Työn murros politiikkaideana

Abstract

This article examines how the notion of the “transformation of work” became, in Finland during the 2010s, a policy idea structuring the diagnosis of the situation, the definition of problems and the formulation of policy solutions in labour market policy. Combining the framework of policy ideas with critical discourse analysis, the article focuses on the Sipilä government’s future reports on work, the related statements of labour market organizations, expert publications and parliamentary debates. The article demonstrates that the transformation of work operates as an institutional fact and as a polysemic boundary object that presents changes in working life as inevitable and shifts attention from structural labour-market conflicts to individual adaptability, lifelong learning and flexibility. In doing so, the policy idea supports a neoliberal rationality of governance in which economic constraints are translated into individual obligations and collective agency is weakened. The article argues that critically analysing this policy idea is essential for enabling a genuinely political and alternative-opening debate about the future of work.