uk-policy Working Time 9 (fwd)
forwarded message --- From: Tom Walker I agree with Gavin Cameron's point that the nominal incidence of a tax is not the same as its economic incidence. That is the argument underlying my proposal to arbitrage free time. http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/arbitrag.htm However, Cameron's next comment that labour bears all the tax burden because capital is mobile and labour is not is a non-sequitur. Capital is not 100% mobile, labour is not 0% mobile. Furthermore, labour can withdraw from the market for many 'non-economic' reasons: death, illnesses, child bearing, spiritual quest, madness. That is to say, labour can disappear into thin air. The economic incidence of a tax has to be seen as an empirical question, not a theoretical presupposition. Secondly, again on the 'lump of labour fallacy' -- may we at last lay this lumpy red herring to rest? Economic analysis is built entirely on ceteris paribus exercises. The assumption that a given number of hours could be differently distributed among workers is nothing more or less than a ceteris paribus assumption. As with any economic analysis, the job isn't done until the abstractions are brought back to concrete earth. Why should the distribution of work hours be held to a different standard of concreteness than any other economic question? I dare say that the great neo-liberal/monetarist edifice is built entirely on counter-factuals that have been conveniently forgotten about in the rush to affirm the infallibility of markets. The 'lump of labour fallacy' charge is less a critque than it is a charm to ward off non-conforming ideas. There are, Gavin Cameron concludes, "very few free lunches in economic policy." The great American economist, John Maurice Clark, would have been more precise: unemployment is not a free lunch. "If all industry were integrated and owned by workers, what would be the relation of constant to variable expense?" Clark asked in his 1923 treatise on overhead costs. His answer was that, "it would be clear to worker-owners that the real cost of labor could not be materially reduced by unemployment." Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ #408 1035 Pacific St. Vancouver, B.C. V6E 4G7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 669-3286 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
uk-policy Working Time 8 (fwd)
Forwarded message From: Portes, Jonathan ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 10:02:51 -0400 There seems to be some confusion here. The work spreading tax doesn't increase "employment", in the sense of hours worked; but it does potentially reduce unemployment. Switching from a flat rate tax on the purchase of any commodity - including labour - to a tax that only applies after a threshold amount of that commodity will clearly make it more attractive to purchase that commodity in smaller "lumps". In the labour context, that means more people working fewer hours each. Gavin Cameron writes > -Original Message- > > Secondly, the following quote from David Chapman's posting supports my > argument that the WSJ is an example of the 'lump of labour fallacy': > > >Employers will thus have an incentive to spread the available work, > so as > >to receive more of these subsidies, employing more workers each > working > >fewer hours, to do a given amount of work. > It is true that it is not necessarily the case that the "given amount of work" will in fact remain constant; it could increase or decrease, with resulting second order effects on unemployment. This is presumably what Gavin means by the lump of labour fallacy in this context. But David Chapman's basic point is clearly correct. If it is currently economic to employ three workers for 40 hours a week each, then a work-spreading tax - by, for example, exempting the first 10 hours wages per employee from labour taxation - would make it relatively more attractive for employers to hire 4 workers at 30 hours a week (ignoring transitional costs,etc). Unemployment would fall. This is not the lump-of-labour fallacy; indeed, it is the basic neoclassical analysis of tax incidence, and does not rely on any assumptions about labour market structures. There might, under certain circumstances, be efficiency losses, but this would depend on other factors. On a secondary point, while Gavin is correct that in theory switching from a payroll to other taxes won't reduce unemployment, this is only true if the payroll tax is a fixed percentage of income. If payroll (or other labour) taxes are "regressive" - that is, they are a greater proportion of income for the lower paid or for those who work fewer hours, as is generally the case - then switching from a payroll tax to a flat rate income or consumption tax will in general reduce unemployment, for the same reason given above. - Posted to uk-policy, a service of Nexus. http://www.netnexus.org/ Hosting and email provided by new media consultants On-Line Publishing Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ #408 1035 Pacific St. Vancouver, B.C. V6E 4G7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 669-3286 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
uk-policy Working Time 7 (fwd)
