Finishing my lunch, I looked up at the fluffy clouds in the clear blue sky. It was a hot day in midsummer and the double-glass doors that led out from the staff canteen onto the flat, tarmac-covered roof of the supermarket, were wide open to let in any breeze that may be passing. I was feeling desperate. Another seven hours work in the fresh meat department lay ahead of me and the thought of it made me wish I could be elsewhere, doing something exciting.
Working for a supermarket as an unskilled labourer was not easy. It was a harsh and often cruel environment for a confused young woman recently out of local authority care, and it was in this space that I first learnt the value of grafting. Grafting was a way of earning respect and keeping your job. I knew the importance of both as I struggled to support myself. Seventeen years old at the time, I had been wrapping and displaying meat for around a year. Having left school with the label of being 'thick but good at art' and possessing no formal qualifications, my career options were extremely limited. This made me feel somewhat trapped but I never lost hope in this unfortunate situation. My hopes lay with the enormous enthusiasm I had for making art. As lunch drew to a close, I consoled myself with the knowledge that I would be able to leave the butcher's department in two years time, (having discovered that if I lived alone and supported myself for three years I would be entitled to obtain a mandatory grant and would then be able to go to art college). I had been attending the local art college every year (from the ages of 16 to 19) for a course interview in the hope that one day I might get the opportunity to become a student. Fortunately, formal qualifications were not essential at that time (if you were deemed to have a 'strong' portfolio of work), and so with my tenacity acknowledged I was accepted onto the same programme of study every year (for three consecutive years) until finally, at the age of 19, I began my course and embarked upon my route to the future... job satisfaction and class mobility through education.
At art college I was considered successful for the first time in my life and after completion I even returned to the same supermarket that had employed me as a butcher's assistant, to work for their in-house studio as a graphic designer. Although people now thought better of me because I had acquired an education, nothing had really altered. The abusive initiation rituals and the need to graft for respect remained. I laboured in the male-dominated design for print industry for nine years facing similar experiences in all the studio/print shops, but then I got the opportunity I'd dreamed of since leaving college... to return to an educational environment as a lecturer in art and design.
Successfully appointed as a lecturer I once again entered a male-structured working environment, an environment that this time maintained tokenistic gestures of respect towards females and its organisational responsibilities towards equal opportunities. As a large institution that is situated in a public building the college had a legal duty to abide by existing equalities legislation. There have been an ever increasing number of litigious charges against teaching institutions made by students in recent years. To pay for a barrister to represent a college in an industrial tribunal situation costs around £1,000 per day (usually for a minimum of five days), together with the costs of clerical support at £200 per day, which can then be added to a case preparation fee of £2,000 - £4,000. Such tribunals can therefore prove very costly, and so those responsible for financial affairs in large institutions deem equal opportunities (with a customer care approach) to be a worthwhile investment for staff development sessions.
Needing to make a space for myself in this new environment I immediately began to graft. This stood me in good stead (as always) but whereas in industry the parameters of my grafting time had been defined by my wages, an hourly rate of pay and by clocking in and out, in education there were no such clearly defined parameters on either my time or my workload and my acquired attitude to survival as a worker had become inappropriate. Grafting was initially optional in further education under local authority control. There were poor communications and there was little (by the way of resources), but we did have access to our subjectivity as workers and there seemed to be some substance to our efforts. There was also a notable absence of the professional codes and rules that we violently inflict upon ourselves and upon each other in our workspaces today. I had around four years experience of (often frustrating but above all enjoyable) labour, as I was able to direct the excessive labour (that I gave willingly) towards my students who were generally very grateful for my martyrdom, therefore rendering me extremely satisfied in my work.
But by 1992 there were rumours of impending change in further education and by 1995 incorporation was established. We were leaving local authority control and the college that employed me had to become a more efficient institution. New people were being brought in and the contract that I held was no longer appropriate to my employer's needs. I received request after request asking me to sign a new contract (that meant I would lose the holidays and the rights I had originally agreed to). First, I was offered £600 to sign (and was asked nicely) then the amount of money offered was lowered, accompanied by letters carrying a more ominous tone that located the problems with myself and my colleagues, implying that if we did not sign the new contracts we would be harming the institution. Finally, our new principal gave us the ultimatum, 'the bottom line is sign or be sacked '. The institution was to be restructured.
