Jazz musicians and the structuring of the labour market in Paris and London

This paper looks at the way in which collective norms about the material conditions of work form on the labour market for jazz musicians in London and Paris. It shows how norms around price proliferate widely, but argues they are also undermined by their ‘internalisation’ as individual guidelines rather than collective demands. It also considers how institutional context may affect these dynamics, looking at the role of the Intermittents du Spectacle social insurance system on the labour market experiences of French musicians. It concludes that the similarities are more profound than the differences

The totalising market in Marxist thought

In this article, I review Marxist writing on ‘the market’, highlighting two different lines of critique. In one, the market is subordinate to production and can be undermined depending on the strategic actions of capitalists. In the other, it exerts a ‘despotic’ power over individuals and society. I track the development of these lines of critique through 20th Century thought, firstly via Marxist political economists such as Rudolf Hilferding, and secondly via Western Marxism and Karl Polanyi. I argue that, in analysing neoliberalism, these aspects need to be interwoven in a multi-level critique of the ‘totalising market’. This argument takes inspiration from key passages of Marx’s own writing, particularly from the Grundrisse

New online live music agencies have oversized power over musicians

By assembling long lists of acts, they create reserve armies of labour and force fees down, writes Charles Umne

Cosmopolitanism and international trade unionism: managerial and mobilising forms

This conceptual article argues that the well-established sociological concept of cosmopolitanism has been inadequately applied to organised labour, and specifically to international activities of trade unions. Taking a Marxian perspective, it sets these subjects side-by-side, considering firstly what the experience of international trade unionism can reveal about cosmopolitanism, and secondly theorising the forms cosmopolitanism may take in international trade union activity. In answer to the first question, it seeks to show how the development of cosmopolitanism assumes radically different forms among union members and managerial elites. In answer to the second question, it typologises international trade unionism using two categories termed ‘managerial’ and ‘mobilising’ internationalisms. These categories have material determinants, and in each the interaction between material interest representation and cosmopolitan normativity assumes different forms

Toward a precarious projectariat? Project dynamics in Slovenian and French social services

Project organization is used extensively to promote creativity, innovation and responsiveness to local context, but can lead to precarious employment. This paper compares European Social Fund (ESF)-supported projects supporting ‘active inclusion’ of disadvantaged clients in Slovenia and France. Despite many similarities between the two social protection fields in task, temporality, teams and socio-economic context, the projects had different dynamics with important implications for workers. In Slovenia project dynamics have been precarious, leading to insecure jobs and reduced status for front-line staff; in France, by contrast, projects and employment have been relatively stable. Our explanation highlights the transaction, more specifically, the capacity of government agencies to function as intermediaries managing the transactions through which ESF money is disbursed to organizations providing services. We find that transnational pressures on the state affect its capacity as a transaction organizer to stabilize the organizational field. In Slovenia, transnational pressures associated with austerity and European Union integration have stripped away this capacity more radically than in France, leading to precarious project dynamics and risk shifting onto project workers

The state and class discipline: European labour market policy after the financial crisis

This paper looks at two related labour market policies that have persisted and even proliferated across Europe both before and after the financial crisis: wage restraint, and punitive workfare programmes. It asks why these policies, despite their weak empirical records, have been so durable. Moving beyond comparative-institutionalist explanations which emphasise institutional stickiness, it draws on Marxist and Kaleckian ideas to argue that, under financialisation, the state has been pushed to adopt disciplinary and destabilising policies which target the working class, as a means of bolstering the ‘confidence’ of capitalists in the short term. Wage restraint and punitive active labour market policies are two examples of such measures. We argue that this process is not embedded in existing institutions, but actively disrupts or subverts them

Wind Energy and the just transition. Political and socio-economic pinch points in wind turbine manufacturing and windfarm communities in Europe and South Africa

