Disintegrating Democracy at Work

[Excerpt] This book is about the role that labor unions can and should play in modern service workplaces. Its central motivating question is whether strong and cooperative industrial relations institutions characteristic of social Europe have the potential to give service workers similar benefits to those achieved in the golden age of postwar manufacturing: productive and stable employment characterized by high job quality and low wage inequality. Past academic and policy debates on the relationship between national institutions, management strategies, and worker outcomes have focused overwhelmingly on large export-oriented sectors such as the global auto industry. Institutions in most service industries look a lot less coherent than those described in these accounts. Union membership and works council presence are much lower in services than in manufacturing. Service workers are also less likely to be covered by a union contract or to have traditional occupational training, and their jobs tend to be lower paid and less secure

The Effects of National Institutions and Collective Bargaining Arrangements on Job Quality in Front-Line Service Workplaces

This paper analyzes the relationships among national institutions, collective bargaining arrangements, and job quality in call center workplaces, using establishment-level survey data obtained in 2003-2006 in five European coordinated market economies (CMEs) (Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, and Sweden) and three liberal market economies (LMEs) (Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom). Overall, the authors find lower dismissal rates, more use of high-involvement management practices, and less performance monitoring in the CMEs, consistent with the notion that national institutions can influence employment practices even in more poorly regulated service workplaces. However, workplace-level collective bargaining arrangements and in-house (compared to outsourced) status also were associated with significantly higher measures of job quality across countries. Findings suggest that within CMEs, dual union/works council representation continues to provide important support for job security, participation, and discretion, but that outsourcing can effect a partial escape from this institution

ILR Impact Brief - Ownership Status Matters: Call Centers, Employment Systems, and Turnover

Each type of call center (i.e., ownership status) is associated with particular strategies and systems, which in turn influence quit rates. In-house call centers typically focus on service quality and adopt quasi-professional employment systems (higher pay, more opportunities for employee problem-solving, minimal performance monitoring). Cost control, by contrast, is the strategic driver of outsourced and offshore call centers, which favor low-commitment employment systems that depend on close monitoring and limited on-the-job discretion. Turnover, a major problem for the entire industry, is lowest at in-house call centers and highest at outsourced facilities

Collective Bargaining

[Excerpt] In this chapter, we first present an overview of different forms of collective bargaining, looking at how institutions and models differ across countries. This is the basis for a review of research examining the integrative or efficiency-enhancing role of collective bargaining - which typically emphasizes strategic choice and mutual gains, and studies focusing on the distributional consequences of these institutions - which place more emphasis on the role of power and conflict in shaping bargaining processes and outcomes. We argue that research focusing on performance outcomes provides a useful but incomplete set of tools to analyze the form and consequences of collective bargaining institutions. These institutions have historically played a central role in redistributing political and economic power within workplaces, industries, and societies. Attention to contemporary changes in labor power can help to explain why and how this distinctive form of employee voice has been weakened within different national contexts

Marketization, inequality, and institutional change

This paper develops a theoretical framework for analyzing the social effects of marketization. We define marketization as the imposition or intensification of price-based competition. It includes a wide range of phenomena, such as outsourcing, privatization, active labor market policies, and the international integration of markets for goods services, capital, and labor. Our central proposition is that the diverse forms that marketization takes have the common effect of increasing economic and social inequality via their effect on non-market institutions. We propose two mechanisms of institutional change. First, the means used by economic elites to seek influence shifts from voice to exit, leading to the 'disorganization' of the non-market institutions of industrial relations and welfare provision, or the erosion of their democratic and redistributive functions. Second, economic activity shifts away from production and toward extraction, leading to the expansion of new forms of undemocratic private and public regulation. We conclude that assumptions of efficiency seeking and societal embedding commonly used to analyze the expansion of markets need to be loosened in order to study this process

Cleaning cooperatively : an analysis of the success and potential of a cooperative business

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2001.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-101).In this study, I evaluate a cooperative cleaning business's success in improving employment outcomes for immigrant workers. Cooperative business development is often undertaken as a community economic development strategy that seeks to promote better work experiences for those with limited employment options. The argument that ownership and control in the workplace are key features of such a strategy is superficially easy to accept, but becomes more problematic when trade-offs among goals and outcomes are introduced. To better understand the nature of these trade-offs, I compare employment outcomes and business strategy across four different cleaning companies: a cooperative cleaning business, a maid service franchise, a unionized janitorial firm, and an independent housecleaner. While wages and benefits do not differ substantially across the four cases, cooperatives provide opportunities for training and mobility, control over work and over management of the business, and a sense of satisfaction that are unusual in the cleaning industry and of value to their members. These findings are tempered by the observation that these cleaning cooperatives remain a scattered set of experiments that often must struggle to sustain themselves. Enjoying the benefits of cooperative ownership may require members to sacrifice time and salary, and may in the short-term hamper business growth and profitability. The strategies used by successful cooperative and non-cooperative cleaning businesses provide a useful guide to these businesses as they seek to meet the dual goals of providing better work experiences for their members and successfully competing within the cleaning industry.by Virginia L. Doellgast.M.C.P

Organizational Performance in Services

The question of performance in service activities and occupations is important for several reasons. First, over two-thirds of employment in advanced economies is in service activities. Second, productivity growth in services is historically low, lagging far behind manufacturing, and as a result, wages in production-level service jobs remain low. In addition, labor costs in service activities are often over 50% of total costs, whereas in manufacturing they have fallen to less than 25% of costs. This raises the question of whether management practices that have improved performance in manufacturing, such as investment in the skills and training of the workforce, may be more difficult or costly to apply to service activities. At the same time, these practices may be even more important for organizational performance in these labor-intensive activities. Third, the role of the customer in production makes the process of service delivery fundamentally different than that found in goods production. Thus, it is useful to focus on the factors affecting performance in services, the topic of this chapter

