Heigh Ho!

What Disney and The New Deal tell us about what Britain's new Labour government needs to do about work.

London 18 July 2024

Did you know that Donald Duck once sang the famous Disney song “Heigh Ho” in a film called The Volunteer Worker?

It came out in 1940, as an information film produced a few years after its more famous incarnation, in Snow White.

This is relevant for several reasons which I’ve written about in an opinion piece for the Financial Times today, following the election of the first Labour Government in fourteen years and the inclusion in yesterday’s King’s Speech (gosh, I did very nearly write “Queen’s Speech”) of a heavy emphasis on work and working life.

In order to write the piece I had to do some fresh research which is always exhilarating and exhausting. I had to look at the available data and compare it to past times because that is when I think we get a good picture of today even though today is always different.

So for instance, during the FDR New Deal Years a quarter of the giant American nation was unemployed. Today one fifth of our tiny nation is not in work by choice or through sickness - a post pandemic situation but one in which a similar approach to stimulate people into jobs is being taken. I find that interesting….

You can’t mention workplace changes without addressing changes which affect women and I not only did that in the FT piece but was pleased that The Stanford Social Innovation Review ran an extract from my book “Working Assumptions” in which I talk about the influence of Dr Seuss’ characters Horton the Elephant and Mayzie the Lazybird on such matters…the chapter is in the book and i’m sure you know how to order it if you are so inclined!

I am of course keenly interested in what happens in the US as so much of how work works or did work for the last century was set by the United States of America.

At the same time that Donald Trump and Mr Vance were being sworn in as Republican candidates for the Presidential election, I was being interviewed on live American TV (ten pm my time so I used a *lot* of makeup and thanked my ring light for perhaps the millionth time) in Portland, Oregon about work trends more widely.

What did I think about AI assisted checkouts I was asked? (Ugh I replied we will see more of them but thank goodness for the human who lurks in the corner).

What about non compete clauses and Gen Z holding the upper hand? Well, I said - and tell me if you agree because this tracks back to what I wrote in the FT - I think it’s clear that worker power is on the rise. To some degree. Discuss…

So things are different (obviously) but so they should be. The shift I welcome is one towards debating and modelling what change looks like. When you need change - and the world of work does - talking about it is a good start.

Tell me what you think won’t you. And I hope you will consider sharing this post.

Best wishes

Julia