AFSCME's Social Worker Overload : Digital media stories,union advocacy and neoliberalism

Situating myself in the research

Post-modern and post-structural approaches to research acknowledge the role of the researcher in framing analysis. As the researcher on this project, I am shaping the processes and outcomes as I select the methods, theories and materials used in the study. This ‘shaping’ is informed by 12 years of direct practice work. As a former child protection worker, I am familiar with the effects of work overload on practice and personal wellbeing. Over the past 15 years I have studied the effects of social and institutional policies as factors shaping social workers' experiences of their work and clients' experiences of service. For the last eight years my research has emphasized social workers' use of digital media as a tool for reflexivity, for remembering the more radical aspects of social work and for resisting the effects of neoliberalism.

Internet-based media sharing presents unique opportunities for remembering, resisting and advocating. My capacity to discover and analyse AFSCME's Social Worker Overload campaign via the Internet is case and point. Media sharing demonstrates a shift in the way ‘grey research’ is shared among interested parties. In many ways, YouTube serves as a publicly accessible labour history archive (Lundby, 2009; Snickars and Vondreau, 2009), allowing alternative discourses and explanations about the issues of workload and work-life to be shared quickly, easily and repeatedly (Lundby, 2009), suggesting Internet-based media sharing can be reframed as a form of labour/social justice communication (Rodríguez et al., 2009).

Research into the Social Worker Overload campaign originally began during my dissertation work, when I developed an understanding of the text as a potential response illustrating the contested nature of social work within neoliberal care regimes and suggest the potential of digital media technologies to facilitate the creation of counter-representations (Kidd and Rodríguez, 2010; La Rose, 2012) about the meaning of social work and social care work, particularly those held by workers in the field.

Analysis of this text is occurring in an open and transparent way, an approach reflective of new understandings of ‘ethics’ as more complex, contextually limited, and fluid in digital contexts (Dicks et al., 2005; Snickars and Vondreau, 2009). Social Worker Overload was created and originally shared by AFSCME Council 28 (a regional division of the national union) for broadcast on their cable news program Our View (February 2008). Our View is publicly broadcast monthly on 25 cable stations across Washington State (see Our View, 28 February 2008). The Social Worker Overload segment of this program was remediated (by Council 28) on YouTube (AFSCME-WFSEc28, 2008).

Since first made public on 2 February 2008, this text has remained in the public domain (approximately 7.5 years). The text has received more than 9687 views on YouTube (as of 8 September 2015). As a public domain text, there are no specific ethical limitations around the use of this text in academic research and publications. While the text may receive a few more views as a result of this research, academic research about union-based communication and neoliberalism is unlikely to yield significantly more exposure than the previous digital media sharing, suggesting that no greater risk to participants or to the union is likely to result from the publication of this analysis. The material included in the text is almost eight years old, a fact further mitigating potential harms.

Multi-modal analysis

Analysis of Social Worker Overload necessitates the use of research methods that honour the multi-modal and multi-vocal nature of this medium. Multi-modal analysis is a research method used to consider complex texts in applied linguistics, communication studies and digital media research (Baldry and Thibault, 2006). When applied to Internet-based narratives, this perspective emphasizes analysis as deconstruction, while maintaining contextual understandings of the layers of the text as making meaning that is more than the sum of its parts.

The researcher is seen as inducted into the research process, foregrounding particular elements, backgrounding other potential meanings and applying theory, scholarship and disciplinary knowledge as part of the analysis. Subjectivity in multi-modal analysis builds on the inter-textual and inter-subjective relationships of the researcher to the research (Baldry and Thibault, 2006). This perspective embraces post-structuralism, acknowledging the potential that different audiences will maintain different relationships with the text and may therefore make meanings that extend beyond those intended by the creator(s) of the text and/or the researcher(s); meanings that also rely on the inter-subjective and inter-textual relationships these audiences experience with the text (Dicks et al., 2005; Markham and Baym, 2009).

