new forms of work and employment and the core principle of subordination value flow in network...

New forms of work and employment and the core

principle of subordination

Value Flow in Network Company

Larry Haiven

Saint Mary’s University

Subordination - CRIMT Larry Haiven Slide 2

Old subordination• value created mostly at factory

• Formal, then real subordination• Subordination “Dependency”• Production is centre of value creation (not

consumption, distribution)


• Change of locus• Less standardized work arrangements• Informatization• Immaterial labour• Intellectual property• Production less dominant; other moments more• Unravelling of vertical firm; move to networks

Changes in value creation


• Dramatic decentralization• Less in factory; more outside (social factory)• Boundaryless workplace; boundaryless careers (Stone

From Widgets to Digits)– “A career which unfolds unconstrained by clear boundaries around job

activities, by fixed sequences of such activities, or by attachment to one organization. It is a career that does not depend on traditional notions of advancement within a single hierarchical org…It includes an employee who moves frequently across the borders of different firms, such as a Silicon Valley technician, or a professional whose career draws its validation and marketability from professional and extra-organizational networks.”

Change of locus


Less standardized work arrangements

• Move away from permanent, full-time, full-year employment

• Move to part-time, temporary, casual employment• Move to contracting to self-employed• In last year 65% of new jobs in Canada temporary

contracts or self-employment


“Informatization” of value creation

• In developed countries, rapid move away from domination of industrial & goods production

• Toward:– Convenience; taste; access; experience; time & lifestyle

management; filtering; decision-making; organizing; leisure management; intangibles; communities of interest; relationships; intimacy

• Rifkin The Age of Access– “When virtually every aspect of our being becomes a paid-for activity, human

life itself becomes the ultimate commercial product, and the commercial sphere becomes the final arbiter of our personal and collective existence”


Informatization (2)

• Two models of move to postindustrial services (Hardt

& Negri Empire)

– Rapid decline in industrial jobs to rapid rise in service

sector, esp managing capital (US, UK, Canada)

– Info-industrial

• Industrial employment declines less rapidly

• Informatization closely integrated to existing industrial production

(Japan & Germany)


“Immaterial labour”• Hardt & Negri Empire; Multitude• line between goods & services vanishes• “Interactive and cybernetic machines become a new prosthesis integrated into our

bodies and minds and a lens through which to redefine our bodies and minds themselves. The anthropology of cyberspace is really a recognition of the new human condition.”

• Three types– Manufacturing redefined as service– Analytical & symbolic tasks

• Creative & intelligent manipulation (symbolic analysts)• Routine symbolic tasks

– Production and manipulation of affect; human contact; labour in bodily mode


Intellectual property

• More individuals able to produce on their own• E.g. music, filmmaking

– Technology allows personal production & reproduction

• Key elements still missing– Capital for startup

– Livelihood

– Input costs

– Career management

– Distribution of outputs


Intellectual property (2)

• Like quicksilver– Technology makes it easier to produce; but harder to hold

and capture value

• 2 problems:– Value flows to those with power, organization and access

– New technology allows leakage of valorization potential (piracy)

• Creators of intellectual property constant struggle to capture value of i.p.– Or at least conscious & positive “giving it away”


Production less dominant; others moments more

• Consumption patterns more important in valorizing surplus value

• “…capital is driven to successively wider and deeper dimensions of control – toward the creation of a social factory. Marx had written of capital’s tendency to “subsume” not only the workplace but also society as a whole into its processes. Extending this analysis Tronti…argued that capital’s growing resort to state intervention and technocratic control had created a situation where “the entire society now functions as a moment of production.”

• Growing gap so chasing refinement & distinction among wealthier


Other moments….

• Production & reproduction of labour power more important– Deepening crisis of labour power

• Internationalization of division of labour

• Underdevelopment of development; development of underdevelopment

• Despite rises in productivity; earnings stall or drop

• “Crisis state”


Unravelling of vertical firm into networks


• Compared to old hierarchical firm, networks look deceivingly egalitarian

• Flow of value to power• Castells Materials for exploratory theory of the

network:– “Value in the production process depends essentially on the position occupied

by each specific labor or each specific firm in the value chain. The rule is individualization of the relationship between capital and labor….

