NOTES ON TELEWORKING AND THE EXTENSION OF FLEXIBLE WORK THROUGH THE BACK DOOR
Teleworking has existed as a form of work worldwide for about 25 years. Several things have been written about teleworking, as we will see below. In many countries it has been widely adopted for some time (e.g. Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, etc.). In Greece, however, its use was fragmentary, and more importantly, not strictly institutionalized. It existed mainly as a facilitation provided by the employer to the employee, when the latter for some reasons wanted to work a few days from home. After all, the domestic capital is hesitant, without having a clear strategy for the digital transformation of labor. Thus, Greece remains a tail among the 28 EU members in digital skills and business maturity.
Nevertheless, the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic was the reason for the beginning of a process of rapid reversal of this situation in recent months. In various sectors, employers have been forced to resort to teleworking to maintain their businesses. So many of us suddenly found ourselves sitting in front of a PC or a tablet for endless hours, even overtime. Wanting to understand this situation, we wondered if this abrupt change is something temporary or a new regularity. We also wondered how employers could use technology and telework to increase their profits, get rid of operating costs, weaken employees’ bargaining power (due to their growing isolation) and finally transform work.
TECHNOLOGY & FLEXIBILITY: THE 2 SIDES OF THE SAME COIN
As early as the early 1990s, the outrageous pace of technological development brought about profound changes in the organization of production. This development enables companies to respond more effectively to the growing demands of an economy that extends across the length and breadth of the world. New technologies open the door to new markets and new ways of intensifying labor and capital accumulation. The integration of information technology and the general upgrade of telecommunications, means that the interconnection between the various departments and work tasks can be done on a large scale and at an unimaginable speed compared to the past. Thus, many office services can be provided and coordinated from anywhere and from any distance: whether they are different floors or even different continents 1. These innovations go hand in hand with the most common business practices of decentralization of production: Various tasks that are not profitable to do within the company are now outsourced to hiring companies and to subcontractors.
The upheavals that take place in the field of labor relations are also of great importance. Companies, free from the obligation to provide permanent and stable work, apply absolute flexibility2 to the place of execution and the way the work is organized. Modern workers can be hired, fired and relocated at any time, depending on demand and labor costs. Although they carry many years of service on their backs, they are in a constant state of training and development of new skills cut and sewn in the constantly changing conditions brought about by the rapid development of technology.
Today, we are seeing the development of new business models, such as these e-shop and service platforms, which employ millions of people around the world. These are the so-called gig workers and their number is constantly increasing, as more and more of human daily activity is transferred to cyberspace. E-commerce, teleconferencing, teleshopping, short-term apartment rentals, city travel apps are the new trend of global capital, which, taking advantage of the possibilities of “smart” technology, introduces temporary and flexible forms of employment.
BOSSES RESEARCH ON TELEWORKING
One of the most important parameters of the digital transformation of the economy is the changes in the way work is organized and provided. An example is also working remotely using modern telecommunications media. Teleworking, although not adopted in Greece until recently, was at times a topic in various news outlets. But why did the bosses promote – even academically – so much this form of work? What do they have to gain from it? We think it is better to see what they say. Through the research of bodies that express their interests, they draw some conclusions and talk about multiple common benefits:
1) Autonomy
Research by Eurofound (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions) emphasizes that teleworking gives employees the opportunity to combine their work with family life and gives them greater autonomy in the performance of their duties. We leave an environment of control and move to an environment of trust as characteristics state. A new management philosophy based on providing flexibility and autonomy in choosing the place, time and way in which employees will work, in exchange for the forced maximization of their efficiency. It is observed that such changes also affect the duties of the manager which are now limited to the simple control for the observance of deadlines and are not consumed in the strict supervision of each individual process at work. This does not mean that the “managerial right” of managers is degraded, it just acquires a different face, since their purpose continues to be the same: to ensure that our work will be subordinated to the orders and needs of the company. Nevertheless, in many cases, as far as employee controls are concerned, the opposite is true of what they advertise. Employers have the ability to constantly monitor the activities of employees even more closely through applications, whether they actually work or not, more than when the work is performed in the company. Sometimes, this is not even necessary, since the work is designed in such a way (strict deadlines in projects, continuous evaluation) so that the employee is self-disciplined and also contributes to the supervision of his colleagues.
2) Productivity increase
Another SEV3 study specifically states that teleworking can increase productivity by up to 50%. On the one hand due to the extension of the useful working time and on the other hand due to the fact that the teleworkers are much more concentrated during their work. In fact, the question for bosses is not what hours of the day we will work but how efficient we will be. They refer to modern evaluation methods, with the performance criteria being more the volume of work and the achievement of predetermined goals and less the physical presence of the employee and the observance of the schedule.