I recognised the style of our new bosses. I had seen the hatchet people come in and restructure this way before at a company that I had previously worked for in industry who were renowned for 'running a tight ship'. I had recognised change gathering like a tornado on the horizon and now it reached me full-on. Having been thought militant previously in industry (for attempting to protect the dignity of myself and my colleagues) I did not want to be labelled as such again, this time in education. Consequently I got caught up in the power struggles. I knew that my grafting had earmarked me for success in the new structure but the trouble was that it had been mistaken by my managers for ambition. There was a little of that, but primarily I enjoyed grafting because of the immense pleasure to be gained from teaching and learning.
The trades union seemed to lose power and had ceased to negotiate nationally. When I saw all of my middle-managers being made redundant or being offered early retirement packages I knew that the situation was serious. I decided that I would show willing and apply for one of the newly created roles... that of curriculum leader. At the time I also perceived that this might be a more dignified way of relinquishing my original (Silver Book) contract as opposed to simply signing it over. I got the curriculum leader post and hoped that now that all the so-called troublemakers/traditionalists had left, the accusational, managerial eye would not focus on those of us remaining. But it was logical to conclude that it would. I even became an autocratic git myself for a while in an attempt to meet the needs of my new bosses and I kept files on staff as requested. This phase was not lasting and I have long since destroyed all such forms of betrayal.
Within a week of working under the new regime I realised that I had lost control of my workload. The excessive time I had previously given was now taken, demanded, and I could no longer direct it towards the students. My workload became autocratically designated towards statistics, evidence and data, governed by a cruel and hard agenda. Teaching in the late 1990s has become much harder physical labour than being a butcher's assistant ever was. The grip of the capitalist-maintained, industrial-style management system, tenses through political power disguised in the form of professional competencies. The systems that I refer to as being oppressive have been implemented in order to achieve; efficiency, consistency, accountability, quality, flexibility and so on, and through these methods the maximum possible surplus. This surplus though, is introverted (due to diminished government funding) and requires a stripping (or merging) of services in order to operate at a minimum. But the contradiction is that the institution needs to be seen to be giving more than ever to its clients, hence the introduction of the various 'charters' proclaiming their ideological content. Having so-called professionals for employees has worked well for those at the helm of such institutions. Not clocking in and out means that labour time is not recorded, which in turn means that workloads can only be superficially determined. No evidence is required as to how many hours tutors labour other than the standard staff timetables, because what such evidence would reveal would be a travesty of the 'lecturers guidelines'. I recorded my own labour time (using a coded, self-devised system) in an attempt to evidence my working hours and protect myself. A blame-ridden culture encourages paranoia.
Nineteen years after having left the butcher's department in the supermarket, I look out of the staff-room window and on to the roof of the Morrison's supermarket across the road, where the display type on a promotional banner self-righteously proclaims 'We're on a Mission'. The familiar facade of concern and care reveal themselves through the visible text, and the (seemingly) invisible ideological structures that produced it. Although the slogan proclaims that the supermarket will devote itself (sacrificially and with missionary zeal) to the needs of its customers, you can be sure that there will be no sacrifice of any kind being made by the owners of this company. The subtext to the slogan reads 'to bring you the very best value week in - week out'. In her feature 'This Life - Out Of Control' Judith Williamson comments upon the Adsa slogan, 'At Asda we constantly check our prices to make sure they stay low - permanently low'. 'Of course, any supermarket sets its prices not at random but in relation to wider variables, wholesale costs, availability of produce, undercutting by rivals - factors beyond its immediate reach. On the one hand, Asda appears to have no control over its own prices, other than by constantly checking them (as if it didn't already know what they were). On the other hand, there is the impression that this checking exerts some kind of power which can keep those prices permanently low assuming a level of control that it doesn't really have. This ad. perfectly reflects a general confusion in our society about what we can or can't control'.1
