FRAGMENTING WORK

1
FRAGMENTING WORK

• Blurring Organisational Boundaries and
  Disordering Hierarchies

2
The impact of changing organisational forms on
the reshaping of work

• Rethinking/developing current debates
• Flexibility
• HRM/trade union partnerships
• Network firm

3
Flexibility debate

• Diversification of employment relationships
• Breakdown of bounded single employer-employee
  employment relationship
• up to now
• employee ? worker
• our focus
• single employer ? multi-employer

4
Expanding the analysis of the employment
relationship
Multi
Secondment TUPE transfer Joint
ventures/ partnerships Franchises Outsourced
services
Self employment
employers
Temp agency worker
Single employer
Pseudo self employment Long term temps
Standard employment
Employees
non employees
5
Employee commitment and partnership debates

• single employing organization
• well-defined boundaries
• control over internal policies (unless sectoral
  level bargaining/ regulation)
• Individualised organisational commitment-psycholog
  ical contract
• Collective commitment-partnership

6
Introducing inter-organisational relations raises
key issues

• What does employee commitment mean in a context
  of multi-employers?
• What type of employee representation and voice is
  possible/desirable in a multi-employer context?
• Partnerships- at the level of the single
  organisation or supply chain?

7
Network firm debates

• Integrated organisation? partnerships/ networks
• Two forms of contracting
• Transactional-arms length
• Relational-hybrid form- between markets and
  hierarchies

8
Disappearance of employment relationship a) from
Transactional Contracting

• In principle market-based, arms-length
  relationship
• But no simple division strategic/non strategic
  tasks
• Still issues of
• coordination
• operational efficiency/ reputation/ identity and
  commitment

9
Disappearance of employment relationship b) from
Relational Contracting

• Notion of inter-organizational trust
• Requires organizations to be conceptualized as
  coherent, unitarist with entity-wide attitudes
  and values
• Obscures role of employees in managing
  inter-organisational labour process disappears
• Oversimplifies relationships- ignores cross
  cutting of lines of authority /responsibility/
  commitment

10
Putting employment back into inter-organizational
relations
11
Two-way contribution

• Introduce inter-organizational relations into the
  analysis of employment
• Reinsert employment into analysis of
  inter-organizational relations

12
Building on existing contributions of the
research group

• Segmentation analysis from intra-capital/labour
  competition to inter-organizational relationships
• Labour process from subjectivity and identity to
  multiple identities and resistance
• Human resource management embedding the firm
  within its environment
• Employment law the development of the employment
  relationship

13
8 case study sites or networks

• Airport
• PFI hospital
• Outsourcer- customer services
• Public/private partnership- IT services
• Teacher supply agency
• Post office
• Chemical company-supply chain
• Ceramics- supply chain/industrial district

14
Characteristics of sites

• Multi-employers- agencies, multi-employer sites,
  franchising, TUPE
• Forms of contracting- public/private, multi
  client/multi-forms
• Greenfield, TUPE transfer, long established
• Unionised/non unionised
• Number of employing organisations59
• Numbers of interviews450

15
From single employer to multi-employer

• Example Aircraft dispatch
• Multiple lines of control - undersocialised
  labour process
• Who is in control?
• Pilot? -overall charge
• Dispatcher?- in charge of process but no line
  management authority, employed by handling agent
• Airline representative?- employed to check up on
  handling agent
• Line managers? 8 or more different services,
  mostly different employers

16
Organisational identity and commitment

• Same act of labour- satisfy obligations
  simultaneously to two employers or agencies
• Examples of control and commitment strategies
  exercised by employers and non employers
• Wear client uniforms
• Selected by client for promotion
• Financial incentive schemes
• Training by clients/ job definition by client

17
Organisational identity and commitment

• TUPE transfer
• Commitment to employer or to site?
• Sold once, fear of being sold on again
• Limits to concept of organisational commitment
• Commitment instead
• to public service
• to job well done
• to other employees

18
Managing human resources in a permeable
organisation

• HRM- streamline by concentrating on core
  competences
• Reality- juggling client demands/ internal hr
  policy
• Working for different clients
• Contract price not systematically related to
  quality
• Terms and conditions depend on client (TUPE plus
  contract price)
• Employment security dependent on contract not
  worker quality/experience
• Skills/training/work organisation dependent on
  client/contract conditions

19
External pressures- contradictions or
contributor to internal restructuring?

• Inter-organisational relations introduce
  inconsistencies/ contradictions
• Conflicts with strong/ consistent hr policy?
• But external market/ agencies
• May be used to resolve internal/client conflicts
• And even to restructure internal hierarchies

20
Putting employment back into inter-organizational
relations

• No clear division between transactional and
  relational contracting
• Employment relationship remains central
• Notions of trust limited and confined to higher
  management levels
• Reliance on transferred staff for expertise

21
Bringing work back in to organisational analysis

• Work divides into relational and non relational
  work
• Managing inter-organisational relations part of
  relational work
• Coordination/cooperation across organisational
  boundaries dependent on employees not just
  managers
• Employees expected to balance cooperation with
  non employer against protection of employer
  interest

22
Need new approaches to

• Human resource management
• Revisit psychological contract/ organisational
  commitment
• Organisational analysis
• Reject analysis of organisations as unified
  entities/ abstracted from work and employment

23
Need new approaches to

• Employment law
• Who is the real employer? What responsibilities
  should the client/contractor take on?
• Does fragmentation require higher minimum
  employment standards?
• Industrial relations
• Do we need to redefine communities of interests
  for collective bargaining?
• Extend scope to business to business contracting?