This post is part of a series featuring interviews with some of the fascinating individuals who joined our community for the 2014-2015 year. Conducted by our 2014 summer interns (affectionately known as "Berkterns"), these snapshots aim to showcase the diverse backgrounds, interests, and accomplishments of our dynamic 2014-2015 community.
Q&A with Heather Whitney
Berkman faculty associate and Lecturer in Law at UChicago Law
@heatherwhitneym
interviewed in summer 2014 by Berktern Tatum Lindsay
You’re interested in how innovation is changing the nature of work and play for Americans. What are you working on now?
My current project centers on the enforceability of promises made by companies to both consumers and their workforce (current and potential) about the company’s mission (e.g., “organize and make useful the world’s information”) and the company’s treatment of its employees (“our employees have a voice in the direction of this company,” “we see ourselves as a family,” etc.). I’m specifically looking at whether those promises have teeth in the face of two major shifts happening to work today:
- the “fissuring” of the workplace - i.e., the process by which a company sheds most direct employment and instead outsources entire functions to smaller business entities that compete in more highly competitive markets. e.g., Apple using Foxconn to manufacture its devices, Google hiring temp workers to scan in books, and FedEx’s legal battle to classify its drivers as independent contractors. (“Fissuring” is a term I borrow from David Weil’s most interesting book)
- job polarization - i.e., employment growth at the top and bottom of the wage distribution spectrum and a hollowing out of the middle-wage jobs. (David Autor at MIT has written on this issue).
Tentatively, I argue that these major shifts in the nature of jobs and employer-employee relations have made it more challenging to make good on such promises. There are a variety of reasons for this; I’ll simply mention a few here.
First, on the fissuring front, I suspect consumers often do not understand that just because someone is wearing a company t-shirt does not, in fact, mean they are one of the company’s direct employees (and therefore, eligible to receive all the benefits the company promises to its “employees”). As a result, consumers who make purchases based in part on a company’s commitment to treat its employees a particular way may be misled.
Second, almost no individual employee has the influence necessary to effectively challenge their employer to make good on its workplace-cultural promises. Employers tend to listen to the aggregated views of its workforce. Now, some will say this shows that workers should unionize. But, as I discuss in an article I am currently working on, unionization is particularly unlikely (and, I argue, not a good fit) in many of these workplaces, especially when dealing with the high-end side of the polarized workforce. Thus, the remainder of this article looks at different mechanisms by which employers and those who work for them (under whatever label) can work together to ensure their promises are kept and goals better reached.
In your talk you mentioned that “no collar” companies like Facebook and Google are reverting back to the 12-hour workday. Do you think that this workday model is inherent to the nature of tech companies? Does the real-time, instant, and constant nature of technology require its employees to spend more hours in the buildings? Is innovation best sown from these environments? Are more hours with colleagues required to make technology better?
There’s a lot built into that question! I’ll try and go through the pieces I can speak to. First, it’s not the case that everybody at Google and Facebook work 12+ hour days. I certainly did not average hours like that and most of the people I know who are still there do not either. Sometimes, sure. And there is wide variability among teams.
As for whether there is anything inherent in the nature of tech companies that requires long hours, I think the answer is plainly no. We’ve seen more recent experimentation with work hours, even in start-ups, which are notorious for brutal hours. For instance, you read about 32-hour weeks (four days, eight hours a day), 40-hour weeks compressed into four days (10 hours a day), and even all but mandatory vacations. Innovative companies that hire smart employees know those employees are in limited supply – burning through them is not a very good long-term strategy.
As for face-time, it’s an interesting issue. I suspect the ultimate question that innovative companies ask themselves is whether having people together makes the creative juices flow more freely than if everybody works remotely. Of course, there is never a one-size-fits-all answer – workers themselves differ. But, I’ll just say that I suspect we will continue to see innovative companies doing what they can to create physical spaces where people enjoy coming together and exchanging ideas.
Where do you think the “high-trust” attitude of employees at places like Facebook and Google come from? Is it Gen-Y? A cultural shift?
Trust is a quality that companies cultivate, through the creation of trustworthy cultures. Think about all of your relationships – they progress (for better or worse) based on a combination of things like reputation and lived experiences. The same holds true for companies. Part of why I am interested in whether companies make good on their brand image and employee-directed sales pitch stems from that fact that when the company repudiates, that repudiation is very costly. To everyone. Consumers go elsewhere, and employees feel betrayed, perhaps quit, and are less likely to be trusting in future workplaces. It is also much harder for that company to recruit and retain top employees in the future. Some might argue that perhaps employees shouldn’t trust their employers and employers shouldn’t try to foster the same. That is certainly a view, but the evidence I’ve seen suggests that employees are happier when their employers are trustworthy; they are also more productive. So, it certainly seems like trust is something we should value.
As to the historical question, I mentioned in my earlier talk that while the Googles and Facebooks out there, with “free” food and a collegial atmosphere, seem radically new, they are not. Starting primarily in the 1920s, employers began reframing the employee-employer relationship as one of a “big family” and embraced a “do well by doing good for employees” ethos. During this time of what is known as “welfare capitalism” we see company picnics, additional perks, and the first instances of employees having a direct financial stake in their employer’s success through profit sharing and stock bonuses. Now, that is not to say today is a total repeat of the past. While a large amount of the 1920s welfare capitalism appeared in industries that were strongly anti-union (suggesting welfare capitalism was used as a [very effective] union-avoidance technique), today we see its closest analog in industries where competition for the best employees is fiercest and the risk of unionization seems incredibly low.
Moreover, the resources that companies put into researching and developing their own workplace and employees are astounding. Those interested can see one such article, about Google’s Project Oxygen, here. For more on the history of welfare capitalism, I highly recommend Sanford Jacoby’s work.
Any areas of tech and employment you’ve got on the backburner?
I’m fascinated by the public (especially the younger, more liberal public) response to Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, TaskRabbit, and other companies that somehow got lumped into the “sharing economy.” (A very misleading term, I might add. Uber drivers “share” their car with me as much as a taxi driver does.) In particular, while the young and left have hugely embraced these companies, the companies themselves embody a deeply deregulatory and arguably libertarian philosophy. What this will mean for the political views and future modes of association these young people embrace (Unions? Guilds? No organizations at all?) is a question I’m quite interested in. For those interested about Uber and libertarianism, Salon had a great article about this.
Along those same lines, I am also always interested in hearing about alternative labor-like organizations people are creating and the roles those organizations play in workers lives. With a large number of people unable to secure fulltime employment, we see an increase in both part-time and freelance work. These people are creating associations that work for them and it is important we understand the functions their organizations play, as I suspect more workers will be forced to join their ranks in the future.