kew@burdvax.UUCP (Karen Wieckert) (10/05/84)
Homework, piecework and home computer work (telecommuting is the favored word) are becoming major concerns of women's organizations, unions and businesses. There are numerous examples of companies who rely upon piece work, including CRAY computer. Many companies do this sort of work overseas where the laws are not as stringent and the wages are considerably lower. There are laws which disallow piecework/homework which date back to the 1920s or so. These laws were enacted because of grave abuses of homework by businesses. I am no expert on the labor movement of the early 1900s, but there is little doubt that some sort of change at that time was necessary. The issues are returning in the 1980s. In particular, many women who want to stay in the home, but also need to support the family with additional income, are pushing for "reform" of the labor laws. This is particularly a concern in Maine, where women are isolated on farms or whatever and are unable to work in the traditional settings. It is an important economic concern for these women who would not be working at all if they could not do knitting, etc. in their homes. Rep. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), has introduced legislation in the House which would allow for such work. However, it will never get a hearing on the House Education and Labor Committee. The companion legislation was introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and hearings have been held by the Labor and Human Resources Committee (which Hatch happens to chair). However, I do not believe the Republican Senate is even interested in dealing with the issue. The text of the legislation is thought to be broad enough to include computer piece work/homework. It is important to note that women could form their own home businesses. The issue is being able to do work for another company and be paid for each unit of product produced for that company. Many women's organizations have taken strong stands against homework legislation. Their concern is that women will be exploited; being forced to work in the home for low wages and no benefits. They also are concerned about peripheral issues such as day-care and the erosion of fragile child care programs already underfunded. I believe there are legitimate reasons to be concerned. Unions are concerned because of the loss of employee benefits and issues related to office automation generally. For instance, an example of Equitable Life Insurance in Syracuse NY in which a computerized claim entry system was put in place. Women - an nearly all of these claim clerks were women - were inputing these claims at terminals eight hours per day with 1/2 hour lunch breaks and two 10 minute breaks during the day. Their work was monitored for how fast they could enter claims and for how many keystroke errors they made per day. We have all heard these horror stories of the "factory office." After seeing a 60 minutes program, (amazing what 60 Minutes does for all sides), about 9 to 5 and Working Women - office worker unions - the claim clerks asked 9 to 5 to attempt a union drive in their office. The company got wind of it, hired a union busting firm and low and behold the very first thing that was implemented was home computer work for claim entry. Computer terminals were rented from the company and people doing the work were paid a flat rate for every claim entered. The homeworkers were not given any other benefits, like health insurance, etc. They ended up making about the same in wages but also were working considerably longer hours each day as well as on the weekends. Last I heard, the union negotiations were still going on. 9 to 5/Working Women have been witnesses at various hearings on office automation, health concerns and such. Home computer work has come up as an issue in these other hearings but only as a union concern. This has been a long-winded article whose only purpose was to lay out some of the concerns and to suggest that it is far from a simple issue. Ka:ren