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Last updated on August 8th, 2017 at 01:35 pm
Millionaire academic John Quiggin identifies with cinematic dockside workers:
There’s nothing new about workers being told, from day to day, whether they’ll be wanted and for how long – look at any old movie about the waterfront for illustrations. All that’s new is that it’s being done by computer now. And flexibility, in cases like this, is a zero-sum concept: the more flexibility ourbosses have to direct us, the less we have to run our own lives.
The million dollar grant Quiggin received from the government should allow him at least some small say in the running of his life. In between unloading freighters and such.
UPDATE. The Perfesser replies:
Oh boy, more politics of envy from Tim Blair and his fans. Nothing seems to burn these guys up more than a leftie who’s more successful than they are.
Just to be clear guys, I’m not a tenured professor. That million-dollar grant Tim keeps bitching about is open to competition. Feel free to apply and knock me off my perch.
UPDATE II. Millionaire Quiggin is deeply concerned about increasing income inequality. So he’ll be returning his grant any minute now.
UPDATE III. Quiggin in 1999:
In the past, the ephemeral nature of news has made it relatively easy for media commentators to bury their unsuccessful predictions. However, with the rise of the Internet, predictions remain to haunt their authors forever.
Quiggin is the Amityville of haunted authors.
- And there’s nothing new about tenured Professors being able to dribble their way to 65 without possibility of being sackedPosted by murph on 2007 01 05 at 07:53 AM • permalink
- Id challenge mr Quiggin to get a stooge of his (unrelated to a wharfie) a job on a union site anywhere in Australia.
He may have been able to pick a worse example but Im not sure how.
If you arent related to a wharfie you have 2 chances Bucklies and none. Unless something has changed in the 10 years since I attempted to get a job on a short staffed wharf up in Karratha its pretty well a family business.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 01 05 at 08:20 AM • permalink
- Wharfies do work on call-out, especially tieup gangs. They also get paid a 4 hour minimum every time they turn up. Laziest, most extortionate pack of sods this side of the AMA- I suggest Quiggles finds out what the fuck he’s talking about before he opens his pie hole. I think the weight of his solid gold hat is pressing on his medulla.
- Nic
That would be the joy of basking in the warm glow of Quiggers accolades? Mere cash wouldnt compare.
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 01 05 at 09:15 AM • permalink
- What do wharfies sing at work?
We’re quiggin in the riggin
We’re quiggin in the riggin
We’re quiggin in the riggin
Cause there’s fuck-all else to doI had an uncle that worked on the wharves when I was a kid. Got no idea what he did – tally clerk perhaps? I do know that he drank an awful lot of beer at all hours of the day. Swan Draught long necks.
Posted by mr creosote on 2007 01 05 at 09:19 AM • permalink
- my taxes at work. your taxes at work. & he’s meant to be working on the issues of the murray darling basin with his million bucks, not trawling screen fiction for portrayals of enterprise bargaining. even after corrigan’s valiant efforts to modernise, wharf workers are still laughing. bloody ivory tower wastrel dyes his hair too. probably thinks he’s attractive. not a lot he’s right about, eh?
- O/T anyone catch the abc radio national breakfast piece with major mori and imre suluszinsky this morning about poor mohammed dawood? Does anyone know about the poll that shows 70% of Australians want hicks repatriated- does anyone believe it?
the podcast is worth a listen
highlight
Mori ‘i don’t see how he can be an anti semite’Posted by eeniemeenie on 2007 01 05 at 10:29 AM • permalink
- in a hopeless attempt to link hicks with this thread i’ll add the cost of the taxpayer funded film the president v david hicks could have bought us two more quiggalicious yearsPosted by eeniemeenie on 2007 01 05 at 10:32 AM • permalink
- Corrected for perspective:
There’s nothing new about professors being told, from grant to grant, whether they’ll be wanted and for how long – look at any old movie about universities for illustrations (I recommend “Living Death In The Economics Department”). All that’s new is that it’s being done by computer now, and as we all know computer models are infallible. And flexibility, in cases like this, is a zero-sum concept: the more flexibility our deans have to direct us, the less we have to run our own lives. Oh worker, be a chap and pass the caviar!
