Introduction
American workplace has being undergoing transformations that have characterized the nature, relation, power, and performance of key stakeholders who in this sense constitute the employers, employees, government, and the unions. American workplace exhibits great aspects of heterogeneity, and this has been contributed by presence of diverse groups of people who possess varying skills, knowledge, and job know-how.
In this respect, the way power relations have played in the workplace in the American context has affected both employees and employers in varying perspectives. Today, American workplace is characterized by high inequality manifested in gender, class, race, and ethnicity.
Sources of these inequalities are, but the most often cited include forces of globalization; the economic interplay, social and political aspects, which tend to influence workplace policies and social interaction in the workplace.
In addition, American society has been the ‘hot-point’ of immigrants for a long time, and this has been translated into the workplace where immigrants have influenced America’s workplace in profound measures. As a result, there is need to investigate how America’s workplace has been changing in nature of work and social relations at work, with fundamental emphasis on the significance of work to power and social inequality.
This will constitute evaluating how workplace inequality has developed and which key aspects have influenced it, as well as how workplace inequality has impacted unionization activities in the country.
History of American work
Work is considered an important activity in the lives of human beings. People’s lives have and continue to revolve around work, where a lot of time is spent doing any work. The nature of work varies in accordance with age, sex, race, ethnicity, and education. Before 1840, the US economy was based on agriculture where majority of people and workforce were based on agricultural farms.
Moreover, organization of work then was primarily based on production prospects and the availability of labor (Wharton 5). It should be remembered that this was also the period when many immigrants started to flow to the USA and their presence subsequently led to competition among the traditional jobs in the country.
Organization of work during this period was mostly informal and this can be evidenced from the process in which workers were recruited (Wharton 6). For instance, foremen were mandated to recruit workers in the small cottage industries. As a result, employees to work in these cottage industries would be recruited based on their friendship, closeness, and all other personal matters with the foreman (Wharton p.7).
Emergence of industrialization and farm mechanization brought about changes in how labor force was organized in the USA. Industrialization was the basis upon which factory production and emergence of wageworker were witnessed. Workforce exhibited profound transformation as emphasis shifted to organized workforce based on skills, specialization, and education (Wharton 7).
Job specialization emerged and categorization of skills and job knowledge became the avenue in which modern worker was obtained and treated in the workplace. At the same time, during this period, there was wide migration from rural areas to urban as agriculture deteriorated and factory employment appeared lucrative.
Both unskilled, semi-skilled, and those with some technical skills all found their way into the city in order to get employment. Worker organization, therefore, obtained some formality, especially the aspect of unions to look into the affairs of workers grew and became common.
Women also became more active participant in seeking factory employment although they were faced with numerous disadvantages as compared to their counterparts’ men.
Women came into factory employment with low knowledge, inadequate skills, operated in an environment that was highly discriminating and segregating, and further, their family roles appeared to play against them as they became actively involved in factory employment.
Moreover, immigrants presence in factory employment became increasing as more unskilled immigrant workers seeking employment and employers attracted to their low pay demands.
Economic and social trends leading to workplace inequality
Due to increasing trends of industrialization in the USA, many men and women found the lure for salaried job inevitable. Women, just like men actively participated in seeking formal employment, an aspect that strained the workforce nature of USA. However, all along, both social and economic aspects have cooperated to lead to emergence and growth of workplace inequality.
Economic aspects tend to coalesce around productivity, economic growth, tight labor markets, and dynamics of the markets in creating and sustaining how workforce appears and function (Wharton 81). In this perspective, workplace inequality becomes evident through setting of particular standards with regard to qualification, skill possession, and knowledge and experience.
This, in turn, has led to subdivision of workforce in unskilled, semi-skilled, and professionals. Characteristics of these different categories of workforce vary and exhibit enormous differences with regard to job content, job structure, wage and salary structure, and general relationship established between the employee and the employer (Wharton 87).
