Sociology Exam 2: Chapter 11- The Economy and Work

pros of an unpaid internship for student for employer

-help you decide what you want to be by exposure to the field -gain skills and experience -ideal job candidate on resume (some companies turn to those that have interned for them before when actually hiring for long-term jobs) -contacts could help you find another position -cheap or free work from highly trained students -stay connected with new ideas -creates goodwill from the students who intern with them and from universities through which internships are organized

What are some ways that Third Sector help society?

-plays a significant part in American pluralism, working along the first two sectors and helping to strengthen and make them work better -deliver vital services to millions -humanizing force in American society, allowing altruism

Companies like General Electric, Caterpillar, Microsoft, WalMart employ ____ of all American workers but during the 2000s they shrank workforce be ___ million and increased foreign employees by ___ million i.e. Manufacturing jobs were the first to go with some service jobs following (clerical staff, purchasing, finance, human resource workers)

1/5, 2.9, 2.4

Since 2008 with the recent recession, the unemployment rates went up to ___, highest since the Great Depression. The crash in ___ ___ and ____ sectors caused a crash in California, Nevada, and "ruse-belt" as well as the drop in construction and manufacturing.

10%, real estate, finance

What is the relevance of this list? (2 things) construction education and health science financial activities government information leisure and hospitality manufacturing natural resources and mining professional and business services other services trade, transportation, and utilities

11 super-sectors of US economy where people work, 2/3 in knowledge or service sectors

In 2011, ___ million American workers (less than 12%) were in a union organization but union membership has been declining since its peak in the ____. (in 1955, 35%)

14.8, 1950s

Time period of agricultural revolution

1600s-1800s

Time period of industrial revolution

1769

Time period of information revolution

1970s with invention of microchip

steam-powered ships, railways, internal combustion engine, electrical power generation all came from what century?

19th

How many people inhabited America before European colonization?

2-10 million

Financial scandals with people (Wall Street) like Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs with security frauds, bankruptcies, bank failures, bailouts, mortgage foreclosures, and ultimate escape from prosecution helped precipitate what?

2007-2008 recession

Most of us will work ____ jobs or ____ careers and critical thinking is therefore important

4-5, 2-3

Describe Leidner's study on McDonald's workers

6 steps of greeting, taking order, assembling food, presenting food, collecting money, thanking for service; found that some workers liked it because it helped them do their jobs better and many used their own interjections in order to not suppress themselves workers must serve without an attitude no matter what the customer says or else they could get in trouble with supervisor and to speak back is to engage in resistance and gain back some autonomy

The Department of Labor estimated that in 2001 there were still more than ____ sweatshops in the US in NY, LA, NOLA, Chicago, Philly, and El Paso i.e. Overseas, factory fires have killed workers without proper emergency exits and poor building safety.

7,000

by 1881, a number of smaller labor groups had banded together to form ____ ____ ___ _____ that eventually became the AFL-___ by adding in ____ __ ______ _____, and is still recognized as a powerful union today

American Federation of Labor, CIO, Congress of Industrial Organizations

woman who took minimum-wage service jobs in three different cities (waitress, hotel maid, Wal-Mart employee) to experience the difficulties of trying to make ends meet and maintain self-respect in low-wage service positions); learned that many are poor-off and are just barely getting by

Barbara Ehrenreich

Where did the Industrial Revolution begin? With what? i.e. used to power machinery, starting with textile manufacturing

England, steam engine invention of 1769

More than 170 colleges/universities have pledged to uphold the ___ ____ _____ workplace code of conduct when it comes to choosing manufacturers for their apparel

Fair Labor Association

The _____ ____ _____ defines a sweatshop as "an employer that violates more than one federal or state labor law governing minimum wage and overtime, child labor, industrial homework, occupational safety and health, workers compensation, or industrial regulation"

General Accounting Office

Who invented the assembly line? Where? When?