Communication for change

AFSCME's use of YouTube to share workers' testimonials may be understood as a form of ‘social justice communication’, ‘communication for change’ and/or ‘labour communications’ (Kidd and Rodríguez, 2010; Snickars and Vondreau, 2009). Social justice communication is an emancipatory process, providing alternatives to mainstream media and the potentially dominating social, cultural, economic and political values and beliefs associated with this media (Kidd and Rodríguez, 2010). In contrast, social change communication develops the communication capacities of marginalized individuals and communities, sometimes creating infrastructures that facilitate information sharing by networks of ordinary people. These projects potentially provide people with information and with places to share the things they know and want others to know about (Couldry, 2009; Markham and Baym, 2009; Snickars and Vondreau, 2009), concepts reflected in the Social Worker Overload campaign.

The act of creating communication materials allows control of the contents to remain in the hands of the people who wish to share their message. This sharing has the potential to allow marginalized and oppressed groups to control representations about the members of the group and the group as a whole (Kidd and Rodríguez, 2010). Control of representation can be a tool of resistance, challenging assumptions, stereotypes and myths that may exist about these groups and their members, which may be used to justify exploitation, marginalization and domination (Couldry, 2009; Kidd and Rodríguez, 2010; Lange, 2009; Markham and Baym, 2009).

In this case, the meaning of child protection work, social work and unionization are potentially challenged, as are the dominant discourses of neoliberalism. Given the complexity of meaning shared through these workers' narratives, we can understand Social Worker Overload to suggest the power of social media to deliver a message that might not be delivered by conventional mainstream media (Boler, 2008; Kidd and Rodríguez, 2010; Lange, 2009; La Rose, 2012). The text was created and produced by AFSCME Council 28 (AFSCME-WFSEc28, 2008). As a national union with a substantial membership base in the USA (AFSCME.org/about), this union has a powerful social location and a pool of substantial resources to support this campaign work (Rosenberg and Rosenberg, 2006). The status of this union suggests they have both the knowledge base and financial means to effectively harness digital media production and social media platforms for their local, regional and national campaign work (Baines, 2011b; Hick, 2011; Rosenberg and Rosenberg, 2006).

Workload, risk, evidence and neoliberalism

Within Social Worker Overload, the four worker testimonials inform audiences about the employer's resistance to discussing workload issues. The workers' concerns were reframed by their employer as anecdotal, therefore lacking in evidence. The workers offered the employer opportunities to engage in a workload study in accordance with the employer's rights, but these requests were not acted upon by the employer. After close to three years of repeated demands for an evaluation of workload, the employer undertook a ‘workload study’ designed to create an empirical understanding of workload within the DCFS.

The workers inform us the workload study produced ‘evidence’ of a workload problem. However, this outcome was bittersweet as the employer did not respond to the evidence with a resolution. The workers were left to face the same degree of overwork, but now facing this work with empirical evidence of a problem. In this way, Social Worker Overload suggests that empirical evidence and the discourses of ‘evidence-based practice’ in neoliberal social work do little to produce change in a practical sense. Rather, the issue of evidence further complicates the issue of workload by requiring that the workers also engage in activities that can be understood as the labour of seeking recognition (Mullaly, 2009) as an issue requiring additional resources (Antle et al., 2006; Baines, 2011a, 2011b; Baines et al., 2009).

This issue ties the AFSCME workers in Washington into the global social work communities. Globally, social workers are understood as professionals (Baines, 2011b; Hick, 2011), and as such are understood to maintain the right and responsibility to assess the requirements of the work environment necessary to do the job as their profession says it should be done (Hick, 2011). Under neoliberal professionalization, these workers have both a responsibility to uphold and a right to define standards for practice (Baines, 2011b; Hick, 2011; La Rose, 2009), yet their employer does little to support this reality. Professional social work regulators frame social work as a global profession, with shared goals, values, knowledge and skills (Hick, 2011).