The emphasis of these structures centres around both extending control, together with a constant fear of the possible loss of control. The 'Price Mission' campaign (later renamed, 'The Price Mission Plus' campaign), indicates that week in and week out, they [the supermarket bosses] will strive [as martyrs] to seek out [on our behalf] the 'best for less' prices that they can. They too assume a level of control that they do not really have as they participate in this illusory exchange of quality. It seems as though the commodity culture that has spawned the emergence of the BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) and '100% Extra Free', superstore offers has been enthusiastically applied to the workloads of teaching staff also. The effects that these systems can have on the subjects that they objectify are far-reaching. Stress related illnesses are often the devastating result of industrial abuse through exploitation but because these illnesses might not always manifest themselves in physically evident ways, they can themselves be very difficult to prove as being job related. 'Last year the charity 'Parents at Work' declared June 21 'National Go Home on Time Day to highlight the heavy toll on health, productivity and efficiency from excessive working hours'.2 In this constantly over stretched environment the bounds of human endurance are rarely evaluated. This is a disposable society where looking after what you have is deemed to be false economy. Managers are slick and quick to deflect complaints (relocating the problems with workers). 'You can't expect to work to such high standards', 'you've got weight, chuck it around', was advice I was given when I sought support. Such advice seems at the very least to be hypocritical when I am constantly having my teaching standards inspected, judged, checked, and graded. Pretentious proclamations are put forward in documents and policies. I recently said to my Head of School (after first telling him that I found his e-mails to be threatening) that it was a cruel and unhealthy way of operating, and he replied 'I know, but that's the way it is for everybody. You tell me what to do?' I suggested, 'well, perhaps we should all protect each other when given unreasonable demands and politely offer to negotiate alternative, reasonable deadlines'. He smiled at the seemingly simplistic impossibility of my suggestion, not even attempting to respond, and I gave up, suggesting that I should relinquish my position as curriculum leader. As I have said already, I am a grafter, and that is why I was promoted. Senior management thought I was eager to get on, and while (for a short time) the smell of power flattered me, I was also fearful of the responses if I was not seen to be proactive and so I allowed my ambition to be assumed. But I need straightforward stuff to sustain me. I need the pleasures of teaching, learning, and collaborating with students - genuine, meaningful labour, often well rewarded and far exceeding the limitations provided by the tokenistic and transient praise to be gained from pleasing my work-related superiors.
The objective and objectifying systems that need to produce and evidence 'outcomes', require that individuality and subjectivity do not interfere in their smooth operation. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound, in other words SMART, they are absented from subjectivity and are designed to achieve control over all aspects of labour production. 'The fantasy that everything can, or should be controlled, produces a culture of blame, retribution, litigation'.3 If you do not produce the required evidence (from an actioned demand) you are then often called upon to be publicly accountable. But the demands come from many sources, and there are infinitely more demands than can be physically met in working hours. So, for example, even though I labour for an average of 65 hours in a single working week I still do not have the time to prepare adequately for my teaching duties. Teaching has to become less of a priority the more administrative demands need evidencing by my line managers. So quality for our 'clients', the very thing that these charters advocate, is eroded. On paper it's there all right, but there is no substance to the presence of the ink on substrate.
Excessive cutbacks have occurred through the ever increasing drive for efficiencies. Generally, line managers (not without pressures of their own) also aim to get the most, while giving the least... a task made easier for them by the absence of clearly defined working hours for staff, with contracts which are then further complicated with systems for 'weighting workloads'. More and more work is poured upon staff (often with unreasonable and unnegotiated deadlines for completion) who then either absorb the workload and produce the evidence of their actions by working excessive unpaid hours, or risk being reprimanded for non-action by the patriarchal father that is the system manifest in the form of the boss. Line managers might then use the evidence of non-production as a basis for disciplinary action. To be a line manager within such a structure requires a down-pouring (rather than a cascading) of an excessive workload in order to avoid becoming unmanageably overworked oneself.
I reflect upon my progression, and the fact that I have laboured for 36 hours in three days with at least another 24 hours to do before the 'week-end' arrives. I am still the proletariat I was as a supermarket worker, but I am required to be a different class of proletariat now that I am a professional. Teaching is given to be a middle class occupation, and certain values were handed to me when I entered education as a lecturer. The artist and photographer Jo Spence has said of middle class values, 'I neither come from the middle class, nor have I experienced any of its wealth and power, nor do I work as a professional, or manifest managerial skills to control others. Professionalism encourages the use of codes of conduct, and standards of excellence, which are not seen by the participants as being political. In the main these are not perpetuated by coercion, but by professional consent, and can become more extreme according to the political climate. Thus we learn to police ourselves'.4