“look at any old movie about the waterfront for illustrations.”
I am amused when professors get their facts from works of fiction.
Posted by Harry Bergeron on 2007 01 05 at 11:02 AM • permalink
- Always nice to see tenured professors worried about other people’s job security…Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 01 05 at 11:31 AM • permalink
- In related news, from Variety: Brando to star in Quiggin biopic: “On the Faculty Lounge.”Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 01 05 at 11:32 AM • permalink
- As much as it hurts me to say this, Quiggins (and Tim Dunlop) is right. I read this article a couple days ago and I was absolutely outraged. Basically what has happened is Wal-Mart (and several other retailers including Payless Shoes) has purchased computer software that tracks the business, identifying the parts of the day that the store is busiest. The software then schedules employees to cover those busy times.
The problem though is that during other times of the day, the store is not so busy. Normally a store manager will schedule enough people to handle most of the busy time and assign those people to other duties when the store is not busy such as stocking shelves, facing merchandise, cleaning, and so forth. With the software those employees would be assigned mainly the busy hours. Their schedules would have them go home when the store is not so busy.
As a result, employees would lose having a regular schedule, instead working fewer hours on more days. What do they get in exchange? Nothing.
The goal of course is to make customers happier by having more employees manning check out lanes during busy times. I, for one, wouldn’t mind that. But would I want that if it meant Wal-Mart employees are given a lousier work schedule that makes their lives more difficult? No way.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 01 05 at 11:32 AM • permalink
- For the love of god, Tim, will you please get rid of that she-male on your blog ad thingy. Oh, and Quiggins a twat etc.Posted by Daniel San on 2007 01 05 at 11:40 AM • permalink
- Hmmmm.
This guy is using old movies as a scholarly source?
Well well well.
My propensity to use various quotations from Star Wars in debates is looking more rational every day.
Posted by memomachine on 2007 01 05 at 11:58 AM • permalink
- Um, wronwright, I happen to be a developer on a system like the one you’re describing. The results are nowhere near as draconian as they’re made out to be, and I know our system takes into account union contract requirements for shift minimums and things like not scheduling people for idiotically short shifts.
The fact that the new systems are computerized is really the only new thing. Earlier methods of scheduling used pen-and-paper to determine the same thing—when do I need people, for how long, and how many? The computerized systems can take into account more information—not just sales, but WHAT was sold, WHERE it was sold in the store, and even how it was paid for—and can do it faster and more accurately.
Our system’s been running for two-three years; our stores are union, and I’ve never heard of any union complaints about the new schedules. This is nothing new, and the only reason it’s getting talked about is Walmart made a press release to drive their stock up.
(And, yeah, some of you can probably figure out where I work. I’d rather you didn’t say it, because I don’t speak for them and don’t want anyone to think I do.)
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 01 05 at 12:19 PM • permalink
- You run Halliburton, Rob?
But back on topic, I think I’ve read about On the Faculty Lounge too, richard. Apparently there’s this really powerful scene of Brando as Quiggin, bare-chested yelling, “Tre Ste-e-e-lle. Tre Ste-e-e-e-lle,” at an undergrad working the college pub. Keep your eyes open for it, I’m sure it’ll be on YouTube any day now. (Still, I’m sure it won’t hold a candle to Quigg’s first big film, On The Waterfront, Again, co-starring with Bobby Bittman.)
And speaking of the intellectual exercise of using a work of fiction to illustrate a real-life point, maybe the Professor can teach a class where they watch Lang’s Metropolis and point out how many things Fritz’s vision got correct and how many are in error? [Something that Mark Steyn has pointed out before too.]
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 01 05 at 12:39 PM • permalink
- “There’s nothing new about workers being told, from day to day, whether they’ll be wanted and for how long…”
How the hell would he know? Far as I can tell, this guy has never worked a day in his life.
He just sits around all day engaging in faux-intellectual masturbation, on the taxpayer’s dime, without ever producing anything of use to anyone.
