Office Space (The Movie) and Profit Sharing

This was added to my quite lengthy blog post 'Art Which Sensors Itself'. I thought I'd add it separately here

I was reading Guy Standing's 'A Precariat Charter' and he made some comments about profit sharing that got me thinking about these comments made by Curtis White on the movie 'Office Space'.  I've inserted them in the original post here:

https://nathaniel-opinion.blogspot.com/2019/02/art-which-censors-itself.html

But I've also isolated the relevant paragraphs below if you'd prefer to save time and just read my thoughts about profit sharing and how it affects the precariat.

"Hatred of job, stoned vision, and slacker freedom firmly established, Judge begins to retreat in earnest when Peter has an interview with the “Bobs,” two outside consultants brought in to downsize Initech’s payroll. Peter has confessed to them that he does “maybe fifteen minutes” of real work each week. He then expresses an about-face on his own desire to do “nothing at all.” It’s not that he’s a slacker. He simply lacks that hoary old capitalist incentive to work: profit motive.

PETER: “It’s not that I’m lazy. It’s that I just don’t care. It’s a problem of motivation, right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don’t see another dime. Where’s my motivation?”

Judge here retreats from what at first appeared an uncompromising opposition to the corporate world. The movie seems not to believe in its own most fundamental social convictions, odd as that should sound. Peter doesn’t want freedom, apparently. He doesn’t want creativity or personal autonomy. He wants “profit sharing.” Are we supposed to imagine that the horror of life under boss Bill Lumberg all goes away if we get profit sharing?

It would be nice to think that this is some sort of false step or illogic in the film. Unfortunately, it is merely a familiar betrayal. After an early moment of truth telling, we are now firmly on the road to a happy ending, all reconciled to the world as it is."

That in mind, I had this thought while reading Guy Standing's 'A Precariat Charter: From Denizens to Citizens':

It occurs to me that this betrayal does worse than simply backpedal from the movies initial values; it throws it's full support behind an idea that is making life harder for those experiencing drudgery and insecure labour (those who the film is supposed to champion), the precariat. Profit-sharing is one of the many non-wage benefits that detach the precariat from the salariat.

As Guy Standing puts it:

"While the precariat has lost non-wage benefits, the salariat has gained them, increasing the income and psychological distance between them. The salariat has increasingly benefited from equities, which derive from profits, rather than wages or salaries. One-third of American workers derive part of their income from shares...A related trend is that many firms have converted themselves into worker-owned businesses. About one in ten workers partly owns the firm for which they labour, and the number is rising. To classify these workers as in the proletariat would be misleading, as would calling them 'capitalists'.

Other countries may not be so extreme, but the trend to receiving more from non-wage sources is the same...As this trend becomes more pronounced, the salariat will become more detached from the precariat beneath it."

And so by encouraging the idea of profit sharing, the film puts a positive spin on one of the very factors which is making life for those in the precariat worse. That means less rights, less benefits, less stable work...basically more of what the film initially sets out to demonise.

I find it appropriate that while Peter is essentially moving into the salariat with all the benefits including profit sharing, his friends Michael and Samir get fired, to be replaced by migrant interns.