forwarded message -- Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 12:21:54 +0100 (BST) From: Gavin Cameron <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: uk-policy work-spreading tax Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Following on from my previous posting, perhaps I should clarify why the Work-Spreading Tax would have little or no effect on unemployment. Firstly, my understanding of the WST is that it shifts the 'nominal incidence' of employees national insurance onto the employer. It should be clear that the nominal incidence of a tax is not the same as its 'economic incidence'. If capital is internationally mobile and labour is not, labour bears all the tax burden regardless of who notionally pays the tax. Secondly, the following quote from David Chapman's posting supports my argument that the WSJ is an example of the 'lump of labour fallacy': >Employers will thus have an incentive to spread the available work, so as >to receive more of these subsidies, employing more workers each working >fewer hours, to do a given amount of work. Of course, I may have misunderstood the WST scheme. It may have been making the slightly more sophisticated point that you could reduce payroll taxes and shift the burden onto consumption taxes (eg VAT) and so keep the overall tax burden constant (this is the point Geoff Beacon is making I think) . However, the key to understanding the impact of tax changes on employment is to recognize that it is the overall tax burden on labour (that is, payroll taxes plus personal income taxes plus consumption taxes) that is important, rather than just the payroll tax rate. Therefore, when I said that 'high overall labour taxes' could raise unemployment, I was not referring to payroll taxes in particular but to the total tax burden. A cut in payroll tax that is offset by a rise in VAT will have no effect on post tax real wages and so cannot raise labour supply. Therefore it will not reduce unemployment. There is a good discussion of this issue in a paper by Steve Nickell in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 1997 (see pages 68-81 especially). In short, there is no evidence that lowering payroll taxes and raising consumption taxes will raise employment. This explains why Denmark, which has no payroll taxes, has unemployment of about the European average. It may be however, that reducing the overall tax burden (the sum of payroll, income and consumption taxes) may reduce unemployment. Nickell suggests that a 10 percentage point fall in the total tax burden might reduce unemployment by around 25 percent. Of course, a 10 percentage point fall in the tax burden is an enormous change. Sadly, there are very few free lunches in economic policy. Gavin Cameron ~~~ Dr Gavin Cameron Research Fellow Nuffield College, Oxford, OX1 1NF tel: +44 1865 278653 fax: +44 1865 278621 mobile: 0802 441340 http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/Users/Cameron/research.html ~~~ - Posted to uk-policy, a service of Nexus. http://www.netnexus.org/ Hosting and email provided by new media consultants On-Line Publishing Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ #408 1035 Pacific St. Vancouver, B.C. V6E 4G7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 669-3286 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
uk-policy Working Time 6 (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- From: David Chapman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: uk-policy Working Time On 26/5/98, Gavin Cameron wrote. >..job sharing or a 'work-spreading tax' could not have very >much effect on total unemployment. Indeed, economists have a name for the >idea that cutting working hours would raise employment: the 'lump of labour >fallacy'. The 'work-spreading tax' I proposed (in my contribution of 24/5/98 and in my paper at: http://www.democdesignforum.demon.co.uk/unemp.nexus.html) is a change of the present income tax and social security tax paid by the employees, into a tax paid by the employer. WST is such that any individual employer pays less tax on a given total amount of wages, if he spreads the work between more workers. Thus it seems reasonable to expect that, when there are unemployed persons available who can do the work, the change to WST will result in more people being employed. No prediction is made about any change in the total number of hours worked, in the whole economy. In view of this, the lump of labour fallacy does not seem relevant. Dr David Chapman Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Democracy Design Forum Coles House, Buxhall, Stowmarket, Suffolk IP14 3EB, UK Tel: +44 (0) 1449 736 223 Fax: +44 (0) 1449 612 274 Website: http://www.democdesignforum.demon.co.uk/index.html - Posted to uk-policy, a service of Nexus. http://www.netnexus.org/ Hosting and email provided by new media consultants On-Line Publishing Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ #408 1035 Pacific St. Vancouver, B.C. V6E 4G7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 669-3286 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
uk-policy Working Time 5 (fwd)
-- forwarded message -- Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 14:36:23 +0100 (BST) [EMAIL PROTECTED] using -f From: Eero Carroll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To Geoff, and all, I don't think that one has to be an academic economist to see how the arguments for WST indeed do run foul of the "lump of labour" fallacy, albeit not in the same way as arguments for an allegedly employment-increasing general cutback of working time. To quote David Chapman's mail on the WST from May 25th: >For example, suppose that a firm, instead of employing 33 workers each >working 38 hours per week, employs 38 workers each working 33 hours per >week. The firm will thus reduce the tax it has to pay, and hence its >labour cost, by 5 x 35 = 175 pounds per week. Theoretically, this is of course the case. But practically? The example still assumes at least short-term