Henry Ford, Detroit, MI, 1913

part of the economy composed of nonprofit organizations; their workers are mission driven, rather than profit driven, and such organizations direct surplus funds to the causes they support

Independent (or Third) Sector

____ has become a primary location for the practice of outsourcing information technology due to shared English language and lower wages. ____ has become the second largest outsourcing provider to the US.

India, China

____ ____ argues that when people lose control over their production and the conditions of production, they become alienated and view work as a means to survive rather than a rewarding activity.

Karl Marx

From a _____ perspective, we see large capitalist corporations sometimes exploit workers and cause alienation and that their power hierarchies often exclude women and minorities.

Marxist

performance of microprocessors in capacity and speed has continued to increase, doubling every eighteen months-two years

Moore's Law

Under ____, American companies avoid paying taxes when they export raw materials to Mexico and import finished products; global trade agreements often benefit private industry

NAFTA

Beginning with the _______ Act of 1947, laws limit power of unions and some states have passed _____ laws that prohibit workplaces from making union membership a requirement of all employees

Taft-Hartley, right-to-work

formed in 1852 and considered the first durable national organization of workers

Typographical Union

Britain's steam-powered factories spread to ___ ____ by the late 18th century, causing more machine manufacturing (cotton gin) and new farming (mechanical plows and reapers)

United States

____ and ____ ____ ____ rank higher in transnationality index than the countries of Thailand, Denmark, and Colombia This indicates that by donating huge amounts of money to lobbyists and political campaigns and influencing trade law at a global level, they pull more weight than some countries even do.

WalMart, Royal Dutch Shell

In _____'s theory of bureaucracies, he highlights the rational, impersonal, and cold but efficient nature of the work place where the worker loses his sense of autonomy and daily tasks are structured by _____ forces.

Weber, external

Labor ____ have also been on the decline, from 352 major strikes in 1950s to less than 30 in the 200s i.e. LA and Long Beach, CA, clerical workers shut down nation's busiest shipping complex right as cargoes of holiday goods were headed for the port, protesting job security as jobs were moved overseas. New contracts promised no outsourcing of jobs within 8 days.

action

labor force was encouraged through this economy, plantation owners accumulated wealth from cotton and sugar crops by cheap labor from black slaves in the southern plantations

agricultural

the social and economic changes, including population increases, that followed from the domestication of plants and animals and the gradually increasing efficiency of food production i.e. continued some of changes from horticultural societies, better farming and ranching allowed larger groups to thrive and remain in one location, in 18th century food production increased by new innovations (plows/mechanized seed spreaders/crop rotation/irrigation/selective breeding)

agricultural revolution

Mark Poster detailed the increase in _____ that can come into a workplace switching to electronic communications. i.e. Using new software can get supplies ordered more quickly and with fewer errors but it can get lonely when the only person you talk to is a computer.

alienation

workers disliked this because they never had the satisfaction of seeing the finished product and were frustrated with unsafe, exhausting work conditions where they would do one or two tasks as opposed to the old artisan mode of creating something start to finish

assembly line

ability to direct one's individual destiny or to have the power to control the conditions of one's labor i.e. This is stripped away by scripted interaction with customers, key cards for scanning in, computer transactions being screened, etc.

autonomy

process, usually accomplished through advertising, by which companies gain consumers' attention and loyalty i.e. much of money you pay for a product goes towards this

branding

During the 1912 textile mill strikes in Lawrence, MA the slogan was what, to emphasize their desire for something more than wages sufficient to survive?

bread and roses

cons of socialism

cannot provide middle-class luxuries class division is reduced but still present political elites still enjoy a higher class of living than workers reduction of class inequality does not equate to reduction in racism/sexism/ageism, etc.

economic system based on the laws of free market competition, privatization of the means of production, and production for profit i.e. in purest form, values are derived from supply and demand; workers sell labor to capitalists for wage, encourages class stratification i.e. encourages efficiency in new technology, expansion of markets, and cost cutting

capitalism

In _______ nations, we see increasing privatization of basic human services like water and transportation, health care, housing, education i.e. Hospitals, public schools, prisons, and government health and welfare agencies are taken over by private for-profit firms increasingly.

