1. Innovation and Precarity Workplace Discourse in Twenty-First Century Capitalism
- Author:
- Sidney Rothstein
- Publication Date:
- 09-2019
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
- Abstract:
- This paper analyzes discourse in the workplace in order to explain puzzling patterns of pre- carity in twenty-first century capitalism. Tech workers’ central role in digital transformation endows them with labor market power reflected by their high wages, but during economic downturns, when demand for their skills decreases, even they are vulnerable to downsizing. Comparing workers’ responses to downsizing at two sites of an American tech firm, this paper shows how management disempowers workers by framing the employment relation- ship in a financial discourse. Disposing workers to believe that their jobs are threatened by market forces beyond their control, rather than by managers’ decisions, this financial dis- course undermines labor’s established power resources by persuading workers that mobiliz- ing will be ineffective in protecting their jobs. Relying on detailed case study evidence, this paper demonstrates the importance of discourse to explaining variation in worker power. It argues that the workplace should play a larger role in comparative political economy, par- ticularly in explaining labor market outcomes related to digital transformation.
- Topic:
- Labor Issues, Hegemony, Capitalism, and Discourse
- Political Geography:
- United States and North America