The New Serfdom

by Angela Eagle

  Marx had a really keen sense of human nature. He believed humans are fundamentally productive beings. Work is the means by which we live in the natural world, making ourselves feel part of it. Work allows us to satisfy our own wants and needs and defines our role within a community. Social solidarity is strengthened when each of us contributes to the collective needs of society, which is why access to work is so important. Marx, however, was writing at a time when industrialisation had created factories in which workers were merely cogs in machines, and often treated as such. He differentiated between work that he said ‘alienated’ people from their labour and emancipatory work. In Das Kapital, Marx wrote:

  A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement. He not only effects a change of form in the material on which he works, but he also realises a purpose of his own that gives the law to his modus operandi, and to which he must subordinate his will.

  There’s a really lovely idea in there, and one that cuts to the heart of the Labour movement. Work has the potential to be truly fulfilling and liberating – if what we are producing is something that we want to produce or providing a service which we know is needed and appreciated then work adds to the purpose of our lives. That’s why the Labour movement has always fought to make conditions at work safe and aimed to ensure that work was worthwhile and fulfilling. It’s also why the Labour movement encourages co-operation at work so that each worker feels their ideas are listened to and feels valued and personally invested in their work. Gaining a fair share of the reward from work for all is a key part of what the labour and trade union movement came into existence to achieve.

  So firstly, what does work look like in the twenty-first century?

  Ten years after the financial crisis, in which unemployment reached 8 per cent of the population (over 2.5 million people), the ONS unemployment rate today in Britain is at a 42-year record low of 4.3 per cent. That is, around 1.4 million people are seeking and are available for work but haven’t got a job. It has been a remarkable and welcome turnaround. There are 32.1 million people in work, which is – again – a historic high. Some have claimed that unemployment figures may mask the actual inactivity rate – those people between the ages of sixteen and sixty-four who are economically inactive. But, again, this is at a record low of 21.4 per cent – around 8.8 million people.

  This is a marked contrast to the conditions recorded by Beveridge and the Commission on Social Justice. In 1942 and 1992, there was much more economic inactivity. Labour governments in both instances eventually helped to drive down inactivity and to increase employment, in the first instance by creating jobs and in the second by encouraging the creation of new jobs in the private sector through prudent management of the economy as well as investment. It would be remiss of any Labour Party to fail to welcome the improvements in the headline figures on employment. However, there is a more complex picture emerging from these figures than may at first be apparent. The labour market is becoming increasingly fragmented into ‘lovely’ and ‘lousy’ jobs. The quality rather than the quantity of jobs is increasingly important as the levels of underemployment and fragmented work patterns on low pay rates rise. We will consider the implications of this later.

  Second, how happy are we in work?

  Here, again, there is evidence that things are getting better for some. The British Social Attitudes Survey is conducted annually by the National Centre for Social Research. Since 1983, it has asked a representative sample of citizens questions on their feelings about a huge array of topics, from crime to benefits, immigration to work. The survey’s most recent analysis of citizens’ feelings about work demonstrates this improvement for some. It found that 71 per cent of workers feel they ‘have a “good” job (one with at least four positive attributes such as being interesting, helping others and/or society, and offering chances for advancement), compared with 62 per cent in 2005 and 57 per cent in 1989.’ They also found that ‘62 per cent of respondents say they would enjoy having a job even if they didn’t need the money, up from 49 per cent in 2005.’ When asked what they thought was most important about a job, the three most popular responses were that it was secure, interesting and offered opportunities for advancement. These answers reinforce our belief that British people perceive work is important to them and that they want and are willing to work hard and get on.

  If all this is true though, then what explanation can we give for the political anger that we see and the frustration with the current government? After all, we know that wages have stagnated, but one would expect those in work as well as their dependents and friends and families to be delighted that so many people have been able to find gainful employment.

  The truth is that while the government likes to cite these headline figures, in part because they are genuinely worth celebrating, they hide deep areas of concern – for example, when you look at specific groups of people, such as the young, the low-skilled and those from the working class. The areas of concern are actually quite clear once you drill beneath the surface of the statistics, and it is beyond our comprehension as to why the government has failed to take seriously trends in which opportunity has disappeared and discontent has grown for many people. They directly led to the growth in anxiety and anger among younger Britons that expressed itself at the ballot box in 2017. The labour market is segmenting and, at the ‘lousy’ end, it is getting worse.

  Take the employment rate, which the government assures us is at its healthiest ever. When we look at the ONS employment rate by age group, some concerns emerge. Whereas there has been a marked uptick in the employment rate for older people, the employment rate for young people has not recovered to pre-crisis levels. This means that young people today are less able to build experience, a CV, as well as contributions to their social security and pension. Pathways to careers appear to be closing off and jobs are being hoarded by those who already have experience. The older people who have benefited from the jobs recovery will already have had work experience before the crisis and, as such, a real competitive advantage over those younger people. But discrimination in the labour market is not only seen between young and old. The fact is that women, black and ethnic minorities and the young all find themselves facing discrimination and a lack of good job opportunities.

