I came across materials, which may be of interest, from a conference held June 9 - 16 in Hofgeismar, Germany on Faith Communities and Social Movements: Facing Globalisation. The conference site is online at: http://www.econ-theo.org/conference/index.htm Of particular interest to me was a pre-conference paper, prepared by theologian Franz Segbers for the discussion group on Work and Unemployment. I would call your attention to points 9, 10 and 11, below in which Segbers addresses reduction and redistribution of working time. Temps Walker Sandwichman and Deconsultant --------------------------------------- Colloquium 2000 on faith-theology-economy in the context of churches and social movements facing globalisation Issue group 6: Work and Unemployment A Contribution from: FRANZ SEGBERS, Evangelische Sozialakademie (Translation by Keith Lindsey) First Draft ONE CAN SEE ALREADY THE FUTURE OF EUROPE, BY TAKING A LOOK AT THE SOUTH: PRECARIOUS WORK IN THE NORTH AND INFORMAL WORK IN THE SOUTH ARE RAPIDLY INCREASING. 1. Throughout the world jobs are disappearing. This is due to more rational methods of organisation of work and new technologies. 2. There is, however, an increase in one particular kind of job: informal and precarious jobs. 3. In the South, the pattern of informal work is well established. That is: work for which no contract of employment is given, where there is no protection against dismissal, and where there is no national insurance scheme (i.e. no pension contributions or health insurance). The number of women in this sector is particularly high. According to estimates of the ILO (International Labour Organisation), already over 50% of those in employment in Latin America work in the informal sector, and the proportion is increasing. 4. In the North, there are two main thrusts in the attempt to reduce unemployment; economic growth and precarious work. Precarious work means low wages, little security of employment, in fact with no benefit from the achievements of trades unions and social movements. The winners of rationalisation and globalisation let the losers work for them in personal service. In the North, global capitalism is turning the clock back. The society in which the wealthy employ servants is returning. The job-creation wonder in the USA is actually just a remarkable transformation of the unemployed poor into the working poor. 1.2 million women work in German homes for whom no pension or health contributions are paid. 90% of all new jobs in East Germany are not formal jobs with proper terms of service. 5. This trend of the ever increasing informal sector and precarious work is not the result of bad or wrong political policies, but it is an integral part of the neoliberal projects of deregulation and flexibility. The neoliberal globalisation project praises the attacks on the welfare state and the erosion of social benefits as advantages for national economies. Those societies and economies which still benefit from the social achievements that have been won through hard struggle over the last 150 years are seen as disadvantaging national economies. In the North these achievements are being negated by being labelled as privileges, in the East and the South they have been given no chance to develop. 6. Fundamentally, trade union organisations in the global North and the global South are for those who are in a conventional, secure workplace and whose working conditions have been properly negotiated. 7. The membership of the trade unions is in decline, whilst the informal sector grows. There is a connection between the dramatic increase in informal and precarious work and the decline in the membership of the trade unions. Globalisation is destroying the ability of workers to be an organised counter-force, so that they now have to accept as individuals the conditions they find in the sector of informal and precarious work. The organised counter-force, which always opposed the accumulation of wealth by the employers, is being weakened. Trades unions can no longer speak on behalf of all workers. 8. There is a danger that, in the future, the trade unions will act only on behalf of a worker-elite. In this way, they lose their legitimacy in society as a whole. Workers in the informal and precarious sectors feel that the trade unions are not interested in them and do not represent them. Consequently, they have absolutely no protection and stand merely as individuals against the power of the system. 9. There is a cultural, political and economic hegemony of capital in this time of globalisation. The campaign of the workers movements since the beginning of industrialisation, based on rationalisation in the workplace and technological development, for a reduction in working hours and a redistribution of work has been interrupted. The organised worker movement has been weakened world-wide, and so is in no position to see through the campaign for the reduction of working hours. The reduction of working hours has not only the possibility of distributing more widely ever fewer jobs, but it is also about emancipation: the liberation from working for somebody else, and reclaiming one's own time for living, which up to now has had to be devoted to the production process. If work were to be redistributed, then the paradigm of capital could be shattered. For this reason, the possibility of workers experiencing a sense of emancipation through a reduction of working hours has been politically suppressed. 10. The purpose of technology and economic efficiency is to benefit humanity. At present they are unfairly shared out: the paradigm of globalisation sets in motion a downward spiral regarding insecure jobs. Living time which, up to now, has had to be devoted to work in order to survive, and through that work to produce the goods that are required for living, must be re-owned. Objectively, the conditions are there, in the North, the East and the South. 11. Without a reduction in working hours, millions more would be out of work. One could say that those in paid work in the developed industrial countries, compared with their great grandparents, are engaged in part-time jobs and still earn a lot more money. The redistribution of work and redistribution of incomes go together. They can admittedly only keep this connection, if the power relationships are redistributed. QUESTIONS WHICH MUST BE ASKED IN PURSUING THESE ISSUES: 1. To what pictures of a good life and just society can we refer in the Biblical tradition in our struggle to reclaim ownership of our time? 2. What changes are necessary in the alienating production process, so that the destructive logic of technology and the efficiency of the market economy can be used for a humane project of creating just work for all? 3. The utopia presented in the Bible is not the abolition of work, but rather the abolition of soul-destroying work, as in Egypt. How could value be given to activity, work and the search for meaning in life? 4. It is not so much the workers that must be more flexible, but rather the working conditions set by the employers. Who or what is master?
