The paper problematises employer engagement with TVET. To this end it examines corporate social responsibility, waged labour, anti-work, and TVET. Following the seminal paper of Fuller and Unwin (2003), much research has explored the potential of expansive learning at the workplace (see Bishop 2017), which has been seen as a measure of employer commitment to the development of workers. Cultures of expansive learning in the workplace and off-the-job training are thought to open-up opportunities for social  mobility, thereby addressing social justice concerns. In this instance, TVET may be conceived as having a wider brief, extending beyond a narrow focus on the specific needs of a particular employer and may encompass a civic duty that emphasises employer responsibility to society, which may include obligations towards environmental sustainability and climate justice. Additionally, there may be a commitment to a diverse workforce that is visible throughout the organisational structure in terms of age, disability, gender, sexuality and ethnicity.

In the same way as on-the-job training may be more or less expansive or restrictive so too with off-the-job-training. Knowledge-based vocational qualifications align with the former and competence based qualifications the latter. The former might suggest higher levels of employer engagement, however we should not forget the potential for a disconnect between the workplace and off-the-job training. Yet knowledge-based TVET may extend beyond a focus on skill-based and theoretical vocational knowledge towards a recognition of ethical and social justice sensibilities. TVET could develop an ‘ability to appreciate the broader economic and civic implications of occupational action’ (Winch 2012:179). Whilst such processes are mediated by learner agency they do serve to open-up the potential for a socially engaged and developmental TVET.  There is an articulation here with conceptualisations of distributive justice as well as access to powerful knowledge (Wheelahan 2010; Young 2008) which can be aligned with ‘really useful knowledge’ and a recontextualised TVET. Importantly, productive Labour that is independent of the wage may nevertheless address sustainable development, community and individual well-being and develop use value (Avis,  2020). Such a stance is featured in the Critical Capabilities Approach to VET (CCA-VET) (Powell  & McGrath, 2019; Tikly 2020).

Corporate social responsibility touches on the previous discussion and addresses the environment, diversity as well as societal and community well-being. It anticipates a particular form of employer engagement which, in the current conjuncture can be seen in the way in which the representatives of capital seek to distance themselves from the excesses of neo-liberalism (Avis, 2020). The World Economic Forum calls for ‘a great reset’ in response to the crises of COVID-19, neo-liberal capitalism, and we could add, the climate emergency (Schwab with Davis, 2018;  Schwab and Malleret, 2020). Alongside the preceding debates, rests another that draws attention to the lack of decent work and the limitations of waged labour in facilitating human flourishing (Brown et al, 2020), which validates the ‘refusal’ to engage in such labour as found in Workerist analyses (Tronti, 2019). Researchers have an equivocal relationship with waged labour. On the one hand, it has been seen as the key site of exploitation and alienation, on the other, waged labour is thought to be pivotal to workers’ identity, well-being and sense of worth. Workerist analyses sit alongside a set of older arguments that seek to ‘liberate humanity from the drudgery of work, the dependence on waged labour, and the submission of our lives to a boss’ (Srnicek and Williams, 2015:86; and see Gorz, 1982; Keynes, 2009; Marx and Engels 1970:82,85,94). The implication is that rather than struggling for more meaningful work the aim should be to fundamentally transform the capitalist system (Bastani 2019; Mason 2015).

The paper is rooted in policy scholarship with its methodology set within a critical engagement of the relevant literature. In this respect, the paper adopts an approach derived from critical theory. The papers analysis is thus part of its methodology. Consequently, the validity of the argument can be judged on its credibility and plausibility, which in turn will be shaped by the manner in which readers position themselves. This paper considers the particular and often contradictory stances taken towards employer engagement with TVET, addressing workplace learning, corporate social responsibility, waged labour and anti-work. Anti-work analyses question as benign the alignment of employer engagement with expansive cultures of learning both within the workplace and off-the-job education. These arguments challenge the implication that workers and employers share a common interest in expansive learning. The relation between employer practice and workplace strategies that aim to encourage diversity, the flattening of hierarchical structures, concerns with the climate emergency and the mobilisation of appropriate technologies can only take us so far in the pursuit of a socially just society and an environmentally sustainable world. At the same time anti-work analyses can be debilitating with the refusal of work hardly an option for many in the global south or indeed the north. Earlier mention was made of TVET’s role in the social development of labour placing this alongside progressive agendas linked to really useful labour. Holloway (2019:234) refers to the ‘self-antagonistic unity of abstract and concrete labour’, echoing the distinction between alienated and really useful labour. What is significant about this argument is the recognition that both forms of labour are entwined in the ‘moment’ of practice. Through our abstract labour we are on-goingly creators of capital, yet concrete labour whilst entwined with abstract labour goes beyond this and is more ‘expansive’. Thus there is an alignment between conceptualisations of concrete labour, really useful labour and CCA-VET developed in the global south (McGrath et al, 2020; Powell, 2012; Powell and McGrath, 2019a). CCA-VET seeks to go beyond productivist conceptualisation of VET rooted in human capital theory (HCT) and narrowly economistic paradigms of education and training (Anderson, 2009). CCA-VET addresses, human and sustainable development, placing the well-being of learners, their flourishing and aspirations centre stage. Consequently, VET moves beyond a narrow focus on waged labour and asks questions about its contribution to human flourishing as well as the manner in which learners and their aspirations are addressed.

The discussion of anti-work enables an exploration of the labour process and surrounding contradictions by relating the debate to the broader socio-economic and political context. Whilst anti-work arguments can be debilitating they raise important questions about waged labour in the current context in which the opportunity to engage in decent work is restricted for the majority not only in the global south but also the north. The demand for decent work is an important goal but is itself subject to the balance of power between labour and capital and the latter’s mobilisation of technology to serve its interests (Avis, 2020). When the balance of power is in favour of labour, concessions will be made but are clawed back when capital is in a dominant position. However, capital is not all of a piece and decent work that validates human flourishing is not unknown. However, as with other forms of waged labour such work is predicated on capitalist relations and interests. It is important not to overlook waged labour as a site of struggle and contestation. Consequently, when circumstances alter as a result of new technology which itself is a social process, or when the balance of power shifts in favour of capital, such labour may be dispensed with or become so deskilled that it is hardly recognisable. The paper concludes with a discussion of TVET and considers responses to current conditions necessitating an engagement with an earlier tradition of adult and community education. The trick is to view reformist interventions, the concern with diversity and the rhetoric of meaningful work as a starting point in the struggle for a socially just society. Such a politics could sit with the type of revolutionary, anti-capitalist, non-reformist reforms that Gorz (1968) and Fraser (2013) call for.

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