Gender aspects and their subsequent translation into workforce inequality tend to originate from both economic and social orientation of the larger American society. Viewed in broad sense, but within perspectives provided by Amy S. Wharton in the book titled, ‘working in America: Continuity, conflict and change’, women are perceived to be victims of economic bias due to dominance of men (Wharton 101).
Unlike men, women tend to have a weak economic base upon which to build and sustain their education for better jobs. In addition, women tend to lack negotiating power in the workplace, their skills are inferior as compared to men, and this tends to boggle their efforts of ascending the career ladder.
At the same time, women do occupy ‘below-the-line’ jobs, which make it difficult for them to have better payment terms as compared to men. As a result, income, wage, and salary disparity tend to exist between women and men in the workplace. Moreover, job growth, which later leads to better pay and promotion opportunities, tends to disfavor women as compared to men.
On overall, economic and social aspects in the modern world are largely characterized by continued restructuring, downsizing, and adoption of lean production techniques in workplace as the significant sources leading to workplace inequality (Wharton 91).
For example, the author observes that America is moving to ‘new economy’ that is characterized by structural changes, leading to the need for hi-tech economy and knowledge-based economy. As a result of this flexibility and dynamism, there is much volatility taking place in the American economy, thus affecting the workplace nature (Wharton 91).
There is evidence that high-tech sector is motivating and generating inequality by widening the gap between winners and losers, while at the same time closing off opportunities to those experienced in older system and who find the transition more unattainable (Wharton p.91).
As a result, entry points to unskilled labor force are narrowed. At the same time, new economy is resulting into emergence of a small clique of millionaires, while the bulk of organizations remain poor and de-motivated by static wages. All these aspects are contributing to workplace inequality being experienced in the USA today.
Globalization and workplace inequality
It has been observed that since the emergence of globalization and subsequent globalization forces in terms of competition, many people among them workers have been negatively affected (Wharton 85). This phenomenon is seen to have affected majority of workers in industrialized world, whereas a result of globalization, workers have become unsure of their jobs, and financial uncertainty has become the norm.
Globalization is responsible for free flow of capital around the world, and this has opened the country markets and productions units to competitive outside forces. In this way, it is perceived that foreign competition has robbed the country’s citizen their jobs as companies locate and operate modern industries based on the logic of global market (Wharton 85).
There is growing global economic and financial interdependence, and this aspect has trickled down to the policy-making decisions of the country whereby, local institutions no longer operate and act in independence.
What therefore is emerging is the tendency of foreign and local corporation to adopt the most efficient and cost-effective global policies and strategies, which in turn have led to job loses, wage decline, and numerous changes in the way work is organized and executed (Wharton 86).
Globalization again is seen to be the most evident avenue where economic and financial integration at the global front is taking place. As this happens, there is heightened increased information flow and sharing among corporations around the world with regard to workplace organization and restructuring.
As a result, job content, job design, and subsequent specialization tend to take place within reduced wage structures with slower upward movement or increase of wages (Wharton 86).
Coupling this aspect is the growing tendency for multinational and State Corporations to embrace the idea of outsourcing for skills and overall workforce needs. This, in turn, has affected the way workforce is organized and executed, and evidence indicates this has led to profound workplace inequality.
Gender and workplace inequality
Detailing and accounting the history of the USA workforce, one cannot ignore or underrate the power that gender, race, and ethnicity have played to the characterization of USA workforce inequality. Women have been the victims of workforce inequality, without forgetting that other minority groups in the society have been underrepresented equitably in the American workforce.
The experience women, racial disadvantaged groups, and ethnic minority groups tend to have in the workplace is inherently determined by multiple and varying factors. Nevertheless, analysts and majority of researchers in this area postulate that all these factors fulcrums on the critical issues of economy, education, social, psychological, and sometimes cultural aspects, which tend to result into workplace inequality.