Globalization also appears to successfully circulate the problem of workload and work design (Baines, 2011a, 2011b; Baines et al., 2014; Beddoe, 2013). The experiences shared by the AFSCME workers are experiences shared by many social workers around the globe. By extending this story to the broader social work community and into the academic literature, we can see how workload and work structures are a significant issue facing social workers in the field (Aronson and Smith, 2010; Baines, 2011a, 2011b; Baines et al., 2009, 2014; Beddoe, 2013; La Rose, 2009).

The research study undertaken by Washington State DCFS makes workload a readable subject for the employer (Fook, 2002; Rosenberg and Rosenberg, 2006), but it also makes it readable to other workers in other places who share similar experiences (Baines et al., 2014; Beddoe, 2013; La Rose, 2009). These shared experiences and understandings may be seen as a warning to all of us who see ourselves as social workers; a warning that highlights the trouble of overwork, the trouble of upholding the standards of professionalization, and the potential lack of resolution to workplace problems.

Showing and telling

The multimodal capacity of digital media also allows us to hear and see the workers ‘do’ the emotional labour required to maintain a social work identity in a neoliberal work-place. We see and hear the necessary effort these workers exert as they control and regulate their feelings (Baldry and Thibault, 2006; Lange, 2009). Without the visual elements, this ‘beyond words’ presentation of emotional labour might not be known or acknowledged (Baldry and Thibault, 2006; Lange, 2009; La Rose, 2012). As we watch, we see the workers ‘keep a lid’ on their feelings, presenting their pleasantly stressed social work faces and soft modulated voices as a cover for a wide range of feelings not necessarily understood to be acceptable for professionals to feel or to share (Brookfield, 2009).

As we watch, we see workers ‘hold it together’; we see workers ‘crack’ their veneer. For example, Michael Jaurigue (Local 53) presents as calm but angry as he tells his workload story. His quiet disposition is undone by the presence of tense raised shoulders; Michael's quietness presents as a kind of ‘calm before the storm’ as he describes his experience of work ‘piling on’. In his narrative, he speaks to the ‘ambiguity of social work’ (Hick, 2011), a duality that is present in his description of the workload study as both a ‘kind of hope’ and an ‘indictment’. He states:

The workload study is a kind of … It's an indictment of the management structure here in Olympia. And we've been saying, we the people who actually do the work – supervisors, social workers and investigators – we've been telling our people in Olympia, our managers in Olympia, that we can't go on at this pace. You guys need to really stop and do this study … It took them 3 years to finally do the workload study and now we have it and we ought to figure out what it really says and use it to go forward. (AFSCME-WFSEc28, 2008: 00.17–00.53)

Belinda MacDonald, a social worker in Tacoma Washington (Local 508), appears hyper-controlled as she tells her story. She looks at the camera while she speaks, turning towards the camera as she emphasizes her point; at other times she looks away, as though she is watching for some kind of threat. This action may be reflective of her internalized experience of risk and the potential problems that speaking out may pose in a neoliberal workplace (Baines et al., 2014; Mullaly, 2009). Belinda describes her frustration, stating:

We have been telling management for years that we cannot do the job. Yet they keep adding more and more things on our plate and we are not able to keep children safe … and the bottom line for me is I have a job to do. I love the kids that I work for and families that I work for and I can't do my job. And I want a job that is doable so that I can keep the kids, at least in the area that I work, which is children protection services, safe. (https://youtu.be/d5YG9TVNSDw: 00:45 – 01.26)

Another example is presented when Banks Evans (Local 843) shares his story. When Banks first appears on screen, we are presented with a well-groomed young man in a crisp white shirt. He stands to attention as he begins to tell his story of workload, his tidiness made all the more stiff by his formal way of speaking. He tells his story in a clear and authoritative voice … but then suddenly becomes tongue tied, stumbling over his words. This crack in his composure undoes his formality; he suddenly changes his tone, simply stating ‘something needs to be done …’ (https://youtu.be/d5YG9TVNSDw: 01:36 – 01:38).

