenda Activities
The final topic addressed on the first day of the Workshop was the need for
participants to develop an agenda of activities to bring these issues into
the wider public discourse. The questions, concerns and ideas raised were:
1. The group of participants at this Workshop will function as a
network to develop ongoing research and action projects that address the
issues we have identified. Our basic message is that there must be frank
and informed discussion of the changes taking place in the nature of work,
of their effects, and of what options we have to deal with them. This
message must be loud and clear before we can influence the public and
politicians.
2. There is a need and opportunity to develop academic back-up
(research, briefing papers, etc.) for the activists and advocates on the
'jobs and incomes' issues.
3. There is a need to build coalitions--among people inside
government, people who shape public opinion, and beyond the elite to
labour, womens', environmental and other groups--to create critical
responses to regressive actions. But we must be mindful of group process
fatigue, and be ready to accept genuine shared development of agendas.
4. If we want to work with the media, we need to understand the
different roles played by the print media and TV, and the relationships
among them. We must work closely with professionals in the media in order
to help them help us.
5. We need to understand the dynamics of what various groups of people
are willing to put up with, in the context of what 'triggers' different
groups to adopt change or become politically active. This might be a topic
for research.
6. People are fearful of change because of the experiences of so many
who have lost their jobs. We must be very specific and focused on what
changes are being promoted, and how.
7. Environmentalism provides a fresh and necessary perspective for
re-framing the social issues, and should be used to do it. The message
should go out that 'job creation' that harms the environment is not
desirable or sustainable.
8. Educational institutions will need to shake off certain inertias,
such as the fixation on specialization, in order nurture the visionary
leadership and associated skills needed to deal with such fundamental
change. We need to determine how to bring this change about.
IV. Taking Up the Tasks
On the final day of the Workshop, after some review of the research and
action agendas we had created--and agreement that we should constitute
ourselves as a network to address these agendas--the first working groups
were created, with commitments to cooperate in getting specific research
and action activities under way:
1. Material in the public domain on income distribution issues such
as job-sharing and redirecting wealth will be collated with the purpose of
circulating it to interested participants. The aim is to create an overview
of what is known so that we can identify what additional research is needed
to meet our research objectives.
2. Providing for public education about the issues is important.
oDiscussion of the use of videos by an Ontario (Premier's Councils)
policy forum, to be initiated soon, stimulated the suggestion that this
network should investigate creating a video, similar in tone and quality
to Helen Caldicott's If You Love This Earth (possible title: If You Love
These People ) and to BBC's Now the Chips Are Down. This video could be
distributed widely to community, church and union groups as well as
secondary schools and post-secondary institutions to stimulate discussion
of the issues raised by the changing nature of work, and to provide the
vision and symbolism required to instigate change. A task group will
develop this idea by obtaining information on costs (possibly as high as
$250,000), sources of funding, writers, producers and other necessities. It
was noted that the task group should have a look at Laura Scott's recent
video on Total Quality Management, since it deals with many of the changes
in the nature of work that concern us.
oA course on 'work and society' issues, suitable for university and
college students, as well as for the general public, will be developed at
the University of Waterloo's Centre for Society, Technology and Values with
input from members of the network.
3. We should seek out effective models for our network.
The Sparrow Lake Alliance was suggested as a possible model for our
network . It has been concerned with children's issues for two or three
years and includes 16 professional groups and six Ministries. It
anticipates issues, waits for them to arise, then pushes information out
for public discussion.
Another model is the National Forum on Family Security. The Laidlaw
Foundation has commissioned a book (just released - November 17/93), which
raises and discusses what are seen to be the major issues around family
security . The group, including Fraser Mustard and Judith Maxwell, will
organize regional symposia on the issues identified in the book. These
issues focus on obligations, values, ethics and social welfare reform in a
"two-generational" context. Op-ed pieces are being prepared to accompany
this effort, which has links to A. Etzioni's "communitarian" group in the
U.S.
4. Information on the lack of a tax on wealth in Canada and related
topics can be obtained by requesting a copy of the Fair Tax Commission's
Final Report, which will be published by Christmas 1993. Write to :
Fair Tax Commission,
1075 Bay Street, 6th Floor,
Toronto, ON M5S 2B1
or FAX request to (416) 325-8235.