He’s a parasite, not a worker.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 01 05 at 12:43 PM • permalink
- Few things are more pathetic than the faux empathy of the MasterCard Marxist…
…especially a tenured one.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 01 05 at 01:36 PM • permalink
- Uh wronwright?
These systems have been around for years to schedule telephone operators. This is one of the reason that long distance is now so cheap that if it weren’t for the taxes, it would be all but free. When you are talking about wharfies, you can spread this kind of savings accross the whole economy. One place I saw resistance to it was Mexico, where, effectively, you couldn’t install a system which would reduce the demand for workers. I guess all of the Mexicans who come here are just dissaffected right-wingers who don’t know how good they have it in their socialist paradise. (would that that were true) Is Mexico an economy to emulate?
I never figured you for a pinko. 😉
- I think the problem is that while these systems have been around for years, they haven’t really been advertised. Most companies don’t issue press releases when a new piece of internal software rolls out. Walmart did because they’ve had stagnant earnings recently; they hope that proclaiming they’ve got a way to reduce labor costs will give them a stock boost.
Since it was Walmart that announced it, a lot of people have decided it means the little guy’s going to be screwed (because that’s what Walmart does, right?). Since most people have no idea how other companies handle the same matter, they don’t know how common it really is.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 01 05 at 01:54 PM • permalink
- 20 KK
ot – more muslim integration into australian society
In a related event on islamic integration (this is the way ‘they’ do it here)across the Pacific, with your fellow outcasts of English society….No, not rocket launchers but just….“Mr. Fotouh said it would be a good idea if I considered packing up my stuff and moving out further to the country.”
Mr. Fotouh’s answer to his request…
Texas Man Stages Pig Races to Protest Islamic Neighbor’s Plans to Build Mosque
KATY, Texas — When an Islamic group moved in next door and told Craig Baker the pigs on his family’s 200-year-old Texas farm had to go, he and his swine decided to fight back.
In protest of being asked to move, Davis began staging elaborate pig races on Friday afternoons—one of the Islamic world’s most holy days.
- #28 Rob, I trust you (as much as a person can trust a RWDB which of course isn’t far). But I don’t trust large retailers like Wal-mart. They would screw their workers if they thought it would improve their bottom line. And then when it does, the corporate leaders would award themselves large bonuses and multi-million dollar stock option packages.
My wife worked as a pharmacist for K-Mart for 15 years. Although she was fairly protected due to her position, her pharmacy techs and other store workers were terribly mistreated by the company including being pushed into early retirement to make room for lower wage employees, assigning them hours just shy of making them full-time employees which would give them health benefits, being forced to work shifts with half the necessary number of workers, and so forth. (She finally left the company for a clinical pharmacist position at a managed health care company. She says it was the best professional move she ever made).
Here’s a quote from the article.
Some workers say the form has been used to pressure them to be open to more shifts. Tami Orth, a full-time cashier in Ludington, Mich., says she used to work a regular schedule of nearly 35 hours a week, with Mondays and Wednesdays off. In May, managers began to assign her as few as 12 hours a week, and her shifts began to fluctuate. “You can’t budget anything,” says Ms. Orth, who earns $9.32 an hour.
Wal-mart wants to do this type of thing? Then compensate the employees by doubling their wages to reflect the doubling the hassle imposed on them. But of course they won’t.
Damn uncaring corporations. This is the reason why unions do not become obsolete.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 01 05 at 02:02 PM • permalink
- #38, El Cid – remember this story?
Guy walks into a bar and sees Cindy Sheehan sitting at a table, holding a duck in her lap. The guy walks over and says “Where’d you get the pig?” Sheehan says “It’s not a pig, it’s a duck.” Guy says “I was talking to the duck.”
Posted by Bruce Lagasse on 2007 01 05 at 02:19 PM • permalink
- Unemployment in the US is around 4.5%.
Compare that to any country where policies are in place that restrict the freedom of employers significantly.
Now, do a thought experiment. Imagine what the European economy might look like if we took their advice here in the US on every little matter and managed to replicate their no growth economies. What would happen to growth in Europe absent US economic growth?
To ever problem there is a simple solution, that is almost certainly wrong.