At this point, Banks' ‘military posture’ gives way. He pauses for a moment, breaks into a grin and adjusts his pockets. He declares that he doesn't know if he ‘can put this into a sound bite’ (https://youtu.be/d5YG9TVNSDw, 01:42 – 01:45). Finally, he states:

… there's a lot of different aspects to this … . I think we need to hire more people. I think we need to treat the people we have better so we can retain the staff that we have and I think that they should also be paid more. The pay is an issue for people – one of the many variables to retaining staff. (https://youtu.be/d5YG9TVNSDw, 1.48 – 2.05)

Terry's narrative and those of the other workers make it clear the child protection system is not resourcing the practice of social work as defined by national and international social work regulators (e.g. see www.ifsw.org, www.iassw.org, www.casw-acts.ca, www.aasw.asn.au). These statements bring our attention back to the idea that professional social workers must go above and beyond the limits of the social service sector in order to maintain the ethical and subjective expectations of this professional identity. This ‘going beyond’ is described in much of the social work literature as a form of resistance to systems that restrict us (Baines et al., 2014; Beddoe, 2013; La Rose, 2009).

Yet we do this while wrapped up in these systems that lay claims to this ‘above and beyond’ work, while failing to provide the resources necessary to undertake this level of practice (Baines et al., 2013; Beddoe, 2013; Brookfield, 2009; La Rose, 2009). At the same time, workers are held morally and legally responsible by both employers and professional regulators when they can't make these desired outcomes happen (Brookfield, 2009; La Rose, 2009; Mullaly, 2009). This occurs even when the decision-making process is standardized, controlled and regulated at levels far beyond the social workers' influence (Baines, 2011a; Baines et al., 2014). Terri Jones' consideration of her work experiences suggests managerial constructions of social care work that are common in neoliberal contexts contradict many of the constructions common in social work discourses. She states:

What isn't working is that our administration does not understand the job. They don't seem to understand that they don't understand the job, and so the obstructions placed in front of the social workers have grown greater and greater and that isn't working well. But I would really hesitate to say that the system is broken. We're still providing safety for children and helping families. (https://youtu.be/d5YG9TVNSDw: 02:43 – 3:07)

Intrinsic benefits

Social Worker Overload presents audiences with the workers' personal understandings of the importance of alignment between the workers' values, professional social work values and the work undertaken with clients. The alignment is sometimes linked to the construction of social care work as providing workers with intrinsic benefits that are among the most important rewards for doing this kind of work (Antle et al., 2006; Aronson and Smith, 2010; Baines, 2011b; Baines et al., 2009, 2012, 2014; Beddoe, 2013; Brookfield, 2009; La Rose, 2009, 2012). Career narratives in occupations like social work emphasize this work as providing a positive sense of self and a sense of accomplishment for workers (Antle et al., 2006; Baines, 2011a; Baines et al., 2014; La Rose, 2009; Mullaly, 2009).

In today's social climate, the narratives workers tell are very different stories, suggesting that neoliberalism impedes this aspect of the work (Baines et al., 2014; La Rose, 2009). This digital story invites us to remember that social work is work (Brookfield, 2009; La Rose, 2009). It is a story that challenges us to expect workplaces to sustain workers, rather than depleting them of their energy and enthusiasm (Baines, 2011a; Baines et al., 2014; Brookfield, 2009). The dominance of neoliberal professionalization discourses have led to the subjugation of other understandings of social work, like those presenting social work as work, or as a social movement (Baines, 2011b; La Rose, 2009; liverpoolhopeuni1, 2013). The dominance of professionalization lures social workers into seeing themselves as separate and apart from other kinds of workers (Brookfield, 2009).

In these narratives, the union is supporting social workers to resist this perspective by presenting alternatives. Professionalization may be centred as the ideal and required neoliberal social work identity (Hick, 2011), but professionalization has not moved social workers out of the workforce (Baines et al., 2012, 2014; La Rose, 2009). The vast majority of social workers, like those depicted in Social Worker Overload, still sell their labour for wages; they are, for the most part, still employees in institutional settings (Antle et al., 2006; Hick, 2011).