capitalist

Who has opposed unions in the past in the US? i.e. often arrested union workers for conspiracy

capitalists and free-market supporters

What may be a result of telecommunication on population density?

city sizes may shrink again with people able to work from home and high-tech jobs are relocating to rural areas where companies find it cheaper to do business and more attractive for their employees

What kind of work ethic is encouraged through socialism? i.e. working for all people to have resources like health care, food, housing, and other social services to meet basic needs; entitlement to all people and not only those with enough money to afford them

collectivist

system of government that eliminates private property; the most extreme form of socialism, because all citizens work for the government and there are no class distinctions i.e. government creates a "command economy" of what is produced by who; Soviet Union or China

communism

stratified labor market creates intergroup conflict-- wealthier capitalists may exploit less-powerful workers i.e. outsourcing exploits poor and developing nations and laid-off local workers, all while enriching corporations

conflict theory

What in the postindustrial service economy has allowed for workers to buy things they can't currently afford, materially improving their everyday lives without the hassle of starting a class revolution?

consumer credit

those who work in positions that are temporary or freelance or who work as independent contractors, does not involve explicit contracts for long-term employment; the amount of these people is growing, may cause them to lose their benefits like social security, etc.

contingent workforce

businesses that are privately owned may benefit from government subsidies-- grants, tax incentives, special contracts; would not exist in pure capitalism

corporate welfare

What are the two main types of unions?

craft and industrial

union in which all members are skilled in a certain craft

craft union

What are two concerns within service work?

customer and supervisor relationships and agreements

work that can be done on a computer can be done from any location, as networking through computers ,satellite, cell phones, which makes it harder for the Information Age workplace.. what is this called?

death of distance

type of globalization, global flow of goods and services in today's economy; more complex arrangements with companies for imports and exports; companies are not multinational

deep integration

What is the story of Sandler O'Neill and how corporate competitors can become collaborates and provide support?

devastated by 9/11 attacks and Jimmy Dune was helped by other companies to he could pay salary and benefits to families of deceased employees and year-end bonuses; brokerage firm was rebuilt

deals with money, production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services within a society i.e. this shapes the types of work available as well as our patterns of work

economy

public aid programs for low-income families like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families are called what? i.e. these allow the poor, elderly, disabled, current and former armed forces personnel, expectant mothers, infants, and children to have some basic needs met

entitlements

In the postmodern workplace, _______ interactions between colleagues and co-workers are on the decline, and interactions are increasingly accomplished through _____ communications. i.e. We use a variety of means to communicate: telephone, e-mail, text, videoconferencing. Coupland described that there is a lack of connecting with the person on the opposite end. i.e. Also, may have to be more deliberate in communication over technology because it can be difficult to convey interactional cues that help to support a warm, cooperative, mutually satisfying relationship when not in person.

face-to-face, electronic

pros of telecommunication

flexible work schedules no traffic delays/parking problems/time wasted commuting increased productivity fewer sick days must demonstrate success more concretely than just hours put in at work easier for single parents, seniors, or disabled to stay employed full-time

Microsoft broadens the knowledge worker category to include anyone who works with the ____ ___ _____ within business

flow of information

What are the four ways Marx believed that workers in capitalist societies experienced alienation?

from the product of their labor from their own productive activity from their fellow workers (competition for jobs instead of getting along) from human nature (degrades human labor to a mere means of survival)

Work is a ___ ____ between the micro and macro of sociological inquiry and a ___ between the individual and the social.