  Another criticism that is levied at the government over employment is that the increase in jobs has been in part-time work and in self-employment. There is some truth in this. If we look at what has happened over the past few years, the percentage of self-employed people in the workforce has increased from 12.9 per cent before the crash to 15.1 per cent now. That is around 1 million more self-employed people. This statistic will include people who have set up legitimate businesses for themselves, but it will also include those forced into ‘fake self-employment’. This is where full-time employees are told to go ‘freelance’ but retain their current job on a sub-contractual basis. This shifts all of the risk onto individual workers while depriving them of the rights they would enjoy if they were directly employed. It reduces the cost and the tax bill for the ‘employer’ too. This is unfair and must stop.

  We can also see that there has been an increase of 1.2 million in the proportion of the workforce working part-time. Some do so because they don’t want full-time work. Students, for example, enjoy the ability to work part-time. New parents who aren’t ready to re-enter the workforce and older people wanting to keep active may also want part-time work. But many are forced to accept part-time work when they want to work full-time. Luckily, the ONS records the percentage of those part-time workers who say they have had to take part-time work despite wanting full-time work. In 2006, there were around 65
0,000 people in that situation. Today there are around 1,050,000 stuck in part-time work and wanting full-time work. If they then suffer arbitrary cuts in hours at the whim of the employer they can suddenly find themselves unable to make ends meet.

  Any jobs recovery claimed by the government has therefore been patchy and incomplete. There are signs of problems and we would argue that the most dangerous is the youth employment rate, the effects of which will ripple through society over time. Those who have been lucky enough to get into work young will have a serious advantage over those who have not. There must also be a concern that if there are fewer young people getting into work, those from more advantaged backgrounds, who are more likely to have access to familial social networks, will get these jobs over those from less-advantaged backgrounds.

  This is exactly what Alan Milburn has been looking at for the government in his independent Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission (though he has since resigned in frustration at the lack of government action on his reports). His research has shown a strong correlation between people’s social origins and their ability to get decent work. This is driving real despair among young people, and though it has always been a feature of the class-based system in the UK, as Alan has shown in his reports on social mobility, the situation is getting worse not better.

  The Commission has found that nearly half of people (48 per cent) say that where you end up in society is largely determined by who your parents are – compared with a third (32 per cent) who say that everyone has a fair chance to get on regardless of their background.

  It is the younger generation who feel more acutely that background determines where you end up, with around half (51 per cent) of 18–24-year-olds agreeing with this statement compared with 40 per cent of those aged sixty-five and over.

  In addition, half of young people think the situation is getting worse, with only 30 per cent of 18–24-year-olds believing it is becoming easier to move up in British society.

  For both authors, this is a deeply worrying finding. We both know the difficulties of being people of working-class origin trying to get on in life, and that was in better times than today’s young people enjoy. Today, only 4 per cent of doctors, 6 per cent of barristers and 11 per cent of journalists are from working-class origins, according to recent research by the London School of Economics using Labour Force Survey data. The government has failed to ensure the recovery was managed so that opportunities were distributed fairly. Whereas we both eventually found work after university, that might not be true for us if we were to be in the same position today. Chasing a dwindling number of jobs available to people with no experience, young people from working-class families will slip behind those from more advantaged backgrounds. In five or ten years’ time, that will mean an entire generation for whom social origin will play a big part in defining what job they do, how much experience they can accrue and, as a result, how much they get paid. It will deepen inequality and has worrying implications for social solidarity.

  Internships are a particular bugbear. When your authors graduated, they were eventually able to access graduate jobs. These provided vital preparation for the workplace while allowing us to have an adequate standard of living in the cities we moved to. That is no longer true for so many young people. A survey by Prospects, an employment agency, found in 2017 that 48 per cent of 16–25-year-olds had undertaken unpaid internships. Only 17 per cent had been paid for their work experience. This, of course, is a driver of inequality. Moving to London, for example, or any other big city, with high housing costs and overall cost of living, is beyond the means of many young people without parental assistance. Employers love to tell us the story of the young person who did an internship while working two other jobs and sleeping on a friend’s sofa and was eventually rewarded for their pluck, but the truth is that these opportunities mainly go to those with parents who can support them. That puts a significant – and often unmanageable – burden on parents with lower incomes and especially children from single-parent families, and means many young people from less-wealthy backgrounds end up having to save up to take a job. There is also an increasing trend for ‘training periods’, which can last months, to be unpaid. This should be made illegal. The notion is repellent – even more so when you see internships being auctioned off by rich donors at Conservative Party black-tie balls. In 2011, the Conservatives auctioned off five lucrative City internships for £14,000. Is there any clearer example of how our labour market has been perverted?