Productivity is also increasing by reducing our “pointless” absences, now when we are sick or there is a public transport strike we can work from home. They also refer to attracting and retaining younger staff. It is known that young people enter the labor market with more appetite for work and supplies, being more trained on new technologies. They have fewer financial requirements and livelihood needs and are more disciplined. Businesses are also given the opportunity to identify more efficient and suitable employees, expanding their reach in the search for a workforce indefinitely. They can attract workers from other cities or even from other countries, with lower incomes and labor costs.
3) Employment opportunities
Another point that bosses’ research focuses on is that teleworking increases employment opportunities for socially disadvantaged groups. Examples are disabled people and pregnant women or new mothers. Specifically for the latter, it is mentioned that with teleworking they are given the opportunity to fulfill their duties as mothers and workers more efficiently at the same time. They do not hesitate to say that the unclear separation of work and leisure is not necessarily bad but creates new … opportunities for these people. These new opportunities that are ringing, on the one hand, can be perceived as a means of introducing a new workforce in the labor market, which from time to time they need. On the other hand, it is difficult not to translate these “opportunities” as a push for capital, in order to get rid of a timeless hoarse: The social welfare of workers – women through allowances and maternity leave.
4) Reduction of operating expenses
Operating costs are due to the usual activities of the business such as rent and bills, brokerage, equipment, consumption of materials, etc. During the period of strict quarantine measures, many companies realized that through teleworking they could reduce the cost of their facilities in the long run. After all, the forthcoming restructuring of the labor process, through the integration of innovations, will lead not only to an increase in productivity (which is proven here through a multitude of surveys) but also to a reduction in costs, resulting in an increase in the rate of profit.
5) Flexibility & model change
Another point they focus on is the need to update labor law, which is characterized as rigid, failing to incorporate the expanding principles of flexibility that characterize modern “post-industrial” societies. For teleworking, this practically means that its legal framework has not been renewed since 2007 when it was incorporated in the national collective labor agreement. The existing framework does not give much flexibility in terms of setting, adhering to working hours, breaks and consequently whether companies are covered in case of control of SEPE. For example, in part-time teleworking, in order for a business to be perfectly legal, teleworking days must either be strictly predetermined (e.g. every Wednesday), or the contract must be revised each time the teleworker changes his schedule. For the authors of the chapter, all of the above are considered practically inapplicable and require special arrangements, as is already in force in several European countries. These will give companies more flexibility in setting schedules.
But what is most important for the “reservoirs of knowledge” of Greek capital, is how companies today perceive the status of telework. And we explain: So far, almost no company has implemented telework with the primary goal of all of the above. It was mainly a provision of facilities to employees, always by mutual agreement, without at the same time creating a special employment regime and a new category of employees. The bosses’ bet for the next day is that teleworking will contribute to the transformation of paid / dependent work into contracting. For businesses, project contracts are flexible in terms of the needs and specifics of each project. Thus, it is possible to employ remotely and for a specific part of the time, “independent” employees of appropriate qualifications and specializations, exempted at the same time from insurance contributions and salary weights.
THE MAGICAL WORLD OF TELEWORK AND US
From the data above, four points stand out and prove that teleworking affects the employee at work as well as in personal life:
First, the absence of the employee himself/herself from the workplace also means the absence of daily “friction” with colleagues. This situation can turn us into detached and biased individuals, and work can become utterly boring and depressing. Who will we take a break with, tell jokes and talk about our work? How will we gain coherence, trust and camaraderie between us when direct contact is replaced by telephones and chat windows in various online meetings? And yet, the half day we spend at work with colleagues is undoubtedly the most solid foundation to keep us united against the irrational demands of management, such as on the issue of pace of work. With our physical presence in the office, we have the ability to form a standard and accepted work rhythm. Our next-desk colleague will ask us to slow down the pace of work on a difficult project, and we will ask him/her to extend the cigarette or food break a little more. The better we know each other, the easier it is to conquer these without blaming anyone individually for being lazy or slow.
Second, the absence of a defined workplace and time that takes place through teleworking perpetuates the illusion that our work and interests are synonymous with the profits and goals of the business. It gives the feeling of an external collaborator – self-employed (self-employed entrepreneur) who regulates how and when he/she will work. His/hers life is now perceived as an investment in work skills in order to go through it alone until one day all this knowledge and experience to self-utilize through a start-up business and become the next self-made entrepreneur. This famous quest for new skills which should be continuous, can be easily done from the internet, as long as you repeatedly stay up in front of your computer screen. But in the job market, he is not the best. Entire armies of brainworkers who were educated and specialized ended up working as low-wage employees and at the same time paying extreme amounts for insurance contributions as if they were self-employed. And apparently, the illusions and dreams of all these “talented scientists” and “maladapted” tech-freaks with endless knowledge and skills were shattered by stepping on the banana peel of neoliberalism and “equal” competition.
