Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- List of contributors
- one New Labour, ‘modernisation’ and welfare worker resistance
- two Strenuous welfarism: restructuring the welfare labour process
- three A ‘Third Way’? Industrial relations under New Labour
- four Acts of distrust? Support workers’ experiences in PFI hospital schemes
- five Control and resistance at the ward-face: contesting the nursing labour process
- six ‘I didn’t come into teaching for this!’: the impact of the market on teacher professionalism
- seven Ambiguities and resistance: academic labour and the commodification of higher education
- eight The paradox of ‘professionalisation’ and ‘degradation’ in welfare work: the case of nursery nurses
- nine Social work today: a profession worth fighting for?
- ten Working ‘for’ welfare in the grip of the ‘iron’ Chancellor: modernisation and resistance in the Department for Work and Pensions
- eleven Working in the non-profit welfare sector: contract culture, partnership, Compacts and the ‘shadow state’
- twelve Beyond New Labour: work and resistance in the ‘new’ welfare state
- Index
nine - Social work today: a profession worth fighting for?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- List of contributors
- one New Labour, ‘modernisation’ and welfare worker resistance
- two Strenuous welfarism: restructuring the welfare labour process
- three A ‘Third Way’? Industrial relations under New Labour
- four Acts of distrust? Support workers’ experiences in PFI hospital schemes
- five Control and resistance at the ward-face: contesting the nursing labour process
- six ‘I didn’t come into teaching for this!’: the impact of the market on teacher professionalism
- seven Ambiguities and resistance: academic labour and the commodification of higher education
- eight The paradox of ‘professionalisation’ and ‘degradation’ in welfare work: the case of nursery nurses
- nine Social work today: a profession worth fighting for?
- ten Working ‘for’ welfare in the grip of the ‘iron’ Chancellor: modernisation and resistance in the Department for Work and Pensions
- eleven Working in the non-profit welfare sector: contract culture, partnership, Compacts and the ‘shadow state’
- twelve Beyond New Labour: work and resistance in the ‘new’ welfare state
- Index
Summary
Introduction
There are some services which … [are] recognised as being intrinsically suited to organisation on the welfare principle, as public, non-profit, non-commercial services, available to all at a uniform standard irrespective of means. They include … the personal social services. (Marshall, 1981, p 134)
Social work, as many writers have noted, is a profession in crisis (Clarke, 1996; Jones, 1998; Jones and Novak, 1999; Asquith et al, 2005). As a work activity, it has been increasingly dominated by managerialism, by the fragmentation of services, by financial restrictions and lack of resources, by increased bureaucracy and workloads, and by the increased use of the private sector. While these trends have long been present in state social work, they now dominate the day-to-day work of frontline social workers and shape the welfare services that are offered to service users. As Harris (2003) has so eloquently argued, social work has become more business like – shaped by the priorities of neoliberal welfarism that increasingly dominate the British welfare system.
But as well as impacting on the work tasks of social workers, the depth of the neoliberal assault has started to pose questions about the very nature of social work as an activity. Social work is a career that most people enter because they believe that it will offer them the opportunity to work with and/or help the very poorest and most marginalised people in society. Many practitioners see themselves as workers who have been educated and trained to act ‘professionally’, to adhere to a set of values that involves them building relationships with service users and carrying out a range of techniques and practices aimed at improving the lives of those they work with. The International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) defines social work as an activity that
… promotes social change, problem solving in human relationships and the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance well-being. Utilising theories of human behaviour and social systems, social work intervenes at the points where people interact with their environments. Principles of human rights and social justice are fundamental to social work. (IFSW, 2000)
The scale of the neoliberal attack in Britain poses serious questions about the ability of social workers to practise in ways that match the IFSW definition of social work activity that challenge the very existence of the social work profession.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- New Labour/Hard Labour?Restructuring and Resistance inside the Welfare Industry, pp. 189 - 208Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2007