Union Building Conference 2018

working-practices notes that in Britain today 'it has become conventional for both parents of small children to work' (p.97). Yet the same review reports that a survey found that '50% of mothers described a negative impact on their opportunity, status or job security' (p.96) as a result of having a baby (i.e. during pregnancy, maternity leave or when they returned to work after maternity leave). So it's normal for mothers (and fathers) to work, in the sense of this being a common behaviour, but the idea that mothers work doesn't seem to be accepted. There's a disjunction between the behaviour and the thinking about it. Working mothers are still being treated as odd or 'not normal' in that their situations are questioned, made difficult, problematized. The example indicates that ideas and values do not automatically change to reflect what people are doing. Behaviours can continue to be ignored, or treated as abnormal, even when they're common. A further issue is how the changing requirements of work might shape the workers themselves. What changes have occurred in the way they think about work? What aspects of work and working lives have come to be taken for granted as normal and unremarkable? Following from that, how are people changing themselves to manage this ‘new normal’ and become the kind of worker that's required? For instance, are they learning to be more entrepreneurial? Are they accepting different values, prioritising flexibility over loyalty or creativity over conscientiousness? And if they are, do these changes come at a cost, conflicting perhaps with other values and identities? Some answers are indicated in a new collection presenting research from eleven countries: The new normal of working lives: critical studies in contemporary work and employment , co-edited by Stephanie Taylor and Susan Luckman for Palgrave Macmillan (2018). The collection suggests that whether people today are employed by an organisation or work for themselves, they operate to a great extent as ‘loners’ rather than as part of a collective. They accept individual responsibility, for solving problems and meeting deadlines, for acquiring qualifications and updating their technological skills, and, if they are self-employed, for paying for their workplaces and equipment. They also give up their personal time. They accept very long working days, disciplining themselves to work more hours with less ‘down time’. They work evenings and weekends, and in transit between home and work. They take for granted the breakdown of barriers between work and private life, so they are seldom off duty. Many self-employed people use their homes as their workplaces, especially as a way of managing caring responsibilities. Some have taken over work that was previously the responsibility of the public sector, such as the provision of care for the elderly. Some of them are making new jobs out of activities often regarded as hobbies, like computer gaming or blogging or vlogging. Many of them bring their personal selves into their work, utilising their enthusiasms (for instance, for the gaming) or their private experiences (in the blogging and vlogging). All of this contributes to the problems already noted. Many of the workers don’t earn much, especially for the effort and the long hours they put in. Yet they apparently accept the difficulties as necessary. In the most extreme situations they manage by hoping for better lives in the future, even when there seems little reason to expect improvement, and sometimes when their current actions (for instance, incurring debts while working unpaid) will almost certainly create later problems. Taken together, the collection therefore

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