Negotiating limits on algorithmic management in digitalised services: cases from Germany and Norway

Artificial intelligence (AI)-based algorithms are increasingly used to monitor employees and to automate management decisions. In this article, we ask how worker representatives adapt traditional collective voice institutions to regulate the adoption and use of these tools in the workplace. Our findings are based on a comparative study of union and works council responses to algorithmic management in contact centres from two similar telecommunications companies in Germany and Norway. In both case studies, worker representatives mobilised collective voice institutions to protect worker privacy and discretion associated with remote monitoring and workforce management technologies. However, they relied on different sources of institutional power, connected to co-determination rights, enforcement of data protection laws, and labour cooperation structures.Negotiating limits on algorithmic management in digitalised services: cases from Germany and NorwayacceptedVersio

Making Call Center Jobs Better: The Relationship between Management Practices and Worker Stress

The work of a call center agent has been described as one of the ten most stressful jobs in the global economy (Holdsworth and Cartwright 2003). Call centers are known for their heavy use of electronic monitoring, tightly controlled schedules and break times, and intense performance pressure. Past research has shown that these practices contribute to high levels of employee stress, anxiety, and burnout (Holman and Fernie 2000; Deery et al. 2002; Holman 2002). Worker stress also creates problems for companies and their customers. Managers are affected by staffing challenges associated with employee turnover and absenteeism. Customers are routinely routed between employees who have been narrowly trained to answer specialized questions. This report summarizes research findings from a survey administered to 2100 call center workers represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), with the aim of investigating the causes and consequences of well-being and stress in these workplaces. We ask the following questions: • What kinds of stress are experienced by call center workers, and how high are stress rates across different measures? • What management practices and workplace factors are associated with lower rates of worker stress? • How does worker stress relate to job satisfaction, absenteeism, and turnover intentions? • What explains differences in the practices and outcomes associated with high rates of worker stress across call centers? The call center workers we surveyed report high levels of stress across a range of measures, including emotional strain, sleep difficulties, use of anxiety medication, and repetitive stress injuries. Workers experiencing higher stress were also more likely to be absent, were less satisfied with their jobs, and more likely to want to quit. However, call centers do not have to be stressful workplaces that damage workers’ health. Good management practices that invest in skills, give workers more control over how they talk with customers, and use monitoring information to develop rather than discipline workers all can improve the workplace climate and reduce stress and burnout. Experience with outsourcing and fears of future outsourcing were also correlated with stress: suggesting that commitments to job security and in-sourcing work may also contribute to improved worker well-being

Regulating AI at work: labour relations, automation, and algorithmic management

Recent innovations in artificial intelligence (AI) have been at the core of massive technological changes that are transforming work. AI is now widely used to automate business processes and replace labour-intensive tasks while changing the skill demands for those that remain. AI-based tools are also deployed to invasively monitor worker conduct and to automate HR management processes. Through the dual lens of comparative labour law and employment relations research, the articles in this special issue of Transfer investigate the role of collective bargaining and government policy in shaping strategies to deploy new digital and AI-based technologies at work. Together, they give new insight into the conditions for encouraging broadly shared benefits from technological innovation while mitigating harm to workers and society. The first section of this issue includes articles comparing union and policy responses to AI at the national level. De Stefano and Taes draw on research in eight EU countries to examine the risks of AI and automated decision-making systems, and union and regulatory strategies to address these risks. Collins and Atkinson discuss the intersection between legal frameworks, collective bargaining, and employers’ algorithmic management choices in ‘post-Brexit Britain’. Krzywdzinski et al. analyse how these issues play out in the more strongly regulated German system, discussing not only the risks to workers, but also how worker voice helps address the challenges management faces in implementing AI at work. Hassel and Özkiziltan also focus on Germany, but they present a more differentiated analysis of how effective responses may differ depending on the type of risk AI poses for work. Molina et al. conclude this section with a broader comparative analysis of policy and union responses to AI and algorithms in Denmark, Germany, Hungary, and Spain. The articles in the second section are based on comparative case studies, allowing the authors to examine how and why worker representatives’ strategies and bargaining power differ across countries. Doellgast et al. compare union and works council responses to algorithmic management in two telecommunications companies in Germany and Norway. Pulignano et al. examine union strategies toward the linked digital and green transitions in the German and Belgian auto industries. Finally, Garneau et al. compare union responses to digitalisation in aerospace manufacturing in Wallonia, Denmark, and Quebec. These three articles show that unions and works councils had most influence over technology-related decisions when they could draw on formal bargaining rights and encompassing collective agreements; as well as a network of intermediary institutions that support knowledge and strategy development and exchange. Together, the articles make a strong case that efforts to better regulate the use of AI and algorithms at work are likely to be most effective where they are underpinned by, and supportive of, social dialogue. Individual legal protections are blunt instruments without mechanisms that also strengthen worker voice in, and oversight over, how technologies are implemented. Collective labour rights are the most effective tools to give workers real voice in the distribution of benefits or costs from the AI- and data-driven ‘digital revolution’. The articles also suggest specific lessons for unions and policy-makers seeking to develop broader strategies to engage with AI and digitalisation at work. We hope that they contribute to these crucial endeavours, by providing both an analytical base and comparative examples to support these strategies