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Category: Labour Standards & Workers’ Rights

  • Under the Employer’s Eye: Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance in Australian Workplaces

    Digital Technology & the Internet, Labour Standards & Workers’ Rights

    Under the Employer’s Eye: Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance in Australian Workplaces

    by Troy Henderson, Tom Swann and Jim Stanford

    Authors

    Troy Henderson

    Tom Swann

    Jim Stanford

    Media release



    ‘Go Home On Time Day’ 2018: Australians Owed $106 Billion in Unpaid Overtime, Report Reveals

    Each year the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute conducts a public survey of Australian working hours, as part of our annual “Go Home on Time Day” (GHOTD) initiative. Findings from the survey regarding hours worked, preferences for more or less hours, and the incidence of unpaid overtime are reported in a companion study.

    This year, our survey also included a special section focusing on the forms, prevalence, impacts and implications of electronic and digital monitoring and surveillance in Australian workplaces. Our goal was to investigate a secondary dimension of the time pressure facing Australian workers. It is not just that work is being extended into greater portions of our days (through unpaid overtime, the use of mobile phones and computers to reach workers at any time, pressure to not fully utilise annual leave, and similar trends). In addition, even within the work day, time pressure is intensified with the expectation that every moment of work time must be used for productive purposes – an expectation that is increasingly reinforced through omnipresent systems of monitoring, performance measurement, and surveillance. The result of these twin forces is an overall inability for people to escape from the demands of work: neither at the workplace (even for short periods), nor away from it.

    Part I of this report begins by describing the main forms of modern electronic monitoring and surveillance (EMS) that have placed more Australian workers “under their employer’s eye.” These methods include the use of location tracking technologies, monitoring of emails and social media content, the “gamification” of work, digital methods of performance monitoring, and even electronic systems for employee discipline and dismissal. Following sections examine the various purposes of modern EMS systems, and the extent of their application. This is followed by a brief description of the legal and regulatory system governing EMS in Australia; current regulations limiting employers’ use of these systems are sparse and inconsistent. The last section of Part I discusses the direct and indirect consequences of these new forms of monitoring and surveillance for workers. It argues that the impact of omnipresent surveillance in workplaces may be contributing to the slower wage growth which has so concerned Australian economists and policy experts in recent years; because it is now easier and cheaper to monitor and “motivate” employees through surveillance and potential discipline, employers feel less pressure to provide positive economic incentives (such as job security, promotion, and higher wages) to elicit loyalty and effort from their workforces.

    Part II of the report then reports the findings of our original survey data regarding the forms, extent and impacts of EMS systems in Australian workplaces, and the attitudes of Australian workers towards these technologies and trends. We surveyed 1,459 people between 26 October and 6 November 2018, using an online survey methodology, conducted by Research Now. The sample was nationally representative with respect to gender, age and state and territory.



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  • Raising the Bar: How Government Can Use its Economic Leverage to Lift Labour Standards Throughout the Economy

    Labour Standards & Workers’ Rights, Public Sector, Procurement & Privatisation

    Raising the Bar: How Government Can Use its Economic Leverage to Lift Labour Standards Throughout the Economy

    by Jim Stanford

    Author

    Jim Stanford

    Media release



    Government Spending Power Could Support Stronger Wage Growth

    For at least five years now, Australia’s labour market has demonstrated signs of a structural shift that has undermined traditional patterns of wage determination, and eroded the quality and security of work. The economic and social consequences of this sea change in the world of work are severe and far-reaching: flat real wages (the worst labour income growth since the Great Depression), a severing of the traditional relationship between wage and productivity growth, a steady expansion of insecure work in various forms, growing inequality in income distribution (both between factors and across households), and a precipitous decline in collective representation and enterprise bargaining (especially in the private sector). Governments tell Australians to simply be patient, and let “market forces” do their work; wages will pick up and economic benefits will soon “trickle down.” But there is no reason to expect these concerning labour market challenges to resolve themselves. Instead, the whole history of Australia’s economy reminds us that pro-active policy efforts are always necessary to broadly distribute the fruits of economic growth to workers and their families.



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  • Excessive Hours, Unpaid Overtime and the Future of Work

    Labour Standards & Workers’ Rights

    Excessive Hours, Unpaid Overtime and the Future of Work

    by Troy Henderson and Tom Swann

    Authors

    Troy Henderson

    Tom Swann

    2017 marks the ninth annual Go Home On Time Day (GHOTD), an initiative of the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute aimed at highlighting the incidence of overwork among Australians, including excessive overtime (often unpaid). To investigate the prevalence of overwork and unpaid overtime, we commissioned a survey of over 1400 Australians on the incidence of overwork and Australian attitudes toward it. The results are surprising.