- My daughter worked for 2 national trendy retail shops. She told them she want full time work, but after the Christmas rush was over she was lucky to get 12 hours a week. Despite being deaf, she managed to remain in the top 3 for sales. Yet they still wouldn’t give her more hours.
I however, tell my boss what my hours will be .. hahaha
- Around here (Newcastle, Australia), it seems to be mostly young people – students and the like – who are working at places which have these shift arrangements. Some friends of mine work in department stores with these sorts of setups and they seem generally happy with the arrangement – they get flexible work times which fit in with their studies.
I can’t speak of the non-student workers but it seems to work extremely well in this respect.
- Our esteemed paco is currently located in Parris Island, South Carolina, attending the graduation of his son as a brand new Marine.
I know he’s not reading this blog now. But I want to say we appreciate the exemplary job he and his wife did to produce such a fine upstanding young man. All too often we show our thanks and appreciation to the men and women who serve their country in the armed services without giving similar thanks to the parents who raised their children to be good citizens. To paco, Mrs. paco, and their fellow parents, I solemnly salute you.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 01 05 at 03:55 PM • permalink
- Tim,
slightly OTT,
I wish you took off that ad with the tortured-looking dumb animal (and the sheep),
she scares me…
HHPosted by Honkie Hammer on 2007 01 05 at 03:55 PM • permalink
- I had a leaked preview of a feature film called “A River Boat Named Tenure”, set on the Murray River and starring Capt. “Squillions” Quiggin. I can’t give away too much of the plot, but it goes, in part:
The project will develop tools for the modeling of uncertainty “in the absence of probabilities and with imperfect knowledge about possible events”.
In one scene we see Quiggin on the deck of the good ship Tenure, calling up to someone on the tall river bank, and describing his career to date as “Stellar, Stellar.”
- #13 murph: Money quote:
Mr Kanie left Adelaide about seven months ago, after gaining Australian citizenship, telling his family that he was going to look for a new wife in Iraq.
So let me see, according to this article, he settled here 3 years ago as a refugee with his wife, whom he has since divorced, got his Aussie citizenship and hightailed it back to Iraq for a new wife.
So much for coming here to make a new life. More likely his plan is to work on turning Dar al Harb into Dar al Islam.
I’d be interested to know if he’s divorced according to islamic law as well as Australian secular law.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 01 05 at 04:45 PM • permalink
- Adding to the above: fark we’re patsies. He’s been here 3 years and can afford to go swanning off to the ME with his daughter. No doubt to marry her off and help his cousins over here for the largesse.Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 01 05 at 04:47 PM • permalink
- 39 Bruce Lagasse
rotflmao…
42 RebeccaH
Thanks
44 wronwright
To paco, Mrs. paco, and their fellow parents, I solemnly salute you.
Yes, yes indeed….and paco jr…should your fine father and mother let you read this fine, intellectual and bawdy at times Blog Tim Blair has (but *&^# paco jr., you’ve heard and/or seen worse at Parris Island…lol)…a salute to a new Marine as well.
Thank you for your commitment and your mind set to keep our country free from the dangers that lurk in this world.
In between unloading freighters and such
Yeah, Quiggin was sure shoveling a load when he wrote that little gem…
Posted by Major John on 2007 01 05 at 05:34 PM • permalink
- I think the walmart issue is a little exaggerated. I would have thought that there would be a fair bit of regularity with busy times (hence the ability of a computer program to pick the pattern). And I think certain types of labour suit different people in different stages of their lives. Shorter shifts suit students, for example.
Personally, if people have a real problem with the way walmart does things, don’t shop there. I don’t shop at Harvey Norman for similar reasons to those constantly flung at Walmart. That’s how a market system works. Based on sales, Walmart (and Harvey Norman) must be doing something right.
- Can he distinguish envy with disgust at wealthy academics pretending solidarity with working stiffs?
Studs Terkel, he ain’t.
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2007 01 05 at 06:38 PM • permalink
Just to be clear guys, I’m not a tenured professor. That million-dollar grant Tim keeps bitching about is open to competition. Feel free to apply and knock me off my perch.