fulcrum point, link

different types of work are necessary to the economy and have functions that help maintain social order i.e. outsourcing is necessary to keep both national and global economies stable in the current market

functionalism

products that originated in faraway countries that have traveled wide from production to consumption; what is this international movement of goods called? i.e. consist of networks of corporations, product designers and engineers, consumer outlets that start with a product design and brand name and end with the consumer making a purchase

global commodity chains

cultural and economic changes resulting from dramatically increased international trade and exchange in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries i.e. Early examples are Asia's ancient spice and silk trade routes and Dutch shipping empires; much more prevalent since the 1970s

globalization

people exploited in order to create the ultimate luxury product-- status in an online computer game i.e. work to attain status and sell to real players for real world money; prevalent in MMORPGs, or Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, like World of Warcraft i.e. sometimes dealt with virtually by members of the game following them around and bombarding with racist comments

gold farmers

Information Revolution brought shift from production of ____ to economy based on production of ____ and ____

goods, knowledge, services

What are some ways the US, predominantly capitalist, shows socialism?

government subsidies to businesses, regulation of markets, support for public education and social welfare, Federal Reserve Board manipulating interest rates to stimulate the economy or control inflation, publicly owned schools and univerisites

Unemployment rates for service sector workers remain _____ than for knowledge workers.

higher

What kind of society does this describe? based on domestication of animals, farming, and generating a surplus of resources; more permanent settlements and greater diversification of labor (farmers/craftspeople/traders) that were all necessary for economy

horticultural

What kind of society does this describe? highly mobile, relocating for food and weather conditions; survival for labor (men hunting and foraging and women/children/elderly cooking and sewing)

hunting and gathering

largest group within contingent workforce (2/3), skewed towards highly-skilled fields like writing, artists, real estate agents, construction trade employees, and other technical and computer related-professionals

independent contractor

What are the four categories of the contingent workforce?

independent contractors, on-call workers, temporary help agency workers, contract company workers

the rapid transformation of social life resulting from the technological and economic developments that began with the assembly line, steam power, and urbanization; shift to manufacturing economy that allowed vast numbers of people to migrate to cities to work

industrial revolution

union in which all members work in the same industry, regardless of particular skill

industrial union

the spread of ______ in the 18th and 19th century created work and the population moved from agriculture and production within households to machines that could make more goods more efficiently

industrialism

the recent social revolution made possible by the development of the microchip in the 1970s, which brought about vast improvements in the ability to manage information i.e. also included satellite and cable broadcasting, telecommunications, computer networking i.e. sort of started out with computers and internet in the 1990s being coupled

information revolution (Digital Revolution or Postindustrial Age)

work that involves the production, analysis, and distribution of information or knowledge; workers primarily think for a living; 21st century became more common while manual labor decreased i.e. most work is now in this sector and it is supposed to increase productivity and yet the average worker works more hours in a week there than predecessor in pre-Information Age workplace

information work

We can view the world as having one global economy with huge corporations whose production processes span national borders: _______ _____ bodies (World Trade Organization), ____ bodies (International Monetary Fund), and _____ ____ _____ (North American Free Trade Agreement)

international regulatory, financial, transnational trade agreements

What is Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney's take on college?

investing into college will produce a significantly higher income than those who do not go to college

What was Collin's take on education?

job skills are actually acquired in work situation rather than in formal training institution and college provides a credential that is subject to inflation

in the service sector, retail outlets and grocery stores use computer databases to predict how much of a product they need to keep on hand and order new merchandise in a timely fashion

just in time inventory

those who work primarily with information and who create value in the economy through their ideas, judgments, analyses, designs, or innovations; experienced tremendous growth during the postindustrial economy i.e. advertising, engineering, marketing, product development, research, science, urban planning, web design

knowledge workers

association of workers who come together to improve their economic status and working conditions

labor union

With the shift to the ____ economy, people moved to cities (especially from Europe to find work), more than __ _____ people in US were foreign-born by 1910 i.e. This caused densely populated neighborhoods, families in poverty, people no longer worked around homes as artisans or craftsmen, wage labor replaced household subsistence model of agricultural society

manufacturing, 13 million

supporters of free trade or globalization say.. critics say...