    Our full report, Excessive Hours, Unpaid Overtime and the Future of Work, by Troy Henderson and Tom Swann, summarises the polling, and considers the implications for labour market policies. Highlights include:

    • There is growing evidence of polarisation in Australian employment patterns, between those with full-time, relatively secure jobs, and a growing portion working part-time, casual, temporary, or insecure positions. Barely half of working Australians are now employed in standard full-time jobs, with the rest in part-time, casual or self-employed positions.
    • Many full-time workers want to work fewer hours, but most of those in part-time or casual positions want more hours. The coexistence of overwork and underemployment is evidence that labour market polarisation and insecurity is hurting the work lives of millions of Australians.
    • Across all forms of employment, Australians work an average of 5.1 hours of unpaid labour per week (up from 4.6 hours in 2016). This unpaid labour represents between 14 percent and 20 percent of the total time spent working by Australian employees. 
    • The aggregate value of this “time theft” is large and growing. We estimate the total value of unpaid overtime in the national economy at over $130 billion in 2016-2017, up from $116 billion last year.
    • There would be significant economic, social, and health benefits from providing workers with stronger protections against unpaid overtime, and finding ways to better share available work.

    Our report also investigates Australians’ attitudes toward new technology in the workplace, including computerisation, automation, and digital platforms (or “gigs”):

    • Australians agree that there are significant potential benefits from new technology, and that those benefits could be experienced by businesses, consumers, and workers. Benefits for workers could include higher incomes, shorter working hours, or a combination of the two.
    • When asked which benefits they would prefer, Australians generally want to see both higher incomes and shorter working hours. 60 percent want to see higher incomes (either on their own, or in conjunction with shorter working hours), while 57 percent want to see shorter working hours (either on their own, or in conjunction with higher incomes). Australians want to see a balance between a higher material standard of living, and more time off to enjoy that standard of living.
    • However, when thinking about their own workplaces, Australians fear employers will use new technology primarily to reduce employment levels (rather than increasing incomes or reducing average working hours). 57 percent of workers think their employer will respond to new technology by reducing employment. Only 18 percent expect shorter working hours to be the outcome of technological change, and only 14 percent expect higher incomes.
    • This suggests that while Australians see the potential of new technology to improve their lives, they worry that the implementation of new technology may not translate into gains for workers.

    The jarring coexistence of overwork and underemployment, and the contradiction between Australians’ optimism regarding the potential benefits of technology and their fears about what will happen in their specific workplaces, both suggest a need for more pro-active labour market strategies to share work across all groups of workers, and to enhance the security and stability of jobs. To translate the promise of new technology into concrete benefits for workers (both higher incomes and more leisure time) will require effective measures to limit overtime (including unpaid overtime), enhance the stability of work (especially for workers in the growing number of non-standard jobs), and give workers more say in how new technology is managed.



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  • Hard to Get Away: Is the paid holiday under threat in Australia?

    Labour Standards & Workers’ Rights

    Hard to Get Away: Is the paid holiday under threat in Australia?

    by Troy Henderson

    Author

    Troy Henderson

    Media release



    New figures show Australians taking less annual leave

    The focus of this year’s Go Home on Time Day is the threat to the “Great Aussie Holiday.”  Thanks to the rise of precarious work in all its forms, a growing share of Australian workers (about one-third, according to our research) have no access to something we once took for granted: a paid annual holiday.  Moreover, about half of those who ARE entitled to paid annual leave, don’t use all of their weeks – in many cases because of work-related pressures.  And recent decisions by the Fair Work Commission allowing for the “cash out” of annual leave, mean that this great cultural institution – the Aussie holiday – is very much in jeopardy.

    Check out our  special in-depth report, prepared by Troy Henderson of the University of Sydney, documenting these multiple threats to the Aussie holiday, and cataloguing the many economic, social, and health consequences that occur when we don’t get a break from work.



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  • Excessive Hours and Unpaid Overtime: An update

    Labour Standards & Workers’ Rights

    Excessive Hours and Unpaid Overtime: An update

    by Tom Swann and Jim Stanford

    Authors

    Tom Swann

    Jim Stanford

    The focus of this year’s Go Home on Time Day is the threat to the “Great Aussie Holiday.”  Thanks to the rise of precarious work in all its forms, a growing share of Australian workers (about one-third, according to our research) have no access to something we once took for granted: a paid annual holiday.  Moreover, about half of those who ARE entitled to paid annual leave, don’t use all of their weeks – in many cases because of work-related pressures.  And recent decisions by the Fair Work Commission allowing for the “cash out” of annual leave, mean that this great cultural institution – the Aussie holiday – is very much in jeopardy.

    We have updated our regular calculations of the value of workers’ time that is effectively “stolen” each year by employers through massive amounts of unpaid overtime regularly worked in all industries and occupations. 



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  • Workin’ 9 to 5.30