Taking worker productivity to a new level? Electronic Monitoring in homecare—the (re)production of unpaid labour

• Author: Sian Moore,L J B Hayes
• Published date: 01 July 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12087
• Date: 01 July 2017

© 2017 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and

John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Electronic Monitoring in Homecare 101

New Technology, Work and Employment 32:2

ISSN 1468-005X

Taking worker productivity to a new level?

Electronic Monitoring in homecare—the

(re)production of unpaid labour

Sian Moore and L J B Hayes

This article explores the use of Electronic Monitoring (EM) in

homecare and its impact on the ratio of paid to unpaid work-

ing time. It argues that whilst Zero Hours Contracts (ZHCs)

blur the distinction between paid and unpaid labour, the in-

troduction of EM can formalise and regulate the demarcation

between the two. In the context of local authority commission-

ing and constrained budgets, the combination of EM and ZHC’s

may excise so- called ‘unproductive’ but available labour from

homecare. In particular, the minute- by- minute commission-

ing of care that EM facilitates means the cost of homecare is

anchored in the time that worker’s spend in client’s houses,

squeezing out paid travel, time between visits, training and

supervision. Paid working time is minimised whilst maximis-

ing the use of unpaid time with resulting intensification of care

labour.

Keywords: care, surveillance, working time, Zero Hours, Elec-

tronic Monitoring, procurement, unpaid labour

‘They said to us, if we went over our time with a service user we wouldn’t get paid because that’s

not the contracted hours. The council won’t pay them, so the agency won’t pay us. So if we did an

extra hour, which happened quite often if somebody had a fall or someone wasn’t well and you stay

on because it’s your duty of care, we wouldn’t get paid for that.’

[Care worker, Authority A]

The editors of this journal have outlined the capacity of digital technology to restruc-

ture the temporal dimensions of work and called for further focused empirical study

(Howcroft and Taylor, 2014). This article explores the impact of the Electronic

Monitoring (EM) of homecare work on working time in the context of severe financial

pressures on public sector provision of social care in the UK. Homecare workers are

overwhelmingly women and provide personal care to older and disabled people in

their own homes (referred to as ‘service users’ or ‘clients’). The vast majority are em-

ployed by private sector organisations delivering care that has been commissioned on

a cost competitive basis by local authorities (Bessa et al., 2013; Rubery et al., 2015). It is

proposed that EM in combination with Zero Hours Contracts (ZHCs) contributes to

Sian Moore, University of Greenwich (s.moore@greenwich.ac.uk), is Professor of Employment Rela-

tions and Human Resource Management at the University of Greenwich and Director of the Work and

Employment Relations Unit. Sian’s research interests focus upon the relationship between gender and

class at work, upon worker representation and activism and, more recently, on the impact of non-stan-

dard work. She is author of New Trade Union Activism: Class Consciousness or Social Identity? (2011). L.J.B.

Hayes, Cardiff University, is Lecturer in Law at Cardiff University. Her research looks at the application

of criminal law in the context of care work and she is author of Stories of Care: a Labour of Law (2017).

She has published on equal pay, the national minimum wage, covert surveillance in care work, caring

labour and austerity, the regulation of working time, migration issues, and the right to organise.