Occasional newsletter from Analytica, March, 2000.

EUROPEAN WORK

A second project is called 'Euro-telework'. This is based at the ETUC and funded by the European Commission's Directorate General for Employment and Social Affairs. Its focus is the collection and dissemination of information about good practice in teleworking and it has partners - mainly based in trade unions - in 28 countries. Our role is to write a report on equal pportunities and teleworking. For further information about the project, go to http://www.euro-telework.org

The third is TOSCA. These initials stand for Table d'Observation Social des Centres d'Appels and, as the name suggests, this is a study of call centres. TOSCA, like EMERGENCE is funded under the Commission's IST Programme. The lead partner is ISERES, based in France, and Analytica is the UK partner. Watch this space for further information

Meanwhile, another European project (this time funded under the Targeted Socio-Economic Research project) continues for another year. This is SOWING (whose full title is Information Society, Work and the Generation of New Forms of Social Exclusion). This involves eight partners throughout Europe. the lead partner being based at the University of Tampere in Finland. For further information about this project, go to http://www.uta.fi/laitokset/tyoelama/sowing

WHAT TO CALL IT?

Recent work - including the development of the EMERGENCE proposal and the writing of a difficult article for the 2001 issue of Socialist Register, have raised in a very acute form the problem of how to name the kinds of work which involve telematics. Even the traditional terms are unsatisfactory. 'White collar' implies a particular kind of male office worker who probably ceased being typical (if he ever was) sometime in the 1950s. 'Non-manual' denies the physical reality of pounding a keyboard all day. 'Office work' links it to a particular kind of location when the whole point of recent developments is that they mean such work can be done anywhere. And most of the newer terms are even worse. 'Telecommuter' applies only to those people who have
substituted one kind of location (the home) for another (the city centre office). 'Teleworker' again tends to be restricted in practice to those workers who have relocated and cannot be applied to that whole class of workers whose work is POTENTIALLY delocalisable. Some commentators have come up with categories like 'digital analyst' or 'knowledge worker' but - apart from sounding rather pretentious - these tend to suggest a sub-category of work towards the top end of the skill scale. On the other hand 'information processor' falls into the opposite trap of suggesting that it applies only to the more routine work, like data entry.

I notice that the European Commission's 'New Ways to Work' unit has lately taken to talking about 'e-work' and 'e-workers'. This is certainly in tune with the current fashion in New Labour Britain, where recent government statements on the 'Information Age' policy include reference to the appointment of an 'e-minister' to be in charge of 'e-business' and an 'e-envoy' to ensure that the policies are directed towards 'e-inclusion'. Perhaps 'e-work' is indeed the least bad option (but I'd welcome your views about this). However I lived for long enough in Yorkshire not to associate very different resonances with that 'e' sound. Untranslateable into other forms of English (though perhaps related distantly to the French 'Eh Bien') 'E' (most famously in the phrase 'E by gum' which I've never actually met outside the pages of a novel) expresses that peculiarly Yorkshire emotion which combines a sort of resigned if ironic acceptance with some grudging appreciation of remarkableness. Difficult to square with the current whizzy e-everything discourse!

NEW REPORT

As announced in the last newsletter, the report on the ACAS study of homeworking is now published at last. The full reference is 'An Evaluation of Homeworking in ACAS' by Ursula Huws Siobhan O'Regan and Sheila Honey, Research Paper 2, Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, London, 2000. ACAS's web-site is http://www.acas.org.uk At the time I wrote it, three years ago, I felt that this was one of the most important qualitative studies I had worked on, but after so much
time has elapsed it is hard to feel enthusiastic about it. It would be nice to get some feedback, positive or negative, from anyone who reads it.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S UNIVERSITY

One of the most refreshing weekends I have spent in a long while was in Berlin at the end of February taking part in a planning session for some teaching at the UFI. This is an imaginative and ambitious German project which comes to fruition this summer - an international women's university with 900 students which runs for a single semester across several campuses to coincide with the Hanover World Fair. Postgraduate students of all ages will come from all over the world to take accredited courses grouped around six interdisciplinary themes: body, city, work, migration, information and water. Lecturers are similarly multinational: the colleagues on the week on which I will be teaching ('reorganising women's work in time and space') are from
Japan, East Germany, Sweden and India. But of course all the teaching will be in English.

One of the stimulating things about being amongst German intellectuals is that it forces one to think theoretically and to excavate the assumptions which underlie one's empirical work. I realised this time how privileged we Anglo Saxons are to be given such an open entree into other peoples' mental worlds in our own language. There is a dangerous tendency to assume that ideas go along with language and to universalise from what are in fact highly specific experiences in the US and UK. I noticed this the previous week when Arlie Hochschild gave a wonderful presentation of her recent work at a breakfast-time meeting in London. Afterwards the discussion turned to policy issues - the difficulties of making the home a place people want to be in, the long hours culture, childcare and so on. Afterwards it struck me that it didn't occur to the British audience that the new American corporate culture Arlie was talking about was not a universal one. There are in fact a number of countries where the pattern she identifies doesn't fit at all. On the one hand, countries like Sweden or Finland where a strong collectivist welfare state still makes childcare something which is taken care of publicly and codetermination keeps working hours relatively short; on the other many countries where the extended family takes care of children. Should we assume that globalisation will inevitably wipe out such differences and bring about an eventual triumph of the American pattern? I think not. Apart from anything else it is itself too riven with internal contradictions to offer a stable model.

Anyway, if you are interested in finding out more about IFU, there is information at http://www.int.frauenuni.de/ . I am not sure whether it is still possible to apply for places there. It was originally planned to offer full grants to around 400 students and I know that these places are heavily over-subscribed. However it may still be possible to get a place on a self-funding basis.

WRITE A PAPER ON TELEWORK AND WIN A PRIZE!

The organisers of the conference on Telework in Stockholm in August have come up with a novel way to encourage people to attend. They have persuaded the Swedish Council for Work Life Research to offer a prize of 30,000 Swedish kroner for the best research paper on the theme 'Telework and Future Working Conditions' submitted. The catch is that only people who have registered for the conference and paid the fee are eligible. Abstracts have to be in by April 1st and full papers (not exceeding 25 A4 pages) by July 1st. Full papers and abstracts for the prize should be sent by e-mail to birger@rapp.se More information on the conference can be found on http://www.telework2000.nu
Background information on the Swedish Centre for Work Life Research is on http://www.ralf.se

CALL CENTRES

We are still inundated with enquiries about research on call centres. I am currently trying to finish writing the book version of the study of virtual call centres carried out with Alan Denbigh of the TCA and the IES. The results of the survey of call centre managers (which elicited responses from Asia, Africa and Latin America as well as Europe and North America) are really interesting. As soon as this is done, I will try to produce a list of resources which I have found useful, for other researchers in this field. Watch this space.

NOTE

All contents of this newsletter are copyright © Ursula Huws, 2000. However you are free to pass it on to anyone for non-commercial purposes provided the text, including this copyright notice, is not changed.

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