Social Dumping as Marketization: Management Whipsawing in Europe’s Auto Industry

[Excerpt] The focus of this paper is one slow-burning change in the organization of capitalism in Europe, marketization (Greer and Doellgast 2013, Hauptmeier 2011). We argue that a specific species of marketization, management whipsawing, is causing social dumping in the automotive sector. By management whipsawing we mean the staging of economic competition by large corporations with several production units in a way that extracts labor concessions by pitting local workers against each other in contests for investment and production. Multinational companies (MNC) were the first movers and developed various management whipsawing practices; however, the term was also used historically to describe union whipsawing at large national corporations with several production units (Ross 1948). Management whipsawing presupposes the ability to move production from one location to another, due to (for example) the standardization of production techniques, production of similar products in parallel at different locations, and unutilized production capacity

Political Entrepreneurs and Co-Managers: Labour Transnationalism at Four Multinational Auto Companies

This paper examines labour transnationalism within four multinational automakers. In our sample, we find different forms of labour transnationalism, including transnational collective bargaining, mobilisation, information exchange and social codes of conduct. We explain these differences through the interaction between management and labour in the context of the company structure; of particular importance are transnational coercive comparisons by management and the orientations of worker representatives as political entrepreneurs or co-managers. We conclude that, although intensified worker-side crossborder cooperation were not preventing wage-based competition in general (due to the lack of between-firm coordination), they have reshaped employment relations within these MNCs

Political Insiders and Social Activists: Coalition Building in New York and Los Angeles

[Excerpt] Why have labor movements in New York City and Los Angeles changed so dramatically? And more specifically, why have the activist social coalitions that revitalized the labor movement in Los Angeles not played the same kind of role in New York? Our research persuades us that the relationship between .contrasting coalition types—political and social—is central to explaining the differences. Political coalitions refer to cooperation between unions and parties, politicians, and other social actors, focused largely on elections and policy-making processes. Social coalitions, by contrast, include labor and other social actors such as community, religious, environmental, and immigrant rights groups, focused on a range of political, economic, and social campaigns. A comparison of the two metropolitan areas over the past two decades reveals distinct patterns of coalition building in New York and Los Angeles. In New York, the labor movement is dominated by several powerful local unions, often at odds with one another in contending political coalitions. New social coalitions have developed but are not central to organized labor\u27s political action. The focus of most unions on narrow interest representation contributes to a disconnect between social and political coalitions in which the latter dominate. In Los Angeles, by contrast, the significance of social coalition building stands out as the labor movement has coalesced over the past fifteen years. To be sure, labor in Los Angeles participates actively in political coalitions. In contrast to New York, however, political coalitions move beyond narrow union interests, building on social coalitions that broaden the influence of labor as a whole

The social organization of ideas in employment relations

This article compares how the United States and Germany deregulated labor markets between the 1980s and 2010s in response to the rise of neoliberalism. Building on literature with a focus on ideas and national knowledge regimes, the authors argue that the trajectories of labor market deregulation across the two countries are explained by the distinct social organization of ideas. The latter refers to the actors and institutions involved in the production and dissemination of ideas (including think tanks and public research institutes), their access and ways of communicating to political elites and electorates, levels of shared academic standards across the political divide, and related degrees of competition or cooperation in the production of new knowledge and policy ideas. Moving beyond previous employment relations literature with a focus on institutions and power, the article breaks new theoretical ground by demonstrating how the social organization of ideas is a key intermediary in explaining employment relations change and continuity

Employers' organisations: a continuing force in the UK?

Leon Gooberman and Marco Hauptmeier explain how Employers' Organisations - an underestimated actor within the world of work - deliver benefits to their members, represent employers in the political process, and play an important role in UK employment relations

A typology of employers' organisations in the United Kingdom

This article examines employers' organisations in the United Kingdom, drawing upon 70 interviews and a new dataset encompassing 447 employers’ organisations. The article's contribution is to develop a new typology of employers’ organisations capturing their organisational change in the wake of the decline of collective bargaining. It does this by drawing on a conceptualisation of employers’ organisations as intermediary organisations before identifying four organisational types: lobbying; service; negotiating, and; standard-setting employers’ organizations. The article also identifies and discusses factors that underlie this pattern of differentiation

The decline of Employers' Associations in the UK, 1976 to 2014

This article examines the collective, member-based employers’ associations in the UK that regulate the employment relationship by participating in collective bargaining. The main empirical contribution is to provide, for the first time, a longitudinal dataset of employers’ associations in the UK. We use archival data from the UK Government’s Certification Office to build a new dataset, identifying a decline of 81% in the number of employers’ associations between 1976 and 2013–2014. We also find that political agency and reducing levels of collective bargaining undermined employers’ associations by reducing employers’ incentives to associate, although changes within the UK’s system of employment relations enabled other types of collective employer organisation to survive

European Works Councils after two decades

The European Works Council Directive was adopted over 20 years ago, and a voluminous body of research has developed on this relatively new institution. This article reviews the most cited literature in order to consider our state of understanding of this research field and to identify gaps in our knowledge. Most research has focused on a limited number of European Works Councils, mainly in manufacturing, and on labour actors. We still know little about the interplay between European Works Councils and other levels of employment relations, the role of management in their working and their effects on substantive employment relations outcomes. By taking stock of current knowledge, we aim to advance future directions and possibilities for research on this theme

Contemporary employer interest representation in the United Kingdom

Focussing on employers’ organisations in the United Kingdom, this article contributes to the literature on employer interest representation by advancing three interrelated arguments, which reflect how the methods, structure and interests of employer representation have evolved. First, the primary method of collective interest representation has shifted from collective bargaining, nowadays only pursued by a minority of employers’ organisations, to political representation, now the most frequent form of collective interest representation. Second, the structure of employer interest representation has evolved and is fragmented between a small number of large, general employers’ organisations, a large majority of sectoral employers’ organisations, regional interest representation in the devolved nations, which has become more important, and a new type of employer body, the employer forum, which focusses on corporate social responsibility. Third, the shift in collective interest representation is complemented by a broadening of individual interest representation, with employers’ organisations having developed a wide range of services

Ideas at work

The purpose of this article is to highlight the role of ideas in shaping the form, dynamics and products of the employment relationship. This article differentiates between various types of ideas, emphasizes the various types of agency that are involved in the creation, maintenance and defence of ideas and identifies a number of mechanisms that help to understand how actors promote ideas, how ideas gain broader prominence and how ideas change. Finally, we discuss the importance of context and resources in shaping ideational processes