[12576] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
FYI France: BnF Strike 1st labor action of the InfoAge?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jack Kessler)
Mon Nov 16 20:17:32 1998
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1998 18:11:57 -0500
From: Jack Kessler <kessler@well.com>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
FYI France: BnF Strike, 1st labor action of the Information Age?
The BnF is back at work now -- most of it, although not the "rez
- de - jardin" research level, which apparently still has
computer problems:
"Un accord est intervenu, le 6 novembre 1998, entre les
organisations syndicales et la direction de
l'e'tablissement pour mettre fin au conflit en cours
depuis le 20 octobre. Par suite, les salles d'exposition
de la BnF seront re'ouvertes samedi 7 novembre a` 10
heures et les salles de lecture du haut - de - jardin
mardi 10 novembre a` 10 heures..."
http://www.bnf.fr/web-bnf/nouveau/9811/pres-01.htm
The results of this BnF librarians' strike for now are unclear.
My own mail yields predictable analyses from predictable people:
those who would have said that the strike was a failure say that
it was -- those who would have said that it was a great success
do so now. I count the strike's duration to have been 19 days --
real results will coalesce and materialize, I expect slowly.
Still the best single source for news is the strikers' W3 site:
http://altern.org/bnfengreve/
-- equipped now with a pretty funny "Rions un peu" feature, which
any librarian or researcher or francophobe or francophile will
enjoy. One un - translateable example:
"Pe'tition du personnel masculin de la BnF (PmBnF -
Tolbiac) [see also: Pe'tition des sans - pompiers]
"A l'heure des revendications, des voix pas tre`s
repre'sentatives se font entendre --
Nous avons l'honneur de demander a` M. Le ministre qui
s'occupe de c,a :
- l'abandon des uniformes actuels (sinistres) de nos
sapeurs - pompiers de Paris caserne's sur place,
- et leur remplacement par des costumes plus seyants et
mieux adapte's au cadre rigolo et bon enfant de la
Bibliothe`que Franc,ois Mitterrand, dans le calme, le
luxe et la su^rete' mais on s'e'gare :
des tenues de zouaves pontificaux ma^tine'es de pie`ces
d'uniforme de l'arme'e andorrane (avec peut - e^tre un
plumet e'cureuil sur le tout) permettraient enfin a` nos
camarades - pompiers de se distinguer de la masse, et ils
le me'ritent bien.
Accessoirement, c,a aurait le me'rite de ramener les
chances de se'duction du personnel masculin des
bibliothe`ques (PmB) a` des taux plus raisonnables, enfin
moi j'en ai pas vraiment besoin mais je pense aux copains.
P.S. : avec des clochettes aux extre'mite's, si c'est pas
trop demander ?"
One general and more serious thought which emerges from the
entire BnF strike situation so far does seem to be uncontested:
few people can remember any other "librarians'" strike, anywhere.
Librarians have joined or at least respected general labor
actions by others, apparently -- at places like Yale and New York
University, and in various "city - wide" strikes elsewhere in the
past, in the US and in Europe -- but these have been primarily
matters simply of honoring picket lines. This BnF strike seems to
be one of the first times in which librarians have led the way in
a labor action. Anyone who knows different, please let me know?
In addition, then, this BnF strike also appears to have been one
of the first labor actions to have occurred in "hi - tech", among
"information workers". Certainly the giant European and US firms
which roll the Information juggernaut have had strikes before.
But these have been rare, and when they have occurred, again they
have been brought by blue - collar / assembly - line / janitorial
or other staff at the wage scale low end, not by highly - paid
people and / or "professionals", such as librarians...
Now my own desk is filled -- as are the desks of many of you, I
know -- with books purporting to analyze the "implications" of
the Information Revolution. The nightstand next to my bed is
filled as well, and my online "bookmarks" files are overflowing
-- with resources which are trying to explain to me "what all of
this really means" about "digital information". But few of these
resources say anything about labor action, labor unions, working
conditions other than "ergonomics" -- or any of the issues of
traditional "labor" literature -- let alone labor strikes by
"information workers", such as librarians.