  If we go back to the British Social Attitudes Survey, concerns emerge when we look at those factors that we said British workers perceive as being important: job security, that their job is interesting and that their job permits advancement. On all three, fewer people rate their job as having those attributes than perceive those attributes as important. And when it comes to a good income, less than 30 per cent of people feel their job is well-remunerated, while over 60 per cent feel that’s an important aspect of work.

  This is not just perception. The Resolution Foundation’s ‘A steady job?’ report, published in July 2015, found a rising trend over the past twenty years in the proportion of 18–29-year-olds who find themselves in an insecure job, particularly young men. They also discovered that younger people are less likely to be in a job categorised as privileged, which means they are highly secure, whereas that has been rising slightly for older people. The weakening of trade union rights and the fall in trade union membership, especially in the private sector – a deliberate result of Conservative policies in government – has weakened the protections for all. Conservative governments’ neglect of the enforcement of employment protection has helped this trend to develop virtually unchecked.

  Insecurity has risen to such an extent that even the Bank of England’s chief economist, Andy Haldane, has highlighted the problems caused by a shift of power to employers – precisely the problem we highlighted that Hayekism had caused. In a speech delivered in August 2017, Mr Haldane explicitly linked insecurity and a squeeze on wages to the shift in power that turned the relationship between labour and capital into one not seen since before the Industrial Revolution. He highlighted the rise in self-employment, which is usually associated with lower incomes, and the steep decline in trade union membership over recent decades. When workers lack power within the economy and capital has the whip hand, and when there is a glut of available workers, this gives employers the ability to set people against one another and squeeze hours, security and wages.

  This is especially true for those who have the least power – young people. Many young people say that when they do find a job, it is because they’ve had to deliberately aim low to get that job. The 2017 UK University Graduate Employment Study by Accenture Strategy found that almost three quarters of recent graduates believe they are underemployed. Young people aren’t to blame for the plight they find themselves in: 83 per cent in that survey were happy to move across the country for work and 90 per cent took into account job availability before selecting a course. This also explains the greater prevalence of systems like internships and long ‘probationary’ periods in contracts.

  We realise that much of the evidence that is emerging is about young people. There may be some who say: ‘Good, young people need to learn that life is tough!’ This, however, would be myopic. The effects of the shift in power dynamics between labour and capital ripple throughout the jobs market, and this has manifested itself in the intensity, stressfulness and enjoyment of work for the majority of workers.

  Despite wages stagnating, a Smith Institute study in 2016 showed more than two thirds of employees say they are working longer hours than two years ago. Ironically, more than a quarter of staff in the Smith Institute study said their productivity had declined as a result and only one in ten thought it had increased.

  The Mental Health Foundation discovered that 13 per cent of UK workers are clocking over forty-nine hours of work a week – the EU ‘working time directive’ states that, in the UK, the
maximum number of hours a worker should put in is forty-eight, unless that worker opts out.

  A study for TotallyMoney.com in 2017 showed that British overtime has hit a record high, with employees working sixty-eight hours – a week and half’s work – more each year than they are contracted to, usually for no additional pay. There is a gender-balance issue here too: 43 per cent of men get paid for overtime while that’s only true for 30 per cent of women. The Trades Union Congress provided figures showing that the number of employees working longer hours than contracted had grown by 15 per cent in the past five years.

  Fewer and fewer people have control over their work hours. The British Social Attitudes Survey found that in 2015, 57 per cent of semi-routine and routine workers (i.e. those not in managerial or professional occupations) had no control over their hours or how their work is organised. Ten years ago, that was only 42 per cent. Work is becoming more regimented and workers have less input and control over their work environment. The converse is true of those in managerial and professional occupations, though, with 86 per cent saying they have some or complete control over how they organise their day in 2015, a little bit more than the 81 per cent ten years ago. Voice and agency in the workplace are really important to the wellbeing of individuals and their capacity to enjoy their work and be productive. The deterioration in this area is a huge problem.

  Smith’s cynicism about the realities of work appears to be prevailing over Marx’s aspirations. It is a Pyrrhic victory though.

  Stress at work is increasing. The British Social Attitudes Survey found that in 2015, 37 per cent said they always or often find their work stressful. This is a rise on both 1997 and 2005, when only 32 per cent said the same, and compared with 1989 when the equivalent figure was 28 per cent. Forty per cent of those in professional or managerial occupations said they found work stressful always or often. There is a peak in people between thirty-five and forty-four years old.