The first thing that I felt when saw this scene was very hilarious. It was hilarity' scene when I saw a worker, Chaplin together with other workers showed their attitude in the factory to wrench or twist the bolt in electro steel components. This scenes was really showed how does capitalist economic required profit-making (M-C-M'). The president of company forced his supervisor or controller to speed up the speed of machine of conveyor belt to increase the production steel components. The workers did not allow having some rest during their working time even to smoke for a while. It was an unethical for the workers to felt free and to get their right during work. Refer to the Braverman describes toward the Taylorist principles (division of labor), the work condition in this movies was seem connected to the second principle of division of labor which is separation of conception and execution. This means that there is separation of mental and manual labor in division of labor and the manager just want the de-skilled workers to work in their company. The main purpose for the manager was to cheapen the workers by decreasing their training and enlarging the production of company. So, are there any benefit come from the division of labor toward the workers? I does not really clear and see the workers gain from these divisions.
The technology also responsible for changes in the work people do relates to the Greenbaum. For example, in this scenes showed that how the salesmen for other company tried to sell their machine. The salesmen seemed to influence the president's planning by said that this machine could reduce the cost of company to pay the wage for the office worker who employed to bring food or drink to him. Are technologies will reduce the worker employment in the future? If this statement is true, it is not impossible for the rich people become richer and the poverty widespread all over world. This scene also related to the Baase said about the "Employee Monitoring". For example, Chaplin swapped the card to the time clock before enter to the restroom in this scene. This truly showed that the total worked have long been monitored by the technology. Supervisor listened to the president through the electronic monitoring screen to follow his enforcements. Are worker free or unfree and what about the workers' capacities when manager exercises control over the labor process? I just always think that the workers are unfree in the labor process because they not gain anything from the technology available and the manager monitor.
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I also thought the excerpt from this film that we watched in class was humorous. It is interesting how well this ties in to our discussion on work. I agree with you in that the film represents how capitalism requires profit-making (M-C-M'). The person running the machines sped them up even though the workers were barely able to keep up with the pace of the machines. It wasn't considered if the workers could keep up or not, rather it was expected that they keep up. Though unfair and cruel, I guess it makes sense for companies who only care about monetary gain. I like how the movie also ties in perfectly (as you mentioned) with the second Taylorist principle, that of the separation of conception and execution. Here we see that the workers are only skilled in their simple task and have no information or interest in the concepts behind the job or what others are working on. This is exactly what Braverman is talking about in that by separating the knowledge of the task from the actual labor involved, efficiency is gained.
Firdaus, division of labor, while seemingly unfair, is one of the backbones of the American economy. Beginning with men like Ford and Taylor in the early 1900’s, divison of labor has been increasing efficiency in almost every area of production. The difference between Ford’s division of labor and the division of labor we see now, mainly as a result of globalization, is that unskilled workers in Ford’s time were able to maintain a decent living through wage laws and government intervention while today they cannot. Today, minimum wage has failed to keep up with the standard of living in America and has been even less effective in poorer countries. As a result, you are right; unskilled workers today are at a severe disadvantage in terms of working conditions and ability to live a fruitful life. Furthermore, as the gap grows between skilled and knowledgeable workers who are able to adapt to changing technologies and unskilled workers who cannot, the wealth gap will continue to grow as well.
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