As with Bentham's plan of the panopticon, these professional, strategic, structures are designed to provide the overseers (who are invisible in their offices) with complete authority over a particular place and group of people who they not only mistrust, but who they also want to control. Replacing the panopticon's architecturally controlling structure are the professional and managerial systems, both actual and virtual, that ensure that the workers are caught up in a power situation in which they themselves become the overseer as well as the overseen. It is an important mechanism, for it automatises and individualises power. The panoptic institution can be inspected at any time, enabling the observers to be observed, 'It is a type of location of bodies in space, of distribution of individuals in relation to one another, of hierarchical organisation, of disposition of centres and channels of power, which can be implemented in hospitals, workshops, schools, prisons. Whenever one is dealing with a multiplicity of individuals on whom a task or a particular form of behaviour must be imposed, the panoptic schema may be used'.5 When the overseers are deemed to be sufficiently self-critical, they can then inspect themselves using Self Assessment Review systems and Internal Audit structures. Self-governance is granted (but still monitored and checked). 'The power of the surveilling discipline is that we internalise the eye of power and monitor ourselves. Power has its principle not so much in a person as in a certain concerted distribution of bodies, surfaces, lights, gazes; in an arrangement whose internal mechanisms produce the relation in which individuals are caught up.6
The systems and the managers 'thieve off me'. They 'rob me' of a most precious commodity... time. The long hours and poor working conditions hark back to past days when it was an employer's market. Little has altered, except that ideological promises and contradictions now act as distractions to the actualities. For example, I labour for 12 hours daily (on-site) but officially my normal working week lasts no more than 37 hours. There is no authoritative record that would evidence that I do anything to the contrary. John Hyatt has written of the old textile mill he inhabits, 'I live amongst the ghosts of the Mill. They do not speak because they are the ghosts of Hands. The ghosts of Hands cannot speak, because they are being watched by the ghosts of Overlookers. The ghosts of Overlookers must be on the premises first and last by order of the ghosts of the invisible Masters. This was Rule 1 of the Rules to be Observed by the Hands Employed in this Mill'.7
I would like to talk about restoring subjectivity to the recipients of institutionalised oppression. Not of some distant inaccessible reckoning of events but of personal experience, of identification through a shared, although not identical space. Jo Spence, Alison Marchant and Terry Dennett, each in their own unique manner, engage with restoration and experience in relation to themselves and to others.
The artist Alison Marchant provides a space for communication and enquiry by making visible the subjects who have been relentlessly and mercilessly objectified by 'Masters and Overlookers'. In her 'Wall Paper History' project which focuses upon the 'Match Women's Strike of 1888' she reveals industrial illnesses that employer abuse has caused. Marchant has re-presented archive images, revealing their history, not in terms of presenting alternative truths but in terms of interrupting any notions of illusory nostalgia. For example, she reveals the grim history behind an ideological image by enlarging a cosy, postcard picture of a 'match woman worker' visually emphasising that she is suffering from 'phossy jaw' a 'disease of the hands and jaw caused by phosphorous poisoning associated with their occupation'.8 Marchant fly-posted the image and her 'Re-Presented Text' onto a statue of Gladstone at the Gladstone Factory in Bow, London, the site of the 1888 match workers demonstration. (Figure 1).
Through her work, Marchant is locating the past in terms of the present... 'My work is not nostalgic, because in charting our histories we reach the history of the present. The historical site is a catalyst of meaning, our roots, our culture, one which is constantly denied to us, while pretending our visibility with false definitions'.9 She offers people a genuine, sensitive and tolerant forum from which to communicate. Her 'Tying the Threads' installation (Figure 2) records interviews with women mill workers (spinners and weavers of various ages and generations) inviting them to make their stories heard, allowing the voices and images of the women to shift from being the object of history to the subject of history. 'System Sustained Silence' (Figure 3) reveals presence through absence. In photo-graphically recording an empty building, the subjects who once occupied the space of labour become evident. A skeletal, institutionalised shell is all that remains, with a bare utility (in the form of a light bulb) emphasising its prior habitation.
Freshly extinct workspaces make the local media headlines regularly. Then there is also the visible evidence of homeless city-people, which like the documentary photographs of destitute families from past depressions act as reminders to the threats that keep us where we are. If we do not maintain our workloads, if we insist upon having the pay rises we have not had for years, if we do not sign the new contracts, if we become ill from stress, there is the very real possibility that we shall end up in a similar state; homeless and poverty stricken, without an employer to labour for. Unlike the redundant workforces and buildings that are shown on the television and in the newspapers, Marchant does not present these images in a threatening manner. She is revealing the structures that bind and silence people now, and that bound and silenced people then.
