Short-term contracts – great for employers! Hooray for the market !

If you are an employer one of the best things that has happened over recent years, not much commented upon, is the apparent acceptance among young people of short-term work contracts. The bosses justification is “flexibility”; the economists call it “productivity”. Another great invention of modern capitalism. Ahem!

Think of it: you are looking for a job. You have no option but to take a short-term contract. Why should you have any loyalty to a company with a guillotine hovering over your head? How can you concentrate one hundred per cent on a good job, fearing that you will be out of work on such-and-such a date? (four years is the average length of these short-term contracts). Both sides lose: the boss because the employee is only just about productive after 2-3 years and then he leaves. The employee is barely settled and knows the ropes.

I have run a manufacturing company and fail to understand how this negative, defensive, hand-to-mouth system can possibly work. Lovers of the “market” will tell you “that’s the system. Get used to it”. Those who prefer to treat employees with consideration and respect find the whole idea illustrates the unhealthy balance of power between employer and employee. Already the average American worker works longer hours, with less vacation time and benefits, than anywhere else. Life has to have some other meaning than work, long hours and no security.

But let’s be positive! If you are an employer you need have no loyalty to your staff, there is no need for fancy pensions or health insurances, nor do you have to pay redundancy. You have full flexibility. Very convenient. And none of that messy business about firing – just no renewal notice.

Epicurus would advise us that, before investing in a company, one should find out whether they have long-term employees. If not, if they are are employing contract labour, avoid them like the plague. There has to be a better way. An Epicurean would not indulge iin this form of rule by fear.

4 Comments

  1. A core problem across the board, including in employment policy, has been an intellectual one: reductionism. Focus on one element of an economic system has led to the idea that the prime or the only measure of economic health is profits. Non-economic realities such as “domestic tranquility,” a sense of allegiance, social costs, don’t enter into policy decisions.

    The corruption of academia offers a good example. Universities have adopted a purely economic concept where it does not belong. The growth of young minds and making a profit are not the same thing. The appalling effect is visited on “adjuncts” who endure short-term contracts, low pay, low status, and job insecurity. When academia started measuring success by the same criteria as are used in business, it was the death-knell, in my opinion.

    Yes, this reduction of all economic activity to “profit” contributes to many things, including a fat bottom line for those who can manipulate the game. It also generates social tensions and unrest for the society as a whole. We will be watching this misconception play out for decades to come, it seems to me.

  2. How is it we can have a government that seemingly rules every hour of our lives, but cannot or will not force employers to pay a living wage, or at least a viable minimum wage? Instead, we are taxed to pay for public assistance programs (though even these are being ruthlessly cut in order to avoid taxing the rich).

  3. Ron, the reason is that the government doesn’t rule every hour of our lives, the corporations and the super-rich do. They get everything they want, in return for money to run elections. Get the money out of politics and you might have people in government interested in the welfare of the man in the street. The whole system has been corrupted. Some people haven’t noticed.

    My answers?

    1. Public funding for every national election. Give each Congressman a generous allowance and jail them for five years if they overspend or accept illicit money. Applies to all parties, no favors.

    2. Independent election commission that adjusts constituency boundaries according tom population numbers, not the color of skin.
    Works everywhere in Europe.

    3. By extension, jail for any lobbyist offering cash for favors.

  4. The idea of “jobs” and “employers” and “employees” isn’t even a page in the history of the human race and has never existed in many places on the planet. What makes anyone think that such a paradigm will endure indefinitely?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.