HOMEWORKING

We focused on homeworking as part of a worldwide fragmentation of the production process. In the drive to maximise profits, TNCs (transnational corportions) have created an international division of labour by splitting off labour intensive but low skilled processes and exporting them to low wage countries in the informal labour sector in which women at home, without union protection or company benefits  perform unskilled work. The advantages to the companies are obvious-a cheap, expendable pool of labour, drawn on in times of expansion without the costs of providing work station, health and pension plans, or even union wages, and dispensed with when recession hits.

For the women, the benefits are meagre. They are able to supplement the family income while maintaining the irroles as child minder and housekeeper, but at considerable personal cost. Working long hours under this double burden, labouring at tedious and repetitive tasks for little financial reward and no security - this has been the lot of most homeworkers, who, until now, have been drawn from the working class.

Into this traditional picture of homeworking, the element of new technology has been introduced. The images promoting the high-tech world of tomorrow reflect its genesis in a distinctly capitalist economy and male-centered ideology. For example, the advertisements and articles heralding the arrival of telecommunications and the instant access to services and information it allows without leaving the home, suggest an ideological bias that can be reduced to this equation:

telecommuting=home=women

The drive for new technology, therefore, can be seen as part of a world-wide conservative reaction to send women back to the home, and thus "free" the jobs held by working women for unemployed men, while at the same time bolstering the traditional model of the family.

Moreover, in the context of work and other functions such as education, shopping, banking and leisure being shifted into the home, we question the desire ability the everything centering on the home. What implications does this have for community and social relations, for the family, for paid work and women's economic independence? What kind of lifestyle are we headed for and what say will we have in determining it?

New Class of Homeworkers

A Norwegian study on homework presented to the workshop identified a new group of homeworkers quite distinct from the traditional, weak group of women piece workers doing industrial or craft work for "pin money". The new homeworkers fall in to two categories: professional EOP consultants (men) and those with their own text- processing equipment (mostly women). This latter group, emerging also in Sweden and other Western countries, has made a high investment in equipment and demands a high return for subcontracted work. This means that they cannot afford to be selective and therefore lack the flexibility that could be seen to be a positive aspect of homeworking. The group was characterised by long hours of work and competitive, individualistic concerns that left them no time for community life. It appeared that community did not thrive merely because work had shifted to the home.

The future for the new-style homeworkers was by no means assured. Currently each sets her own price for the work, which is feasible while there is not enough competition to undercut pricing, and freelances for companies which do not have their own equipment. Both of these conditions may change and this kind of homeworking may just be a phenomenon of the interim period.

We were concerned to find:

— strategies to promote solidarity rather than competition among these workers — common platforms to bridge the concerns of the traditional and mainly working class homeworkers and this new generation of one-person firms, the middle- - class entrepreneurs.

Neighbourhood Work Centres

The concept of Neighbourhood Work Centres (NWCs) was debated at length. An argument in favour - the convenience of a workplace at home for women whose needs are not considered under the status quo.

Arguments against: — the undermining of achievements in childcare, e.g. right-wing policy in Germany to encourage NWCs as a way to close down the nursery schools.
— NWCs are designed not to enhance social contact but to increase TNC control, e.g. in Singapore TNCs create NWCs to obtain more piece workers.

The World Bank has funded such projects, arguing that the NWC decentralises the power of the TNCs, while in fact it increases their profit s and control:

* machinery is rented from the company * quotas are established by the company * prices negotiated individually with workers who compete against each other The questions raised included:

— What will women gain from NWCs? — What happens to the traditional division of labour? — What about NWCs for men? — Why are there no men doing piecework?
— Are NWCs being used to create new ghettos cheap labour?

In so far as they are being used to reinforce the traditional concept of the family, we were opposed to NWCs. We were doubtful that they represented a solution to the fundamental problems of the least organized, least articulate, and most trapped, marginalized, low- skilled, low-income women.

One positive example was cited in the case of New York City, which has established progressive community centres where there is free access to terminals to create programmes. Other creative roles envisaged for a community centre included the building up of alternative data bases, e.g. chemical work hazards.

The Real Target

Generally, we felt that organizing NWCs was diversionary and helped legitimise the division of labour in the family. We thought it necessary to refocus on organizing women piece workers against the system that makes them vulnerable by:

- monitoring plans of TNCs * for NWCs * to move out of Asia and establish fully automated factories in the West -establishing a global electronic information centre
- using the resources of the Trans National Institute

 At the same time, we will be working for such things as:

- nursery schools and day-care centres - language classes for immigrant women - greater solidarity among workers at an international level (to prevent piecework being exported when domestic workers organize), perhaps using telecommunications (this time as asubversive strategy) to link workers
- establishing homeworking as an item on the trade union agendas

Trade Unions

It was felt that TU's in industrialized centres were often opposed to an international worker solidarity movement. TU conservatism , encouraged by corporation support for "yellow unions", sweetheart or fraternal unions, made it difficult for any radical viewpoint to be heard. The importance of piecework as an issue is not acknowledged by most TUs. It i s not seen as part of the class struggle as it is women's work.

Nevertheless, progress is being made in some areas, notably:

- in Canada, where the CLC are insisting that the collective agreement include aclause on homeworking. The goal there is not to try to abolish homeworking, but to make it economically impractical for the corporations by obliging them to provide sick pay, benefits, and social security. We agreed that this was aviable strategy for women to push for; in Holland, there is some concern to make homeworking visible, and to have women workers acknowledged as mothers also; in Norway, unions are selecting their own specialists in NT and more women are becoming active in TUs; - in the US, clerical workers are becoming organized in unions, but there is also a reaction against unionisation apparent in corporation moves establishing remote piecework. We considered this trend a TNC strategy to union-bust.

Strategies

We agreed on the need to work within the women" movement but not in isolation from the unions. We can be most effective in joining unions and thus supporting women workers from inside while maintaining a separate women,s support network. As feminists, we must link up with other groups, taking every opportunity to educate, publish, raise awareness

- We must train women in the use of new technology and demystify information. - We must work together. - We must work fast.