Well, your lack of tenure was discovered some time ago, Perfesser. This is hardly a surprise.
As for the perch…..you are mistaken, Quiggins. It’s not envy, it’s disdain.
If I wanted to feed off the public tit without working for it, I’d draw welfare and drink beer all day. Or blog about economics from a leftie perspective.
But I has me standards, I do. I’d rather that welfare money goes to someone who needs it. And I’d hope that grant money goes to someone who actually understands economics.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 01 05 at 06:39 PM • permalink
- Ummm, “distinguish envy from disgust”Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2007 01 05 at 06:46 PM • permalink
- It would be interesting for Quiggan to respond to the criticism that economics is by far and away the leading field in which academics are completely out of touch with what’s happening in the real world and are therefore prone to profound errors of judgement on matters of major importance.Posted by Jack Lacton on 2007 01 05 at 07:26 PM • permalink
- not tenured eh? well strictly speaking his ARC federation fellowship isn’t tenured (although he may have an employment contract with UQ – he fails to say he doesn’t). but UQ would be most unlikely to sack a guy with his record of sucking funding from the public teat:
1986 Chief Research Economist, Bureau of Agricultural Economics.
1987-88 Lecturer/Senior Lecturer, Dept. of Agricultural Economics, University of Sydney.
1989 Visiting Fellow, Centre for International Economics, Canberra.
1989-1990 Associate Professor, Dept. of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Maryland, College Park.
1991-92 Fellow, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University.
1993-1994 Senior Fellow, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Australian National University.
1995 Professor, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Australian National University
1996-7 Professor of Economics, James Cook University.
1998-9 Australian Research Council Senior Fellow, James Cook University.
2000- 2002 Australian Research Council Senior Fellow, Australian National University.
2003 Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow, University of Queensland
2003- Australian Research Council Federation Fellow, University of Queensland
- The Quiggmeister was warning us that reforming Australia’s waterfront was a waste of time years ago.
Hmmm, wonder how that worked out in the end.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 01 05 at 09:00 PM • permalink
- A Marxist Economics Perfesser sucking off the public teat = more successful?
If you’re a grifter.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 01 05 at 09:03 PM • permalink
- Envy of success? That’s rich from a guy whose whole existence is built on attacking those who are more successful than him.
It is a terrible indictment of the grant system that such a large sum of money ends up in the hands of a pseudo-academic with nought to offer the world. But then the unis are full of them these days. Original thinkers, true geniuses and real scientists, have long since been destroyed by the left’s “dumber is better” education system.
- Some priceless quotes in this 1999 article such as
In the past, the ephemeral nature of news has made it relatively easy for media commentators to bury their unsuccessful predictions. However, with the rise of the Internet, predictions remain to haunt their authors forever.
The Quigster goes onto gloat:
In my own (naturally biased) judgement, successes, such as my 1994 prediction that the ‘under current policy settings, the rate of unemployment will remain above seven per cent for the rest of this century’, outweigh failures…
However, there is a crucial difference in this here article namely:
In an analysis undertaken in 1993, and published in my book, Work for All with John Langmore, I concluded that ‘under current policies, unemployment is likely to remain above 8 per cent for the rest of the century’.
Here, for the record is Australia’s unemployment rate for this period.
Can anyone here find what the perfesser actually wrote in his book?
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 01 05 at 09:28 PM • permalink
Oh boy, more politics of envy from Tim Blair and his fans. Nothing seems to burn these guys up more than a leftie who’s more successful than they are.
And “Nothing” worse then a smarmy fucking “leftie”, who, while having some money, suffers “envy” looking around, while taking a whiz, in the mens room.
- from update II:
More importantly, since we know that prices are increasing (and, for most US workers, increasing faster than wages over the last few years), it’s obvious that if TVs are getting cheaper, other things must be getter dearer in real terms. With this hint, it’s not hard to find examples – college tuition and health care are obvious candidates.
I wonder if the good professor realizes his examples brilliantly illustrate the effect on pricing of private enterprise/market competition in products (televisions) from highly subsidized/government regulated ones(student loans and health care).
