“High-tech stress” (Rifkin) is neither the fault of the company or that of the worker exclusively. It is a little bit of both if you look at it from both the perspective of the employer and employee. The employer wants to increase productivity so that he can go home with a big paycheck and you cannot fault that person for wanting a paycheck big enough to live comfortably.
The problem arises when people in a position of power start to overstep their bounds. This creates a disjunction between the worker and the employer. What should be a team effort with bosses there to oversee and help with problems on the floor (more experience) becomes something else entirely. Perhaps it is the natural course of things that employer and employee are constantly in a power struggle, constantly trying to exploit one another. I don't see any way around it and here's why:
1) workers want higher wages
-in order for the workers to get the pay they want, the company would have to cut its profits in order to pay the workers more. ultimately, this would decrease the competitiveness of the company and if stressed to its limit, the company could go under. this would mean that workers be out of jobs and worse of than they initially were.
2) employers want a higher surplus
-if the company does not have high enough production to make their target profit for the fiscal year (and they very well may not if they have to go through job cuts) then increasing the wages of its laborers could stress the company to the point of bankruptcy. Consequentially, if corporations can't lower wages either, they have to make cuts and implement plans to keep productivity at the status quo.
All of this leads to an immense amount of stress on not only the employee, but the employer as well. I don't deal with stress well. In fact, it hits me in the face like a sack of bricks and go down for the count if i have the time to sleep it off. However, if I don't, there are a couple of things I can do to soften the blow. I either read a good book, crochet, or do some other solitary task. It helps me to remove myself from the stresses of life if only for a moment. But workers seldom have the luxury of time. They have jobs to go to and families to take care of. But then again, so do the higher ups. The only difference is, in the end, the people with the most power--the employers--can call the shots. And I'm sure that takes a lot of the stress off.
(Blog #7 skipped)
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