stability in the amount of available work--it's an assumption entirely necessary for the rather static argument that employers will choose between the two alternatives identified, and not some third alternative such as rationalizing production in order to maintain output but at lower levels of necessary labour time inputs (by just 15 full-time workers, let us say!). In this day and age, why would we have to assume that tax incentives of the kind advocated here would be more powerful in affecting employers' hiring decisions than the benefits of rationalizing away even more workers entirely? If the latter option can be combined even with increased production (by no means necessarily demanding more workers), the tax incentives can become even less attractive. As far as the continued logic of the argument is concerned, there are also good reasons for questioning why it is the pool of the currently unemployed, in particular, that employers will look to for purposes of filling the newly lucrative vacancies (even assuming that these are not simply abolished entirely). The extensive early retirement programs put into effect in Continental Europe were built on precisely this assumption. But the envisioned result of "redistribution of work" appears by and large simply not to have happened. If the "work" was redistributed someplace, it appears mostly NOT to have been redistributed to the unemployed (Kohli et al (eds,) Time for Retirement, CUP, 1991). I think that evidence of this kind is to be emphatically recommended even for busy people to read (which I take it that most of us are on this list), insofar as it can help to improve the quality of policy recommendations which the busywork aims to produce! with all due courtesy, EC - Posted to uk-policy, a service of Nexus. http://www.netnexus.org/ Hosting and email provided by new media consultants On-Line Publishing Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ #408 1035 Pacific St. Vancouver, B.C. V6E 4G7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 669-3286 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
uk-policy Working Time 4 (fwd)
- forwarded message - From: Tom Walker I'd like to raise three point with regard to Dr. David Chapman's proposal for a work-spreading tax and then elaborate on a proposal of my own. First, I agree with Dr. Chapman that the progressive income tax contains a potential incentive to employers to spread the work. However, I would argue that that potential could readily be realized by employers regardless of who nominally pays the tax. In other words, there is no _actual_ need for a change to public tax policy other than to bring something to the attention of employers that they seem not to have noticed, namely price signals. Second, my assertion that employers have systematically and chronically ignored price signals in the labour market is a bold one, so it is some comfort that I am not alone. Jeffrey Pfeffer of the Stanford Graduate School of Business makes the same claim in an article in the May/June 1998 Harvard Review of Business, "Six Dangerous Myths About Pay." In Pfeffer's view employers typically confuse labour costs with labour rates, overestimate the effect of labour costs on total costs and misjudge the relationship between pay and work performance. Managers are more likely to look at what everybody else is doing and then do the same rather than implement pay systems that actually work. Third, I was disappointed to read Gavin Cameron's knee-jerk hoisting of the 'lump of labour' canard. Dr. Chapman's work-spreading tax doesn't rely on any 'lump of labour fallacy' and Cameron's "economist's perspective" on the 'lump of labour', is not at all helpful. "Having a name for the idea that cutting working hours would raise employment" is quite a different thing than explaining what is wrong with a particular proposal to change the structure of tax incentives for hours of work. There's also "a name" for endless and exclusive tinkering on the labour market supply-side: 'blame the victim'. Shall we dispense with the thinly veiled name calling? My own proposal is for realizing the work-spreading potential of the progressive income tax without any public policy change -- other than perhaps a public effort to inform employers of the profitable opportunities. I will give only a short description here as I have posted a more detailed version of the proposal at: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/arbitrag.htm A PROPOSAL FOR ARBITRAGING FREE TIME When a commodity sells for unequal prices in different markets, an opportunity arises to profit from arbitrage -- buying and selling the commodity simultaneously in the different markets. The commodity in question is free time. This proposal would arbitrage the market for free time by rewarding years of service with more free time rather than with higher annual income. The typical collective agreement as well as the personnel policies of many non-unionized employers contains a schedule of wage rates that provides for service increments within a job classification and pay grades between classifications. The unquestioned assumption is that as an employee moves up the wage rate schedule, the annual paid hours remain constant and his or her annual income increases in proportion to the increasing wage rate. An equally logical (but unheard of!) alternative would be to keep annual incomes steady while reducing hours of work in direct proportion to the wage increments. That is to say, more free time -- rather than higher income -- would be the reward for skill and years of service. This is not to say that all