Documents Turnbull, Peter 22 results

"In this article, we honour David Marsden's most important contribution: his Theory of Employment Systems (ToES). Grounded in standard economic analysis, ToES sets out to explain how a relatively small number of employment systems solve fundamental problems associated with open-ended employment relationships (flexibility and opportunism). In the period since its publication, the employment relationship remains the dominant form of engaging workers; however, employment arrangements in the UK and elsewhere have been transformed, and employment systems in many settings more closely resemble configurations of rules that ToES predicted would prove unstable. While ToES does not explicitly integrate a number of important dimensions that define all aspects of employment systems, we show why Marsden's core theoretical insights retain analytical purchase as an explanatory framework. That said, taking a more sociologically and historically informed approach to understanding contemporary employment systems is required to comprehend the diversity of employment systems and how they evolve in the twenty-first century."

"Employment relations in Europe today differ from how they were prior to the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, as key terms and conditions (e.g., wages) and sectors of economic activity (e.g., platform work and the green economy) are now subject to direct political intervention by the European institutions. Transnational (horizontal) competition within the Single European Market has long provided a context for national employment relations in Europe, and various national institutions impacted workers' rights and conditions of employment. Under the new economic governance (NEG) regime triggered by the financial crisis, political (vertical) intervention in employment relations created strong pressure toward the commodification of labor. The COVID pandemic involved policymaking in the opposite (decommodifying) direction. That said, and as the articles in this special issue clearly demonstrate, commodifying pressures are still strong, and the full realization of Social Europe is arguably as elusive as ever."

"In a single European aviation market that is open to innovative new business strategies, most notably the (ultra) low-cost model developed by Ryanair, nonterritorial forms of sovereignty have been used to redefine employment relations, exert control over labor, and extract surplus value. Although aviation unions recognize the need to shift scale from a predominantly local focus on their national (flag) airline, they have yet to develop effective strategies at the supranational level as low-fare airlines continually extend their geographical reach in the open skies over Europe and beyond. Union strategies are considered at different levels (national and EU) as well as the different processes to enact these strategies (technocratic and democratic). Unions need to develop a Euro-democratization strategy if they are to arrest the anti-unionism and social dumping of European “sky pirates” such as Ryanair and Norwegian Air Shuttle."

"As product and labour markets within the European Union are liberalized and deregulated, industrial relations regulation appears to shift from national to sector and company levels. Nonetheless, company-based initiatives such as management-labour partnerships are still more likely to flourish in coordinated rather than liberal market economies. This is demonstrated in this article by a contextualized comparison of three national airlines. While Lufthansa has been able to develop an innovative, long-term competitive strategy, both British Airways and Aer Lingus have been permitted, if not compelled, to pursue short-term, cost-minimizing strategies inimical to their management-labour partnerships."