Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 4, 1995 TAG: 9509060112
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Because he addresses issues that are crucial and under-discussed, Rifkin's voice from the wilderness may seem more credible than it is. He is certainly right in asserting the need to talk about jobs of the future, and how workers displaced from mass production might secure them. He also is right to speak favorably of shorter work weeks and more profit-sharing. It's important to share more widely the benefits of productivity gains.
Where Rifkin goes astray, and seriously so, is in setting up productivity as the enemy. Technological innovation doesn't devalue labor. It enhances it - by making it more productive.
It is unrealistic, says Rifkin, to expect American workers to constantly retrain themselves so they can continue adding value in a changing marketplace. Rifkin prefers to focus on jobs rather than skills.
But who is being unrealistic? Does he imagine that throwing monkey wrenches into automation will save American jobs? Is he telling workers their best bet is to avoid innovation and ignore competition?
People will need jobs, says Rifkin, to pay for the fancy inventions and leisure services of the future. Of course. But subsidizing outmoded jobs would hardly boost people's buying power.
A contemporary Luddite might wish to return to the days of assembly lines and dominant unions. But, even assuming we could, why would we want to? In the good old days, workers did what they were told, and what they did was mostly routine drudgery.
Businesses of the future won't be able to compete presumably without flattening hierarchy, respecting the intelligence and dignity of all workers, and appreciating that everyone has a stake in the success of the enterprise. We ought to embrace, not lament, such democratic trends in the workplace and the need for continuous learning.
Rifkin is right, of course, that rapid change can displace and hurt people. Corporate downsizing in recent years testifies terribly to this fact, as did the fate of inner-city manufacturing before that. Glib assurances from pie-in-the-sky futurists are no substitute for secure jobs with benefits.
Rifkin is also right that economic uncertainty promises political volatility, especially given unskilled labor's vanishing access to middle-class dreams. The pain is real and spreading. The question is how best to respond.
The answer, however, is not Rifkin's.
Let's assume there will always be lower-skilled in-person service jobs, their income derived from the paying power of workers internationally competitive in a knowledge-based economy. Let's also assume that women's growing influence in the workplace produces some of the desired effects Rifkin discusses, including more flexible hours and work arrangements in the interest of family values.
Labor-market forces still would not be, in themselves, enough. While particular jobs don't warrant protection, people and families and communities do. We must have public policies: a higher minimum wage, better education and training, etc.
In devising such policies, though, the one course guaranteed to make matters worse is to try to block change while leaving productivity improvements to others. With friends like Rifkin, labor does not need enemies. What it could use are policies easing pain and quickening the transition to higher-skilled, higher-wage work.
by CNB