people, or even most, would prefer having more free time to having more income. It is only to point out that nowhere in the standard collective agreement is it acknowledged that they even might. Nor does the standard collective agreement offer any comparison of the relative benefits of such a trade off between free time and income. For an employee facing a marginal tax rate of, say, 33 per cent for example, one extra day off would be worth one and a half days' income. Progressive income taxation means the higher the income, the greater the relative value of free time. For an employer, selling free time to experienced, high wage employees and buying it from new recruits would be a good way to save on labour costs. Over the longer term, the benefit to the employer would be a well balanced workforce with progressively experienced younger employees moving up to take over for the glut of aging baby boomers who will soon be dying, retiring and/or burning out (if they haven't already). Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ #408 1035 Pacific St. Vancouver, B.C. V6E 4G7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 669-3286 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
uk-policy Working Time 3 (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 07:35:08 +0100 (BST) From: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: uk-policy unemployment and inequality I am sure Gavin Cameron is right. If only we were all economists and diligent enough to read the excellent work of Steve Nickell we would understand the nature of unemployment better. But just for the busy and less gifted perhaps he could explain why David Chapman's 'work-spreading tax' falls foul of the 'lump of labour fallacy'. I understood that the fallacy was to believe that the amount of work was fixed. I don't see why a tax that has the effect of restricting the supply of labour (as the WST does?) sould be fallacious in this way. And surely if it is a wage subsidy as David Chapman suggests, it is the other side of the coin to Gavin Cameron's point that one of the explanations for high unemployment is high labour taxes or high minimum wages. - Posted to uk-policy, a service of Nexus. http://www.netnexus.org/ Hosting and email provided by new media consultants On-Line Publishing Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ #408 1035 Pacific St. Vancouver, B.C. V6E 4G7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 669-3286 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
uk-policy Working Time 2 (fwd)
--forewarded message--- Gavin Cameron ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Tue, 26 May 1998 09:19:56 +0100 (BST) While the recent postings on unemployment and inequality have been interesting, I thought an economist's perspective might be helpful. To take unemployment first of all, a good starting point for reading is the work of Steve Nickell. In the latest issue (May 1998) of the Economic Journal, there is a very accessible series of papers on unemployment across the OECD. In general, high unemployment is quite well explained by the following labour market features: 1) generous unemployment benefits that are not time-limited. 2) high unionization with wages bargained collectively and little coordination between either unions or employers. 3) high overall labour taxes or high minimum wages for young people. 4) poor educational standards at the bottom end of the labour market. It is important to note that there is little evidence that trends in globalisation and skills-biased technical change (or weightlessness as it is called by some commentators) can explain trends in aggregate unemployment, although they may be important for particular industries. This suggests that job sharing or a 'work-spreading tax' could not have very much effect on total unemployment. Indeed, economists have a name for the idea that cutting working hours would raise employment: the 'lump of labour fallacy'. Instead, unemployment seems to be driven by other important institutional features of the labour market such as the bargaining system and incentives for people to seek work. An alternative strategy for reducing unemployment would be to focus on improving the search activities and the skills of both the long-term unemployed and the unskilled, as well as reforming the benefit system to increase incentives. Turning to increased inequality, it is both a cause and a consequence of other developments in the UK and world economy. For example, countries with a lot of inequality in educational outcomes tend to have more income inequality, but it is clear that causality could flow in both directions. Ie, poverty reduces the incentive to acquire skills, just as low skills trap people in poverty. Since inequality seems to have increased in most industries and professions since the 1970s, and to have even increased among those with similar qualifications (i.e lawyers, bond-traders, footballers), it does not seem to be significantly driven by the globalisation of production which has only affected certain sectors of the economy. Potential treatments for inequality need to reflect this complex causality. Better quality education at the bottom end of the labour market is an obvious approach. In this context, my own view is that setting a national inequality target would be unhelpful compared with setting a national educational target. I hope these thoughts are of some interest. To summarize, I think that government policies can play a big role in reducing inequality and unemployment, but that such policies need to reflect the substantial (and accessible) body of economic research in the area. Since it appears de rigeur to finish these postings with a reference to a web-site, readers may be interested in a paper I have recently written for the Journal of International Affairs which discusses the effect of globalisation and weightlessness. It can be found at http://hicks.