Wages are determined through the antagonistic struggle between capitalist and worker. Victory goes necessarily to the capitalist. The capitalist can live longer without the worker than can the worker without the capitalist (Karl Marx, 1844, p. 6).
Introduction
I have been a school service officer in the department of education of South Australia since 2012. Being in this position for this long gives me a great understanding of how this system works and what is the exact expectations from employees. In this research, I want to investigate the situations of school service officers in the department of education from Marx’s perspective. I want to explore how this government position too can be a subject of criticism when it comes to labour’s right.
Karl Marx
135 years ago, Karl Marx, expressed his opposition to the situation of the society in the post-industrial revolution era. Marx’s most important objection was against the classification of the society into two groups of working and wealthy classes. In the capitalist society of the post-industrial revolution, the man was used as a tool, and the worker becomes a means for money-making; a machine that makes wealthy people more prosperous.
Marx’s theory in relation to economics, society and politics is named Marxism. As Tom Vickers mentions “Marxism is not simply a theory: it is a political practice which confronts capitalism with an alternative model of social order” (Vickers, 2015). Marx believes that in the capitalist system labour is being used as a process of objectification.” (Sayers, 2007, p. 432). No matter how hard the task is, it should be accomplished at the lowest cost. In this production environment, the worker’s wellbeing is not a priority at all. From Marx perspective, a worker and his labour should not be bought. The financial benefits of a production process should be equally shared among all involved human beings. As Ryan McCormick mentions “every commodity and every implement, regardless of its place in the market or in the production process, is in the last instance a product of human labour”(Ryan McCormick, 2010, p. 58).
In this regard, I want to study the situation of school service officer’s in the structure of the Department of Education of South Australia from Marx’s perspective. I see educators and specifically SSOs as good examples of modern assembly-line workers in the current era.
SSO definition
According to the Department of Education website, “a school services officer (SSO) provides administration and classroom support within South Australian government schools and preschools. SSOs can work school terms (42 weeks) or may be employed for the full year (52 weeks)” (Department for Education, n.d.). As the description illustrates, SSOs job has the different variation. When it comes to classrooms support, most of the time an SSO is required to work with students with difficulties either in special centres or mainstream schools. For doing this job, everyone needs to have certain qualifications and passes some courses. An SSO also can be the finance manager of a school if is qualified enough to do so.
Salary and benefits
This is unfortunate that nowadays, education is functioning based on business practices. The way its system is working is almost similar to how a big corporation works. What we can see as the result of such a system is that learning and educating students is not the main priority. There are many other things before the quality of education to be considered by schools and universities. Many of the programs supported by the education system have to be delivered at the lowest cost regardless of its quality. One of the major areas to cut the costs is the human resource.
As Marx believes, one of the side effects of the capitalist state is turning the labour and his job to a commodity equivalent to a number of dollars. No matter what the job is; education, factory or any business. As long as the labour and his work is something that is buyable, the employer pushes to reduce his costs. That is when another side effect of such a system will show up; the competition. People have to fight with each other and prove themselves as the best options and the most efficient facilitators of capitalist processes to the higher economic class.
In the education department, there are many staff members in different schools who are working in the same role for over ten years, and still, they don’t have a secure job. Many of them are on the term by term or yearly contracts. Just because the department does not want to have too much permanent employees to have the opportunity to get rid of them easily when necessary.
The workload of SSOs in school hours is almost the same as classroom teachers. A classroom support staff needs to get engaged with individual students and supporting them in the different ways when needed. They are expected to participate in the process of resource making and depending on the level of an SSO, he/she may have to be present in many meetings with students’ parents/carers/phycologist, etc. the same as teachers.
However, SSO’s job condition is nothing similar to teachers. For instance, teachers and the most significant numbers of SSOs (except for those who are doing finance job) are working during the school terms which is 42 weeks. But even permanent SSOs never get paid for their school holidays while the permanent teachers do. The department suggested a bizarre solution to fix this problem by giving the opportunity to SSOs to split their income into 52 weeks rather than 42 weeks. It means, for example, if one SSO earns $21,000 in 42 weeks of school terms, she/he will get $1000 each fortnight only during the school terms. Although, she/he can split this income to 52 weeks and get $403.84 every fortnight. As you can see it is still the same amount of money. The only thing it might solve is the money management issue of a minority of SSOs probably. Still, the fact is that SSOs never get paid for their holidays. This is why most of the SSOs end up doing some relevant or irrelevant part-time jobs during their holidays. The time that is really necessary to relax and get ready for the new term and its new challenges.
Emotional labour
However, while SSOs are working with students, they are expected to be calm and relaxed and smile when they are dealing with any situation. This is what Arlie Russell Hochschild calls “Managed heart” (Hochschild, 1985). Russel explains how our so-called modern system standardises our feelings and how we should behave the so mechanically in different circumstances. To her ‘managed heart’ is an interpretation of self-alienation discussed by Marx. In this position, we are expected to do everything in a way it is designed regardless what we are exactly feeling. So, basically, an SSO does the physical and mental labour as well as the emotional labour. Of course, this is not specifically what that happens only in this job. This is the condition of many jobs out there.
After a while of being an SSO, it is so hard to separate me from my job. Especially, when we have to deal with our student’s personal life. For instance, it has happened in many times that I have personally been engaged with some specific situation from my work that I could not stop myself from not thinking about it even over the weekend; while I am enjoying the sunshine at the beach. Most of the time I see myself as my job and not me anymore. This is what Marx called self-alienation. The worker puts his life into the object; but now his life no longer belongs to him but to the object (Oxford Journals, 1913). In this regards, Susan Luckman says ” ‘As the lines and boundaries between working and non-working life break down, it becomes more and more difficult to find ways to assign monetary value to the jobs being done” (Luckman, 2015, p. 126).
Conclusion
No matter what our position or occupation is, we are all typical labours in a capitalist system. No matter if we are a surgeon or a farm worker. As long as we get paid for what we are doing, we are considered as a replaceable means of production. This system has been functioning and developing for hundreds of years now. As Marx suggests this system is fundamentally wrong and there is nothing that we can get fixed. The only way to save is the revolution in the system; a new system that honour people over money. While being a part of the government system, SSOs are still getting behaved as typical labours of the private section. Having said that all other positions in the government are struggling with this issue. The system tries to abuse their rights in many ways and endanger its labour force’s psychological well-being to meet another goal of financial efficiency.
P.s. I eventually became a permanent SSO after 7 years of casual contracts. It was so rare that the Union of Education came after me to do an interview with me about it.
References
Department for Education, n.d. School services officers (SSOs) [WWW Document]. Dep. Educ.
Hochschild, A.R., 1985. The Managed Heart, 3rd ed. University of California Press.Karl Marx, 1844.
Economic & Philosophical Manuscripts of 18441. Progress Publishers, Moscow.
Luckman, S., 2015. Craft and the Creative Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, England.
Oxford Journals, 1913. Karl Marx and Labor Legislation. Q. J. Econ. 27, 530–535.
Ryan McCormick, 2010. The Parallax of Labor: Marx as a Moralist. Rethink. Marx. 23, 50–59.
Sayers, S., 2007. The Concept of Labor: Marx and His Critics. Sci. Soc. 71, 431–454.
Vickers, T., 2015. Marxist Approaches to Social Work. Int. Encycl. Soc. Behav. Sci. 14, 663–669.
Mahnoosh Rudd 