Date: Sat, 08 Feb 1997 08:40:27 +1000
From: sjwright-AT-vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au (Steve Wright)
Subject: postscript to Anne Gray's Casualisation paper


Hi all.

A month or so ago I mentioned Anne Gray's paper on casualisation in _Common
Sense_ 17 (December 1995).

I will soon have it up as a web page.

In the meantime, Anne has added a postscript. Since it stands on its own, I
have attached it below.

Steve


_____________
POSTSCRIPT February 1997

Since I wrote this paper in the autumn of 1995, the face of
`flexploitation', especially in the UK, has become clearer and
more disturbing. It has been highlighted by the Liverpool
dockers' dispute, which began in September 1995 and has since
attracted solidarity action by dockers/longshoremen all over the
world (John Pilger, November 1996). Eighty men working for a
private sub-contractor of the harbour company were sacked for
refusing to work overtime at a rate of pay they rejected. A
further 329 employees of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company
itself (still partly state owned) were sacked ostensibly for
engaging in `illegal secondary action', that is, refusing to
cross the picket line of the sacked eighty. When the harbour
company's men sought to return to work, they found their jobs had
been taken by casual workers at much lower wages. Later, some of
the sacked men were offered, but refused, new individual
contracts on worse conditions than before.

A second example of long-established unionised workers being
replaced by cheaper, non-union staff on short-term contract comes
>from the west London suburbs, where a strike picket has continued
since October 1995. The Hillingdon Hospital cleaners and catering
workers were sacked after refusing to sign a new employment
contract which envisaged a pay cut of more than 25%, with
abolition of pension rights, unsocial hours allowances, and
employer sick pay. Their places have been taken by agency
workers, few of whom are said to be interested in joining the
union.


A year later (September 1996) 350 furniture workers were sacked
after striking at the Magnet Kitchens factory in Darlington (NE
England). A pay rise had been offered to 60% of the workforce,
with no rise for the rest for the fourth year running. The
company is thought by the strikers to have spent more on security
guards during the dispute than it would have done on the demanded
pay rise over a decade. Getting rid of the union appeared to be
more important than saving money.

These examples suggest a more sinister purpose for some
employers' use of short-term contracts than feeling their way out
of recession or cutting fixed labour costs. Temporary workers are
found to be less likely to join unions than those who have job
security. Union membership increases with length of service. The
UK Labour Force Survey shows that in 1993 only 8% of women and
12% of men in casual or seasonal jobs were union members,
compared to 20% of women and 25% of men in other temporary
categories. By contrast, amongst full-time permanent workers 39%
of women and 41% of men were union members (Labour Research, Feb.
1996, p. 18). In manufacturing industry, many part-time and
temporary workers are hired on non-union contracts (Potter 1987).
There are also examples of employers recognising a union on
condition that a proportion of the workforce should be on
temporary contracts excluded from collective bargaining
procedures - a kind of internalisation of the `reserve army'
within the firm (Labour Research, November 1985, p. 277). A
variant is what Fords have done in the USA - which is what
Ford's, according to a recent press report, now plan to do at
their UK Halewood plant. Existing employees of Ford in the USA
got a no redundancy guarantee and a pay rise in return for
accepting that any new workers would be paid less than existing
ones doing the same job (Guardian, 18.1.97, G2 page 3).

Phasing out of long-established unionised workers, and replacing
them by `non-tenured' workers who are less likely to become
organised, let alone militant, threatens to become a widespread
strategy. At worst they can be sacked, possibly after provoking
them to strike. At best, they can be guaranteed secure jobs for
a while, provided they will allow new workers to be recruited on
worse terms. Such actions are encouraged by the availability of
a large pool of unemployed who are subject to increasingly strict
job-seeking discipline.

As late as 1995, the evidence for a definite shift in employers'
hiring strategies towards temporary or fixed term contracts was
still somewhat patchy, with some commentators in the UK
maintaining that it was mainly a cyclical trend. More recently,
a survey of 2000 businesses in the UK (IES, 1995, summarised by
DfEE, 1996) has suggested that some employers are
`developing...specific strategies for recruiting from certain
sectors of the labour market on renewable fixed-term contracts'.
Giving workers a trial for a permanent job was mentioned as a
reason for hiring on temporary contracts by 37% of employers in
the metal and mineral extraction sector. In banking, the shift
to telephone based client contact was given as a reason for the
huge growth of temporary contracts (which grew over 30% in that
sector in the year to spring 1995, according to the EU Labour
Force Survey in the UK). Union commentaries suggest that
particularly in banking and public administration, the current
use of fixed term and temporary staff represents a long-term
change in personnel policy (Labour Research, February 1996,
p.18).


Suddenly, insecurity at work has become a national preoccupation.
The worst affected are those who have recently been unemployed.
New official statistics on the work histories of unemployed
people have found that 30% of those who get a job after being
unemployed have to claim benefit once more within 13 weeks, and
52% have lost their job again after 39 weeks (Employment Trends,
October 1996). Most unemployed people now do not get back into
full-time permanent employment - they become permanently
casualised, stuck in temporary or part-time work which is low
paid and often not unionised. Potential employment for those out
of work is characterised by lower wages and hours than a typical
job and is far more likely to be short term (Gregg and Wadsworth,
1996). Only 30% of all new hirings are for full-time permanent
work, and only 20% of jobs entered by the unemployed take this
form.

