Sheila Allen

Homeworking : myths and realities

Introduction - Approaches to Homeworking - The Incidence and Range of Homeworking - Who Does Homeworking and Why? - Homeworking as a Method of Production - The Mechanisms of Control: The Myth of Autonomy - Organising for Change - Restructuring and the Casualisation of Work - The Way Forward - Appendices - References - Index

Organising for change

The 1970s saw a mounting campaign to recognise the existence of homeworking and to press for reforms for what was seen as a vulnerable and exploited work force. Many arguments were put forward to support legal changes which would enable homeworkers to enjoy the same rights and benefits as employees in factories or offices. In the 1980s the existence of homeworking was not only acknowledged more widely, but its growth predicted.

Who does homeworking and why

Images of homeworkers and homeworking are constantly shifting. No sooner is evidence produced to discredit one stereotype than it is succeeded by another, often a revised version of those popular at an earlier date. The creation of apparently contradictory images of homeworkers is one way in which the issues raised by homeworking are evaded. Because so many accounts of homeworking portray homeworkers as having characteristics unusual or atypical of those considered to be real workers, it is presented as a minor problem, confined to the periphery of labour force activity — whereas, in fact, it involves major questions about the sexual division of labour.

The mechanisms of control: the myth of autonomy

One of the attractions of homeworking is thought to be the autonomy the homeworker has in deciding when and for how long she will work and at what pace. The time and effort control exercised over the assembly line worker and all those who clock in and out of work is contrasted with a person working in her own home, with no supervisor or timekeeper. In the abstract such a contrast appears to give the homeworker a freedom and flexibility denied the factory or office worker. It is a critical component of positive evaluations of remunerated work at home, and a major reason why homeworking is assumed to be a boon for women who need to adjust their paid work around family responsibilities. But this picture is quite misleading.

Restructuring and the casualisation of work

In much of this book we have concentrated on analysing the experience of homeworking and on exploring the reasons why firms in a variety of circumstances adopt homeworking for all or part of their production. In this chapter we want to consider similarities between homeworking and certain other forms of employment, so far as conditions of work are concerned. We argue that the restructuring of the British economy is leading to the casualisation of employment for many people, whose terms and conditions of employment are beginning to resemble homeworkers in important ways. Hence it is necessary to broaden the discussion to incorporate a fuller exploration of some of the features of the process of restructuring in Britain and of the rationales which are used to support it.

The incidence and range of homeworking

How many people do homework, what kind of work they do and whether it is increasing are the first questions people ask about homeworking in Britain. They also want to know who supplies homework, and how many suppliers there are. None of these questions have a simple answer, for each gives rise to yet another: how would we know? Comparatively little is known about these aspects of homeworking in quantitative terms, and this makes it all the more necessary to examine how existing estimates of the extent of homeworking have been calculated. Otherwise there is, in our experience, a marked tendency to assume certain kinds of answers to these questions, and to rely on them in making arguments about the scale and nature of homeworking in Britain.

Homeworking as a method of production

Homeworking and its allied forms of outworking are very old forms of production which have been ignored in analyses of industrial production over a very long period. Their demise has long been predicted, and their persistence within industrial production is rarely investigated. Yet as Samuel (1977) so vividly demonstrates, along with other ‘outmoded’ forms of production, outwork persisted well into the nineteenth century and its expansion was fostered by the industrial revolution. In the nineteenth century rising demand for industrial and consumer goods was met by a proliferation of manual trades, small producers and outworkers. Productivity was transformed not only by steam power and machinery but by the intensification of work through outwork and sweating. Similarly, in the economies of Third World countries today, a large proportion of the demand for consumer goods and services and for industrial components continues to be met by unregulated production often based in domestic premises. Although this portion of Third World production was for a long time ignored by development planners and financial backers, its existence is increasingly being recognised and its potential for increasing employment and capital accumulation is the subject of extensive debate. Yet in the discussion of homeworking in Britain, particularly in official circles and publications, these debates and their implications for conditions of work in homeworking are noticeably absent.

Approaches to homeworking

For those who seek to understand homeworking, one of the most intriguing questions is how it became invisible in the public domain. In Britain, for instance, between the passage of the first Trades Board Act in 1909 and the first Low Pay survey in the mid-1970s, economists, sociologists and historians who could have been expected to take some account of it, simply failed to do so. Bythell, for instance, concludes his study of sweated trades in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with the optimistic statement that: ‘Outwork is rightly relegated to one of the darkest chapters of economic history; and now that it is virtually dead, none should regret its passing’ (Bythell, 1978, p. 254).