Changing Times No 1May 2001 Welcome to the first edition of Work & Age s newsletter. We seek to inform you about issues around the changing nature of employment, particularly for those in the third age of life. I hope you enjoy it. Elizabeth Clements Editor ################################################
The trust has received one of the five projects approved under the EEO Contestable Fund for 2000-1. Our project entitled New Ways of Working is to promote amongst private sector employers the value of flexible approaches to engaging staff, who needs and motivations may not fit within a standard 9 5 work framework. This will have a age focus, but we see advantages to many EEO groups, who wish to engage in different ways. Partners for the project include Shell NZ, the employment agency Kinetic, with the EEO Trust, the Human Resource Institute, and the Wellington Regional Chamber carrying the project results of their Web sites. The Trust s own Web Site will also carry the stories and employer endorsements as a resource for employers and a stimulation for people trying to establish new relationships.
Chairperson awarded Winston Churchill FellowshipRoger Tweedy, the Chairperson of Work & Age was awarded one of the 25 Churchill Fellowship awarded for 2001. Roger will be visiting US and Canada in August / September to look at future work initiatives both from an academic perspective and at a community action levels in both countries. He is particularly interested in the area of employment within the Third Sector that is outside government and the market, responses to the ageing workforce, and ways North America have responded to changing way patterns. We look forward to applying the new learning Roger will gain for the Trust s future development, and to putting Work & Age NZ on the international map Nework Centre opens
At the opening of the Nework Centre at 44 Victoria St at the end of 2000, Dr Mary Mallon, from the University of Otago, spoke about portfolio work and the centre s contribution to portfolio workers. I am delighted to be involved in the opening of the NEWORK Centre because I believe it to be one of the most innovative and indeed inspiring developments anywhere in our collective attempts to come to terms with changes in the world of work. We know that work is changing, radically and rapidly and not just because statistics tell us so. They do indicate that more and more people are experiencing a working life outside what we have seen as the traditional employment of full-time long service with a single employer. However, we know that statistics can tell many different stories. More persuasive for me, as a researcher into changing career patterns, are people s personal stories, which attest to these changes our own stories or those of family and friends. I had a fairly traditional career, became a portfolio worker - by choice in my case, but am now back in full-time work because I have moved to New Zealand. My husband though has become a portfolio worker. So, what are the changes in work patterns that we have been witnessing? The twin notions of insecurity and flexibility and the associated need to take charge of your own career sum it up. The traditional career path of a steady incremental progress up an organizational hierarchy has been threatened by the wave of "downsizings" and "delayerings" - the widespread disintegration of many places of employment in recent years. At the same time ever more flexibility is being asked of people in work, in terms of how many work, when they work, what they do and how they get paid. It s almost a new mantra. The whole notion of what career means began to be challenged and people were told to take charge and manage their own careers. Against that background people like Charles Handy began to popularise terms like portfolio career to capture the emerging types of working lives for many people. Handy suggested that portfolio work is about plying a variety of your skills with a variety clients in a variety of settings, sometimes paid and sometimes not. It might be a package containing some or all elements of more traditional waged work, work for a fee, gift work (doing it for free), study work or home work (the kids, the cleaning). It is more difficult to say what it is than what it is not. It is not full-time or relatively secure work within a single organisational setting. It is also nothing new; in fact it is as old as work itself. And there many people out there attempting to pull together a living by drawing on all their resources who may scoff at the fancy titles and wonder what all the fuss is about. The fuss is probably because people who previously had access to more secure organisational working now find themselves living without it, by choice or circumstances. Some say that terms like portfolio working are a cover for unemployment. Now, I don t want to deny those commentaries that draw our attention to the devastation that has been caused to people by changes in work practice. But I do want to challenge the binary either/or thinking evident in some private thoughts and public policy which suggests that you are either in full-time work or you re unemployed totally. I also want to challenge assumptions that these changes in world of work are temporary and that they are necessarily to be mourned. Portfolio working presents a challenge to just that sort of thinking. But let s face up to the perception that it is a cover for unemployment. Undoubtedly many people who have moved into portfolio working have done so because they saw no other alternative at the time. In my research and I m sure here at NEWORK, there have been many stories of loss, betrayals, shattered hopes, broken promises. But let s muddy the waters a little. Let s recognize that despite such a beginning many such people come to revel in portfolio work for its scope for personal development, its sense of being in charge of your own destiny, its variety, its freedom from all the "stuff" at work, all those wearying politics, the subterfuge, the secrets, the lies etc, etc. It can be a long hard road to such a change of perception and here the networking, guidance and support that NEWORK offers plays such a vital role. And then lets disturb that either/or thinking even further. Many people are choosing portfolio work as a lifestyle choice they don t want to be forever mired in a single career setting. They want a lifestyle which offers scope to use their myriad skills and which can be balanced, invigorating and as restful or exciting as they want it to be. And then, let us also remember that people may move in and out of portfolio work and more traditional employment I am an example. I fully expect portfolio working to feature for me some point in the future. Portfolio working has been around for a long time and will be round for a lot longer still and will involve more and more of us at some point in our working lives. At all these staging posts, portfolio people need somewhere to go and people to talk to, to offer support and practical help. NEWORK is a wonderful development on two fronts:
