This post goes round in circles a bit…do bear with!
One of the hats I wear is as a community psychologist. This often means I approach issues from a community (rather than an individual) perspective. If you think of the stereotypical ambulance at the bottom of a cliff, the sorts of questions I ask is, why are people going near the cliff? Do we need to construct some fences? Make some other options more attractive? Close the road going to the cliff? Offer other high adrenaline but safer activities? You get the drift.
In Psychology and the moral imperative Prilleltensky and Walsh-Bowers1 discuss the need to promote human welfare for all, the ways in which psychology can support or challenge the social order, and the need to advance ‘good’. Similarly, Gokani and Walsh2, draw on the community psychology values of self-determination, distributive justice, democratic participation, and collaborative relationality in their arguments for achieving social transformation. Such values are applicable to the nature of work and employment; they go beyond arguments of economic benefits alone.
Precarious work as we know it today has arisen out of the combination of the erosion of regulated employment relationships alongside the implementation of neoliberal ideals that emphasised the centrality of market-driven solutions and privatised government resources3. Weakening employment protections for workers led to the resurgence of precarious work in New Zealand during the 1980s, when successive New Zealand governments implemented a series of neoliberal reforms. These reforms were based on the belief that market forces, competitive globalization, and individualised choice would better promote individual freedom and wellbeing4.
Those beliefs were, well, wrong. The issues New Zealand faces this election require more than promises of wealth to the land-owning class. Inequality and poverty desperately need to be addressed at a structural level.
Structural phenomena over the past decades have created a climate of insecure work and employee powerlessness5. Previously strong collective agencies of social integration, such as workplace solidarity, unions, strong regulation of work and an emphasis on sustainable full employment have weakened and erased6. Together, this combination of events has seen the re-emergence of insecure work, economic and social stressors, and subsequent impacts on mental health.
I’ve been precariously employed. It was horrendous and I damn near lost my sense of self to the ever-present fear and worry of not having paid work to support the household. I now teach post-graduate students who are facing the same concerns - you can see the worry eroding their sense of self and their well-being. Far from being a “motivator”, precariousness makes everything so much harder and contributes into our poor mental health stats.
So, back to this current election. What can we do?
We can re-politicise work and income by voting for the following:
Stronger legal protections to prevent insecure work
Improved income support mechanisms for insecure workers
Decent and dignifying welfare supports
Support for the Living Wage with greater security of hours
Government procurement to promote decent work
Union campaigns and bargaining to support secure work
As well as leveraging our votes, we can also engage in the following - voting in a democratic election is important, yes, but so is the following:
Challenging capitalism and providing alternative economies
Promoting individual and social agency
Creatively re-engaging people
Integrating work and workers into new community alliances
Promoting solidarity and a sense of connectedness
Creating a communal hope for change
There are opportunities to action these at individual, community, and government levels.
Tell me, tell the readers - what grabs you? What are you already doing? Does this post even fit with your current thoughts on work? Am keen to know!
Prilleltensky, I., & Walsh-Bowers, R. (1993). Psychology and the moral imperative. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 13(2), 90-102.
Gokani, R., & Walsh, R.T.G. (2017). On the Historical and Conceptual Foundations of a Community Psychology of Social Transformation. American Journal of Community Psychology, 59(3-4), 284-294. doi: 10.1002/ajcp.12141
Kalleberg, A. L. (2009). Precarious work, insecure workers: employment relations in transition. American Sociological Review, 74(1), 1-22.
Humpage, L. (2015). Policy change, public attitudes and social citizenship: Does neoliberalism matter? Bristol, UK: Policy Press.
Larner, W. (2000). Neo-liberalism: Policy, ideology, governmentality. Studies in political economy, 63(5-25).
Greenhalgh, L., & Rosenblatt, Z. (2012). Evolution of research on job insecurity. International Studies of Management and Organization, 40(1), 6-19.
Wilson, S., & Ebert, N. (2013). Precarious work: Economic, sociological and political perspectives. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 24(3), 263-278. doi: 10.1177/1035304613500434
Great article Dr Bec. I appreciate the fact that you've encouraged us about what policies to vote for rather than which parties. All of my thoughts around voting this year have been around housing and that the high price and lack of supply has lead to so much poverty. The UN has agreed that capitalism has failed to provide adequate housing in the west and NZ is a good example. After years of selling houses, I now work with private landlords to offer their rentals back to the community housing provider I work for, at market rates but with good government subsidies in the form of claiming mortgage interest as an expense. I worry how this will no longer be an incentive if the center right gets back in power (even while I will be better off financially as a private landlord). I don't like that removing a landlord benefit is being referred to as a tax when all it's doing is leveling the playing field. I grew up in NZ believing that kiwis pride themselves on fair play, we even used to give out awards for it. I truly believe that if we can fix housing (even if it takes a generation), we can go a long way to eliminating poverty. That's what I'm voting for this year.
When our public assets were sold we were promised the market would make things more efficient making us better off. Things are produced more efficiently but we are worse off, well the majority are worse off
The richest 5% are much much wealthier. The loss of power, collective power has created huge inequality.
Example, the big five banks are foreign owned so their massive profits go overseas
By allowing foreigners to buy our homes will make us tenants in our own country. I have voted against this I voted for collective solutions.