Abstract
In this book, Christoph Hermann seeks to understand, through a Marxist political-economy perspective, the current tendencies of reproductive and productive labour, as a way to demonstrate the contradictory nature of labour within capitalism. The author begins by stating that actual labour time has not diminished at the expected rate, given the drastic increase in productivity. On the contrary, it has stagnated or increased since the 1970s crisis. This trend has influenced, specially, the flexibility of labour and the persistence of the feminization of domestic labour.
To explain these changes, Hermann begins by formulating a revision and a balance of the different theories that attempt to explain the length and distribution of work time. First, he analyses neoclassical, Weberian and institutionalist theories, which have in common their consideration of capitalism as a rational system, and they are distinguished by focusing the attention of their explanations on individual choice, the increase in productivity, and the national work time regime, respectively. In the second chapter, Hermann groups the theories that emphasize, when explaining the length and distribution of time invested in labour, the contradictions of the capitalist social system. These include Marxism, whose fundamental distinction is between necessary and surplus work time, post-Marxism, which contributes the idea of the reduction of the workday as a means to overcome alienation and the ecological crisis, and feminism, which widen the concept of ‘labour’ by including the distinction between paid and unpaid (domestic) labour.
In the second part of the book, the author addresses the main changes in productive and reproductive labour, considering its effects on work time. For him, the main reason that explains the change of labour time within production is capital’s search for an increase in surplus work time. This is shown by the revision of Fordism, post Fordism and Lean Production, and the increase in the intensity of work that each one implies.
Subsequently, the author highlights the surge of the ‘service economy’ and ‘the new economy of knowledge’. Regarding the former, he shows how the proliferation of services emerges, from capitalists, as a way to increase surplus labour, given the reduction of industrial workforce, and that, far from generating a post-industrial society with highly skilled white-collar jobs (Bell 1973; Touraine 1971), it has instead generated flexibility and the fragmentation of labour-time, proliferating feminized part-time workdays. In a similar manner, jobs that require extensive knowledge, as a consequence of the massification of information and communication technology (ICT), did not turn out to be a sphere of autonomy for workers, despite what some post-Marxists envisaged (Gorz 2004; Hardt & Negri 2001). Instead, more stringent working conditions have emerged in the form of extended workdays, resulting from the combination of autonomous work time, and the pressure of project work and deadlines.
Finally, regarding unpaid domestic labour, the author shows how a rigid division between production and reproduction stems from the manufacturing system, and is deepened by the model of the male breadwinner, emphasizing the feminization and devaluation of domestic labour. During recent decades, we have seen a reduction of the time invested in domestic labour by women, as a result of their entry into the labour market, while the time invested in domestic labour by men has slightly increased but remained stagnant since the 1980s, thus sustaining the feminine double workday.
What Hermann attempts to show is that, despite the predictions made by economists during the late 19th century, the decrease in labour-time did not happen precisely because of the increase in production around the world. Rather, the reduction of time invested in labour has been the result of the worker’s struggles, pushed, particularly, by trade unions that have been able to pressure their employers (Bienefeld 1972) and the State. The author reviews this proposal as he describes changes in labour-time in Europe (especially in England, Germany and France).
In general, Hermann mentions that the establishment of the 10-hour workday occurred around the 1830s in England, and during the 1870s in Germany and France. What is interesting about the emergence of these waves of worker protests and mobilization is that they based their claims on human rights for workers (Thompson 1967). Before the First World War, the labour movement had positioned (through institutions that they had built over time) the 8-hour workday as its main demand, as an answer to the question about what a regular workday was. Thus, in 1930 and, even after the Second World War, we find the struggle for the 40-hour week, a demand raised by the trade union movement as a way to revitalize the struggle for shorter work hours. This was because work hours did not decrease beyond the mobilization for the 8-hour workday (Goldfield 1989; Hancké 1993).
Hermann demonstrates that the struggle to shorten workdays did not just mean an improvement in worker’s general conditions, but also enabled them to free some time in their daily lives to participate in trade unions and the development of international solidarity among workers. In this sense, the dispute for shorter working hours evolved into a plan for the emergence of class struggle, since it was assumed that the confrontation with capital was only going to happen in a collective manner, just as Marx had said (Hyman 1981; Marx et al. 1967).
While the author ascribes the decrease of daily and weekly working hours to worker’s struggle, he also mentions the key role-played by productivity. When some unions demanded less working hours to avoid technological unemployment, others allowed more extensive workdays to compete in the international market with technologically more advanced industries. These series of transformations show the importance that flexibility of labour-time meant to capital. The author shows how, in some countries, the post-war demand for shorter working hours was justified to reduce unemployment, distributing workdays among the workers. The case of post-war France is discussed as an example. There, the government pushed for important measures of flexible labour time, to ameliorate the effects and costs of the measures to shorten workdays.
In this way, Hermann proposes that neoliberalism has eroded the triumphs of the working class by reversing the reduction of working time (Edwards 2009). As is the case of France, other countries radicalized the decrease of the workday with the extension of part-time jobs. For the author, the establishment of this type of job has been a synonym for precariousness. Indeed, a precariousness that is particularly focused on feminized jobs, were women have faced low salaries, excess work, and limited career options.