{"podcast":{"title":"New Books in Australian and New Zealand Studies","slug":"new-books-in-australian-and-new-zealand-studies-507383","podcast_index_feed_id":507383,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/LIT4392416069","website_url":"https://newbooksnetwork.com/category/peoples-places/australian-new-zealand-studies/","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/ad3f55fa-eddb-11e8-a831-cf2d74dc681e/image/3962a5333d5b67ff49cb7a17a45b9368.png?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"New Books Network","episode_count":249,"summary":"This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/australian-and-new-zealand-studies","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-australian-and-new-zealand-studies-507383"},"episode":{"title":"Sean Scalmer, \"A Fair Day's Work: The Quest to Win Back Time\" (Simon and Schuster, 2025)","slug":"sean-scalmer-a-fair-day-s-work-the-quest-to-win-back-time-simon-and-schuster-2025","published_at":"2026-05-29T08:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-australian-and-new-zealand-studies-507383/sean-scalmer-a-fair-day-s-work-the-quest-to-win-back-time-simon-and-schuster-2025","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-australian-and-new-zealand-studies-507383","url":"https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK9828576877.mp3","audio_url":"https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK9828576877.mp3","summary":"Australia has a special place in the history of struggle for a Fair Day's Work. In giving a history of Australian worker struggles over the length of the working day, Sean Scalmer historicises things that might otherwise seem universal and stable, including time, leisure and productivity. Decades before any attempt by Australian timekeepers to standardise time, Scalmer shows that some of the earliest working-class activism in Australia was focused on the nature of time and the meaning of leisure. For what was the movement for the eight hour day, inspired by British activist Robert Owen, except for a battle over the ownership of time and the virtue of recreation? The length of the working day and the challenges of work–life balance are pressing issues for many people, as well as lively matters of public controversy. While the winning of the eight-hour day is celebrated as a past industrial achievement, contemporary discussions of working hours often overlook its rich history. Tracing 150 years of campaigns for rights and for the fair distribution of productivity gains, historian Sean Scalmer shows how these movements successfully reduced the length of the standard working week from 60 to 38 hours per week, and how economic, social and political shifts since the early 1980s have stalled this long-term progress. Today, industrial laws provide inadequate protection for excessive hours, and women increasingly shoulder long hours of paid work with the bulk of unpaid domestic labour. This has produced a social crisis for all Australians, but is yet to inspire adequate political action. As debate over our working lives intensifies amid ongoing political, economic and technological challenges, Scalmer’s labour of love on the history of work and play affords us a way to understa…","meta_description":"Australia has a special place in the history of struggle for a Fair Day's Work. In giving a history of Australian worker struggles over the length of the…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2018,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-australian-and-new-zealand-studies-507383/episodes/sean-scalmer-a-fair-day-s-work-the-quest-to-win-back-time-simon-and-schuster-2025/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-australian-and-new-zealand-studies-507383/sean-scalmer-a-fair-day-s-work-the-quest-to-win-back-time-simon-and-schuster-2025.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}