There is a large and growing literature on both sides of the
Atlantic, however -- this primarily offline, curiously --
worried about new issues such as "flextime" and "telecommuting" and
"quality of work" and "white collar unemployment". There are
writers now who both question and defend the "two wage - earner
household" which has become the norm among families working in hi
- tech in so many places. People are publishing books with titles
like, "The Time Bind : When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes
Work" (Arlie Hochschild), and, "She works / he works : how
two-income families are happier, healthier, and better-off"
(Rosalind C. Barnett and Caryl Rivers).
Hi - tech compensation also is getting attention: high - paid
workers who have no job security and who save no money, low -
paid workers who have great stock options but also no job
security and not even any benefits and who save even less money
-- in the US, the "savings" rate was _negative_ last month, folks
apparently having gone into debt to finance their purchases.
"Unemployment" figures increasingly are being questioned as well,
in a number of countries, as white - collar workers who do not
file unemployment claims when they lose their jobs -- such as
librarians -- increasingly get "laid off" or "downsized" or
"early retired" (and then "hired back under contract"), ending up
earning nothing or far less than they did before... and they do
not show up in the statistics. These all sound suspiciously like
"traditional labor issues".
But the comment of one BnF striker is telling:
"...we want our strike to be new, and not to fall into
the old formats and vocabulary of the traditional 'labor
union action'..."
These are young folks, who perhaps just do not remember... but
they also are _new_ folks -- professionals, white - collar
workers, "middle managers", highly - educated and in many cases
highly - paid people -- who are not accustomed to being
considered "workers", who never have been "on strike" before, and
who certainly do not want to be associated with the now very old
blue - collar "labor union" past.
By the same token it would be hard, perhaps, for an old, tough
French "syndicalist" of the 1920s, or an early - century ILGWU
worker, to show much sympathy for a laid - off librarian or a
downsized "middle manager" or "professional" or "white collar
worker" of today. But this is the 21st century -- not the 20th,
any longer, and certainly not the 19th -- and the demographics
have changed. There are few farmers any longer, even in France,
and the number of factory workers and "proletarians" of any sort
is diminishing rapidly.
Increasingly the "worker" in France as elsewhere is in an office,
at a computer, and on the Internet, and the raw material of her /
his workday is not a raw material or "machines" or an "assembly
line" but "information". A librarian -- albeit "professional",
albeit "white - collar" -- perhaps is the quintessential
"information worker" now, and her / his problems at work will
become the central "labor" questions of the new century.
So, once again, the French merit special attention. The BnF
strike "Protocole d'accord conclu entre la Direction et
l'Intersyndicale a` l'issue du mouvement de gre`ve, 6 novembre
1998" -- online at the strikers' site mentioned above -- may be
an important document for anyone interested in the most general
aspects of the "Information Society" as well as for librarians
and "information workers" themselves: it specifies, in part --
* a list of the post - strike "working groups", established now
to resolve the problems -- a list which neatly sets forth the
major issues of the BnF strike,
"1. Information for and work with the public
2. How to put the Mission of the BnF into action
3. Internal information and communication
4. Authorizations, and decentralizing decisions
5. Efficiency of the book delivery system
6. Training, and continuing education
7. The organization and harmonization of public service
8. The improvement of work conditions
9. Personnel, and job security ["pre'carite'", in the
French -- translation, anyone?]"
Many heads will nod in agreement at many of these topics -- some
heads will shake in frustration. A lot here is familiar to most
of us. This is a remarkable list, one which -- whatever the BnF
does with it at their particular establishment in France -- could
serve as a "Charter of the Problems of Information Work"...
Plenty of labor causes in the past dealt with "The Improvement of
Work Conditions": not so many placed such emphasis on "Training,
and continuing education" and "Internal information and
communication" and "organization and harmonization" -- these may
be the important part of the new "information" workplace, and of
new "information" strikes and other labor actions.
* also, "From February 1 to June 1999 the rooms at the Rez - de -
Jardin level will remain closed on Monday mornings until 2 pm, to
provide a venue for onsite staff training and implementation of
the library's information systems..."
"Taking the staff for granted" may become, increasingly, _the_
central issue in automation / informatization / digital
information labor situations: it is too easy for the systems
folks -- or perhaps the management, afraid to admit that they
themselves do not understand the systems -- to assume that the
new procedures are "intuitive" and that, insofar as staff will be
needed at all, any staff worth their salt should be able to grasp
them instantly... managers who think this last perhaps should be
asked to demonstrate their own personal "instant grasp" of the
new procedures...
