We need to change our relationship with work

Being unemployed is hard, but our relationship with work makes it more so, writes Tom Boland

THE experience of unemployment has both acute and chronic forms. Firstly, there is the experience of losing a job. Many people we spoke to under the auspices of the Waterford Unemployment Experiences Research Collaborative described losing their job as a traumatic event. Redundancy can entail a perceived loss of status, a severe drop in self-esteem and often a problem with identity. Without your career, job, or profession, who are you, after all?

Nothing but a “jobseeker”; a person defined by what they lack. Yet we also encountered extraordinarily optimistic and resilient attitudes. However, there is no small human cost to job loss, particularly among older men with families to support, who sometimes fall into isolation, depression, problem drinking and worse.

Many people we interviewed expressed frustration with job agencies and retraining, which often prepared them for jobs which don’t exist.

For many, their new-found free time a burden, which is strange; surely free time is what everyone works for? One interviewee described how he scarcely enjoyed the increased time he spent with his children since he lost his job; of course he loves them, but unemployment casts a shadow over parenthood.

Another paradox of unemployment is that free time does not always lead to increased socialising or community engagement. Losing a job often leads to a loss of social networks, and the neglect of old activities.

The dole office is the primary institution framing the experience of unemployment. Although this is the site where the welfare state cares for its citizens, it is also the descendent of the poor-house. Explicitly, it is the site of social protection but implicitly it is also the site of suspicion, supervision, and incitement to work.

Curiously, most unemployed people report feeling out of place at the dole office. Everybody else is meant to be there, but you and I are just passing through. We are not “those sort of people”. Yet how can we be surprised that few take on “unemployed” as an identity, since it is a transitional state. Hence there is little solidarity amongst the unemployed, except perhaps against “the system”.

One of the most important things to realise is that people want to work. Many people strike such a Faustian pact with employment that they cannot enjoy retirement or any other life without work. During the boom, only a fraction of the 4% unemployed were long-term unemployed, meaning the vast majority were people moving between jobs.

The “scroungers” are numbered in mere hundreds. The unemployed is 1% those who won’t work and 99% those who want to work. It doesn’t make sense to pressure either group to produce evidence of attempts to seek work. Instead, the position of job-seeker should be replaced by the designation “available for work”. If a position becomes available, a central recruitment agency lets suitable candidates know. Meanwhile, those who are out of paid employment should be free to do as they choose.

What else could the unemployed do instead of job-seeking? Those with artistic interests can pursue their muse, those with sporting interests can play or coach. Education should be facilitated, without a year’s wait for the Back to Education allowance, or fees or progression from one level to another.

Most importantly, those with “free time” should be allowed to rebuild social life, minding children, caring for the elderly, being friends, forming clubs, associations and networks, contemplating the world.

Perhaps that sounds idealistic, but consider; how would you prefer to be treated if you were unemployed?

Just as we need to rethink unemployment, we need to reassess work, so that people work less and spend less, but have more time. Gradually reducing the working week, facilitating job-sharing and flexible arrangements such as career breaks is another way of reducing the dole queue. Spreading the existing work around is preferable to increasing the tempo of business to fuel another boom and bust. If it takes two incomes to support a house- hold, we are poorer, not richer, than the pre-Celtic Tiger days.

Rather than returning to single bread- winner families, imagine households where both parents work three days each, then spend the remaining time on parenting, community life, and their real interests. These workers would be individually healthier and sustain a more vibrant community. They would have time to cook, exercise, care for their elders, their children, and their neighbours. In the face of the economic, environmental, and health crises, the relationship between life and work will have to change. Ireland should become the “best small country in the world” in which to job-share or be unemployed.

* Tom Boland lectures in sociology at Waterford Institute of Technology and is co-ordinator of the Waterford Unemployment Experiences Research Collaborative.

Q&A

Q. Why has Julian Assange been in the Ecuadorean embassy since June 19?

A. The Australian faces allegations of raping a woman and sexually molesting and coercing another in Stockholm, Sweden, in Aug 2010 while on a visit to give a lecture. The Swedish authorities have requested that he return there for questioning.

Following the failure of his epic legal battle against extradition, Assange sought refuge in Ecuador’s Knightsbridge mission and claimed asylum. He and his supporters fear that extradition to Sweden may be followed by transfer to the US over the activities of his whistle-blowing website.

Q. If he remains inside the embassy, isn’t he protected from the authorities under international law?

A. It is not quite as straightforward as that. Under the Vienna Convention, diplomatic posts are considered the territory of the foreign nation.

However, Britain’s Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987 permits the revocation of the special status of a building if the foreign power occupying it “ceases to use land for the purposes of its mission or exclusively for the purposes of a consular post”. This means that, potentially, Assange could be arrested even if he remained inside the mission.

Q. What does this mean for Britain’s relationship with Ecuador?

A. A senior British envoy in Quito has warned the authorities that there would be “serious implications for our diplomatic relations” if the Assange situation continued. This could mean a downgrading of relations or the expulsion of diplomats.