Masks can prove liberating. The hidden face affords
security. Obnoxious authority breathes better, hiding in
comfort. Behind the material, confidence finds a home. While
tens of millions of jobs have been lost to the novel
coronavirus globally, security services, surveillance
officers and pen pushers are thriving, policing admissions
to facilities, churning through health and safety
declarations, and generally making a nuisance of
themselves.

Consider the state of Victoria in
Australia. The pandemic lockdown measures have softened but
have left a thick film of bureaucracy. For the overly eager
employee wishing to come into work to retrieve necessary
materials (the definition of what is necessary varies), the
task is irritating, even taxing. First, temperature check.
Second, checking in via smart phone with a health
declaration, a step discriminatory to those who have no
interest in having such devices. Third, clearance with
security to ensure the activation of relevant cards, and the
lending of necessary keys. Even through masks, those lining
up exude weariness, feeling saggy after months in
epidemiological confinement.

With the card activated
and ready to access the necessary buildings, it is time to
make way to the office, a space neglected since March.
Books, sulking at not having been consulted. Detritus of
memories on the wall: posters and pictures of travel to
places now inaccessible for reasons of cost or the pandemic.
Towers of paperwork left unattended, rendered irrelevant by
digitalisation. White board, uncleaned. A sense of woe
grips: the days for having such a space of monkish calm and
serene bliss are numbered.

During the pandemic,
employers have been chorusing about the benefits of making
people work from home. This has very much to do with them,
though other virtues are also celebrated: the conveniences
of work and home living; avoiding long, draining commutes;
spending more time with family. We are doing it for
you.

This has meant the invasion of the employee’s
home, and often not a voluntary one. Urban managerialism,
already identified in the 1970s by the English sociologist
Ray Pahl, has been hyper charged by a reallocation of
resources, the imposition of stresses upon the toilers. The
nature of parasitic capitalism, as Andy Merrifield puts it,
has come to the fore with aggression. “World cities,” he
reasons, “are giant arenas where the most rabid
activity is the activity of rabidly extorting land rent, of
making land pay anyway it can; of dispatching all
non-parasitic activities to some other part of town (as
Engels recognized long ago), so as to help this rental
maximisation.” The almost operatic description
of Karl Marx in the first volume of Das Kapital comes
to mind: “Capital is dead labour which, vampire-like,
lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the more and
more it sucks.”

And sucking it does, making sure
that employees feed the beast by shouldering more expenses
while all the time being told they are fulfilling their
civic obligations and minding their good health. The fact
that doing this also means reducing the ongoing costs of the
business or entity, ensuring greater rental maximisation, is
seen as ancillary to the main show.

Prior to the
pandemic, the literature on attitudes to remote work was
already sounding like an urban manager’s small book of
maxims and clichés. Sophia Bernazzani of the video
conferencing company Owl Labs, writing
in December last year, announced how “new survey data
revealed that remote work is a major benefit for employees.
In fact, 34% of US workers would take a pay cut of up to 5%
in order to work remotely. And those who do work remotely
say they’re happy in their jobs 29% more than on-site
workers.”

With COVID-19 yet to make its telling
presence, Forbes was already diving into
reasons why a remote workforce was an exhilarating boon
for business. As contributor Amar Hussain reasoned,
“Although there are challenges that come with hiring and
organizing a remote workforce, the reality is working with a
remote team might end up being one of the best decisions you
could make for your business.” More work is accomplished
by such remote teams (time otherwise wasted on commuting,
for instance, can be used); a “larger talent pool” can
be drawn from, given the absence of geographical
constraints; rental costs will be spared, meaning that US
companies would be saving $10,000 per employee per year.
Finally, a health dividend (because they care), would
accrue. “Remote work removes the need to commute and the
associated negative effects.”

Urban planning
academic Richard Shearmur sees
past the glossy narrative of saving costs, tilting the
focus away from proselytisers of the religion of remote
work. “Whatever the personal and productivity impacts of
remote work, the savings of US$10,000 per year are the
employer’s. In effect, this represents an offloading of
costs onto employees – a new type of enclosure.” With
this comes loneliness, reduced productivity and
various inefficiencies.

Shearmur also sees a
historical parallel of expropriation. “In 16th-century
Britain, powerful landowners expropriated common land from
the communities, often for the purpose of running lucrative
sheep farms. Today, businesses like Shopify appear to be
expropriating their employee’s private living space.”
They do so by making employees purchase more work equipment
for the home (ergonomic chairs, desks and so forth), placing
the emphasis on them to maintain such equipment and the
premises that house them.

Such businesses are also
casting an Orwellian eye over employees in their home
environment. Expropriation, in a fashion, is not enough; it
must come with the monitoring gaze. Productivity targets
must be maintained. Elizabeth Lyons of the University of San
Diego explains
what that entails. “The things employers are really
looking for is what websites are employees on, are these
productive or unproductive websites, what apps are they
using, how much time they are spending on their different
tasks.”

In an online
survey of 1,800 people in October conducted by Prospect,
a UK trade union representing engineers, scientists and
civil servants, two-thirds of workers expressed discomfort
at the idea of programmes being used to check the frequency
of their typing. Up to 80% were also unsettled by the use of
cameras recording them as they sat at their home computer,
with 76% uncomfortable with the idea of wearing devices
noting their location.