Ask also to be on their mailing list. A reporter, John Ferguson, is
believed to be preparing an investigative report on the non-tax-paying
wealthy; he will be contacted.
5. Initial task groups were formed to study a variety of broadly
economic questions, with the proviso that other people be recruited from
within and outside the group, as needed. The topics and task groups are:
oapproaches to regulation of corporations, especially with respect
to flight of capital, laying off workers, recapturing productivity gains.
NB - a United Church task force, Churches and Corporate Responsibility, is
looking at this in the context of pension funds and the role of their
managers in influencing investment decisions;
oways to generate "domestic" capital at various levels --local,
regional, provincial, national -- but especially at the local level.
othe nature of economic globalization, including its effects on the
sovereignty of the nation-state, the impacts of currency trading on price
setting, the effects of harmonization, the possibly decreasing pace of
globalization.
oimpacts on communities, families and individuals of loss of a
community's economic base and of downward mobility, lowered expectations,
etc. NB - Newfoundland is being studied as a "living laboratory" for
examining these questions;
6. Alternate approaches to income distribution are to be examined by
documenting as many experiments as possible (e.g. single mothers' projects
proposed in British Columbia, New Brunswick; the Manpower Demonstration
Project in the U.S.) and by critiquing any moves in Canada to "reform" UI
into ineffectiveness. The Caledon Institute should be contacted for input
on this topic. Another contact is the Centre for International Statistics
(David Ross, Director) begun 18 months ago with Laidlaw Foundation seed
money. This Centre has a Stats Can and European data base and will be
doing a 5-year study of changes to work as well as the interface between
the income security system and labour markets
With regard to income distribution, it was noted that the
federal-provincial transfer agreement is coming up for review early in
1994.
V. Some Concluding Thoughts
Regarding our research initiatives, there is a danger of policy decisions
being made fairly quickly by the new Federal government, before research
results are in. As well, governments tend to look at each element of social
policy in isolation, rather than link social policy with labour market
policy. We should move in a timely way to initiate and complete our
activities. It would be useful to have a diagram or other visual
representation of the complete set of issues and how these are linked.
This is in preparation .
A possible next involvement for some members of this network is a proposed
workshop on methods and issues--including employment-- involved in planning
the transition from an economy based on "dirty" industries to one based on
environmentally sustainable activities. A proposal for such a workshop,
directed to the International Joint Commission, is in preparation and we
will have more details soon which will reach you by e-mail or fax where
that is possible, or by mail otherwise.
Selected References
Economic Council of Canada (1990). Good Jobs, Bad Jobs - Employment in the
Service Economy. Canadian Government Publishing Centre, Ottawa, Canada.
The Economist (1993) A Survey of Asia. October 30-November 5:1-22,
following 62.
Ekins, P. (1986) The Living Economy. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul
Fineman, S. (ed.) (1987) Unemployment: Personal and Social Consequences.
London: Tavistock Publication
Globe and Mail (1993) Series on "The Jobless Recovery", Report on
Business, Jan. 11-16
Ide, T.R. and A. Cordell (1992) The New Tools: Implications for the Future
of Work. Paper presented at an international meeting organized by Fundacion
Sistema, Seville, Spain, September 17-19, 1992
Kates, N. (1990) The Psychosocial Impact of Job Loss. Washington, D.C.:
American Psychiatric Press
Lerner, S.C. (1990) "A Critical Examination of Policy Proposals for Dealing
with the Effects of New Technologies on the Nature and Distribution of
Work" in S. Bennett (ed.) Technology and Work in Canada. Lewiston, N.Y.:
Edwin Mellon Press.
National Forum on Family Security (1993) Family Security in Insecure Times.
Ottawa: Canadian Council on Social Development
Province of Ontario (1989) People and Skills in the New Global Economy.
Toronto: Queen's Printer for Ontario
Robertson, J. (1985) Future Work. Hants, England: Gower Publishing Company Ltd.
Robertson, J. (1989, 1990) Future Wealth. London: Mansell Publishing
Schor, J. (1992) The Overworked American. New York: Basic Books
