Working time regimes: A panel discussion on continuing problems

Abstract

This article records a panel discussion at the Organizational Working Time Regimes conference on 31 March 2017 at the University of Graz, Austria. The discussion was moderated by Sara Louise Muhr and the panelists were Jana Costas, Susanne Ekman, Laura Empson and Dan Kärreman. The discussion both departed from yet centred on the concept of time itself: how we understand time as academics, employees and managers, and how the notion of time guides and controls all of us in various ways. Through the different perspectives that the panelists have on time and work regimes, it became evident that time – and discussions of time – is complex and context-dependent and needs to be researched as such. The discussion passionately weaved in and out of key questions on work intensification, inequality regimes and resistance to working time regimes that are deeply entwined with dynamic dialectics such as personal/professional, past/future, individual/organizational, worker/leader, good/bad. The panel in this way takes the reader through difficult discussions about what is ‘extreme’, for whom is it extreme and what interventions (if any) can be made by academics. Doing so, the panelists sensitively drew attention to our own line of work, academia, and the work regimes controlling academics.