The Indefatigable Worker: From Factory Floor to Zoom Avatar

This contribution coins the term indefatigable worker as a lens to examine the concerted efforts by state and capital forces, since the early 20th century, to devise methods aimed to reduce mental and physical fatigue among the workforce in order to guarantee the productivity and economic health of the nation. Different interventions have targeted the worker’s body from the early 20th century factory labourer to the more fragmented workforce under neoliberal capitalism and finally to the locked-down Covid-19 Zoom participant. Interestingly, each intervention was triggered by the onset of one global economic crisis or the other but cloaked in the benevolent garb of workers’ welfare. Ostensibly putting the well-being of the worker at the heart of this seemingly technical, ideology-free regime aims to make it difficult for workers to resist attempts to help them cope with fatigue and to challenge the conditions which cause their physical and mental stress in the first place.

Production Processes Choices

How SMEs arranged their factory floor and the kind of processes, proprietary, or other, they employed, including the extent of automation in use, are all important aspects of the process practices. Swiss SMEs have realized that reliance on product feature advantages alone, even if protected by patents, is not sufficient to guarantee a lasting competitive advantage. Many companies, over time, have developed proprietary processes that are not available on the open market. This can include proprietary production or custom equipment developed and built in-house for key steps of the production process. Automation and robotization are extensively applied throughout, much of this designed by the companies themselves. The longevity of the companies fosters long-term improvements that are not available on the free market.

Reach

Should we know the story of the lives of those who produce the products we purchase? Do we have an obligation to only buy ethically sourced goods? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Jack Benson gives his child a prototype toy from his company as a Christmas present. When they check the toy battery compartment, they find a sad poem written in Chinese. Jack decides to fly to China and visit the factory where the toy is produced. He pays an employee to read the poem over the factory floor loudspeaker. A woman on the factory line stands up in acknowledgement, then humbly returns to her work. Later, after the shift, she slips him a book of her writings, presumably, expressing more thoughts and emotions about her life.

The Proletarian Literature Movement: Japan’s First Encounter with Working-Class Literature

This essay explores Japanese working-class literature as it developed within the wider context of the so-called Proletarian Cultural Movement that was in operation for about ten years, peaking in the late 1920s. While tracing the origins of the initiative to create a “proletarian” literature in Japan to Marxist study circles at universities, it discusses the movement’s quest to foster “true” worker writers based on the factory floor. Next, the chapter highlights literary works by female writers who were encouraged at the time by international communism’s focus on the Japanese women issue due to their high inclusion in the industrial work force. Finally, the chapter discusses the legacy and continuing relevance of Kobayashi Takiji’s The Crab Cannery Ship, the flagship of working-class literature in Japan. Throughout, the essay endeavors to paint a vivid picture of writer activists within the movement.