Through investigating Marchant's (and other artists) work I began to consider my own situation, and the stress-related illnesses that have befallen me as a result of my occupation. I began to collect the used, tablet capsule-packs from my medication, and in six months I had gathered enough empties to stuff a large (police, drugs-evidence) bag, with the refuse from headache tablets, sleeping tablets, antibiotics, laxatives, and so on. I was suffering from an overactive thyroid gland, a breast lump, haemorrhoids, migraines, vomiting... and yet when completing application forms for job vacancies (making myself available on the employment market) I was still able to say that I had only had two and a half days absence from work in the past three years. Unable to perform at work recently through a repeated lack of sleep, a colleague whispered in my ear that I should go home. He said that he would 'cover for me' explaining my absence as being through having a bad cold (a physical illness that would ensure that I did not acquire the stigma of being weak). These things matter in terms of trying to escape elsewhere). Some of the job application forms I have been sent recently are quite intrusive asking things such as, '[H]ave you seen a doctor in the past six months, and if so, please describe briefly, for what reason'.
The photographer and artist Terry Dennett makes text and image juxtapositions (Figure 4) which reveal contradictions that are otherwise disguised when viewed in isolation. He writes,'I have made use of an important creative method from Jo's [Spence's] phototherapy practice, that of the technique of "Historical Imagination". I have proceeded as if we had been given a historical commission for a future Government. To produce visual material for a criminal trial, against those who have presided over the despoliation and pollution, of today's society. Technically of course this is fantasy, but in fact the archives we are building up, using this 'historical imagination approach' will, if they survive, be truly transported forward to the future, and the project will then almost certainly become a reality'.10
I know I have both been given, and accepted, the role of victim, but my passivity is transforming into action, and as Jo Spence quotes in 'Cultural Sniping', 'The victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim, has ceased to be a victim. He, or she, has become a threat'.11 In an attempt to recover a sense of the subjectivity that has been crushed from me (and following in the example that Terry Dennett and Jo Spence established), I have been collecting evidence of my own (since 1996) relating to the cruelty that I have been subjected to by my employers. In saving the letters requesting me to sign over my contract, and then enlarging, and arranging them sequentially (Figure 5, also see diary page ), they act like a palimpsest revealing the underlying threats and contradictions that would normally be less visible. I have also saved all manner of refuse from my daily working life, including documented evidence from varying communications: memos, e-mails, post-it notes and so on. By juxtaposing these in considered arrangements I have aimed to enable the ideologies contained therein to reveal themselves. In one piece of work I have enlarged a document entitled the 'Collective Agreement on the Determination of the Duties of Lecturing Staff' which proffers (among other things) that it seeks to achieve the following objective: 'to avoid lecturers undertaking unreasonable workloads'. I attached to this document, a small plastic bag containing a pair of my mucky tights and a post-it note which reads, 'Its 7.15pm. I've been wearing these tights since 5.00am this morning (washed, and ready to go to work). I'm knackered. Haven't stopped. Still at work. Going home soon. My tights are strangling my belly. Take them off. More evidence for Jo [Spence] 25.4.97'.
I secretly installed my collection into the Executive Dining Room (since renamed Meeting Room Two) of the institution that employed me (Figure 6) and had the installation photographed, organising the content alongside photocopies of work by Alison Marchant, Jo spence and Terry Dennett. I imaginatively intend for this visual and textual archive to be viewed during a lunchtime staff development session, that has been provided for workers on the management pay spine and also for members of the education department, so that they might be provided with the opportunity to gain a better understanding of the effects of their cruel actions, as shown from the perspective of someone who has received professional abuse, continually, over a three year period.
This text was initially drafted in 1997, when although these issues were certainly making themselves felt at 'the chalk-face' of the learning/teaching environment, public awareness seemed to be relatively low key in comparison to the widespread recognition of the issues being demonstrated in the media today as 'stress' is given to be 'the workplace epidemic of the 1990's'.12 '"What workers want above all", says Joanna Foster, chairwoman of the National Work-Life forum (NWLF), "is self-determination". The NWLF works in partnership with the Government and educational, voluntary and community organisations to understand the needs of employees, employers and communities. Ms Foster worked on a project earlier this year to synthesise all the worker happiness data put out by management consultants and other organisations. "The absolute, universal issue that came out was not expressed in terms of happiness or unhappiness, but was whether people were in control or not" she says. Sadly, most felt they were not. Ms Foster says if workers choose to work long hours it does not have the same effect on them as being made to work long hours. The absence of self-determination can even create the impression of overwork. "Even though the statistics are telling us that we're not working longer hours, everybody feels that they are"'.13
However, we cannot rely on reports quoting that 'twenty seven million people spend an average of 38 hours a week at work'14, because such figures only concern themselves with official statistics on hours worked. What of the many undocumented, unofficial hours (otherwise known as voluntary/gratis hours) that are worked, especially in the education sector? These are the excessive hours that concern me. First the Conservative Government and now the so-called New Labour Government have mercilessly pursued policies of private gain that masquerade as enterprise throughout the public service sectors. The current Chancellor of the Exchequer (Gordon Brown) has retained many Conservative Party policies with regards to public services. And so, if the government wants to continue managing educators and the education sector as if they were a part of the private sector, then it is time that educators and educationalists acted as though they were a part of the private sector by responding in kind, and requesting that they are paid for their excessive hours. 'So, that'll be time and a half [after hours and on Saturdays], and double time on Sundays please'.
