Labour Commodification in the Employment Heartland: Union Responses to Teachers’ Temporary Work

Susan McGrath-Champ, Scott Fitzgerald, Mihajla Gavin, Meghan Stacey and Rachel Wilson
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Susan McGrath-Champ: The University of Sydney, Australia
Scott Fitzgerald: Curtin University, Australia
Mihajla Gavin: University of Technology Sydney, Australia
Meghan Stacey: University of New South Wales, Australia
Rachel Wilson: The University of Sydney, Australia

Work, Employment & Society, 2023, vol. 37, issue 5, 1165-1185

Abstract: This article analyses the commodification of professional labour and union responses to these processes within the employment heartland. It explores the category of fixed-contract or ‘temporary’ employment using Australian public school teaching as the empirical lens. Established to address intensifying conditions of labour market insecurity, the union-led creation of the temporary category was intended to partly decommodify labour by providing intermediate security between permanent and ‘casual’ employment. However, using historical case and contemporary survey data, we discern that escalation of temporary teacher numbers and intensifying work-effort demands concurrently increased insecurity within the teacher workforce, constituting recommodification. The article contributes to scant literature on unions and commodification, highlighting that within the current marketised context, labour commodification may occur through contradictory influences at multiple levels, and that union responses to combat this derogation of work must similarly be multi-level and sustained.

Keywords: Australia; commodification; decommodification; devolution; public education; recommodification; school; teacher; temporary; union (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:woemps:v:37:y:2023:i:5:p:1165-1185

DOI: 10.1177/09500170211069854

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