Job design, content, and specification for a long time tend to set the bar high for majority of women who are disadvantaged by numerous social, economic, and domestic aspects. As a result, women tend to be segregated upon and generally isolated from key employment opportunities due to their education, experience, and job orientation.
Minority racial groups and ethnics, on the other hand, are limited from ascending to top jobs in the corporation due to their education and job experience status.
They lack adequate training, have low motivation for career growth due to job workplace discouragement, and are affected by the perception that has refused to die in many organizations that minority groups possess power and willingness to propel the corporate world. What minority groups experience is a vicious cycle of poverty and economic disadvantage, which in turn affect their job acquisition, training, and orientation (Wharton 146).
More so, they end up occupying low-level jobs that have little prospects of advancement. Gender workplace segregation has been associated with earnings gaps, where women compounded with numerous limiting factors tend to earn less as compared to men.
In the same measure, women show little prospects of advancement in career and ambitions of career growth and all these explain the workplace inequality experienced in the USA, which is manifested in wage structuring, earning gaps, and occupation ascendancy and growth.
William Julius Wilson and ‘jobless poverty’
William Julius observes that the consequences of changing income inequalities in the American workplace is leading to massive unemployment among many people, specifically those from minority ethnic groups and resides in Ghettos (Wharton 85). The author talks of emergence of a new form of social dislocation in the neighborhoods most occupied by minority ethnic groups.
According to the author, economic transformation, which has been partly influenced by globalization and changing financial opportunities of most people, has resulted into massive growth of unemployment, and this aspect has led to many minority ethnic groups to loose in the job market (Wharton 101).
The author locates and postulates that many minority groups have been victims of discrimination in key social opportunities like education, economy, and many more. Moreover, the author cites racial segregation to play a lot in the emergence of joblessness poverty situations, as more corporations reduce their demand of low-skill labors.
Given that majority of minority are concentrated in these jobs, they end up being rendered unemployed and their subsequent lives become horrible and discouraging.
Given that the world is being influenced by globalization, many of these minority groups have been found on the negative receiving end as employment opportunities shrink, workplace undergoes restructuring, leading to loose of jobs, and increasing computerization (Wharton p.95) in the workplace, which is replacing human input.
On overall, the author describes a growing situation of joblessness in America, which at the same time is being witnessed in the increasing pauperization of work in the American society.
Racial and ethnic diversity in workforce and how it affects unionization and labor solidarity?
Unions have been at the center of American workplace organization and activities, where the influence has been shifting with time. It has to be remembered that the American economy and workplace has undergone profound transformation as heterogeneity of workforce becomes more pronounced.
Initially, unions in the American context tended to agitate for workplace improvement and betterment of working conditions of employees. Nevertheless, the emergence of capitalism has defined and, to great extent, modified activities of unions as shifts and changes in membership become an issue (Wharton p.106).
As evidenced earlier about how gender, race, and ethnicity have been represented in the workforce, unions have also been influenced by minority workers, but the extent and intensity of influence vary. As seen earlier, presence of minority groups in workforce tend to concentrate in lower cadre jobs and the unions for a long time have to associate with workers in these job levels.
Therefore, composition of most unions tends to reflect the majority of members in low ranked cadre jobs, where one is likely to find a high concentration of workers from minority groups and disadvantaged gender.
Conclusion
Workforce in the American context has been undergoing changes with regard to social relation and power distribution. Overall, employment of women and minority groups tends to remain an issue that, when evaluated, has accelerated workforce inequality.
Nevertheless, analysis of America’s workforce inequality takes into consideration various aspects transcending economic, social, cultural, and political aspects, which have combined to define and shape American workforce.
At the same time, globalization has been found to also contribute to this increasing workforce inequality through its different economic and political forces. In summary, workplace inequality in America is still alive, and attempt to address the issue should incorporate varied but interdependent factors at interplay.
Works Cited
Wharton, Amy S. Working in America: Continuity, conflict and change. NY: McGraw Hill, 2005.