The Job: Work and Its Future in a Time of Radical Change
The Job: Work and Its Future in a Time of Radical Change, by Ellen Ruppel Shell (New York: Currency, 2018)
Book review by Prof. Robert D. Parmet, York College at the City University of New York.
Workers today often reject the idea that their workplace fulfills their “American Dream.” Job dissatisfaction is widespread. Traditional “bread and butter” concerns, such as wages and hours, now plague workers who had previously been thought to be immune from them. Questions of race, gender, inequality, and job security likewise abound. Overwhelming and radical, this transformation of the work experience has been acknowledged and studied by several observers, including Andrew Ross, Steven Greenhouse, Eduardo Porter, Louis Hyman, and, in The Job, Boston University professor of journalism Ellen Ruppel Shell.
“Work is a problem that as a nation we seem unable to face,” she writes. Attacking society’s values, Shell alleges that it overvalues efficiency and productivity as “the fraction of living-wage jobs has declined,” leaving most Americans below middle class. Furthermore, she cites “the job ‘hunt’” as a “cutthroat competition” to bring jobs back from abroad even though Americans often benefit from them, such as with lower prices. Expressing alarm, if not outrage, she announces her “intention to roil the waters—to challenge received wisdom and expose hard truths, not a few of them urgent.” Accordingly, she declares that “offshoring of jobs . . . and the rise of contingent “gig” work have added to our unease . . . . the contract between worker and boss . . . is no longer implicit,” and “technology seems to have grown a mind of its own.”
The disquiet is real, and Shell travels to various hinterlands to investigate the world of work and propose remedies for its ill effects. As problematic as work may be, she discovered that unemployment is much worse. Marienthal, an Austrian community near Vienna, benefited from the Industrial Revolution by becoming the site of a major textile mill. Factory working conditions were imperfect, but employee contentment generally prevailed. The Great Depression changed things, shutting the factory and generating a “joblessness [that] was an evil unto itself: demoralizing, soul killing and dangerous.” When Hitler invaded Austria and reopened the factory, “the people of Marienthal breathed a collective sigh of relief.” With this example, Shell begins to lay the foundation of her book, the economic, historical, and psychological “centrality of work in our lives.” So vital are jobs that we often “sell ourselves” to obtain and keep them, and rather than complain of working long hours, take pride in their pursuit and their results. Furthermore, sometimes they intentionally skip earned vacations.
Yet something is missing, and we complain about much, including inequality. Expressing contempt for those “politicians” who offer “hard work” as the formula for success, she concurs with the nineteenth century French visitor and observer Alexis de Tocqueville, who wrote, “the sort of labor we do very much depends on the circumstances to which we were born.” Similarly, she observes that college degrees are less valuable “to the less privileged than to the privileged.” Explaining that supply and demand determine outcome, she explains mobility in terms of “where that education positions us in relation to others.” In addition, she suggests that the number of degrees awarded is not the answer to high levels of poverty. “The demand for a relatively small number of highly trained specialists—especially in the tech and financial sectors-has led to the overselling of education as a prerequisite of employment.” The problem essentially is with “an unequal distribution of economic growth.” Shell also cites a problem with job training. It can produce “too many people for a particular job category, . . . thereby flooding the market.” In brief, education alone will not improve matters.
What will improve work in the twenty-first century is what Shell compels us to contemplate. Agree with her or not, she makes us think. While we may decry today’s low level of organized labor representation, she cites collective bargaining as a “fundamental and intractable problem,” an out-of-date relationship designed for the factory era, but now less advantageous than before because “far fewer of us are working in manufacturing.” She also suggests that worker organizations should negotiate with management “not company by company but across industry sectors,” and cites the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) as a successful organization owing to its “openness and flexibility—its acceptance of the changing nature of work and the people who do it.” We could go even further. Whether most Americans ever accepted collective bargaining is debatable, but with contingent labor arrangements and technology running rampant it is certainly worth considering new forms of organization. Shell notes the advent of “co-working,” with “people of different backgrounds, skill sets, and visions coming together in mutual support.” Such arrangements, she argues, “offer hope to the growing cadre of Americans laboring independently.” On the other hand, Shell forcefully reminds management that it must likewise innovate, at least deal with the nation’s economic inequality.
As Shell demonstrates, the United States produces significantly more goods than in the past, but its workers are enjoying it less. The latter do possess skills, but profit-seeking encouraged by technology reduces the demand for their services. They sport college degrees, but many if not most available jobs do not require them. They aim to be competitive, but lack the resources to match large corporations, especially multinationals.
With much imagination and effort, workers can thrive, such as the craftspeople of Berea, Kentucky, including the maker of custom-made brooms. Some who prosper are overseas, such as the people of Finland, who “tolerate differences and support one another while maintaining a healthy regard for individual effort and achievement.” With mutual trust has come “a low level of economic inequality.”
In this beautifully written book, Ellen Ruppel Shell skillfully dissects the nuances of work and finds it essential to everyone who engages in or benefits from it. Socially and psychologically critical, her study demands understanding, and on the basis of assiduous research and keen insight, provides it. Not to be taken lightly, this work commands attention.