This report has been funded by the British Academy under the call the ‘Just Transition within Sectors and Industries Globally’(grant COVJT210011, October 27th, 2021 – March 22nd, 2022). It presents our finding from the research project ‘Wind energy and the Just Transition: Political and socio-economic pinch points in wind turbine manufacturing and windfarm communities in Europe and South Africa’. In this project, we explored four key pinch-points of the Just Transition: community outcomes leading to either acceptance or resistance to windfarms and skill formation, job quality and social dialogue in the wind turbine manufacturing industry. This report presents our findings regarding four research questions: 1. How is the Just Transition defined by workers, managers, social partners, and community stakeholders in the industry? 2. What are the political and socio-economic pinch points at windfarm manufacturing sites and in communities where windfarms are located? 3. How are work intensification and intensified use of the natural environment resulting from the political imperative to deploy wind turbines quickly and at large scale dealt with? 4. How can the process of structural change, meaning here the expansion of the wind turbine industry, be managed equitably so that communities and workers benefit more broadly? Our findings are based on data from windfarm communities and the wind turbine industry in Germany, Denmark, South Africa and the UK, which we collected between the years 2012 and 2022. The bulk of our data consists of semi structured interviews and focus groups with in total 156 participants including industry experts, local citizens, activists, trade union and industry representatives, managers in the industry and workers, managers and instructors from skill formation providers, and municipal policy makers. We complemented this data with secondary sources, news clippings and policy documents to develop community and industry case studies for each country

The social protection of workers in the platform economy

This study investigates the social protection of workers in the platform economy at the request of the European Parliament’s Employment and Social Affairs Committee. The report reviews literature and previous research on the platform economy with the aims of defining it and developing a typology for understanding its nature. It discusses the growth and drivers of the platform economy, as well as benefits and challenges for workers, reporting findings from 50 interviews conducted with expert stakeholders in eight European countries and from an original survey of 1,200 platform workers. It dissects the different normative layers that need to be considered when looking at the challenges of social protection of platform workers from a legal perspective. Finally, the report draws conclusions and makes recommendations concerning arrangements for the provision of social protection for workers in this growing sector of the economyEste estudio investiga la protección social de los trabajadores en la economía de plataforma a petición de la Comisión de Empleo y Asuntos Sociales del Parlamento Europeo. El informe revisa la literatura y las investigaciones previas sobre la economía de plataforma con el objetivo de definirla y desarrollar una tipología para comprender su naturaleza. Discute el crecimiento y los motores de la economía planificada, así como los beneficios y los desafíos para los trabajadores, y presenta los resultados de 50 entrevistas realizadas a expertos de ocho países europeos y de una encuesta original de 1.200 trabajadores de la plataforma. Disecciona los diferentes estratos normativos que deben considerarse cuando se analizan los retos de la protección social de los trabajadores de las plataformas desde una perspectiva jurídica. Por último, el informe extrae conclusiones y formula recomendaciones relativas a las disposiciones para la provisión de protección social para los trabajadores de este creciente sector de la economía

Insertion as an alternative to workfare: active labour market schemes in the Parisian suburbs

Many governments have tightened the link between welfare and work by attaching conditionality to out-of-work benefits, extending these requirements to new client groups, and imposing market competition and greater managerial control in service delivery – principles typically characterised as ‘workfare’. Based on field research in Seine-Saint-Denis, we examine French ‘insertion’ schemes aimed at disadvantaged but potentially job-ready clients, characterized by weak conditionality, low marketization, strong professional autonomy, and local network control. We show that insertion systems have resisted policy attempts to expand workfare derived principles, reflecting street-level actors’ belief in the key advantages of the former over the latter. In contrast with arguments stressing institutional and cultural stickiness, our explanation for this resistance thus highlights the decentralized network governance of front-line services and the limits to central government power

In, Against and Beyond Precarity: Work in Insecure Times

In this Foreword to the special issue ‘In, Against and Beyond Precarity’ the guest editors take stock of the existing literature on precarity, highlighting the strengths and limitations of using this concept as an analytical tool for examining the world of work. Concluding that the overstretched nature of concept has diluted its political effectiveness, the editors suggest instead a focus on precarization as a process, drawing from perspectives that focus on the objective conditions, as well as subjective and heterogeneous experiences and perceptions of insecure employment. Framed in this way, they present a summary of the contributions to the special issue spanning a range of countries and organizational contexts, identifying key drivers, patterns and forms of precarization. These are conceptualized as implicit, explicit, productive and citizenship precarization. These forms and patterns indicate the need to address precariousness in the realm of social reproduction and post-wage politics, while holding these in tension with conflicts at the point of production. Finally, the guest editors argue for a dramatic re-think of current forms of state and non-state social protections as responses to the precarization of work and employment across countries in both the Global ‘North’ and ‘South’