Flexibilisation of the workforce implies also the need for
flexibilisation of the unemployed - a change in their attitudes
and expectations is required to induce them to take the low paid
jobs which result from the abolition of wages councils, and the
increasing number of temporary and part-time jobs. The changes
in unemployment benefit regulations and systems for enforcing
jobseeker discipline which have been introduced during the last
decade have become a powerful engine for obtaining acceptance of
`flexibilised' vacancies.


The Jobseekers' Allowance regime, introduced in October 1996,
further tightens the screws on the unemployed in Britain. The
latest in a long line of measures reaching back to the
introduction of Restart interviews in 1986, it brings heavier
sanctions for refusing available vacancies and goes together with
an extension of Project Work, the UK workfare scheme, from a
small-scale pilot scheme to a major national programme for those
out of work at least two years. As with other schemes of the
`workfare' variety, a major effect of threatening claimants that
they will have to work in a job of the state's choosing for not
much more than benefit is to deter people from continuing their
claim; almost any job is better than a workfare scheme.
`Workfare' is growing internationally. The Clinton regime has
extended `workfare' provisions in the USA. In France, the
proportion of welfare recipients required to seek work is
increasing. In Germany, new jobs at sub-normal wages are being
created for the unemployed, who are forced to accept them or lose
benefit.

Advocates of the `social chapter' of the Maastricht treaty should
note that the labour protection traditions of some major EU
countries are now being undermined by workfare type measures for
the unemployed. Alongside the valuable directives on equal rights
for part-time workers, limits on working time, family leave and
consultation with employees, the EU embraces labour market and
macroeconomic policies which will make it gradually more
difficult for trade unions to protect and enforce workers'
rights. Deregulation of labour markets is now seen as an
important way to reduce wage pressure at any given level of
unemployment, and thus make it easier to meet the inflation and
public spending targets of the Maastricht treaty. Flexibilisation
is supposed to keep costs down and also to keep unemployment
down. For example in Portugal, annualised hours, temporary
contracts and multi-skilling are explicit policies of the new
socialist government, designed to help meet the so-called
convergence criteria for European monetary union. French public
sector workers are losing their guarantees of job security, also
to meet the convergence criteria.

The effects of flexibilisation on workers' struggles

The overall effect of flexibilisation is to create a more
difficult environment for workers to improve or defend their
conditions. Even where the flexibilisation agenda does not
involve a direct attack on trade union rights or minimum wage
regulation, part-time and temporary work make it more difficult
for trade unions to sustain membership and organisational
strength. The stricter discipline imposed on the unemployed,
together with the more frequent exposure of workers to
unemployment if they have no long-term job security, makes the
unemployed more fearful of refusing a job and existing workers
more fearful of losing one. This enables employers to enforce
stricter labour discipline and deters workers from risking
conflict whether about their right to join a trade union, or to
be active in one, or about asserting their contractual rights.
There is some evidence of an increase in unpaid overtime. This
may be easier for employers to impose on those who have no
security of tenure, although obviously the general climate of a
`buyers' labour market is also conducive to imposing longer
hours.

The 1980s have seen a striking decline in trade union membership
and union density, both in the UK and in most other OECD
countries (OECD, 1991). In the UK, this has continued apace in
the 1990s (Sweeney, 1996). The fall in density has been largest
in countries which have seen a proliferation of temporary or
part-time work during the same period, such as the USA, Spain,
the Netherlands and France as well as the UK.  Declining
membership in Britain, where union recognition is not a legal
right, has been accompanied by derecognition of unions in many
workplaces (Disney et al, 1995; Beaumont, 1992; Gall and McKay,
1994). Trade unions have historically been stronger in
manufacturing and in the public sector than in private service
industries (Waddington, 1992), and in large workplaces than in
small ones (OECD, op cit, pages 117-8; Labour Research, May 1995,
page 16). Thus, sector shift in employment, including the
declining size of the public sector and the replacement of
manufacturing industry by service sector jobs, with the
associated shift to smaller workplaces, accounts for part of the
change in union density (OECD, 1991, Waddington, 1992; Mason and
Bain, 1993). But the sector shift factor contributes little to
explaining derecognitions (Disney et al, op cit); less than 15%
of derecognitions can be explained by sector composition changes,
and more than half of derecognitions in the 1980s occurred within
the declining manufacturing sector. New establishments are less
likely to recognise unions than older ones; although one factor
is that they are more likely to be in the service sector, another
is a higher proportion of part-time employees (Millward, 1994).

