Cet article te montre comment parler et expliquer en anglais la problématique suivante : “Flexible working and gig economy” . De plus, il se termine par une ouverture sur la Gig economy ! Les mots en gras sont des mots de vocabulaire particulièrement importants. Bonne lecture !
1/ White collars by Charlie Chaplin
“Modern Times” represents the work of blue collars in a factory assembly line. We can remark that they have trouble keeping up with the pace of words which becomes more and more insane.
Moreover, this movie symbolizes these workers, which become robots/automats. It looks like the Fordism, created by Henri Ford, who was the Ford CEO and who has created the model T which was a success. It was the first mass-produces /standardized car so she was more affordable. By the way, the slogan of Henri Ford was “time is money”.
There is also the Taylorism which is shown in the movie because every worker has one task, it permits an increase of the productivity. Ford and Taylor were pioneers/forerunners.
Finally, we can say that there are two senses, the literal which means that he’s swallowed by the machine, and the figurate one which means that he’s destroyed by his work.
2/ Bone of contention between workers
There are some debates about flexible working between white and blue collars.
First, white collars can work in a flexible way, that is to say there is not 100% of the staff in the office.
The issue is that it’s represented a mess for this company, in reality, there are disorders (because of the lack of communication / of social connection / of team working).
The point of this document/cartoon is to show that at first sight, we can think that it’s a good idea for workers, but it’s not. Finally, we can say that the cartoon/the video debunks the cliché of “positive’’ flexible work.
3/ Manifestation
The cartoon arises the issue of flexible working issues. First, some employees don’t want to go back to the office. By the way, they have made a petition. To resolve this issue, companies as Amazon have adapted their functioning and they want now to identify which workers must work at home and which at the office.
However, some domains can’t identify this because they need 100% face of face workers. For example, restaurants are a case in point because you can’t work at home. All the staff is bounded / compelled to come. As a consequence, there are new bones of contention between blue and white collars.
In fact, some companies are hardliners, that is to say they have a hardline approach, they want a return of every employee contrary to companies which have a permissive approach, for example the GAFAM i.e. tech giant.
In addition, employees who are eligible to flexible working are not agree between them because everybody wants to come in the office on Thursday but nobody on Monday (for example)
Finally, Elon Musk, the successful entrepreneur, well known for his positions at SpaceX, Tesla, Hyperloop, and who recently bought Twitter has a clear idea on this issue. Indeed, he said that workers who don’t wish to return to the office will be fired immediately.
4/ Gig economy
In the past, work was used to be divided in 2 parts, which were past-time and full-time.
But now, with the arrival of new type of companies, i.e., unicorns / start-up (as Airbnb, which is an app which permit to rent a property), contract workers can now work with just a smartphone and an internet connection.
Finally, these brands represent a huge potential because thanks to technology they can earn money.
First, people who work for Uber Eats have the “self-employed’’ status, that is to say they are not eligible to protection such as healthcare or paid vacation. The point of this ad is to target young people. Finally, we can remark that the brand wants to ameliorate his image which the use of the green colour, which represent fresh bio food and the respect of the environment. The same reason that motivated Mc Donalds to change his colour
Thus, the problem is that Uberization represents all the persons who have recourse to odd jobs, i.e gig workers. The latter are not well paid, it means that they have trouble making ends meet. Yet, they deliver around the clock.
Finally, we saw that flexible working can be a chance when it’s accepted. But in the other hand, we realize that there are inequalities for gig workers who can’t take advantage of it.
