You would be an exception if the current ‘supply chain’ problems have not affected you.
Looking ahead, I think we are just on the cusp of this issue – and it is more complex than shipping containers stuck onshore because of a lack of trucks or anchored off-shore because of a lack of trucks. Actually, it may be a lack of truck drivers; or workers who load the trucks; workers who package the widgets; people who make widgets on an assembly line; or even caretakers and maintenance workers who keep the widget assembly line clean, oiled, and flowing.
They are the worker bees who keep the hive thriving, or in our human enterprise, the economy moving.
In the world of bees, the supply chain problem is known as CCD: Colony Collapse Disorder is the phenomenon that occurs when the majority of worker bees in a colony disappear. The bees may leave the colony because of an invasion of mites, a lack of food sources due to over-population (of bees), climate (weather) change, or just being tired of working for the Queen and her princesses (title holders of the hive). CCD is not unusual, happening in the life cycle of a few generations of bees, who admittedly do not live as long as we humans.
The question I have is whether we humans are entering our own period of CCD.
There can be no doubt that the invasion of Covid-19 struck us like the mites hit a beehive.
Sickness and death of workers, travel restrictions, health precautions, politics, misinformation, social isolation, and even payment support for not working - all played a part in our supply chain issue. Add to that the extreme weather events around the world that further disrupted our human worker bees. And if that is not enough, methinks there are other major factors now contributing to our CCD / Supply Chain issues.
The gig economy and its lower wages and lack of benefits, while initially a boon to employers, is now showing its faults. Unlike in the good olde days when an employee would work his or her whole life for one employer, Giggers have little or no loyalty to a business and will leave at the first opportunity to gain a few cents more in wages or benefits.
This causes a disruption in the production line, requiring training of a new gigger, additional administration work, and possibly quality control issues during training. Paying your employees a minimum wage (or less) may be good for the bottom line but when the workers are facing all the above CCD issues, they may just give up in despair, leave the job, and look for social assistance.
It is not only private entrepreneurs who are using the gig economy but governments are trying this cost-cutting practice too. And like their private cousins, the public institutions will eventually face a loss of knowledge as the giggers move on and this inefficiency will lead to the collapse of service or product in the supply chain.
Computer AI may mitigate this somewhat but computers too need parts that are susceptible to supply chain issues. Yes, the supply chain does not only apply to goods from foreign lands, but in services like hospitals, social workers, transportation, services from the government, and of course, food services. There is a growing environmental conflict between the supply of food and the use of carbon fuel to deliver food. That is a supply chain/environment issue that should concern all of us.
Human giggers are not the only vulnerable link in the supply chain.
A solution many companies took and are taking is replacing employees with robots or AI machines that work for less than minimum wages without complaint. Except that when they have a nervous breakdown, some gigger has to fix them to keep the ‘just-in-time’ supply chain moving. Of course, we are finding that like the mites that can cause CCD, hackers and viruses can break into computer systems and disrupt or stop the supply chain (too often public services and health) making it come to a whimpering halt before we cough up a ransom.
Adding to the stress on supply chain worker bees is the looming prospect of inflation.
If you are selling your hive, inflation is your friend until you have to access the supply chain for materials to build/renovate your new hive. Inflation (and you can be sure higher interest rates will follow) hurts those workers bees at the bottom of the social status hierarchy more than the Queens living at the luxurious top of society.
Bees, as far as I know, do not face inflationary pressure unless there is collateral damage to flowering crops of canola, clover, and corn crops that provide nectar-gathering opportunities for the bees. Farmers too, may be pawns in the supply chain problem when they are unable to access loans to ship produce or source supplies, even seed for planting our food.
One other contributor to the bee’s CCD is air and environmental pollution that makes it difficult for bee communications (pheromone trails and wing buzzing) and the resulting miscommunications of where the best flowers are blooming. We humans now use cell phones (portable computers) for both social chit-chat and business; however, we seem to be blithely unaware of the size of the carbon footprint we are creating with these devices.
Some research shows that up to 4% of global pollution can be attributed to the manufacture and disposal of cell phones, a figure that may rise to 12% in a few years. But this does not account for the energy used and heat produced for the electricity used to run the computer farms that process calls and data searches which in many countries is carbon-sourced electricity. We seem to naively think that when we dial our friend’s account or send an email, we are like bees talking directly to other bees with visual contact or unique smells, but our electronic message goes through many, many computer processors, all using electrical power and producing enough heat to contribute to climate change just to chat to our friends anywhere in the world.
Switching from bees to birds, is the supply chain problem the proverbial canary in the coal mine?
Are we on the cusp of societal change?
Our indomitable human spirit will surely pull us through the supply chain problems. Then again, those bees have an indomitable spirit too: out of the hive to work at the crack of dawn; avoiding insecticide-poisoned lawn flowers; dodging cars and trucks when crossing roads; watching for bee-eating birds; dodging sticky spider webs; maneuvering to avoid air collisions in shadfly season; remembering the day’s checklist that the smoke-bearing beekeeper issued for Basswood honey nectar; wearing the PPE against mites, and fulfilling the daily quota of 63 trips before sundown. Then at night, listening to some drone buzzing at a CCD rally. Oh to be a human worker bee and relax in front of a TV.
It is likely inappropriate, even silly, to anthropomorphize bees and their CCD problems but the supply chain problems and discontent with authority may be a warning sign in this time of societal change. An informative read for anyone interested in a historical reference to societal change can be found on the web here.
Worker bees of the world – unite! Fix the supply chain.