Independently of the sector shift and establishment size factors,
several writers have found that the increase in part-time work
as a proportion of all UK employment can help to explain the
decline in trade union density (Mason and Bain, op cit; OECD, op
cit.; Sinclair, op. cit; Beaumont and Harris, 1995). Sinclair's
sample survey found that only 58% of part-time women workers were
union members, compared to 77% of female full-timers and 85% of
male full-timers. There are several reasons why part-time workers
are more difficult to unionise; they may need to return home to
care for dependents when not actually working, which is a
constraint on attending meetings; they are in the workplace for
a shorter, more intensive period than full-timers, and may have
less meal-break periods during which they can talk to colleagues
or union representatives. Disney et al. (op. cit.) found that the
percentage of part-time workers was one of the main factors
explaining derecognitions in the period 1984-90.

Temporary workers are found to be less likely to join unions than
those who have job security (Beaumont and Harris,op. cit.;
Sinclair 1995). Perceived permanence of job was one of the four
main attitudinal factors determining the `propensity' to join a
union. Union membership increases with length of service,
according to Labour Force Survey data (Corcoran, 1995).  Beaumont
and Harris found that union density is inversely related to the
growth of temporary jobs within a workplace.

The Common Sense paper noted that one way for a union to respond
to `flexploitation' is itself to become the supplier of labour.
I am indebted to Stephen Wright for having led me to some
interesting e-mail discussions of this idea. Curtis Price
(cansv-AT-igc.apc.org) pointed out that as well as the `labour
cooperatives' run by Italian agricultural workers in the last
century, there were some parallel examples in urban Italy in the
1980s, through a movement known as the `organised unemployed'.
He also notes that when French `bourses de travail' (labour
exchanges) were set up by the early syndicalist movement, it may
have drawn that movement in a reformist direction.  Another
interesting example was mentioned by Harald Beyer-Arnesen
(haraldba-AT-sn.no). Swedish and Norwegian workers in construction,
mining and lumbering managed to raise minimum wages considerably
during the 1916-1920 period by a similar system of worker-run
labour exchanges. The potential role of hiring halls and labour
cooperatives continues to be debated, not least amongst the
sacked Liverpool dockers (see Dockers Charter, forthcoming issue
March 1997). These sort of debates and exchanges surpass the
`workers' enquiry' notion put forward in the original Common
Sense paper.




Pilger, John; article in the Guardian, 23.11.96

Balchin, Alison;  Part-time workers in the multiple retail
sector; small change from employment protection legislation;
Employee Relations, vol. 16, no. 7, 1994, pp 43

P. Beaumont, Annual Review article 1991, British Journal of
Industrial Relations vol. 30, no. 1, March 1992

P. Beaumont and R. Harris, Union de-recognition and declining
union density in Britain, Industrial and labor relations review,
vol. 48, no. 3, 1995

Beatson, Mark, Labour Market Flexibility, Employment Department
Research Series no. 48, April 1995

Beyer-Arnesen, Harald, internet communication from
<haraldba-AT-sn.no>, January 1997

Louise Corcoran, Trade union membership and recognition; 1994
Labour Force Survey data, Employment Gazette, May 1995

Daniel, W.W., The Unemployed Flow, Policy Studies Institute,
London, 1990

Department for Education and Employment, Skills and Enterprise
Briefing issue 5/96, November 1996; Temporary Work and the Labour
Market (summarising Institute of Employment Studies, Temporary
Work and the Labour Market, 1995

Richard Disney, Amanda Gosling and Stephen Machin, British Unions
in decline; determinants of the 1980s fall in union recognition,
Industrial and Labor Relations Review, vol. 48, no. 3, 1995

Dockers Charter, monthly magazine of the Liverpool dockers'
dispute, available from Merseyside Port Shop Stewards, c/o TGWU,
Transport House, Islington, Liverpool L3 8EQ
Gregor Gall and Sonia McKay,  Trade union derecognition in
Britain 1988-94, British Journal of Industrial Relations vol. 32,
no. 3, 1994

Anne Gray, The flexibilisation of labour and the attack on living
standards, Common Sense, no. 18, December 1995

Paul Gregg and Jonathan Wadsworth,  A short history of labour
turnover, job tenure and job insecurity, 1975-1993, Oxford Review
of Economic Policy, vol. 11, no. 1, 1996


Bob Mason and Peter Bain,  The determinants of trade union
membership in Britain; a survey of the literature, Industrial and
Labour Relations Review, vol. 46, no. 2, Jan. 1993, pp 332-350


OECD, Employment Outlook, 1991, 1992 and 1993

Terry Potter, Flexible Labour, Temporary Workers and the TU
response, Low Pay Unit 1987)

Price, Curtis; internet newsgroup communication from
<cansv-AT-igc.apc.org>, January 1997

Diane Sinclair, The importance of sex for the propensity to
unionise, British Journal of Industrial Relations vol. 33, no.
2, June 1995

Kate Sweeney, Membership of trade unions in 1994; an analysis
based on information from the Certification Officer, Labour
Market Trends, Feb. 1996

Trades Union Congress, Job insecurity and the recovery, 1995

Trades Union Congress, Task Group on Part-time work; Part - time
work in Britain, 1994

Jeremy Waddington, Trade union membership in Britain 1980-7;
unemployment and restructuring, British Journal of Industrial
Relations vol. 30, no. 2, June 1992


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