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/cameron/jia.ps Gavin Cameron ~~~ Dr Gavin Cameron Research Fellow Nuffield College, Oxford, OX1 1NF tel: +44 1865 278653 fax: +44 1865 278621 mobile: 0802 441340 http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/Users/Cameron/research.html ~~~ - Posted to uk-policy, a service of Nexus. http://www.netnexus.org/ Hosting and email provided by new media consultants On-Line Publishing Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ #408 1035 Pacific St. Vancouver, B.C. V6E 4G7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 669-3286 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
uk-policy Working Time 1 (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 16:07:19 +0100 (BST) From: David Chapman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: uk-policy Working Time In our discussion of excessive working time, one explanation for it which was put forward was that employers currently have the incentive to employ fewer workers each working longer hours. Is it possible then to reverse this incentive, to induce employers to employ more workers each working fewer hours? I previously put forward a proposal for this to the uk-policy group in the paper "Tax and benefit reform to reduce unemployment", which is available on the web at: http://www.democdesignforum.demon.co.uk/unemp.nexus.html The proposal is simply to convert the income tax and social security tax currently paid by employees, into a "Work-Spreading Tax" paid by the employer. Since taxation is progressive, the employer will pay no tax or reduced tax on the first portion of a person's wage. In effect this will be a wage subsidy, worth about 35 pounds per week per worker. Employers will thus have an incentive to spread the available work, so as to receive more of these subsidies, employing more workers each working fewer hours, to do a given amount of work. For example, suppose that a firm, instead of employing 33 workers each working 38 hours per week, employs 38 workers each working 33 hours per week. The firm will thus reduce the tax it has to pay, and hence its labour cost, by 5 x 35 = 175 pounds per week. Thus if workers leave or retire, or if production needs to be expanded, the firm will seek to give jobs to unemployed workers, rather than to give its existing work force more hours of work per week. It will probably prefer to take them on as part-timers, since this will enable it to employ more new workers, and save more tax. If a pay rise is being negotiated, the firm will probably seek to include some reduction of hours per week as part of the bargain, that is, it will seek to persuade workers to take part or all of their rise as an increase in leisure, rather than as an increase in total pay. This will allow it to save tax, by taking on more workers from the unemployed. WST is likely to increase security of employment, for those workers who are already employed. Firms which at present respond to the opportunities of new technology by dismissing part of their workforce, will be more likely under WST to retain their workers, but reduce the hours of work offered to them. This incentive to the employers is not a new subsidy, which would be vastly expensive, but instead it is an essentially costless adjustment to the present method of collecting tax on employees' income. Progressive taxation is already being used, which levies no tax or low tax on the first portion of an employee's income. WST simply makes use of this existing feature of present taxation, to provide an incentive for the employer to spread work. Dr David Chapman Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Democracy Design Forum Coles House, Buxhall, Stowmarket, Suffolk IP14 3EB, UK Tel: +44 (0) 1449 736 223 Fax: +44 (0) 1449 612 274 Website: http://www.democdesignforum.demon.co.uk/index.html - Posted to uk-policy, a service of Nexus. http://www.netnexus.org/ Hosting and email provided by new media consultants On-Line Publishing Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ #408 1035 Pacific St. Vancouver, B.C. V6E 4G7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 669-3286 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Intro: Working Time debate on uk-policy list
I am forwarding to futurework a series of nine messages that have been exchanged in the past few days on the uk-policy list. I have numbered the messages in roughly the order I have received them and given them the same subject heading. The original messages and subsequent discussion can be retrieved from the uk-policy archive at http://www.netnexus.org/ I am forwarding this series of posts because I think this is an important debate and I would like to see discussion of it on the futurework list. Of course, futurework subscribers may also be interested in joining in the discussion on the uk-policy list. Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ #408 1035 Pacific St. Vancouver, B.C. V6E 4G7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 669-3286 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Re: How free enterprise benefits people
