Boss algorithm

  The boss algorithm, platform employment and pseudo-strikes: how labor is changing today. Interview with sociologist Andrey Shevchuk

Significant changes in the organization of work began a long time ago, but the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated many trends: the border between work and leisure time is becoming increasingly blurred, platform employment is expanding, which, instead of the previous social guarantees, offers only the strictest control by algorithms that control couriers and taxi drivers, and remote , which until recently seemed something exotic, is becoming a common practice and unsettles many. Add to this the total robotization looming on the horizon and the displacement of man from production processes, and then the labor prospects of the near future will appear before us in a very gloomy light. At the request of the Knife, Nail Farhatdinov, curator of the 15-minute break. The break is taking place in Moscow, about how work is changing today and what it may become tomorrow. He spoke to the sociologist Andrei Shevchuk. Part 1 ", which is devoted to the current evolution of labor relations.

- How does the social sciences describe the modern organization of work? Has there already been a single label that allows you to characterize the state of society in which modern labor exists?

- According to concepts that consider the state of modern society and the periodization of its development through the prism of working relations, we live in a labor society. It started with Hannah Arendt, and then the idea was picked up by many sociologists: Ralph Dahrendorf, André Gorz, Ulrich Beck and others. They view modern society as one where all the categories that define our life are described through their attitude to work. Everything is organized in this way: adolescence and education is preparation for working life, and old age and the onset of retirement age are incapacity for work and benefits in accordance with what you have already worked. What is a day off for us? There is working time, and there is free time, but not just free time, but free from work. All categories around us are defined through labor. And in this sense, labor is the main structuring element of modern life.

- And how is it developing today?

- Of course, now something else appears: the theory of labor is turning into criticism of the labor society and thinking that it can be arranged differently. But this is still rather futurology, although there are real signs that the primacy of labor is being destroyed. This is due to the reduction in working hours, although there are different opinions about this. The tricky issue is how we define the opening hours. If we take, on the one hand, the formal boundaries of working time and, accordingly, the number of hours worked - prescribed in laws or actually worked - statistics will show a decrease in the amount of working time. That is, the time of labor in our life is reduced, and, accordingly, the question arises: "What will happen next?"

How will we allocate the time of our life when labor will no longer take forty hours a week? Now in Europe they work thirty-five hours a week, the working week is shrinking, and a four-day work week is being discussed.

What will come to the place of work as a defining principle? At the same time, Marxist critics say that we believe incorrectly, because people, leaving work, do not stop working at home - it just is not recorded. And we work even more than the statistics record. We are constantly working. It seems to me that both positions are one-sided. The Marxist version is one-sided, since it primarily refers to a narrow stratum of people engaged in the production of knowledge, who, in comparison with other people, may indeed significantly process, but researchers are guided by them as an average person.

- What is really happening?

- I would say this: the boundaries between work and free time are blurring - and this is the main research problem. Vast border areas appear, which are difficult to define as work, since it is no longer quite work, but also not completely free time in the usual sense. Such huge buffer zones are being created. The Fordist industrial era was built on a clear understanding of labor in conjunction with time: entered on a call, left on a call. The situation is much more complicated now.

- There are many definitions, and behind each definition there are many labor phenomena. Marxist criticism erodes the very concept of labor, since labor becomes everything and nothing at the same time. Can we define labor today?

- Determining what labor is is problematic in itself, since this concept implies positive connotations - therefore, various social groups are fighting for the recognition of their activities as labor. If housekeeping, raising children, studying at an institute, volunteering, subbotniks and improving courtyards are recognized as labor, then yes, the concept is greatly expanded. This is the first research problem.