Globalization: Transformation of Paid Work

We’re going to look at how globalization in the workplace has changed paid work for workers and reformed the world we live in today by defining the different forms of globalization that has formed through the years with economic and political intertwining, globality was theirs a balance between universal and family ties and globalism. With a methodology towards contemporary globalization by looking at the different phases and causes that’s brought on by globalization and how they have altered paid work for workers. Capitalists caused globalization in their effort to get money, they tore down the framework of time. According to Held, globalization is a set process that exemplifies the transformation of an organization’s social relations and transactions by looking at their interactions and exercise of power. According to Jones globalization is a phenomenon that’s changing the economy and work itself.

Globalization was perceived as having an outwards process that has an impact on everyone with objective reality in the sense that it’s what we believe to be true in the world like it’s a single place were a different thing for, example the Ebola outbreak (humanitarian disaster) have an impact on everyone. Globality is our extent to which we are aware of our life and observing it as a whole (in the world) it also refers to our subjective awareness that’s linked to all our experiences with our indigenous ties that’s more noticeable than global ties.

Edgell shows that globalism has a neo-liberal ideology towards global market domination with the political-economic dimensions working together with the different dimensions of contemporary globalism that’s based on the increased inequality worldwide.

Joneslooks at how contemporary globalization has changed the nature of work in relation to workers. Edgell has identified three approaches towards contemporary globalization they are a hyperglobalists approach that’s completely different and new, sceptics approach that views contemporary globalization not as a new find but an extension to past development and lastly transformationalist approach were societies are trying to conform and adapt to the new unpredictable world. Jones saw a translocal connection forming that connects different people with each other in our shrink world.

Edgell characterized it with continued features that involve people and unique features that are compressed by time-space with the use of transnational call-centres. The implementation of contemporary globalization has a specific way of controlling the time-space of the working environments, it should be vigilant not to mistake economic globalization with internationalization and aware that figures obtained from economic globalization aren’t an indication of globalization. Jones noted that volunteer work has elements of both time-space without its restrictions to a specific place.

A practical example of contemporary globalization is call centres for they are a form of voice-to-voice interactive services this field of work is mostly dominated by women for it’s viewed as a non-standard work.

Edgell used Scholte work to make a clear division between these different phases, namely global imagination, incipient globalization and full-scale globalization they have a linkage to the pre-, early and late modern globalization. According to Edgell, globalization was seen as consciousness with few people viewing it as an international connection that refers to proto-globalization that was an idea that formed through global relationships with other countries by communication. Jones agrees with Edgell with his research of international youth volunteers that a form of multi-dimension interactors that changed the development of global interconnections. Held’s work shows us that theirs an intense flow of networking through different global interactions, for example, global production and organisations that have an impact on everyone. During full-scale globalization, it brought with it the use of more electronic technology like fax machines and computers.

There are four main factors that caused globalization and according to Edgell they are rationalism that was thought to have played a role in global thinking and therefore exhilarated globalization, capitalism that organized the working activities in a way that would be more profitable for them they were viewed as key providers to globalization. The technology was brought in to help with the production of goods and services this lead to workers and the organization being connected globally and lastly regulation which refers to the government and legal aspects that enforced globalization in which it thrived. It can be noted by Edgell that contemporary globalization is a product of mutual enforced processes with the key enforcers being capitalist and technology.

We’re going to look at the impact globalization had on paid work by looking at all the limitations that globalization has brought on with the changes of production and changing the methods of how work was done with the reinforcement of Fordism and how these changes have contributed to workers discontent and consumers dissatisfaction with the ongoing impact of Taylorism on organizations with added competitive pressure and flexibility on capitalist to lower their prices. According to Jones organizations experience economic pressure (external) to change their activities towards competition and global markets. We’re also going to see how paid work has affected the work-life balance of both genders.

Technology

Castell’s network enterprise thesis shows that there are three crucial features of the innovative economy they are global, networked, informational with capitalist were core adaptability and outer flexibility is vital. Jones research has shown how legal service workers have found a way to grow with the global changes through international travelling work and mobility enforced in organizations. With the use of technology, their work was more simplified for they could take their work with them when they travelled through mobile communications. According to Edgell the transnational call centres is a product of contemporary globalization with the use of technology to lower the time-space it was beneficial for capitalist but workers saw this negatively for it not only led to routine and knowledge work being deskilled and outsourced with higher wage inequality and unemployment of workers. Kittur et al agrees with Edgell were he refers to the little interaction between crowd workers and requesters that could lead to dehumanization.

Kittur et al uses the term ‘crowd work’ to define an online work environment it’s the future of work where organizations are moving into a more technologically advanced society.

Feminization

Feminization is a big integral factor in the transformation of pay. According to Van der Lippe et al, both men and women strive for a dual career. Edgell’s source Castells argued that women are paid less than men for the same work, the reason for this is that women are dominant in part-time employment work where there’s more multi-skilled informational work. There’s also a growing need for paid work to provide meaningful relations.

Although women are still in lower paid and non-standard work this means there’s growth for women in the labour market to move to standard and high paid jobs.

The Relationship Between Capital and Labour

According to Jones with the gradually integrated global capitalist economy labour is the most confined factor in production. The place of work is essential in the contemporary world. Edgell uses Castell’s work were he defines the change in white-collar rules that have left workers unprotected for every worker in the organization became dependent on the individual bargaining conditions offered by the organization in a labour market that’s always changing.

Edgell uses three trends to show how labour has become a victim to global capitalist market there government policies that support transnational organizations by offering financial encouragements through tax adjustments so that the organization can create more jobs. Jones noted that the power and control over workers were confined to their internal sets of relations in the organizations which changed the relationship between workers and employers. Edgell makes use of a great example of the power of capital against the weak labour were he uses ‘Export Processing Zones (EPZs)’ that takes advantage of cheap labour that’s mostly women within an unhealthy working environment. With the dangerous oppression that’s regarded as flexibilization of work in EPZs.

Work-Life Balance

Lewis et al shows how work and life are equally exclusive and skills transfer to different aspects of life. With a link to money and capitalism that’s supported through our pay for by giving attention to different parts of our life.

According to Van der Lippe et al, there was only a focus on women entering the workforce but not for the work-care relationship with both sexes working overtime and for a long hour they neglected care and experienced combined pressure.

Conclusion

We are looking at what impact globalization has on paid work by looking at the different aspects of globalization and how work has changed with the reinforcement of globalization on work with the impact it had on the worker. We can conclude that there was a big change brought on with globalization on paid work for organizations have expanded globally with the use of new technology that enabled them to produce more. With the incorporation of mass production, there was a visible decline of workers through deskilling and the inequality of gender in paid work. We can clearly see the positive and negative effect that globalization had through our findings.