- Yeah, we all wish we had the parasitical suckup skills of someone who lives from grant to grant. If only we hadn’t been such failures at the arts of obsequiousness and toadyism, we’d be Somebody (well, Somebody in academia). We coulda been contendahs!Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 05 at 10:34 PM • permalink
- I see he evidently didn’t get tenured at Maryland. His title there is that of a tenure-track hire, not a visiting professor, so he evidently didn’t make the cut for assistant professor.
Also, talking about that ‘gap’ between the poor and the rich demonstrates either a total ignorance of basis stat or a willingness to distort reality to make a (false) point, although I see no reason both couldn’t be true.
Given no incomes lower than zero, then with even a moderately bell-shaped income curve (which is certainly true in the US), then the only way to *decrease* the gap between rich and poor is to make everyone poorer.
On a bell curve, as the highest income shifts to the right (i.e. the wealthy become wealthier) the median income and the mean income also become shifted to the right (i.e. everyone else becomes relatively more wealthy, except those at the very bottom.
In the US, those at the very bottom of the income curve are those who can’t, don’t, or won’t work and almost all of them have resources from the govt or others that don’t get counted in income curve.
In short, a ‘growing gap’ between the poor and the wealthy is a strong indicator that almost everyone is getting wealthier.
Of course, admitting this fundamental statistical fact would be anathema to the quasi-Stalinist Left of which Quiggers is a part. Lucky for them they don’t mind lies of any sort, or of lying from both sides of the mouths on each of their two-faces.
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2007 01 05 at 11:16 PM • permalink
- #69 Margo’s Maid
Irony bites the good perfesser on the ass. Perfesser pretends not to notice.
Film at eleven.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 01 05 at 11:18 PM • permalink
- John Quiggan seems to be the economic equivalent to Al Gore. When he makes a prediction the market does the exact opposite.
There’s probably some money to be made backing against his predictions.
Posted by Jack Lacton on 2007 01 06 at 12:39 AM • permalink
- #74 JorgXMcKie
I am not sure the quigster is saying the poor are getting poorer. Nor is it that everyone is getting wealthier. its that everyone is not equal. He obviously believes everyone should get the same sort of grants as he, even if they have spent most of their lives drinking OP rum and smoking a joint rather than getting a job. What a generous fellow.
- the ABC will be screening the following new waterfront drama in 2007- (coincidently an election year)- wonder who the bastards are?
No mention of the red quiggle in the cast list- he might be an extra
I’m sure we’ll all be setting our pvr’s for this one
Bastard BoysProduced by ABC, Flying Cabbage Productions Pty Ltd
Executive Producer: Scott Meek
Producers: Ray Quint and Brett Popplewell
Director: Ray Quint
Writer: Sue Smith
Cast: Jack Thompson, Colin Friels, Justine Clarke, Rhys Muldoon, Lucy Bell, Geoff Morrell, Daniel Frederiksen, Dan Wyllie, Anthony Hayes, Justin Smith and Helen Thomson
Network: ABCOn April 7th 1998, at 11.30pm under the cover of darkness and in total secrecy, security men wearing balaclavas, carrying batons and leading dogs, invaded the docks of every port in Australia and forcibly ejected the entire unionised workforce. The subsequent stand off between the head of Patrick Stevedores Chris Corrigan and the wharfies, lawyers and unionists who oppose him will divide the nation. Four part minseries in production for 2007.
Also not to be missed ‘Curtin’- the mini series
I predict 2007 will be a golden age for revisionist drama
Posted by eeniemeenie on 2007 01 06 at 07:02 AM • permalink
- #79 – Rhys Muldoon is rather excellent on Play School.Posted by mr creosote on 2007 01 06 at 09:09 PM • permalink
- QUIGGIN CHAMPION OF FREE SPEECH
“Dave Surls can’t take a hint, so I’ll spell out for him. He’s worn out my patience, and anything further from him will be deleted.”—Quiggin
He got a tad irritated when I suggested that the Baath leadership ought to be executed like Hussein.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 01 07 at 08:16 PM • permalink
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