This is of course why in countries with controlled economies they never have to worry about "risking unintended bad consequences". Because they don't have the substance either. Harry - Brad wrote (see below): >>From today's (Sun, 26 Apr 98) New York Times: > >There is a serious shortage >(in the United States) of a vital drug made from blood >plasma, which certain persons with compromised >immune systems need to live. With the drug, many of >them live normal lives; without it, they get all >sorts of infections (and, presumably, die, or at >least, as one patient says, it: "tak[es] my life >away as I know it" (p. 1). The >source of the problem is complicated (article >begins on Page 1), but it is all tied up with >issues of the "business case" for (i.e., against!) >pharmaceutical companies producing the drug. Here's >the reason I'm calling attention to this story: > >"With lives in the balance, this should be >fixed," said Dr. Arthut Caplan, Chairman of the >blood advisory committee of Health and Human Services. >"But when you leave the supply of a vital substance >simply in the hands of the free market, and you don't >keep an eye on what is going on, you will wind up * Harry Pollard (818) 352-4141 Henry George School of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 *
FW Budget Summary, The Jobs Letter 79 (27 May 1998)
The view from New Zealand...posted with permission of The Jobs Letter. See info on subscribing at end of post. Sally >Comments: Authenticated sender is <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >From: "vivian Hutchinson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: "The Jobs Letter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, >"The Jobs Letter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, >"The Jobs Letter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 10:31:39 + >X-Distribution: Moderate >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Subject: Budget Summary, The Jobs Letter 79 (27 May 1998) >Reply-to: "The Jobs Letter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Priority: normal > >=== >== >== > >F E A T U R E >-- >from >T H E J O B S L E T T E R 0 7 9 >a subscriber-based letter >published in New Zealand 27 May 1998 > - > >BUDGET SUMMARY > >BUDGET 98 - FOLLOWING THE MONEY >The main decisions in Treasurer Winston Peters' second Budget -- > >* Anyone who becomes a sickness beneficiary after July 1st >will be paid the same as the unemployment benefit. The rates for >existing beneficiaries will not change, but within a year it is >expected the new rate will effect about half those receiving a >benefit. The sickness benefit will be merged into the community >wage on October 1st and will be subject to the work test. > >*Invalids and sickness beneficiaries will be assessed on a >case- by-case basis to see if they are capable of doing even five >hours work. These work capacity trials start in November. > >*People on the Domestic Purposes Benefit whose youngest child >is between six and 13 years will be expected to look for part- >time work. Those with their youngest child 14 years and older >will have to look for full-time jobs. > >*A child-care subsidy for low-income working parents and sole >parents will be part of measures to help people get back into the >workforce. A sole parent with two school-age children who takes >up work will have child-care subsidised by up to $72 a week >during the school term and by up to $108 a week during the school >holidays. Sole parents with no access to sick leave in their >first six months of full-time work may be eligible for financial >help if they or their children are sick. > >*The Budget predicts that the unemployment rate will peak at >just over 7% in mid 1998 and then reduce to 5.6% by the year >2000- 2001. Next year, the government expects to be spending >$1.46 billion on paying the community wage (replacing the >unemployment, training and sickness benefits). > >*Employment programmes overall get a $142m boost in the >1998/99 year and a $125m boost in 1999/2000. This includes >however a transfer of money (from Vote Education) of the money >for Training Opportunity Programmes. The Education Ministry is >left with only 40% of the previous TOPS funding and expects to >provide 5,000 training places this year, compared with the 15,000 >training places in the last year. > >*The big boost in funding goes to "services to minimise the >duration of unemployment and maximise participation in community >work and training", which is Treasury's way of describing >measures to tackle long-term unemployment and create community >wage schemes. Target for the next year: 63,000 job- seekers to >take part in these initiatives, or between 22,000 and 26,500 >people at any one time. Balancing the massive increase in funding >community wage initiatives is a cut to many other Labour >Department-funded programmes: > >-- Subsidised work schemes (eg Job Plus) have been trimmed >back $24m to $108m. > >-- Community employment and enterprise development >projects (eg Be Your Own Boss) have had just under $5m trimmed >from their budget to $13.5m > >-- The Army's Limited Service volunteer scheme, which takes young >people on to a six-week military training course, has been >slashed from $2.7m to $1.7m, now providing placements for 700 >job- seekers. > >*The Youth Affairs programmes Conservation Corps and >Youth Service Corps receive much the same amounts as in the last >Budget. Conservation Corps is funded $9.73m to run 123 projects >for 1,670 young people; and Youth Service Corps are funded $1.09m >to run 10 projects for 133 young people. > >*Employment Support for people with disabilities (eg >Workbridge) gets a 30% increase in budget to $16.225m. > >*Student Placement Services keeps the same budget at $1.9m, >as does the Careers Service at $5.45m. > >*The Education and Training Support Agency funding is cut by >about half, reflecting the transfer of funding previously >allocated to TOPS to Vote Employment. > >*Only students receiving a student allowance during the >academic year will continue to have access to the emergency >benefit from July 1st. > >*Also from July 1st, unemployment, training or sickness >beneficiaries aged 18-19 years with no dependents and living with >their pa