– “critical cleavage within labor becomes the one between networked labor and switched-off labor, which ultimately becomes non-labor.

– “second, fundamental cleavage, between self-programmable labor and generic labor. For self-programmable labor, its individual interest is better served by enhancing its role in performing the goals of the network…While for generic labor, its strategy is survival: the key issue becomes not be be degraded to the realm of discarded or devalued labor, either by automation, or globalization, or both.”

Networks (2)


Value flow in network

• Less upward to top of hierarchical organization• More inward to key nodes

– Control access to inputs and access to markets

– Best able to capture intellectual property value

– Like a gravity drawing wealth

• From single dependency to multitudinous dependencies

• Dependency influences flow of value• Interests of network members sometimes coincide,

sometimes clash


Taxi driversMunicipalRegulators

DispatchCompanies

Commercial inputs

Customers

ProvincialRegulators

Automobile

Gasoline

Parts & repairs

Other accessories

OtherTaxi drivers


Musicians

Impresarios/purchasers

Managers

Commercial inputs

Fans& fashion

Distributors

Automobile

Equipment

Instruments

Other musicians

Othermusicians

Booking agentsIntellectual Property

Capture Agencies

RecordLabels

Governmentagencies

Schools


Intellectual Property Capture Agencies

• Mechanical royalty: from sale of manufactured and distributed phonorecord

• Synchronization royalty: when song is in commercials, TV shows or films (requires a licence)

• Performance royalty: whenever the song is aired on radio, TV, in bars, restaurants, malls, over the telephone while you’re waiting

Cdn Musical Reproduction Rights Agency – MCRRA – funded by commission of proceeds of licenses issued

Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada – SOCAN; & similar agencies in the US & Europe


Film & video artisans

1st AssistantDirector

Director

2nd AssistantDirector

3rd AssistantDirector

Trainee AssistantDirector

ProducerProductionManager

Assistant ProductionManager

UnitManager

LocationManager

Assistant Location Manager

Production Designer

Art Director

1st AsstArt Director

2nd AsstArt Director

SetDesigner

Supervising Picture Editor

Picture Editor

1st AssistantPicture Editor

2nd AssistantPicture Editor

Sound Editor

ChiefAccountant

AssistantAccountant

Bookkeeper


Collectivities of labour

• Wagnerist model based on old hierarchical structure• Enmeshed in network webs, workers must and do

form own collectivities• Unions only one type of collectivity• Others e.g.

– Cooperatives– Professional societies– Intellectual property capture agencies– Ethnic, gender, religious, cultural associations– Consumer organizations


Unions need to….(and/or)• Realize changes transforming value creation• Increase scope of what they do for members

– Beyond workplace – citizens, consumers, neighbours, identities, self-employment

– Help capture intellectual property rights

• Increase scope of membership to those outside standard workplaces & employment– To non-standard-employed– Even to self-employed

• Work with unions of non-standard work arrangements

• Work/contend with other interest associations


Stone From Widgets to Digits

• A new craft unionism– Organize high tech workforce on basis of common skills– Offer services “employers” not willing to offer

• Story of NABET vs. IATSE– NABET followed rigid, Wagnerist model as film & video industry

moving away from it» Firm-centred, stable employment, collective terms» Bypassed by tricks & technology

– IATSE » More fluid operation» Represented members as insider conractors» “Embedded contract bargaining”» Encouraged mutual self-help

• Geographically-based citizen unionism


Network unionism• Personal service contracts• Fight for status of artist legislation• Framework agreement – contract only union labour;

establish minimum or “scale”• Provide boilerplate contracts & advice• Trust funds from industry agreeements• Hiring hall• Gig-based benefits (pension, insurance)• Member-paid benefits (insurance, discounts)• Cross-border issues• Professional development & assistance• Public policy advocacy

new forms of work and employment and the core principle of subordination value flow in network...

Documents

old subordination value

locus slide

selfemployment slide

distribution slide

industrial jobs

collective existence

centre of value creation

new jobs