My 'Mum' (a primary school teacher for 32 years, who adored her job) is simply relieved that she 'got out' and retired before corporate culture got too firm a grip on education. BBC Breakfast News reported on 8 September 1999 that a 'counselling service for teachers suffering from stress has been set up'. This may appear to present a caring approach, but let us not forget that absences through ill health are costing the country £9 - £11 billion a year in sick-pay. Higher educational institutions and schools need to heed the warnings, and teachers should refuse to be dazzled by the array of stars who now gather annually to confer the 'teaching awards' otherwise referred to as the 'Plato's'.
'The further education sector is being used as a model for best practice in a major inquiry into the future of our public services... The FEFC (Further Education Funding Council) plans accredit those colleges that have proved their managerial and educational worth through inspections. Accredited colleges will be subject to fewer inspections giving them greater freedom. The first colleges should be accredited next year'.15 The managers who have abused me have been approved by the FEFC inspectorate and are proud to boast that they possess the Investors in People quality standard. But we need to be aware that statistics, evidence and propaganda can only ever be subjective, however quantitative their aims. 'Living to Work?, a report published today by the Institute of Personnel Development shows that less than a third of the people who regularly work more than 48 hours a week believe that the extra hours they put in actually improve their productivity. Nearly three quarters of them admit that they have made mistakes at work because of tiredness. A report released tomorrow by the trades Union Congress, entitled Six Days A Week, will claim that more than a million managers and 656,000 professionals work at least 48 hours a week. The study will also show that the number of people working more than 48 hours a week has risen from 2.7 million to 4 million over the past 15 years. British employees, it will add, have the longest working week in Europe, with full-time workers putting in an average of 44 hours - three and a half hours' longer than the European average. Cary Cooper, occupational psychologist at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), said that even those figures may be an underestimate because they did not take account of unofficial, unpaid overtime... Not all of those who are part of the long-hours' culture believe it is a bad thing, however. Today's study from the IPD (Institute of Personnel Development) shows that one in eight people puts in long hours' simply because they love their work'.16
However, 'the IPD is an employers organisation - most of its members are personnel managers and trainers - so it has a vested interest in propagating such notions. Nick Isles, a spokesman for the IPD, says he was surprised by the findings. He reckons the report shows that job satisfaction is a complex issue and not all people who work long hours can be lumped together as a bunch of malcontents. Mr Isles may well be surprised since the overall theme arising from the multitude of labour trend reports is that working people are not content. One of the more authoritative reports in the last year was produced by the Centre for Business Research at Cambridge University on behalf of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The research revealed that job insecurity has spread during the 1990s and work has intensified. The working environment has become one in which increased competition has led to cuts in staff and resources. Such cuts put undue pressure on workers whose health and relationships suffer accordingly. The report comes to the sobering conclusion that after a certain stage this damage can not be alleviated by a few days off but is likely to be permanent. Another Joseph Rowntree sponsored report published this week suggests there is still a 'significant proportion of employers who use "short-term contracts, flexible hours and performance related pay in such a way as to make large numbers of staff leave or sink into a spiral of absenteeism, extended sick leave and low morale"'.17
Deeply entrenched in my situation at work I continued to struggle on for some time after I had resigned my curriculum leader role. I had hoped that following my return to full-time teaching (in the same institution) I would once again find satisfaction in being able to make teaching and learning my priority. And yet the subject area that I returned to was in a state of crisis (due to staff absences through illness), and I quickly found myself working 60 to 70 hours a week simply in order that I might be prepared to go deliver a session. Finally, after being admitted to hospital with violent headaches and sickness twice within a matter of weeks, I could take no more. The pressure that had been building up inside me over a three-year period suddenly emerged. Keeping my sick-leave record to a minimum, 'being there' for the students, being inspected, and doing the best I could in appalling circumstances, were no longer more important to me than myself and my family. I became devastatingly ill... and turned into a shaking, fearful and sad person. I imploded into my depressive self and could not bear to see, or speak, to anyone from work. It was not an explosive experience it was dense, dull and of great intensity. Alienated, angry and depressed, my sense of loss was overwhelming. Prior to my 'having gone on sick' I had been advised by a line manager that I should 'drop the grievance procedure' that I had initiated against two other line managers. A union representative had also advised me to drop any action taken individually as it was felt that I would end up coming off worst.
