23rd March 2006, 01:01 PM
Hello All,
I have looked into this extensively, and had the whole thing set up and ready to run last year, but like Mr Hosty I am still not convinced that it will work out in the way we would all like it to.
The attraction is that it might produce a glorious new world in which we are all responsible and empowered enough to look after our own careers to our best advantage. The danger is that the profession will become increasingly atomised and lacking in solidarity, and we end up with a workforce of completely disenfranchised, unskilled day labourers lacking the wherewithall to improve their situation. It is true that the engineers seem perfectly happy with their lot, but when this kind of system was introduced to the lower ends of the construction industry in the nineties it got a more muted reception. I recall a fair few workers bemoaning to me how they were getting screwed.
So anyway, I am not convinced by what I see as a very neo-liberal answer to our problems, which like all neo-liberal answers will be very convenient for those with the nouce to take advantage of it, but not so great for everyone else. When I have perfected my alternative, based on sound anarcho-syndicalist principals, I will let you all know.
TTFN,
Mr Tom
I have looked into this extensively, and had the whole thing set up and ready to run last year, but like Mr Hosty I am still not convinced that it will work out in the way we would all like it to.
The attraction is that it might produce a glorious new world in which we are all responsible and empowered enough to look after our own careers to our best advantage. The danger is that the profession will become increasingly atomised and lacking in solidarity, and we end up with a workforce of completely disenfranchised, unskilled day labourers lacking the wherewithall to improve their situation. It is true that the engineers seem perfectly happy with their lot, but when this kind of system was introduced to the lower ends of the construction industry in the nineties it got a more muted reception. I recall a fair few workers bemoaning to me how they were getting screwed.
So anyway, I am not convinced by what I see as a very neo-liberal answer to our problems, which like all neo-liberal answers will be very convenient for those with the nouce to take advantage of it, but not so great for everyone else. When I have perfected my alternative, based on sound anarcho-syndicalist principals, I will let you all know.
TTFN,
Mr Tom