Labour Commodification in the Employment Heartland: Union Responses to Teachers' Temporary Work

This article analyses the commodification of professional labour and union responses to these processes within the employment heartland. It explores the category of fixed-contract or 'temporary' employment using Australian public school teaching as the empirical lens. Established to address intensifying conditions of labour market insecurity, the union-led creation of the temporary category was intended to partly decommodify labour by providing intermediate security between permanent and 'casual' employment. However, using historical case and contemporary survey data, we discern that escalation of temporary teacher numbers and intensifying work-effort demands concurrently increased insecurity within the teacher workforce, constituting recommodification. The article contributes to scant literature on unions and commodification, highlighting that within the current marketised context, labour commodification may occur through contradictory influences at multiple levels, and that union responses to combat this derogation of work must similarly be multi-level and sustained.

Automated summary

This article analyzes the commodification of professional labor and the responses of unions in the employment heartland, using Australian public school teaching as a case study. The study finds that the increase in temporary teacher numbers and the intensification of work-effort demands have increased insecurity among the teacher workforce, leading to recommodification of labor. The article contributes to the limited literature on unions and commodification, highlighting the need for multi-level and sustained union responses to combat this derogation of work.