In control of time – trade unions between labor protection and workreform strategies

Abstract

This article explores trade unions’ strategic options for regulating time at work, when work is becoming boundary less. Time has historically played a pivotal role in regulating relations between workers and capital. This has led to an extensive set of rules and regulations directed against the length of working day, the placement on the day etc. We distinguish between two ideal-typical ways to regulate the time which has been applied historically. The labour protection-oriented and the work reform-oriented. While the protectionoriented is targeting at protection of the workers; the work reform-oriented aims at developing work in direction of greater autonomy, self-regulation and self-protection. We might assume the latter strategy to be the most suitable in a regulation of boundary less work. But, as we point out, both strategies offer dilemmas and contradictions. And we argue that new strategies to regulate time need to focus on other aspects of time; such as the acceleration, compression and fragmentation of time, in order to capture the dilemmas arising from boundary less work. We illustrate this in a study of the Teachers Union’s strategies for regulation of time. We show how shifting strategies in fact form part of a complex game of control. The aim is to control wages and working conditions. But it is also an attempt to control the more general societal conditions, such as the agendas for developing public schools, the teacher’s labour market and their societal status and recognition labour and teachers’ status and recognition. The new agreement of the Teachers Union underpins the profession’s self regulation of time. In our case study of teachers’ work in elementary schools, we show how the emphasis on professional autonomy in work cultures valuing continuous development and self- realization on the one hand is meaningful and desirable for the teachers. On the other hand, however, it creates a stressful working environment. The professional norms of the modern teacher work seem to support that work can always be done better; care, learning and education are endless and only limited by lack of time. To address this dilemma is not easy. However, based on the case study we point towards three focal points for the union’s strategic efforts: First, to establish a greater degree of common temporal rhythms, in order to diminish the fragmentation of time. Secondly, to reduce the availability of the employees, as the requirements for communication and social relationships appear to be steeply rising. And fi nally, to develop and modify the professional standards, so they include a higher degree of self-protection. This kind of regulation of working time may be best developed locally. But the central level can indeed play an important role in supporting such developments.