more efficient allocation of resources, lower prices, more employment and higher output self-interested corporate agenda, exploiting workers and shape the politics of nation-states

another descriptor for the information technologies

new economy

private organizations whose missions go beyond the bottom line

nonprofit corporations

pros of socialism

not at risk of extreme poverty/class division not vulnerable to being replaced by technology

Who had thought they were immune to layoffs that were affected after 2008?

older, college educated, whites, men

"contracting out," or transferring to another country the labor that a company might otherwise have employed its own staff to perform; typically done for financial reasons

outsourcing

infertile couples who wish to have children have been hiring women to serve as surrogates who are impregnated in-vitro with the egg and sperm of a couple who are unable to conceive their own and Americans use those in India to do this at a fifth of the cost

outsourcing the womb

How is class stratification encouraged in capitalism?

owners make profits and accumulate wealth while workers are not in a position to get ahead financially

domestic labor in white women's households as well as factory jobs like millwork and sewing for meager wages under dangerous conditions were available to whom?

poor, immigrant, and colored women

immigration, discoveries that led to increased life expectancy and decreased infant mortality, more dependable food and water and health care, child labor laws led to what in the Industrial Revolution towards the early 20th century?

population boom

Time period of postindustrial economy

post 1960s

What era did these come from? hunting and gathering and horticultural societies

pre-colonial united states

earliest form of economy in the Americas

pre-sixteenth-century Native American societies

process by which new members learn and internalize the norms and values of their group; learning not only social role but various details about how to do the job i.e. students preparing to become funeral directors have to learn to normalize talking to make sad things calmer, have to learn to control emotional responses at work i.e. surviving the initiation phase of working on an Alaskan boat as the newcomer i.e. getting used to taking off clothes in public for money for exotic dancers

professional socialization

TNCs take advantage of cheap pools of labor by relocating their own factories, outsourcing work; and nations compete with each other for these contracts by undercutting their citizens' wages and offering incentives like tax-free zones i.e. often hurt local populations by depriving of decent wages and potential benefits (schools and hospitals) that would have been derived from taxes

race to the bottom

ways that workers express discontent with their working conditions and try to reclaim control of the conditions of their labor i.e. can be using work time to surf the web, or can be sabotaging the assembly line, personalizing the workspace, daydreaming on the job (individual); unions, strikes, walkouts, work stoppages (collectivist)

resistance strategies

industries that leave the US where firms take advantage of cheap labor and lax environmental laws in other countries, more service sector jobs are moved overseas; many unions have been encouraged to start protesting this rather than better wages and working conditions

runaway shops

How must capitalist workers respond to companies trying to replace workers with new technologies, reduce social welfare spending, and cut labor costs?

seek education or skills to compete for jobs and maintain competency over working lifetime

What dominated prior to industrial revolution?

serfdom where serfs were tied to land, work for landlord, no social mobility

With a shift in US economy from manufacturing to ____ sector, the public sector employee's unions have been the only ones growing since the early 1970s.

service

What is the dominant form of employment in the postindustrial economy, involving direct contact with clients, customers, patients, or students?

service work

those whose work involves providing a service to businesses or individual clients, customers, or consumers rather than manufacturing goods; experienced tremendous growth during the postindustrial economy i.e. distribution or sale of goods from producer to consumer (wholesaling and retailing), transformation in the process of delivering goods (restaurant business) or no goods (massage therapy) i.e. banking, consulting, education, entertainment, health care, insurance, investment, legal services, news media, restaurants, retailing, tourism, transportation

service workers

type of globalization, flow of goods and services that characterized international trade until several decades ago, national company would arrange with a foreign company to import/export products exclusively within that single nation's economy i.e. Japanese cars made only in Japan, American jeans only made in US; nations would tax imports to protect their home-manufactured products

shallow integration

partially funded through payroll taxes, public system providing retirement, survivorship, and disability benefits to eligible Americans

social security system

economic system based on the collective ownership of the means of production, collective distribution of goods and services, and government regulation of the economy; no private for-profit transactions; wants to meet the basic needs of all citizens rather than encouraging profit for some over others This economy reduces class inequalities and extreme poverty.

