In the new global economy, a cleavage or gap seems to increase between 'generic labour' (casual substitutable labour) and 'self-reprogrammable labour' (those with the ability to
adapt their skills throughout their lives)
(Kaldor, 1998, p. 899). Generic labour refers to a person who is unskilled or possesses lower skills or has a low level of education. These
individuals usually work for low-wage labor, and according to Castells (2004) can be, disposable, except if they assert their right to exist as humans and citizens through their
collective action
(p. 40). On the contrary, self-reprogrammable labour refers to highly educated people who manage and control information with high creativity. Castells (2004) states:
The more our information systems are complex, and interactively connected to data bases and information sources, the more what is required from labor is to be able of this searching and recombining capacity. This demands the appropriate training, not in terms of skills, but in terms of creative capacity, and ability to evolve with organizations and with the addition of knowledge in society (p. 40).
Since the matter of labour in the global economy is related to capacity and creativity, Castells (2001) suggests that education is a more important solution today.
Another problem in the cleavage between both types of labours is that labor organizations cannot function properly, and rather divide the self-reprogrammable labour from the generic labour.
Another example of the cleavage is that within the industrial system, the employment of flexible woman
increased, but that of organized man
decreased, over the
last couple of decades. The more valuable segments in the value chain of global economy can survive.
Since the global economy allows flexible and arbitrary linkage between nodes, a business organization can easily redeploy their labour sources from one market to the other market in a planetary scope. Thus, globalization of the economic activities enables the situation that one labour market is supplied for abundant works, but, at the same time, one market experiences a serious unemployment. The other problem of labour in global economy is that new technologies increase the productivity of blue-collar worker, so that the network enterprises downsize its own system. This is reminiscent of the mass layoffs in the 19th century.
Castells (1997b) views these trends as the reversal trend of socialization of labour that characterized the industrial age
(p. 9). He warns of the alienation of workers in the
network society by using Carnoy's terms of individualization of work
.
Networking and individualization of work leaves workers to themselves. Which is all right when they are strong, but becomes a dramatic condition when they do not have proper skills, or they fall into some of the traps of the system (illness, additions, psychological problems, lack of housing, or of health insurance) (Castells, 1999).
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