{"id":20912,"date":"2019-02-01T11:25:06","date_gmt":"2019-02-01T16:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=20912"},"modified":"2019-02-01T11:25:09","modified_gmt":"2019-02-01T16:25:09","slug":"an-agenda-for-the-dignity-of-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=20912","title":{"rendered":"an agenda for the dignity of work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Sen. Sherrod Brown\u2019s theme of the \u201cdignity of work\u201d is powerful and important, for these four  reasons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>1. A basic cause of unacceptable inequality is the worsening position of workers versus the owners of capital. That shows up in statistics on the share of income \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"460\" src=\"https:\/\/www.epi.org?p=161148&amp;view=embed&amp;embed_template=charts_v2013_08_21&amp;embed_date=20190201&amp;onp=161214&amp;utm_source=epi_press&amp;utm_medium=chart_embed&amp;utm_campaign=charts_v2\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2026 and also in less tangible ways, such as a growing cultural and spatial distance between workers and investors and the rising deference or obsequiousness to the rich<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2. Work, in the broadest sense\u2014making things of value\u2014is one basis of a good life for human beings. It is spoiled when work is alienated (split between decision-makers who don\u2019t actually do anything and laborers who make no decisions) or replaced entirely by automation and AI. The availability of good work is probably shrinking and is certainly threatened by the next wave of automation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>3. The dignity of work can be a unifying theme. Yes, who has dignified work depends on gender, race, class, and age, so addressing this issue requires attention to inequality and difference. But people in very different social positions share a sense that dignified work is threatened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>4. Workers who are organized (in unions or the functional equivalents of unions) gain countervailing political power along with dignity. I&#8217;m of the school that it doesn&#8217;t matter much which <em>policies<\/em> Democratic candidates endorse, because their policy options are highly constrained once they&#8217;re in office. It matters how power is distributed. Strengthening workers&#8217; organizations addresses <a href=\"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=19234\">the third level of power<\/a> (&#8220;Who decides policies?&#8221;) rather than the first or second levels of power (What do particular people get? and &#8220;What policies are in place?&#8221;).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[For related arguments, see Harry C. Boyte, &#8220;The Shutdown Taught Us About the Dignity of Work: An Unanticipated Civics Lesson, Courtesy of President Trump&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/the-shutdown-taught-us-about-the-dignity-of-work\/\">The Nation<\/a>, Jan 29) and Albert Dzur, &#8220;Teaching Citizenship&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/bostonreview.net\/education-opportunity\/albert-w-dzur-teaching-citizenship\">The Boston Review<\/a>, Jan. 30).]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sen. Brown has a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brown.senate.gov\/all-pressworking-too-hard-for-too-little\/\">plan <\/a>entitled &#8220;Working Too Hard for Too Little: A Plan for Restoring the Value of Work in America.&#8221;\u00a0I\u00a0think\u00a0it&#8217;s\u00a0an important\u00a0contribution, but it&#8217;s mostly about raising pay per hour and improving the bargaining position of unions. We could add to his agenda, recognizing that some people just aren&#8217;t going to be unionized, that AI threatens employment for all, and that work faces crises of quality as well as pay and hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I can only offer vague thoughts because I am insufficiently informed, but I would consider:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Federal support for associations of workers who would have a very hard time unionizing. Domestic workers are the prime case, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.www.domesticworkers.org\/about-us\">National Domestic Workers Alliance <\/a>is the leading example. When organized, domestic workers can advocate for favorable government policies, but they can also provide education, training, insurance, and other services for their members and speak to a range of audiences. In practice, they use their voice to advocate for their patients and clients as well as for themselves, and they demonstrate a concern for the quality of work as well as pay. I am not sure what federal policies would help them most, but possibly they should be eligible for grants for their service functions to subsidize their organizing efforts.<\/li><li>A new look at accountability policies in a wide range of fields, from teaching and policing to medicine, to ensure that the drive to measure inputs and outcomes doesn&#8217;t ruin the quality of professional work. Often these accountability measures are driven by federal policy.<\/li><li>A new look at the federal civil service, with an eye to making the jobs that are directly controlled by the national government as rewarding and substantive as possible.<\/li><li>Funding for R&amp;D that uses new technology to enhance and expand work (not to replace work).<\/li><li>Federal programs modeled on the EPA&#8217;s now-defunct <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.epa.gov\/care\/web\/html\/\">Community Action for a Renewed Environment CARE<\/a>) that support a range of stakeholders who <em>work <\/em>on common problems. Typically, some of the stakeholders are paid to work full-time on these problems; others use some of their paid time to help out; and others are volunteers. For instance, in an environmental project, some participants may be government regulators, some may be local business people, and some may be unpaid activists. It&#8217;s important to see and name them all as <em>working<\/em>.<\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. Sherrod Brown\u2019s theme of the \u201cdignity of work\u201d is powerful and important, for these four reasons: 1. A basic cause of unacceptable inequality is the worsening position of workers versus the owners of capital. That shows up in statistics on the share of income \u2026 \u2026 and also in less tangible ways, such as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2020-election","category-revitalizing-the-left"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20912"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20915,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20912\/revisions\/20915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}