'Social Rights, Machines, and Care: Struggles over Working Time in Australia from the 19th Century to the 21st' w. Sean Scalmer

Please join us for the next instalment of the Critical Management Studies Seminar.

'Social Rights, Machines, and Care: Struggles over Working Time in Australia from the 19th Century to the 21st'

Monday 4 March, 4:15pm
Linkway, 4th floor John Medley Building (University of Melbourne, Parkville)

The time an employee devotes to work is a fundamental concern of management, a consistent stimulant of worker mobilisation, and an enduring object of industrial struggle. In this paper I consider long-term struggles over the length of the working day in Australia from the middle of the 19th century until the present. I argue that those struggles have been organised around three dominant frameworks: the social rights of labour; the interactions between employees and machines; and the necessity of care. I explore how those frameworks were established, sustained, and challenged. I analyse their implications for past struggles over the length of the working day. And I consider their relevance for the struggles of the present.

Sean Scalmer is a Professor of History at the University of Melbourne. He is currently at work on two projects: a history of the working day (as a Coral Thomas Fellow at the State Library of NSW, 2022-23) and a transnational history of direct action (funded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, 2023-26).