Economic French Journalists Association (AJEF)
has devoted a series of lectures to changes in employment. Topics : "clash
of new technologies and automation: what jobs will be created tomorrow and
which will disappear?", with Augustin Landier, Toulouse School of
Economics, and Olivier Passet, Director of Syntheses at Xerfi and The end of wage labour is coming soon? Autoentrepreneurs,
coworking, etc.: new forms of work" with Monique Dagnaud, sociologist, and
Philippe Askenazy, Director of research CNRS - Paris School of Economics.
Uberization : an
ultra-liberal vision
Augustin Landier is a worthy
representative of the school of Toulouse, which eventually would have us
believe that there no other alternative than ultra liberalism, and that’s
really nice since it will benefit the poor first. Therefore, Mr. Landier
supports El Khomri project and worked
for Uber, past master of influence strategy, which commissioned a report
showing that Uber would be a chance for the young mined by unemployment,
and that these employees are well paid (3600 euros per month?, disputed figure
valid only for those who are self-employed), young and more graduates than taxi
drivers, and that, unlike the US, for most of them it's their only job and not a
complement. Therefore, any attempt to regulate would increase unemployment.
QED... to please the sponsor of the survey. Mr. Landier predicts a considerable
expansion of uberisation which will gradually affect a large part of the
functions of business, such as accounting, HR functions, various sharp
expertise... There will be many highly qualified, well paid jobs which will be
soon threatened by uberisation and M. Landier warns: this creative destruction shumpeterian
process, which he likes, will lead to replace well paid jobs by others more
precarious and less well paid. He cited with some relish the polytechniciens in
their fifties who populates the staffs of large companies who will be threatened.
In praise of salarymen (and women)
At this idyllic description of the
uberisation, Olivier Passet objects that Uber non-employees give to Uber not
only their work, for a fallacious freedom (Uber selects those who work the
most, unilaterally imposes reductions of tariffs, etc.) but also give Uber their capital (their car,
maintenance...)…for nothing. Above all,
companies like Uber are “clandestine passengers”, parasites, for they profit
from a number of externalities (social protection, training, infrastructure
etc.) that they do not finance. This
system is not viable. A business is something other than a pile of relations
between internal customers /suppliers, but a complete system of collaboration.
Uberisation results in the death of business and of society. Using the example
of the Polytechninas in their fifties, Mr. Passet underlines how much the
experience, networks, skills, knowledge, the habits they acquired in large
companies is profitable to young start-up that would have been in trouble to
acquire them in a uberised world.
Mr. Passet also embarked in a
praise of the wage system in a very interesting text http://www.uberisation.org/fr/portfolio/Les-4-formes-de-la-fuite-salariale-lub%C3%A9risation-en-t%C3%AAte
which an excerpt: '
'. Generalization of wage-earning pushed back all work “at the
task”, archaic forms of employment relationship, under paid, under organized
and under insured. It allowed also to roll back unpaid jobs unpaid in farms , in
trade in particular, and many women providing
essential tasks without special status and right to retirement. Finally, it
allowed to monetize a portion of domestic tasks by outsourcing. One of the main
cause of the post-war growth has been the eradication of “black or grey “ work by
wage work, inserted into the economic circuit and greatly expanding the base of
opportunities. ».
The ultra-liberal horizon - egality in insecurity
Listening to Mr. Landier, it seems that
these economists who have never worked in a business do not know how it works,
and that the only future they offer is more equal, yes, but equal in poverty
and de-skilling, in brief the contrary
of a knowledge-based society and a highly qualified industry. However, he
mentioned an interesting data: unemployment among young people is distributed
very unequally and hits little graduates and very massively non-graduates; and
those ones are not employed or employable by companies like
Uber. The Uberisation is not a solution to unemployment; it comes more from the
failure of the french education system and learning. The youth unemployment
figures are the subject of recurring manipulations for blaming employees and get
them to consent to the sacrifices for "the youth"; in fact , the high
unemployment figure is calculated only for young people without education and
does not include those who are studying.
Another note: new technologies, computer science,
automation... Twenty years ago, the first reaction was: ' super, we will be
able to reduce working time. Today is "help, my job is threatened."
As would say Houellebecq, something went wrong! We would like to know what, and
this has not been discussed: explosion of inequality, confiscation of the
productivity gains by a small minority, financiarization of the economy at the
expense of industries?
Realities and myths of the
pseudo-independent jobs
Philippe Askenazy challenged the increase
in self-employed jobs Uber type, noting that there was no such rise in the US, where
the economy has recovered and unemployment almost reduced to a minimum level.
For him, the development of this type of allegedly independent employment is
linked to the deep crisis and unemployment in some European countries,
including France, and not due to a genuine appetite for those jobs. He also
stressed that the contracts of employment and the way in which they are legally
qualified depend on legislation of each country and particularly the notion of
subordination, linked to the employment contract; in some countries, the actual
subordination (a single payer, no real possibility to organize and to refuse
contracts...) Uber type contracts type would qualify as salaried jobs, in
others not. Thus, the number of Uber type contracts depends on an important
legislative bias. He also remarked that these pseudo self-employment also
respond to a certain ideology that well would see the abolition of employers;
in the absence of boss, no employer responsibilities (only royalties !) and in
the absence of employees, no wage claims. Miracle !. The evaporation of bosses,
a true ultra – liberal dream ?
In addition, the attrition of the salary base reduces the
corrective capacity of taxation and
social protection, placing them in a financial constraint. Über jobs do not
contribute to social security, they kill it; they do not contribute to
taxation, yet they benefit from the infrastructure and the organisation of
society. These forms of work create of significant leakage into the economic
circuit, and high opacity in the identification of value creation (Olivier
Passet). The sustainability of our social insurance system, health,
unemployment etc. is highly threatened, and
as Philippe Askenazy stressed, we
should not be surprised that the lobby of private insurance pushes very
strongly to the development of these false self-employment and defends a
legislative and fiscal framework that is supportive.
Monique Dagnaud , sociologist and member of the Haut Conseil de l’Audiovisuel
from 1991 to 1999, specialist of rave parties, conducted a survey which showed
the immense happiness of these young people, often graduates, to create their own non-salaried job, boss of
their own start-ups (possibly several) and multi-consultants in various structures.
It is to wonder if she has not abused of substances too present in raves and if
she has not confused speech of self-justification or reinsurance with reality;
because it seems to me that for many, they would have preferred a recruitment
in the research services of a large company, which would have allowed them to
focus in their activity instead of frantically seek financing and this would have been a better benefit for them, for the
development of a knowledge-based society, much talked about and everyday
farther.
What is a company?
It is also quite strange that a sociologist no more raises the question of the
characterization of a company. Back to the founder of the discipline, Auguste
Comte, one might be surprised by these sociologists who "much exaggerate
the importance of the individual and ignore “collective beings” as representing
anything real”. From a positivist standpoint, one could characterize a company
as a collective being whose goal is to achieve the best, most effective
possible reconciliation between two trends always growing and complementary,
the specialization of functions and the coordination of efforts; and to promote
cooperation of individuals. Then the question arises: can the Uber type job organization accomplish these tasks better than a
company and its employees? I do not believe.