But the fact was that my health was seriously suffering under the circumstances. It was of no use the union representative simply saying to me 'just work to your contracted hours', because doing this resulted in my not being able to complete assessments and prepare properly, and the possibility of finding myself before a group of students with no teaching prepared was unthinkable to me. I was existing between a rock and a hard place... stressed if you do, stressed if you do not. And so in total desperation, I reported the college to the HSE (the Health and Safety Executive). I also continued with my grievance procedure and sought legal advice on the matter from my trades union.
'Oh shit. What have I done. I couldn't have stuck my neck out much further, could I?' But I was hopeful now, that at least I had done the proper thing by 'whistle-blowing'. My illness, boosted by the effects of stress from whistle-blowing totally overwhelmed me. From being a whirlwind worker able to cope with several tasks simultaneously, I became a shadow of my former self with eyes cast downward, and I spent my days playing my daughter's computer games, an occupation which absorbed the numbing hours of my existence. These hours were only punctuated by my sobbing, as I remembered my beloved students and recalled the mess I had left behind. My sick notes were extended, and I was advised to see a consultant psychiatrist, who was sympathetic (commenting that he saw many cases like mine, especially from the health and education sectors and also the police force), and who prescribed me antidepressant tablets to aid my struggle from the mire that is termed 'clinical depression'.
In reporting my employers to the HSE (on the grounds that they caused my ill health through imposing an excessive workload upon me) I had hoped that a full investigation into my situation might be made. But I was naive. In fact the trades union told me that I was 'lucky to get a reply at all, but stress is currently big on the HSE's agenda'. The HSE see their initial task as being to remind employers of their responsibilities, and if necessary, to check that policy statements and procedures are appropriate in content and number. When the HSE did this on my behalf, my employers were able to satisfy the HSE that they had the appropriate charters and policies in place, and that they have a continuing programme of health and safety implementations. And that was it. Job done, although the HSE did say that I could keep them informed on my progress if I wished. The solicitor and the trades union were not at all surprised by this: '46,560 incidences have been reported to the HSE in the past five years, and 98% of those were not investigated'.18 It turns out (so the union solicitor informed me), that the law is totally inadequate in addressing issues like this because the (personal injuries) law as it stands is intended to deal with physical accidents at work, for example, if someone falls down a hole and the accident is witnessed. Worse still... it is legally deemed to be my fault that I became ill, for not going on sick leave earlier than I did and for continuing to struggle on working. All of the authorities involved have told me that I should never have worked longer than my contracted hours. 'This is not about justice' the solicitor informed me, 'this is about the law. I've seen six other lecturers this year already (January-March 1999), with claims similar to yours'. But what of all my evidence, surely the legal office would look at my evidence and go through it? Not a chance.
I had walked into the solicitors' office hopeful that at last someone would be willing to hear my voice, but instead he waved away the evidence that I tried to show him and informed me that the problem often was in such cases, that there was too much evidence. He told me that only one case had been won against an abusive educational institution, and that was due to the fact that the employer had been 'warned' once about their conduct by the HSE and yet had resumed their bad practice following a brief period of mending their ways, resulting in their employee suffering twice from 'breakdowns'. So if I were to go back and suffer the same fate again, then we might be able to talk business.
The union it seems, cannot do very much at all. When I requested to know the points that my case fell down on, I was informed that I was not entitled to be given this information. The union said they were considering reviewing their complaints procedure as a result of my experiences, however, it is now one year later and no further progress has been made. I have also since discovered that if the complainant has any family history of mental ill-health the trades union will not take the case on.
