Word: pieceworker
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...some cases telecommuting may benefit companies more than the workers. Karen Nussbaum, executive director of 9 to 5, National Association of Working Women, claims that many women telecommuters are working unreasonably long hours without overtime pay, doing computerized piecework in what she calls "electronic sweatshops." One of the most troubled telecommuting programs was set up by California-Western States Life Insurance in Sacramento. Eight women, all veteran Cal-West claims processors, sued the firm, asking for $1 million in punitive damages. Among their complaints, the women contended that Cal-West pressured them into working as much as 16 hours...
...comic comeback has also involved some sophisticated product innovation. Beginning around 1980, publishers began upgrading their wares substantially, departing from a piecework system of production to grant royalties to writers and illustrators. The target audience changed, from early teenagers or younger to the 16-to-25 age group. Says Jim Shooter, editor in chief at Marvel: "The major market is targeted to followers of Star Wars or Indiana Jones...
Such incentives motivate many employees, but others view computer monitoring as a throwback to 19th century sweatshops, where workers were paid according to their output. Today's version of piecework comes into play when employers set quotas that they want workers to meet under the new monitoring systems. Labor leaders contend that the working speeds are often set according to how fast the equipment can go, rather than what pace is comfortable for an average employee. Says Joseph Weizenbaum, professor of computer science at M.I.T.: "There is a widespread notion among employers that it is bad ever...
...conjures history, evoking the early decades of the century, when waves of women arrived from Lithuania, Italy, Ireland, Poland, Russia. For them, the New World turned out to be the cold-water tenements, sweatshops and street stalls near the station. The photographs of those women -- staggering under bundles of piecework balanced on their heads, bent over sewing machines, huddled with their children in the dank rooms where entire families worked, slept, ate and died -- have become images for the way many Americans think about women immigrants of that period. Brave, dogged, desperate. And heroines...
...Juan, 49, a former storekeeper, got a job in an embroidery shop by saying that he could cut lace left-handed. In fact he is right-handed and had never cut lace. Carmencita, 47, a former teacher, worked in a handbag factory and cut insignia for uniforms on a piecework basis at home. "See this finger, see the callus I still have on it," she says proudly. The couple saved enough money to open two gift shops in Union City, living in an apartment over one. Like many Hispanic-owned businesses, the stores are a family enterprise: Daughter Alina...