Paper short abstract:

This paper juxtaposes neoliberal conceptualisations of time, value, labour, and health against the experiences of older blue collar workers, illustrating that health is one of the most potent time constraints for older workers, yet remains unaccounted for in Australian labour policy.

Paper long abstract:

Assumptions about time, value, labour, and health coalesce in the policy decision to extend the pension eligibility age in Australia from 65 to 67 years. These additional two years in the labour force reflect a morally-laden neoliberal approach to time, which values time spent working over other uses of time. The extended pension eligibility age also reflects a neoliberal valuing of the individual, dependent on extended labour participation and economic productivity. Acknowledging the multiple, often incompatible ways in which time is conceptualised and experienced, we question the expectation of extending Australians' working lives. Drawing on interviews with 19 bus drivers in Western Australia, we illustrate that older workers in blue collar occupations experience chronic health conditions that not only limit their ability to maintain the "strict time-discipline" (May and Thrift 2001) required to remain in the workforce as they approach retirement, but also introduce demands on their time not accounted for in labour policy (including those required for the management of chronic health conditions). Poor health, and the multiple ways in which it constrains labour and time, fosters diverse, unequal, and uneven experiences of the final years of work for these blue collar workers, which may not allow them to meet the policy expectation to work until the age of 67. We further argue that by failing to allow for the long-term health effects of blue collar work, raising the pension age devalues industrial work histories and time spent in manual labour by ignoring its work-limiting effects on the body.