Uncovering labour in information revolutions, 2007 post

I enjoyed reading several articles in the Blok/Downey collection that had been assigned in the 2004 version of the class. They make a great deal more sense than in 2004. The Stalder book clarifies the framework of this research.

On Rosenhaft's article:

While reading it occurred to me that the English-born American and French revolutionary Thomas Paine began his career by obtaining a post as an exciseman after having carried on a trade for a few years. His political problems with England began with his fight to retain his excise post after being accused of corruption, much like Dies's problems with an apparent act of embezzlement. By the end of the 18th century there was a sizable cohort, if not a class, of clerical-type workers who were not making their fortunes in the society but had enough literary ability to find patrons, sell their pens, and stir up trouble (nb. famous Darnton book on literary underground of the Ancien Regime). As it turned out, they had subversive power way beyond their numbers and caused real headaches. So the Calenberg trustees' fear of Dies was probably not exaggerated.

The converse of this, as Rosenhaft puts it, that "control of their public utterance was part of the price they paid in turn for the prospect of promotion" certainly carries over to the clerical type of employment, including the computer industry, today. One question for any organization to address is whether the public loyalty requirement does not also limit internal debate and consequently stifle innovation?

The Bartleby effect experienced by Dies and his successors suggests how much planning needs to go into workload and staffing. The Calenberg insurance fund exaggerated the burdens on Dies because it was an inverted pyramid, all generals (the trustees) and one private.

On Postigo, Benner:

Little to add to the 2004 comments. We have to assume that the programmers and volunteers were not merely dupes of the industry but had bought so completely into the libertarian assumptions of the society that they were truly baffled at how they were treated when they entered the "work zone."

To compare programmers' associations to college professors' organizations, professional and/or union: the tipping points that cause workers who are in the professional class to seek unionization is the fear of various losses--either loss of potential income (years without significant salary increases, or salary compression, or failure to compete in salary with professors in other disciplines), loss of status (threats to private colleges from public universities, threats to public universities from public junior colleges, et al.), or loss of personal negotiating power (administrators who are indifferent, pursue personal agendas exclusively, or who are led from above).

A question for the class, and for any worker, is what constitutes a threat so grave, that it would lead you or any worker to actively seek to organize or to affiliate with a union, rather than to passively accept existing working conditions as the cost of being employed?

On Sampson and Wu:

I note that there is a direct tie-in to Schot's article on the Rotterdam docks industrial action of 1905-1907. The physical realities of an industry like shipping do not yield as rapidly to transformation as hoped.

On Downey:

A comment on p. 251 quote about unions degenerating into online value-added services for members:

In the NEA-affiliated faculty union I worked for, there was a debate about the excessive reliance of the activists on e-mail rather than face-to-face interaction with members. E-mail exaggerates the tendency of faculty to barricade themselves in their office fortresses. (Might there be a difference in the effectiveness of e-mail if the workforce is in a single, large room divided into cubicles as opposed to individual offices?)

To compound the tactical problem of all electronic communication and no grassroots effort, only gradually in the course of our contract dispute did the organization become aware that e-mail on the university server was completely open to monitoring by the administration. I would think that no worker would make the same mistake now. (There was a New York Times story recently about e-mail forwarding by corporate employees to external accounts for their personal protection, a practice wreaking havoc with corporate security. Nice.)