(ICT-JOBS): SUMMARY OF THEME 1: ICT AND JOBS: CREATOR AND/OR DESTROYER
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 18:43:13 +0200 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: (ICT-JOBS): SUMMARY OF THEME 1: ICT AND JOBS: CREATOR AND/OR DESTROYER THEME 1 - ICT - CREATOR OR DESTROYER OF JOBS * * * SUMMARY OF THE DISCUSSION 1. With important exceptions, most panellists agreed that ICT both created and destroyed jobs and that the net, long term result tilted toward its propensity to create work rather than to destroy it. 2. An attempt was made to set the creator/destroyer issue in the theoretical frameworks developed by Schumpter and Kondratiev, which predict that we should now be emerging from the job suppression stage to enter the creation stage. But the pace and pervasiveness of ICT resist theoretical packaging. In addition, the pace of change, and the rapid obsolescence of products and skills could make new jobs risky, so militating against job creation. 3. Several panellists suggested that ICT's impact on employment was not determined by technology itself but was the result of social and organizational choices made by employers and national policy-makers. Where the labour-force was seen less as a cost to be minimized, and more as a key competitive asset, the creative aspect of technology was likely to come uppermost. Corporate values, behaviour and *tradition*, and their response to consumer and stakeholder pressure were also seen as important determinants of *desirable or despicable outcomes*. Theme 3, which looks at the new business environment will address this issue in greater depth. 4. Panellists also suggested that arguments for and against technology's impact on jobs were informed by whether evidence was sought at the macro-level of the economy (eg. through jobs research or through industry level accounts of labour shortage (which tended to be optimistic)) or at the micro-level where anecdotal evidence highlighted the highly differential impact that the high tech boom was having regionally, or on particular categories of workers including women and older workers. 5. Others felt that constituency, background and personal experience could also colour attitudes towards ICT. Based on experience, trade unions, like the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), considered it the *job destroyer par excellence*: the *grim digital reaper*. Anecdotal evidence, even from computer-literate professionals who have lost their jobs and cannot find others, also suggested that ICT is destructive. Panellists concerned with productivity, considered the "elimination of non-productive jobs ... a good trend, generally", but others felt that this was one reason why technology was feared as a job destroyer. 6. Reality was more complex. While some jobs based on traditional work processes and skills were indeed falling victim to ICT, new products and services were creating new jobs, and even labour shortages in some sectors. The brain drain among highly-skilled information workers in some developing countries, and the selective immigration quotas of others, were cited as manifestations of this trend. 7. Several panellists argued that, in the final analysis, all new work methods and technological innovations enhance society and the economy to a greater degree than they destroy. Positive spin-offs of ICT include new communications-related jobs; telemarketing which is being used to reach beyond limited local markets (as in the case of Japanese strawberry farmers and Ghanian microentrepreneurs); information on jobs and new types of work which is being used to create new business ventures including consultancy and business services; and teleworking which could facilitate the decentralization of jobs, even off-shore. The flexibility of location and time offered by some of these new work options were creating fresh opportunities, particularly for traditionally disadvantaged workers, such as women, but were also throwing up new challenges such as growing polarization (even between different groups of women), the erosion of bargaining power, the need for lifelong learning and the problem of measuring (and rewarding) intellectual capital in knowledge-based companies. 8. While ICT offered substantial opportunities for informal sector activities and significant livelihood options, these were not adequately reflected in current approaches to jobs and work, or in their institutional underpinnings. The latter included job classification systems, wage structures, career paths, industrial relations systems and social security. It was suggested that ICT offered an unique opportunity to consider the future of work and to design the best approach to it. These issues will be picked up in Themes 2 and 3. 9. Many panellists felt that the real issues went beyond creation or destruction of jobs to the kinds of jobs that were being created, to their quality and to the ways in which the labour-force (
New Zealand lifts ban on parallel imports -- US Objects (fwd)
