In academic circles (and perhaps elsewhere?) people talk about the world being in a post-humanist phase – a phase where the focus is on what comes after humanity as the key player, the environment, plants, animals and objects.

Now I don’t have any objection to that – after all we are all increasingly aware of the damage humans have done to the planet. What does concern me however, is that associated with the devaluing of human beings is the increasing emphasis placed on people as human capital.

What that means is that employees are considered as resources for employers to shape, mould and control in order to meet their neoliberal, capitalist agendas.

As a consequence, we see increasing pressure for agreements protecting the rights of workers to be broken and reformatted in ways that give employers much more flexibility. In a recent report, PWC argued university Enterprise Agreements protecting the rights of workers place constraints on the ability of management to “properly manage workforces now and in the future”.

The report argues the need for management to have much more flexibility in mandating workloads. Staff should expect to work outside standard hours, the report argues and employers should use increased contracting and casualisation to provide flexibility.

Just such an attempt is currently being made in Western Australia where Murdoch University management are attempting to terminate the current enterprise agreement, a case tentatively scheduled to be heard in the  Fair Work Commission in April this year.

It is important to remember that this is taking place in a tertiary education context where an average academic in Australia is currently working 13 hours of overtime each week and the average professional staff member works an additional six uncompensated hours each week.

An Australia Institute report identifies that across all employment sectors, Australian workers donate $128 billion annually to their employers through unpaid overtime. In addition nearly 50 per cent of the university workforce nationally is already casualised, which means nearly 50 per cent have no secure employment, no access to sick or annual leave, no superannuation, and no control over whether they will be employed in the coming months.

My experience is that academic staff are more and more stressed, that research is done in their own time more often than not, with a consequent impact on family and personal time, and that those who chose to work a 40-hour week are considered to not be pulling their weight.

I see professional staff staying late to complete jobs and being afraid to put in overtime claims because they think a claim might be interpreted as arising from their inefficiency rather than from a work overload. I see staff leaving academia disillusioned and hoping that things are better elsewhere (they are not). And I worry about the next generation of staff.

Universities are supposed to be places new ideas are generated, where critique is encouraged as the foundation for change and where those who provide that critique in their areas of expertise for the benefit of society as a whole are protected.

Does this really matter? Should we stop fighting these changes and just get on with it?

It depends on what you want your children to learn when they go to university. Do you simply want them to learn what employers determine is necessary so they can get a job and earn good money?

Or do you want them to grow into well-rounded citizens who understand social justice, who are prepared to work for what they believe is right, who are willing to consider not just other human beings but other life forms, the environment and the planet when making decisions, who are flexible in their thinking and who are also able to successfully gain fulfilling employment?