Global Trends in Flexible Labour

This collection of essays examines the worldwide growth of flexible labour. Flexible labour is conventionally thought of as part-time, temporary and self-employment. However, it is also often taken to include a host of other types of work, such as freelancing, subcontracting, outsourcing, homeworking, teleworking, franchising, zero-hours contracts, fixed-term contracts, seasonal working, flexi-time, consultancy work and many more. A common feature of all these types of employment is that they diverge from the pattern which became regarded in mid-twentieth century advanced capitalist economies as the ‘norm’. Such ‘standard’ jobs and careers were defined as full-time, permanent, open-ended and secure. These rested upon a formal contract of employment, a range of legally binding terms and conditions, and other obligations placed on the employer and the state.

Temporalities of work have been brought into new focus by the restructuring of employment relations. What is normal any more about a ‘normal working day’? In many countries, the social institution of the normal working week took decades if not centuries to establish. In the now classic formula of E.P. Thompson: ‘Attention to time in labour depends in large degree upon the need for the synchronization of labour’ (Thompson, 1991:370). From the current perspective, this formula on time now itself appears to be one viewed through the limited optic of industrialized, factory-based, male labour. His construction of time leaves all other temporalities as ‘outside time’, un- or non-temporalised.

The following chapter charts a particular reading of the literature concerning people who telework, that is, people who perform paid work from home at a distance from clients, and who employ information and telecommunications technologies in their businesses (e.g. computers, faxes, modems, ‘smart’ phones). I want to argue that rather than being an elitist, statistically insignificant aberration,¹ telework is an important juncture in a network of sociological concerns that circulate in the academic literature. These include the connections between the global economy and the spatial dispersal of labour, the dynamism of information and communications technologies and their applications, feminist analyses of gendered identities and practices as they are enacted in employment, partnering and parenting, and indeed, a foundational narrative of sociology itself concerning the separation of ‘home’ and ‘work’² during the Industrial Revolution.

In the United States we hear much about ‘family friendly’ workplace initiatives. There are more dual-earner couples and female-headed households bringing to the fore work/family conflicts. Employers are said to be responding with more ‘family friendly’ working time arrangements. As jobs become more flexible and work schedules more diverse, it is alleged that the ‘factory clock’ is in the process of becoming more aligned with the cycles of workers’ personal lives. Moreover, it is argued that workers have not had to pay for these more desirable work arrangements through lower compensation or poorer benefit packages.

This chapter sets out to explore empirically three themes. First, to what extent has there been growth in flexible or non-standard forms of employment since 1979 in the UK, distinguishing carefully between part-time, temporary and self-employment? Second, to what extent are people working in non-standard forms of employment voluntarily and what can be said about the ‘quality’ of different forms of employment? Third, is non-standard employment more prevalent in the UK, with its relatively less regulated labour market, compared with other advanced industrial countries? Are there any links between the prevalence of non-standard employment and the degree of regulation of the labour market?

Employment insecurity is hardly a new phenomenon, nor is it a new means for extending employer control over the labour process. What is new, in Australia at least, is the extent and speed associated with the deregulation of employment conditions and the associated erosion of standard employment arrangements. The centralised employment regulatory regime, based on industry/occupational awards, so long a characteristic of Australian industrial relations, is being dismantled. In conjunction with this deregulatory process the security of employment is also diminishing rapidly through the growth in non-standard employment arrangements together with the decline in trade union presence at the workplace. More workers find themselves located outside of the employment regulatory regime, outside of trade uruion representation and in forms of marginal and insecure employment.

This chapter reviews evidence relating to the extent and type of non-standard, or atypical, work being done in five European countries — Denmark, Germany, France, Italy and the UK, during the period 1985–95. Five countries were selected as the largest number which could be considered in one chapter, and to represent both a variety of labour market situations and a geographical spread. ‘Non-standard’ work is paid work which is neither full-time according to national definitions (usually 35+ hours per week) nor permanent in that the employee has a contract of employment for an indefinite period (see Fevre, 1991; Pollert, 1991 for a discussion). The chapter seeks to locate the trends observed in their wider social context.

The post-war economic performance of the East Asian newly industrialised economies — Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan — has been remarkable. This so-called ‘East Asian miracle’ has sparked off a race among observers — academic and journalist — to find the winning formula behind their success. Many different accounts have been offered, including macro-level analysis of global economic restructuring, micro-level discussion of economic culture, the role of the capitalist developmental state and the forces of the market.¹ Yet, despite the fact that research on East Asian development has come to constitute a growing industry of its own incorporating a wide array of research areas, few attempts have been made to look at the organisation of production in these societies.² This neglect is problematic and reflects the lacunae in the existing literature on East Asian development. Very often, the focus of discussion is placed on mechanisms external to the organisation of economic activity, such as the developmental state, economic culture, global division of labour or the market. The implication is that one can unravel the secrets of economic success in the East Asian economies without knowing the organisational basis of the economic activities on which competitiveness rests.

Japanese corporations became so competitive in the global market in the 1980s that their example generated the ‘Japanization’ of management throughout the world. However, in the 1990s they have faced serious challenges. Corporations in other Asian countries like Korea, Taiwan and China are catching up. There has been a major appreciation of the yen and corporations in North America and Europe have become fiercely competitive. Moreover, Japanese corporations are facing internal problems, such as the ‘hollowing out’ of Japanese industries. In the 1990s, while overseas investment by Japanese corporations has been increasing, particularly in Asian countries, the production of Japanese manufacturing industry decreased remarkably and has not yet fully recovered. This trend has a critical influence on small and medium sized enterprises which provide large corporations with intermediate products. These conditions have weakened the performance of the Japanese economy in general. In 1996, unemployment rose to its highest level since the end of the Second World War (3.4 per cent).