IBM (International Business Machines) was once considered a pioneer in the field of computer technology. Now the US-based conglomerate—employing more than 400,000 people worldwide—is a pioneer of a modern form of global day-wage labour. And Germany is serving as a pilot project for a radical reorganization of its existing work structures around the world.
According to an internal corporate strategy paper, obtained by Spiegel magazine, IBM will be reduced to a core workforce. Of the more than 20,000 employees in Germany, at least 8,000 will lose their permanent jobs and be replaced by flexible external workers.
The programme, called “liquid,” provides for outside workers to be hired flexibly as required. The hiring of external IT experts and other specialists is to take place via a specially created Internet platform, in the form of a so-called Cloud.
Up to now, the IT industry has regarded the Cloud as the delivery of computing as a service, with the infrastructure, hardware and software existing on internationally networked servers, effectively invisible to the user, hence, “in the Cloud.” Access is usually via the Internet. The purpose of cloud solutions is to lower costs because resources are ready at any time, but paid for only as they are used at the time needed.
This model is now to be applied broadly to people. Those currently employed as permanent staff by IBM will in future become free-lancers in an international “talent cloud.” To be part of this cloud they will have to obtain quality assurance certification as specified by IBM. It will not just be IBM, but also other businesses that will access this human cloud.
Spiegel compares the "talent-Cloud” with Facebook. As in social networks, the profiles of IT professionals—including scores (“Likeability”) and references from previous employers—will be visible for interested companies.
Positive scores—including the timely payment of credit card bills—and self-financed training courses at IBM would increase the “digital reputation” of an IT specialist.
“Personnel organised in a ‘cloud,’” the magazine quotes from the IBM document, “would receive international employment contracts, in order to circumvent restrictive regulations in their home country.” The “globalized employment contracts” would last only for the duration of individual projects. Thus, the company would reach a state “achieved long ago by the financial markets”: it could “do away with part of the national regulations.”
Permanent employees—with social security protection, guaranteed salary, paid vacations and sick leave, etc.—would be transformed into modern day-wage labourers, hired just for one project or contract for a limited time, sometimes by one firm and sometimes by another. “Such a system, where workers compete globally for temporary jobs using Internet platforms,” comments Spiegel, means, “companies such as IBM would make huge savings and increase efficiency significantly.”
via www.wsws.org
I'm a little perplexed that this sort of thing interests you any more after your enthusiasm over the Lawler essay. Would you mind explaining?
Posted by: me.yahoo.com/a/JIy3SE8IsM6BQ.a2YU0JeKIYstT0HN.J5fQfqg-- | February 23, 2012 at 06:54 PM
I don't understand the conflict or see why interest in one would preclude interest in another.
Posted by: Jodi | February 23, 2012 at 07:46 PM
You seemed quite ready to dismiss (or at least downplay) the "jobs for all" demand because it wasn't inspiring and "fun" enough and it didn't mesh with, as you called it, "occupation as a practice that does not contribute to the production of profit" (not having a job doesn't contribute to the production of profit either, but I don't see lots of people eagerly quitting their jobs as a means to end capitalism). Now, you put up an item about more workers losing their jobs (or having formerly stable jobs turned into far more precarious ones) as if it's a bad thing that needs to be pointed out. I find this contradiction confusing, so I'd like a little clarification.
Posted by: me.yahoo.com/a/JIy3SE8IsM6BQ.a2YU0JeKIYstT0HN.J5fQfqg-- | February 25, 2012 at 11:32 PM
there are a bunch of reasons--I use this blog to think through things. I had been in favor of jobs for all (as an impossible demand that exposes the limits of capitalism), and then the Lawler essay made me reflect on its drawbacks as a demand. It didn't take off, didn't have sufficient appeal, and I think she had some good ideas as to why. Likewise, politically, I have not been on the side of the ultra left or those emphasizing "refusal of work." But their arguments have made me have to question some of what I've thought before.
A related example: in the 60s, in the context of the poor people's march on Washington, the demand was for "jobs for those who want them" not "jobs for all." To me, that demonstrates how the rightward shift of the country has contorted what we can imagine.
You are right, people as a rule don't quit their jobs to end capitalism. That's almost always because they don't have a way to live without the wages they earn under capitalism. And this is one of the contradictions in which capitalism traps us, making it very hard to find our way out. Hence, "trade union consciousness" both made labor strong through organization and worked to provide capital with a docile work force. The strike and the walkout, though, are ways that people stop doing their jobs in order to change capitalism (like the boycott endeavors to change elements of consumption, not to stop the consumption of a particular good permanently).
Exploitation of labor is the constitutive wrong of capitalism. Turning formerly stable jobs into precarious ones is highly exploitative. So then the political question concerns the ways to fight against this. There could be laws against temporary contracts, laws guaranteeing lots of rights and provisions to temporary workers, penalties attached to corporations that lay off people or have a percentage of their workforce on temporary contracts, state ownership of all enterprises and a guaranteed wage structure, a guaranteed minimal income independent of work, etc...
Posted by: Jodi | February 26, 2012 at 07:10 PM
"I use this blog to think through things"
OK, I can understand that somewhat.
"And this is one of the contradictions in which capitalism traps us, making it very hard to find our way out."
I remember Doug Henwood quoting (I think) someone (apropos of uneven development between Africa and "The West", IIRC) who said "The only thing worse than being exploited by capitalism is not being exploited by capitalism".
"The strike and the walkout, though, are ways that people stop doing their jobs in order to change capitalism"
In themselves, though, these methods aren't enough (much as trade-union consciousness by itself isn't enough).
Thanks for responding.
Posted by: me.yahoo.com/a/JIy3SE8IsM6BQ.a2YU0JeKIYstT0HN.J5fQfqg-- | February 26, 2012 at 08:23 PM