Third, it is understood that the blur between leisure and working time is a field of new opportunities only for employers and businesses. The teleworker is forced to be constantly available to answer a mail, a phone call from the boss, to respond to some “emergency” that arose or an obligation that must be fulfilled because it pushes the deadline. This condition pushes him/her to do more and more overtime work, even if there is no need for it, since the perception is created that some actions can be done immediately and quickly with a few clicks from home. Of course, overtime is also brought about by the multiple speeds and different schedules of the employees that develop from working remotely.
Last but not least. All this situation as natural consequence can shape the health and personality of the teleworker. He/She never has time to deal with something that fills him/her authentically, since slavery is ready to invade every moment, every second of his/hers personal time, with the spaces of his/hers home being transformed into a vast office. The teleworker is forced to secure a workplace inside the home. This is difficult for many who have a family or roommates, as all individuals have to adjust their daily working hours. So it is not strange that this figure of a worker lives with stress and stress due to the rhythms of work and the loss of his/hers personal life. One of the real problems of today’s workers is that they do not have time. We do not have the opportunity to experience our free time the way we really want, because it simply does not belong to us. Our work devours most of our time and is the one that will completely determine what we will do and how we will spend our afternoon or weekend. “Rubber” jobs, such as work from home, cut our free time into a thousand pieces and make things even more murky and alien.
CAN THIS BATTLE ALSO BE FOUGHT REMOTELY?
The flexibility and fragmentation of work now touches most young workers, with most not having experienced anything different. Although we speak the same language, it seems impossible even to think of acting for ourselves with our common identity, of organizing our demands, of giving our own struggles. And while we work in jobs that are becoming increasingly important to the new economy, we have not been able to find ways to express our collective needs. Gone are the days when the existence of mass workplaces such as factories and the collective life around them were key factors in organizing the exploiters as a class. The labor organization of the past does not seem to be able to respond to a period which is characterized, in several sectors, by the general exodus of workers from the traditional single workplace. For example, open space offices and call centers, where dozens of employees are stacked in a few square meters, may not exist in the future.
It is a fact that teleworking has come to stay. In the near future, many, especially the millennials, will prefer teleworking in order to escape the long and tedious transports, the annoying supervision of their bosses and employers, maybe even their disliked colleagues. The well-founded desires of new employees for teleworking, more flexibility and liberation from the routine 5-day-8-hour work, are a practical challenge to traditional forms of work. At the same time, however, they hide pitfalls even when expressed from a radical point of view. Capital can easily incorporate labor denials on its own terms, which is sure to push us into more uncertainty. We will become even more competitive, arrogant and scared for our jobs, constantly looking for individual solutions to the huge collective problems that shake us. Our estimate stems from the experience of the young proletarians of the ‘70s in the western metropolises. They denied their role in the heavy industry of factories, demanding freedom from the eternal prison of wage labor. This social tsunami of disobedience brought the opposite results. It triggered in terms of revenge from the capital, the registered / premeditated deregulation of the social contract that the labor struggles and uprisings of the previous decades had won. The process of this deregulation was reflected in the application of new technologies and the introduction of robotic systems in factories, the reduction of the required number of workers, the dissolution of strong unions and the elaboration of the work that followed.
But far from easy slogans for refusan of telework and breaking of cameras and computers, we must enter the process to answer some questions that arise. Can new technologies help communication between employees who are not in the same workplace? The successful online consultation and reaction (via the what’s app) of the WOLT distributors after the announcement of the company to cut the bonuses, as well as the telework stoppage on the BEAT platform after dismissals of the administration during the quarantine, bring to a new form of communication, coordination and organization of employees. Can the prospects and necessities of struggle born of work mobility and extreme flexibility answer the big bet that remained open before the epidemic and long-distance work knocked on our door: To get out of isolation and inactivity, to meet, to regain our lost workers confidence, to prepare our battle positions for the struggles of the future.
Movement for the Class Autonomy (KTA)
taksiki-autonomia@riseup.net
Athens, Greece, October 2020
- Through Cloud applications, employees can access the same documents as their colleagues, whether they are inside or outside the office. Also, through cheap or free digital tools (such as zoom, webex, Microsoft teams, slack, trello, Toggl, etc.), the staff of a company has the ability to communicate, make teleconferences and coordinate teamwork effectively from distance.
- Changes in the organization of work brought new forms of employment, which were called flexible (part-time work, work with rolling schedule, work on Sundays and holidays, long-distance work such as teleworking). Many of these flexible forms of work are called “gray” because they lack labor rights and social security (work with the “fason” part, hiring workers, etc.).
- Association of Greek Industries