Some employees have been
encouraged to believe in the narcotic of efficiency and
productivity. Take Candice, a “digital marketer” behind
podcasts aiding students undertaking English proficiency
tests. Interviewed for ABC Radio National in Australia, she
is sympathetic to her employer who “has no idea of
what I’m doing all day long.” Except that he does. But
never mind that: home surveillance technology “keeps me on
track … I can see exactly how much time I’ve spent doing
work”. Good for the unassuming Candice and co-religionists
of remote work; bad for many of us.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark
was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He
lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]

© Scoop Media

YOURSAY | ‘He must be thinking ‘if I failed before, try again’, but this time with more parties.’

Annuar Musa wants grand coalition – woos Muda, Pejuang, Warisan

YellowMarlin8834: A resounding no to the grand coalition. Federal Territories Minister Annuar Musa, you are only interested in strengthening your own position.

Your statement clearly shows you are more pro-backdoor government than your own party, Umno. Is it because you got a position and it is too lucrative to let go?

Please don’t use race and religion. Many from your race are suffering due to this lockdown. You don’t even want to share your salary with them by taking a pay cut.

This government is sick to the core. Without a pandemic, maybe you can behave like the old Umno. But not now, the government has no money and its bloated cabinet is too stupid to tackle the crisis.

Doc: Annuar, who is also the BN secretary-general, must be so desperate that he is inviting troublemaker former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his Pejuang to join in his grand union of the ummah.

On another note, three parties – PAS, Bersatu, and Umno – came together in February to take over the government claiming they wanted to form a coalition with one singular focus – to safeguard, unite, and strengthen the Malay community against attacks from the “diabolical” DAP.

So, in the nine months after this Perikatan Nasional (PN) took over the government, my questions are on how the Malay community is faring:

1) Have job opportunities for the Malay community improved significantly?

2) Has the Malay community’s share of the economic pie increased?

3) Is the Malay community happy with the way the PN government is handling the political, economic, and social structure of the country?

4) Are the three major political entities in PN working hard together to achieve the dreams and aspirations of the Malay community as what they promised to do?

5) Have the “attacks” by the “diabolical” DAP on the ummah been thwarted and the party’s potency been curtailed?

I guess the answer to these questions must be a resounding “no”. Otherwise, why would Annuar be calling for an even-grander collation of Malay-based parties to safeguard the dreams and aspiration of the ummah?

I guess he must be thinking “if I failed before, try again”, but this time with more parties.

Mano: Annuar, you said: “The efforts of the union of the ummah (Malay/Muslim community) must be our main responsibility.” Is this so that the elite and semi-elite ummah can continue the looting?

You should talk on how to bring up the B40 (bottom 40 percent) Malays, how they can own at least one house, how they can be comfortable in their lives (they are not aspiring to have your obscenely luxurious lifestyle), how they can be educated, how they will regain their self-esteem by standing on their own two feet (instead of making them feel they must forever be dependent on the crumbs you throw out after eating the cake).

But sorry, if you educate them well, they will most likely see through all your greed. So, it serves you well to keep them as they are – ever ready to hoist the flags when you flash the racial and religious cards.

By the way, did the dubious Mara deal in Australia fill the pockets of the B40 Malays or the elite and semi-elite Malays?

Undecided: “For too long our politics have been centred around two or three personalities, and not on the basis of struggle,” said Annuar.

Annuar, the vast majority of Umno leaders have never struggled. If they have struggled, it was always for their own selfish interest and not for the poor Malays as many are still in the B40 category. By the way, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin is also one of those personalities you speak of.

Umno’s struggle has more to do with preferential contracts and corruption which siphoned off billions over the past 50 years after the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP), which was meant for the poor.

Another major issue is a mediocre education system brought about by supremacists championing Bahasa Melayu without emphasising proficiency in English.

It has to be repeated time and again that, fundamentally, it is the use of race and religion by politicians and their NGO backers to divide the rakyat. This is responsible for Malaysia’s deteriorating economy.

Fairman: Annuar, look at yourself in the mirror. You are also one of those promoting politics of personality.

This should be your last term. You started in 1986 as an assemblyperson in Kelantan. Which side were you on in the 1987 Umno power struggle? Who did you worship then?

You lost in the 1990 general election, bounced back in 1995, and lost again in 1999. You returned as an assemblyperson in 2004, lost again in 2008, and lucky for you, won Ketereh in 2013 and 2018.

You were double-lucky to get a position in the backdoor government in 2020. Now you are using your power and position to promote yourself.

You have been in politics more or less as long as PKR president Anwar Ibrahim. Your final Waterloo is coming very soon. Your hypocrisy will finally be unmasked.

Just a Malaysian: If the grand coalition continues to scream about defending Malays and Muslims, nothing will change.

The change we need is mental, not physical. Having three parties shouting “Hidup Melayu” (long live the Malays) and steal the nation’s coffers, is as bad as having 10 parties doing the same thing.

Annuar, we need changes in our thoughts and approach to building a new progressive and inclusive Malaysia, where every citizen works hard to contribute to the nation.

MS: A wonderful idea, simply brilliant.

This is because the grand coalition will require ballooning the already-humongous cabinet of 70 to at least 100, which can then enter the Guinness Book of Malaysia Boleh Records.

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