Significance of declining work Flashcards
Multinational companies do not invest in the workforce
Multinational companies contract out work; they do not invest in workers or factories. This has led to the inevitable devaluation of work.
They focus more on brands rather than the places where the goods are actually made. For example, Nike are often seen as a successful model for a modern TNC in which they do not own any factories, but outsource their products through an intricate web of contractors and subcontractors.
This means that many workers believe they have lost jobs to cheap foreign labour. Globalisation means goods are produced in cheaper foreign locations and companies have moved operations to low wage economies eg shipbuilding moving to South Korea. This means fewer workers are given training opportunities for career development.
Multinational companies do not invest in the workforce A03
However, TNC’s have invested in marketing and sales. Globalisation has led to a massive expansion of the service sector and there are now more people in work than ever before. (32 million in UK work (ONS).
Technology has led to alienation
Alienation is the situation whereby workers lack power and control at work. As skills are replaced by technology, the worker has no job satisfaction or sense of personal fulfilment and creativity from their work. increases extrinsic or an instrumental attitude to work;
Blauner believed the degree of alienation and job satisfaction was influenced by the level of technology and the extent of division of labour used at work.
Skilled craft workers had the highest levels of job satisfaction as they had pride in the work they produced. However, workers involved in routine, repetitive work, requiring little skill in mechanised, assembly line production (Fordist) had high levels of alienation and an instrumental approach to work; this gave them little interest or opportunity to get involved in or attached to their work.
Technology has led to alienation A03
However, many employers introduce measures to reduce the impact of assembly line technology, on workers such as job rotation; giving workers greater variety of tasks by having them move around different work station