There is nothing harder on an organization than a frustrated
staff -- hard on the workers themselves, too.
* also, "...a user survey will be conducted to examine whether
the opening hours and the services provided correspond to their
needs and their expectations. Staff proposals on these questions
will be entertained as well." -- must have been some tough
internal pressures...
* and, "...the Ministe`re de la Culture will consult with the
Ministe`re de l'Education Nationale to examine questions
regarding the status of shelving personnel..."
This I understand was one of the major issues of the BnF strike:
the "magasiniers" were pretty unhappy -- with the new automated
systems with which they were insufficiently trained and which
kept breaking down, with the great distances to be walked
carrying heavy loads when things did break down, and with being
blamed for everything when there were resulting delays for the
librarians and the users. Library designers take note: nothing
like designing in a "backup" for those fancy new systems...
Among Information Age gurus, Manuel Castells -- now of the
University of California at Berkeley and formerly of the
University of Paris (Nanterre, 1968!) and several / many other
places -- deservedly has become one of the leaders. His major new
opus, highly - recommended although frightening in its scope and
in the possible implications of its observations, characterizes
what we are building globally with digital information as "The
Network Society". ["The Information Age", 3 vols., 1996-8: vol.
1 is "The Network Society" / "La socie'te' en reseaux" (Fr.) /
"La sociedad red" (Esp.)]
Castells attributes to "The Network Society" a vast range of
recent social innovations, some good, some very bad -- from a
freedom from certain tyrannies of an older, spatially - bound,
nation - state, to The Fall of Russia, and Women's Liberation,
and the growth of international organized crime, and other
things. His vision, and his grasp of the inter - connectedness of
apparently - dissimilar ideas and events, greatly exceed the much
narrower scope of most others who have commented so far on the
"information revolution". A lot has been written on just the
"business" aspects of digital information, for example, a certain
amount has been written about the strain on the individual of
coping with computers, inconclusive reams of material have been
devoted to the copyright implications of all of it...
Even in a work as general and comprehensive as that of Castells,
however -- and his is the most general and comprehensive, so far,
of which I myself am aware -- little attention has been given to
the "labor action" aspect of what modern "information workers",
like librarians, are going through.
Castells does say, "labor unions have fought for occupational
health legislation since the onset of industrialization..."
[v.2,p.132], but elsewhere in this leading treatise, as in most
others in the genre, the role of labor actions such as that which
just occurred at the BnF is relegated to general observations on
the activity or passivity of _traditional_ labor unions in
particular situations -- more active than thought among women and
in Korea, passive and manipulated in some contexts, etc. -- the
new, "white - collar", social problems are not acknowledged, or
certainly are not folded in to "labor union" considerations.
Why this is escapes me. Perhaps everyone simply is happy -- that
is the serious suggestion made in Silicon Valley. Or perhaps
everyone simply is numb -- that is the suggestion made in France,
where recently the high unemployment catastrophe has resigned
workers to feeling elated for finding any sort of job at all.
At some point, however, the social trends of the new work
situation, noted above -- "flextime" and "telecommuting" and
"quality of work" and "white collar unemployment", the "two wage
- earner household", "high - paid workers who have no job
security and who save no money", "low - paid workers who have
great stock options but also no job security and not even any
benefits and who save even less money", and "layoffs and
"downsizing" and "early - retirement / hireback" and other
"disguised unemployment" problems -- must be faced and dealt
with; by sociologists a bit, by unions eventually perhaps.
Who will look at all this, I wonder? When they do, will they
find that everyone working in "information" really is, simply,
blissfully happy, or will they discover that they ought to have
paid closer attention to the underlying causes and implications
of early labor actions in the information revolution, such as
this one which just took place at the BnF, in France...
But a concluding, and a little less militant, observation: at
least the French have been able to re - open their institution.
It is an institution worth preserving, staffed by some very fine
and dedicated people, doing some very exciting -- indeed brave
and dangerous -- new things. There is a world of libraries, and
librarians, and "information" workers and users, waiting to see
what the French will do, and hoping to do at least as well if not
better in "home" situations which very often are very much worse.
So my own personal sigh of relief at seeing the promising new list
of BnF "working groups" (above) is at least equaled by my relief
that the doors once again are open, and that things for a while at
impasse once again are moving forward.
--oOo--
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--oOo--
