Teleworking: More freedom or a new form of slavery for workers?

Abstract

Despite the technological advances which have resulted in the appearance of new forms of online working, teleworking - working at a distance, using communication technologies - is still a very minor form of work organisation. There is a lot of resistance by organisations to put it into practice, but the experience and evaluation by teleworkers themselves is also ambivalent. By analysing the metaphors of teleworking from 18 interviews with teleworkers who have family responsibilities, we examine the main advantages and disadvantages of this work practice. Our analysis demonstrates that the most positive factor is the ability to organise time and space of daily life (for the job, household work, family, leisure, etc.) to best suit the teleworker. However, the possibility of being permanently available for work, the family and household tasks, which means never being able to disconnect, may also be the major risk.