Having destroyed social democracy for the "poor" in New Zealand to almost universal acclaim (in certain circles), the Government of New Zealand appears (equitably) to be applying similar rough justice to the "rich" with almost universal condemnation (in the same circles) hmmm... M -- Forwarded message -- Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 19:12:06 -0400 (EDT) From: James Love <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Multiple recipients of list INFO-POLICY-NOTES <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: New Zealand lifts ban on parallel imports -- US Objects New Zealand lifts ban on parallel imports -- US Objects As the world rushes toward globalization of markets, some business interests are trying to use trade negotiations to restrict cross boarder trade in goods. So called "parallel imports" occur when goods are purchased in one country are imported into another. (Not to be confused with illegal counterfeit goods, or goods which infringe on patents or copyrights). Under international law, countries can decide if "exhaustion" of rights" (sometimes called the "first sale doctrine") permit such "parallel imports." A hot area of dispute concerns goods protected under copyright, trademark or patent laws. High courts in Japan (http://okuyama.com/c3v01ok.htm), the United States (http://laws.findlaw.com/US/000/96-1470.html) and the European Union have said that international law permits the parallel imports of goods protected by intellectual property rights. However, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is on a crusade to ban parallel imports, and has placed several countries on the USTR's "watch list" or threatened trade sanctions over the issue of parallel imports of music CDs, software or pharmaceutical drugs. The dispute is largely about the ability of a manufacturer or publisher to set different prices in different countries. A study of music CD's in Australia by the Australian Consumers' Association (http://www.cptech.org/ip/pi/acasubcd.html) indicated Australian consumers were paying $ 6.33 more than consumers in other countries for popular music CDs. CPT looked at prices for HIV drugs and found significant differences in prices for the same drugs sold by the same companies in different countries (http://www.cptech.org/pharm/sa/sa-10-97.html). Other researchers, such as K Balasubramaniam, have found similar results for other pharmaceutical drugs. In Japan, the Fair Trade Commission has intervened to ensure that consumers benefit from parallel imports of goods such as Steinway pianos, which were priced higher in Japan than elsewhere. This is considered a very sensitive issue with software, which is often sold at very different prices in different countries, and for the emerging trade in copyrighted goods over the Internet. Firms that are seeking to make parallel imports illegal often assert that parallel imports are related to piracy or counterfeit goods, or undermine a firms ability to protect the image of a brand. Consumer groups from several countries say that piracy or counterfeit products are illegal in any case, and can be addressed without bans on parallel imports. Rules from country to country are quite different. The UK reportedly relies upon parallel imports for about 10 percent of its pharmaceutical products, for example. The following is a news report about New Zealand's recent decision to liberalize rules concerning parallel imports. James Love [EMAIL PROTECTED] >From FT.com (the Financial Times), Wednesday, May 20, 1996. (distributed as a non-commercial fair use) PARALLEL IMPORTS: US warns as New Zealand lifts ban By Gwen Robinson in Wellington The US has threatened action against New Zealand for its abrupt move to remove restrictions on parallel imports - allowing importers to bring in brand-name goods without a franchise. New Zealand has become the first country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to open its market to parallel imports, after parliament voted at the weekend immediately to lift the ban. The vote followed the government's announcement of the measure in the national budget late last week. Charlene Barshefsky, US trade representative, had convened an immediate special review of Wellington's decision, said Josiah Beeman, US ambassador to New Zealand. Mr Beeman this week publicly condemned New Zealand's action and warned "severe consequences" of the move that would go "far beyond the New Zealand market". New Zealand's decision is particularly sensitive for US car, pharmaceutical and CD manufacturers, which claim large market shares through exclusive marketing deals in the country. However, Mr Beeman said the issue was not a bilateral matter. "Rather, it is a precedent-setting action by an OECD nation that could have an adverse impact on overall world trade," he said. In a sharp response to US protests, Jenny Shipley, New Zealand prime minister, warned the US to stop interfering in New Zealand affai
Re: Nomadery;
Western democracies have a good chance of turning into something nasty, remember McCarthy? Hitler and Franco took over western democracies. Stalinism is not the only murderous totalitarian form. And both can turn to pose a "human face", just as from the 70s Hungary, no artist was shot or sent to the gulag. So - that important difference of yours is rather relative. Eva >... However, artists in western democracies have a > much wider range of choice than artists under the soviet system. If they > want to prostitute themselves, they can. If they want to starve in a > garret, they can. If they want to be misuderstood, they can be. No one > will shoot them or send them to the gulag. That to me is a very important > difference. > > Ed Weick > > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
