‘Austere’ Labour

Abstract

This chapter is focused on the harsh treatment of labour in the aftermath of the Irish crisis. It outlines the extent to which neoliberal logic has played out under post-crash labour market ‘reform’ and ‘restructuring’. The next section describes how, since 2008, labour has been attacked consistently and heavily subdued under government-led post-crash crisis resolution policies where pay and working conditions have been eroded in an attempt to discipline workers. The section that follows concentrates on the concept of labour activation. It argues that unemployed labour has also been targeted through the welfare system where increasingly hostile ‘workfare’ arrangements have been introduced under labour market ‘activation’ policies. When taken collectively, it is clear that these policies are engineered with the specific intention of disciplining workers in a way that reduces their expectations for decent wages, high quality working conditions and benefits, and contributes ultimately to redistribute a greater share of the social product towards political and economic elites.

‘There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning’.

Warren Buffet (quoted in Stein, 2006)