I am reminded of the British author Max Comfort writing about his experiences of becoming portfolio reluctantly. His family and friends could not understand what he was doing and wondered when he would get a real job: And then I discovered Handy& he coined the phrase that was to legitimize my ragbag of roles: "The Portfolio Career." Suddenly I was ok, a real person again. I was able to hold my head up with pride quote Handy with compete assurance and not a little bravura and say, "I m a Portfolio Person, actually." (Comfort, 1997:5) I am very much looking forward to interviewing a portfolio person and hearing them say& . "And then I discovered NEWORK& & .." Congratulations to all involved in this project for the energy and foresight that got it started and the foresight and faith that got it funded. Best wishes to all of you Portfolio People and NEWORKERs and I look forward to a long association with you. If you want to become a NEWORK member, complete the enclosed membership form. It costs less than $1 a week and gives you access to a range of services. The NEWORK networkNEWORK is a great networking place for portfolio workers, the self-employed and those working from home. If you are a member please let us know if we can circulate your name to other members. BooksSharon Beder (2000) Selling the Work Ethic: from Puritan Pulpit to Corporate PR Beder is a New Zealand born academic who works at the University of Woolongong in Australia. In this book, she says it s time for us to give away the work ethic and start enjoying other parts of our life. Sharon also wrote Global Spin (1998) a direct attack on corporates and their attitudes to the environment Evening Post Jeremy Rifkin (2000) The End of Work the decline of the local work-force and the dawn of the post-market era. London: Penguin Books. Rifkin is an internationally renown expert in this area. In this book he describes that have taken place and predicts further changes in workforce patterns. He makes solid suggestions for where we should go next. Is ACC keeping up with changing work patterns?Roy Hanrahan names a failure of a government department to respond to the changing employment climate. If you have this problem too, lobby the Minister of ACC Dr Michael Cullen - for change. An independent contract worker can be self-employment (contract for services) or an "employee" (contract of service). In taking up employment as an employee, the contract worker will usually slow down or perhaps suspend their business to recognise the different taxation arrangements of being an employee, and the need to keep separate, for tax purposes, the net earnings of the business from any earnings as an employee. This situation can be managed by good record keeping and sound financial practices and IRD appears to be comfortable with the arrangement. Not so ACC apparently. Regardless of any levies paid as an employee, ACC still require levies to be paid as if the business were still operating, even though little or no actual income is being generated. Enquiries to ACC were met with the suggestion to "close down the business" as a way of avoiding this double levy payment. The tax implication of this of course are not attractive, particularly as the next job may well be a contract for services in which case the business would have to begin all over again. With a growing number of people opting for independent contracting as a career option, government needs to recognise this in its planning and regulations if it wishes to keep pace with the changing world. Discrimination against older workerssignificant and under-reportedReprinted with permission from Massey News August 2000New Zealand s future is grey or greying. It is estimated that in 2020 there will be 616,000 householders aged 45 to 64 years a 59% increase on 1996. How will this affect us? Evidently we will be more reliant on older workers, but this should not be too great a concern. Better health care and continuing access to training will, after all, keep us highly productive until late in life. Well, maybe. But, if so, attitudes will need to change, when currently around one in ten workers (1.6%) over the age of 55 believes they have been discriminated against on the grounds of age, and the leading form of discrimination is in access to training opportunities. This is one of the findings of a survey of the employment of older workers carried out by Massey researchers, including Professor Judy McGregor. The survey covered members of the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union aged 55 and over. The report summarises an analysis of the 2137 valid responses. Discrimination on the grounds of age was followed by discrimination in matters of promotion, and by discrimination within the workplace culture. Slightly more women than men reported discrimination (13.6% as against 10.7%). Older women may face the double jeopardy of age and sex discrimination in the workplace. In the survey 18.6% of respondents felt that the job performance of men in manual jobs declined by the age of 54, while 31.3% of respondents thought that this was the case for women in manual jobs. A similar skew, though much less pronounced, also appears for the perceived age of job performance decline for men and women in professional occupations though the age at which a performance decline is expected is later. The study notes that while the survey respondents views are out of step with scientific studies on age and job performance, they are still capable of undermining strategies for investing in older workers in general. For women, who generally live longer than men and so will have to work longer for financial security, the stereotype that their job performance deteriorates sooner could have serious consequences. The report on this survey is entitled the Employment of the Older Worker Survey and was funded by the Public Good Science Fund. It can be downloaded from http://masseynews.massey.ac.nz UPCOMING EVENTSLife the Portfolio wayHi, I m a Wellington based portfolio worker. Have been since 1998 and I love it. I never liked being employed and did not like the idea of waiting until I retired to do what I wanted to do. So I set up a partnership with two friends and began to live my life the way I want to. This, for me, meant - spending time with my grandchild, friends and relatives
I do not miss the world of 9-5 employment at all. My time is flexible (as is my mortgage!). I can do a project, enjoy it and clear out. Then there s time for travelling or doing something quite different. I have some ongoing contracts these are useful for when other contracts are coming to an end and nothing new is in sight. There is a way to go before my lifestyle can be adopted by many others. We need changes in societal expectations and in the way our institutions operate. We need to realise the work ethic is not necessary and it is damaging to our environment, and therefore to ourselves, to keep on producing and using goods we don t need. Many of us can live comfortably with much less than we have now and guess what living simply is so much more enjoyable. Try it.
______________________________________________________________________ Work & Age Trust NZ Inc. Level 2/57 Willis St, Wellington Ph. 04-499-1048 Fax 04-499-3907 Email nework@xtra.co.nz Trustees: Roger Tweedy (Chair), Michael Cash, Elizabeth Clements, Geoff Cole, Roy Hanrahan, Linda Hobman, David LittlejohnChanging Times is edited by Elizabeth Clements. If you would like to contribute send your experiences of portfolio work, book reviews, articles on these issues or comments on matters in this edition to Elizabeth at portfoli@paradise.net.nz or to PO Box 9826, Wellington. |
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