This work is still very much 'in progress' and since my appointment with the solicitor, three landmark cases have been successfully brought against abusive employers, although not in the education sector; Annette Cowley (forced to work 16 hour shifts), Beverley Lancaster (her employers caused her stress related illness), and RJB Mining (for seeking 'to force pit deputies to work regularly in excess of 48 hours per week, contrary to regulations). 'The European Directive is "a mandatory requirement which must apply to all contracts of employment"'.19 Encouraging though this is, it is but a drop in the ocean in real terms. The law is quite simply inadequate at this time, and yet the media have nonetheless been swift in their attempts to establish that a culture of compensation predominates. Although the government denies 'that it is attempting to water down the European Union legislation saying no employee should be made to work more than 48 hours a week, it is proposing to introduce an amendment to the 48 hour law, allowing staff to do "voluntary" work without counting it towards the limit'.20 'Come on people, what are we complying with here!' Teaching staff in schools, colleges and universities are generally not employed by charitable organisations, and how many teachers' remain unemployed due to colleagues working 'voluntary' hours? The DfEE (Department for Education and Employment) has said that 'it would be neither possible nor desirable to stop teachers choosing to spend additional time preparing lessons or marking'.21
Punch-drunk and weary, I once again heave my bulk into an upright stance and out of the mire of victimhood. There is, after all, more than one way to get a job done. For a long time now I have not been able to conceive of a return to work. I still cannot envisage such a thing in actuality, although my counsellor seems hopeful that he can help me towards a return. I am beginning to appreciate that I have worked long and hard in maintaining my teaching position, and that it is not a role that I should relinquish in vain. It is my job after all, and I should not permit my employers to dump me when they have drained me of my energy. And so, my current thoughts are that a return to work would be appropriate. And if I am able to return to my job, then my employers would have to treat me with due care for they have been advised by the relevant authorities that I should be protected from anything like this happening to me again in the future.
Musing to myself, I think that my aims in returning to work would be to labour to my contracted hours to the best of my abilities and in an appropriate manner, with a view to remaining competent in my position over a sustained period of time. I am able to recognise where my behaviour has been inappropriate in this situation, for example through my over-investment in the students at the expense of myself and my family's well-being. 'At the heart of this issue is something psychologists call work-life balance. This is the refreshing idea that to maintain a healthy and happy life one must strike the right balance between time spent at work and on "real life"'.22
Afterword (produced October 2004)
The phrase 'work-life balance' seems to have become a meaningless cliche, often spoken and rarely practised. I returned to education (as a student) in September 2000, by which time I had realised that it would be impossible for me to resume my position as a lecturer within the institution that I wrote about in this paper. The damage done was too deep. I could not, and still cannot control the visible tremours that dominate my body, and I could not and still cannot bear to hear and read 'management speak'.
Interestingly, I received an e-mail two weeks ago asking me if I would return to the college. An ex-colleague was desperate for me to return immediately to help him out in a current moment of crisis. He said that all of my old managers had now left and that my ex-Principal had recently made a very public resignation stating that he was dismayed at the lack of funds and was unable to 'look remaining staff in the eye'.23
Notes
1. Williamson, J., Guardian, 15 February 1997, p. 6.
2. Jones, J., Guardian, 7 January 1997, p. 14.
3. Williamson, J., Guardian Weekend, 15 February 1997, p. 6.
4. Spence, Jo., Cultural sniping; The Art of Transgression (London: Routledge, 1997), p.40.
5. Foucault, M., Discipline and Punish, the Birth of the Prison (London: Penguin, 1991), p.205.
6. Ibid., p. 202.
7. Hyatt, J., The War for World Four, Round Midnight 3 Colloquia, Artists Newsletter Supplement (Sunderland: writers and Artic Producers Publishing, 1996), p. 5.
8. Marchant, A., Wallpaper History/Reprinted Pages (Glasgow: Variant, 1988), p. 15.
9. Marchant, A., Re-negotiations Catalogue (Norwich: BD&H, 1993), p. 43.
10. Dennett, T., Re-negotiations Catalogue (Norwich: BD&H, 1993), p. 25.
11. Baldwin, J., Cultural Sniping: The Art of Transgression (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 164.
12. Frean, A., The Times, 25 August 1999, p. 8.
13. Sherwen, P., Guardian, 11 September 1999, p. 25.
14. Ibid., p. 24.
15. Thomson, A., Times Educational Supplement, 14 January 1999, p. 3.
16. Frean, The Times, 25 August 1999, p. 8.
17. Sherwen, Guardian, 11 September 1999, p. 24.
18. Dispatches, 'Bosses In The Dock', Channel 4 Television, 6 May 1999.
19. Holman, D., Guardian Education, 7 September 1999, p. 6.
20. Mansell, W., Times Educational Supplement, 17 September 1999, p. 7.
21. Ibid.
22. Sherwen, Guardian, 11 September 1999, p. 24.
23. Kingston, Peter, http://education.guardian.co.uk/further/story/0,5500,1223585,00.html