Autonomy

Social work practice in neoliberal contexts is closely monitored, allowing little worker autonomy (Antle et al., 2006; Baines, 2011a). Evidence-based practice common in the context of neoliberal social work further entrenches standardization, which these workers describe as further reducing autonomy (Baines, 2011a, 2011b; La Rose, 2009). As Terri Jones states, workers are required to do more administrative work before they get to the practice of social work. They are required to engage in standardized activities in an effort to create evidence of the necessity of their work and the correctness of their actions (Baines, 2011b; Mullaly, 2009). The effect of having to do administrative work in order to justify doing the social work has detrimental effects on social workers, effects shown to be a global phenomenon (Antle et al., 2006; Baines, 2011a; Baines et al., 2009, 2012, 2014; Brookfield, 2009; La Rose, 2009).

Unionization and positioning for critique

The use of social media to share the Social Worker Overload digital narrative affords the social workers an important resource for knowledge production and data dissemination. Furthermore, all social workers benefit from this production, especially, for example, when researchers like myself opt to make use of these texts to consider the plight of contemporary social workers (Boler, 2008; Kidd and Rodríguez, 2010; Snickars and Vondreau, 2009). The kind of public disclosure made by the workers is important as it challenges the fragmentation common in neoliberal work places (Baines et al., 2012, 2014). The information these workers share is important social work knowledge that has global implications. The ‘first voice’ perspectives shared by these workers has meanings for social workers who can be audiences and create an affective connection with their colleagues across time and space through the capacity of digital media technologies and Internet-based media sharing (Lange, 2009; Snickars and Vondreau, 2009).

These workers have identified themselves, have spoken frankly, and have shown a willingness to be accountable for what they say. We can understand what the workers are saying as likely to be true because of these behaviours (Lange, 2009), which also suggests to other workers and viewers more generally that these workers are not afraid enough to be silenced (Boler, 2008). This implied fearlessness suggests the benefits associated with unionization and active participation in the union to a global social work audience. It implies that this union and/or membership in a union (any union) is something that protects workers (Baines, 2011b; La Rose, 2009; Rosenberg and Rosenberg, 2006) and that these workers can speak because they have a union behind them (Baines, 2011a; La Rose, 2009).

The AFSCME workers presented in the Social Worker Overload digital media story hold an intersectional social work identity (Baines et al., 2012, 2014; Heron, 2005) – they are employees, they are professionals and they are union members. This intersectional state is displayed publicly as a valid social work identity. The social workers interchange words like ‘social worker’, ‘union member’ and ‘professional’ in their narratives, presenting these identity positions as complementary. This positionality challenges discourses of professionalization that preclude and marginalize the idea that professionals can also hold the identity of worker; a foreclosure that serves in part to downplay the need for labour organizing in social work (Baines, 2011b; Baines et al., 2012, 2014; La Rose, 2009; Rosenberg and Rosenberg, 2006), a perspective challenged by AFSCME, by the workers who share their stories, and by the content of the stories themselves.

This public display of workers ‘speaking truth to power’ activates many core social work values and the more progressive social change-oriented social work practice discourses in tandem (Baines, 2011b; Mullaly, 2009). In the context of neoliberalism, we may understand this process as a form of resistance to fragmentation, which leaves workers within institutions, across institutions and across sectors ignorant of the shared nature of their experiences (Baines et al., 2012, 2014). In this story, union membership may be read as affording workers the ability to speak by providing both a platform and the resources needed to make this a reality and to potentially make connections to other workers (La Rose, 2009; Rosenberg and Rosenberg, 2006; Snickars and Vondreau, 2009).

