1. Power & the Control of Work

2. #1 Coercive: Naked Power

3. Direct Controls / ‘Low-Trust’Direct Controls / ‘Low-Trust’
OrganisationsOrganisations

7. Here are some of the
working conditions the
labourers must
endure…

8. Hours Per
Week
Wages Per
Hour
Conditions
Iris Fashions
72-80. 12-15 hour shifts; 6 days a week.
$0.20
No union; workers paid a $0.06 an hour
premium for overtime;$0.02 for each
shirt collar sewn.

9. Hours Per
Week
Wages Per
Hour
Conditions
You Li Fashion factory
93. 7.30-midnight. 7 days a week.
$0.13
No overtime pay; no benefits;
sometimes employees need to work 24-
hour shifts, 6-8 people to a dorm room;
dorm is dark and dirty; workers afraid;
under constant surveillance; no
Corporate Code of Conduct

10. Hours Per
Week
Wages Per
Hour
Conditions
Yue Yuen Factory
77-84. 11-12 hour shifts; 7 days a week.
$0.19
Forced overtime, no overtime premium
paid; excessive noise pollution; fumes
in factory; no Code of Conduct

11. No Mums Allowed!
• Pregnancy tests
• Contraceptive pills
• Forced abortions
• Mistreatment designed to compel
resignations
• Sanitary pad check and 28-day contracts
• Denied time-off for medical

12. #2 Silencing: Political Power

13. Part-Timers, Temps
and Outsourcing

15. “Starbucks…created a software program called
STAR LABOR that allows head office maximum
control over the schedules of its clerks down to
the minute. They give an arbitrary skill number
from 1 to 9 and they plug in when you’re
available, how long you’ve been there, when
customers come in and when more staff is
needed, and the computer spits our the
schedule based on that. For some employees it
means starting work at 5a.m. only to leave at
9.30a.m.”

17. Free Work!

18. “Unpaid interns contribute five or six
thousand dollars’ worth of
uncompensated work to various media
conglomerates, who insist they are
generously offering young people
precious experience in a hard
employment market. Besides, they say,
the interns don’t really need the money.”

19. “These companies all have the
formula. They don’t take you on
full time. They don’t pay
benefits. Then their profits go
through the roof.”
Laura Pisciotti,
UPS Worker on strike

20. “More companies are outsourcing entire
functions and divisions to outside agencies
charged not only with staffing – just like the
EPZ factories - but administration and
maintenance.
“In 1993, American Airlines outsourced the
ticket counters at 28 U.S. airports to outside
agencies. Around 550 ticketing agent jobs
went temp and some workers who had earned
$40,000 were offered their same job back at
$16,000.”

22. Microsoft - The
‘Employee-less’ Corporation!
• Core: permanent jobs, benefits, stock-
options, youthful corporate ‘campus’
• Periphery:
– Not on payroll
– Contractors
– Flexibility to be sent home
– Tax-free

24. Part-Timers’ Union?

25. #3 Internalisation: Social Power

26. Kanban

28. Greater ‘Visibility’

29. Higher internal substitutability

30. No more
‘informal’
routines!

31. How else can organisations exert
power over highly-skilled workers?

32. Seniority-based Compensation

33. Lifetime Employment

37. How do workers become
DEPENDENT on the
organisation?

38. Lifestyle

40. “Locked-in” Spending