socialism

Many temporary workers hope to find more permanent work but often never do. They do have job flexibility that appeals to who?

students, parents with children at home, retirees

Marx's term for when the proletariat (workers) in an industrial economy possess only one thing of economic value (time), which they sell to capitalists who own the means of production and though they are paid, their wages do not represent the full profit from the sale of the goods they produce; additional money goes to the owner

surplus value

workplace where workers are subject to extreme exploitation, including below-standard wages, long hours, and poor working conditions that may pose health or safety hazards; often intimated with threats of physical discipline and prevented from forming unions i.e. These originated during the Industrial Revolution when middlemen earned profits from difference between what they received for delivering contract and the amount they paid to the workers who produced the contracted goods

sweatshop

work is central to our self-concept, we are intensely identified with our work, both by ourselves and by others i.e. workers whose jobs are outsourced may come to see themselves as worthless and expendable because it seems that others see them that way too

symbolic interactionism

working from home while staying connected to the office through communications technology; about 10% of Americans do this at least part-time

telecommunications

What were new forms of communication of the Industrial Revolution? (3)

telegraph, telephone, transcontinental railroad

The modern economy is more diverse and has more specialized jobs, and more ____ and ______.

temps, freelancers

What is James Heckman's take on college?

the money is made back for the brighter students and not so much for those that aren't "college ready"

Socialism and communism are ______ or ____ types and no nations are purely either.

theoretical, ideal

Workers are encouraged to be productive in order to avoid reduced wages, decreased social welfare services (health insurance and retirement, downsizing, layoffs) and unlike striking to withhold labor used to work, under a ______ capitalist system, firs with strikes may move operations overseas to countries where few workers have that right

transnational

firms of global economy, purposefully transcend national borders to products can be manufactured/distributed/marketed/sold from all over the world i.e. Coca-Cola and General Electric

transnational corporations

ratio between foreign employment and total employment, foreign investment and total investments, and foreign sales and total sales i.e. General Electric, ExxonoMobil, Chevron, and Anheuser-Busch have highest of these

transnationality index

association of workers who bargain collectively for increased wages and benefits and better working conditions, counterbalances power of the employers i.e. When disagreements between management and employees, these workers may threaten to or actually walkout or strike, discourage public from patronizing business and others from taking their jobs i.e. led campaigns to end child labor, establish eight-hour workday and five-hour workweek, increases safety, brought us the weekend

union

work of people who seek no compensation for their investment of time and energy; typically churches, schools, hospitals, philanthropic foundations, art institutions, etc.; private and devoted to serving the general welfare

volunteerism

What is Juliet Schor's take on careers with college degrees?

we need to focus more on jobs that support sustainable consumption and that are richer in "true wealth"

In industrial economy, ____ ____ families owned means of production and financial institutions and ___ worked while ___ ran the household. Middle class emerged into _____ professions. Working-class earned a ____ ____ at factory and women in household, and sometimes when more income was needed women and children joined the workforce.

wealthy white, men, women, managerial, family wage

During the agricultural revolution, ____ owned the plantations. Poor white people sometimes owned ___ ____ or worked as ____ ____ or sharecroppers. White men were usually owners of ____ and ____ ______, and white women were usually _____ ____.

whites, small farms, tenant farmers, land, small businesses, household managers

Who volunteers more: women or men? What age groups? What class?

women (29% vs. 23%) 35-44 middle and upper-middle classes

What kinds of people are more likely to be found in the service sector, perpetuating a lower-class status among those holding such positions? i.e. higher positions available at management and executive levels in banking/entertainment/law, but most is unstable and part-time or temporary, low paying and without benefits like health care or retirement

women, colored people, and poor