In a practical sense, the workers can speak ‘without fear’ because the union ‘has their back’ (Baines, 2011b; La Rose, 2009; Rosenberg and Rosenberg, 2006). This ‘having the workers’ back' means that if something negative happens because of this truth telling, the union will provide advocacy and support (Baines, 2011b; La Rose, 2009; Rosenberg and Rosenberg, 2006). That said, not all unions live up to the strength of their ideals or their reputation as protectors; we can only hope that in this case there is truth in this reputation.

The social workers in Social Worker Overload tell us the government has not responded to its own research findings. Workload issues in mandated services like child welfare are ongoing issues extending as far back as the history of the social service sector. From a professional perspective, workload is a concern because it prevents social workers from actualizing the optimum potential of professional social work (Baines et al., 2012, 2014). Clients do not get the best possible service from social workers when social care organizations are not funded to meet the demands for service or when efficiency is the primary concern (Aronson and Smith, 2010; La Rose, 2009). Lack of resources leaves gaps in the system which, in spite of the best practice of the social workers, may leave people with unmet needs, leading to emotional and physical costs born by the workers and clients as they try to prop up the system (Baines et al., 2012, 2014; Brookfield, 2009; La Rose, 2009).

For social workers in the field, workload has a cost to them and to their clients. These costs are not accounted for in the actuarial and efficiency models promoted under neoliberalism (Baines et al., 2012). Terri Jones provides a metaphor of the system as ‘run[ning] the workers in place’ which ‘runs the workers down’, draining the workers of their energies but producing very little from a social work perspective. Thus ‘doing more with less’ means workers are expected to sacrifice their own rights and needs in the employment context (Brookfield, 2009; La Rose, 2009; Rosenberg and Rosenberg, 2006), a sacrifice often described as necessary and desirable in the social work literature or as tied to the workers' morality (Baines et al., 2014; Beddoe, 2013; Heron, 2005). These expectations are not unique to the AFSCME workers, they are a global phenomenon, reflected in contemporary social work scholarship (Bartley et al., 2012).

The populations served by mandated services like child protection are vulnerable populations; this vulnerability means that at times the end result of ‘stretched services’ can be the death of clients and/or workers (Baines et al., 2009; La Rose, 2009). Individual social workers may hold the liability for case outcomes because professional accountability (e.g. see ASWB.org [Protection of Public], OCSWSSW.ca). Workers hold this liability even when they do not control the allocation of resources or hold the ultimate decision-making power (Baines et al., 2014; Beddoe, 2013; La Rose, 2009). The construction of liability in this way makes the use of digital media advocacy and the act of taking the Social Worker Overload campaign to the public a reasonable and necessary act.

Conclusion

AFSCME's use of digital media storytelling and Internet-based media sharing allows the Social Worker Overload campaign to share information with the general public that might not be accessible through mainstream media or through more traditional research dissemination processes (Kidd and Rodríguez, 2010; La Rose, 2012; Snickars and Vondreau, 2009). Through this sharing process, audiences may witness the effects of neoliberalism on social care work and advocacy practice in practical terms. For social workers around the globe, access to this information may reduce their experiences of fragmentation, and in turn reduce their experiences of isolation and alienation in the workforce (Baines et al., 2014; Beddoe, 2013). AFSCME's approach to dealing with the issue may serve as an example to other unions and professional associations representing social workers.

Based on this assessment, we can understand this use of digital media storytelling and Internet-based media sharing as the mediation of labour communication/social justice communications and as a form of resistance to dominant neoliberal discourses about social work and social care. Without access to this digital media story through media platforms like YouTube, the tacit knowledge presented in the Social Worker Overload digital media story would be lost (Baines, 2011b; Hick, 2011; Lange, 2009). Increased access to community-based research like the workload knowledge produced by AFSCME makes research more accessible to workers in the field in both form and content, an accessibility that is creating new avenues for solidarity and connection (Kidd and Rodríguez, 2010; Snickars and Vondreau, 2009), outcomes rarely achieved among social workers and which are necessary if we are to continue to resist the negative effects of neoliberalism on social work and social care locally, nationally and at the global level.