After the Long Boom: The Reconfiguration of Work and Labour in the Public Sector

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-168
Author(s):  
Bob Carter
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
First Century ◽  
Parallel Analysis ◽  
The Public ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
State And Local ◽  
The 1960S

This response to Huw Beynon’s paper, ‘After the Long Boom: Living with Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century’ in HSIR 40 (2019), offers a parallel analysis of the fortunes of labour in the public sector. Among Beynon’s central observations, drawing on Karl Marx and Harry Braverman, was the continued reproduction of ‘unskilled’ and degraded labour. A parallel process, de-professionalizing occupations through the separation of conception and execution, has been a feature of the almost continual restructuring of state and local authority organizations and their work practices since the 1960s. This has accelerated in the era of governments committed to neoliberal values and policies. Despite public-sector trade unions having been largely conservative and defensive in their values and practice, a number of factors, both structural and conjunctural, have compelled them to face this new reality and make them the most likely organizations to challenge the expanding reach of neoliberalism. Recognizing these factors provides a possible remedy to the implied pessimism that follows the largely private-sector focus of Beynon’s contribution.

scholarly journals Trade Union Practices in the EU and Latvia: Experience for Eastern Partnership Countries

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-118
Author(s):  
Sergejs Stacenko ◽  
Biruta Sloka
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Eastern Partnership ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Dialogue ◽  
Eastern Partnership Countries ◽  
The Eu

AbstractThe article will show major dimensions in the experience of EU Member States that could be shared with the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries. The framework of the study is the EU concept of trade unions in social dialogue and social partnership in the public sector. This study outlines the concept of social dialogue as a core element of industrial relations and will focus on industrial relations specifically in the public sector. The authors have elaborated the approach to industrial relations and social dialogue taking into account comparative approach to definitions provided by international institutions such as ILO and OECD, as well as institutions in the EU and Latvia. Latvia is also a case study for Eastern Partnership countries as these countries and their trade unions are in a transition period from socialist structures to structures that possess liberal economies. Trade unions in these countries are members of the International Trade Union Confederation. The major transformation that trade unions underwent from being part of the socialist system and becoming an independent institution since Latvia regained independence in 1991 has been studied. The paper discusses the current developments related to the position of Latvian Free Trade Union Federation in the system of decision-making process related to the public administration management. Finally, the prospective role of trade unions in the EU and in Latvia is analysed and possible revitalisation of trade union is discussed. This approach could be applied to the Eastern Partners of the EU.

An Analysis of Workers' Choice between Employment in the Public and Private Sectors

ILR Review ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca M. Blank
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
Probit Model ◽  
Reduced Form ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
State And Local Government ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Employment Sectors

This paper estimates the extent to which workers with different personal characteristics are likely to be employed in the public versus the private sector. The author develops a reduced-form two-way probit model to analyze workers' choice between the two employment sectors, together with a three-way model that breaks this decision down to a choice among private, federal, and state and local government jobs. She estimates these models using May 1979 CPS data. The results show that, other things equal, government employment is preferred by the “protected” groups of veterans, nonwhites, and women. In addition, highly educated and more experienced workers are more likely to choose the public sector. Significant differences are found within the public sector between federal and state-local choices. The results also indicate that sectoral choice is influenced by more than wage comparisons.

The State and Capital Accumulation in Mexico

1978 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. V.K. Fitzgerald
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The State ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Significant Case ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Second World

The economic activities of the state have rightly been regarded as a crucial factor in the remarkably rapid process of capitalist expansion experienced by Mexico in the two decades after the Second World War, and must also be seen as such in the imbalance that has emerged over the last ten years –an imbalance that itself led to an accelerated growth of the public sector. State intervention in the process of capital accumulation during the period of dependent import-substituting industrialization is common to the experience of Latin America as a whole, but in Mexico the scale and scope of this intervention appear to have been greater than elsewhere, generating an important debate over the size of the Mexican public sector in the 1960s, and now providing a significant case to be examined in the light of current discussions as to the relative autonomy of the state in capitalist economies.

Active change strategies for trade unions

2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-252
Author(s):  
Olle Hammarström
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
General Public ◽  
Alternative Strategy ◽  
Change Strategies ◽  
Normal Reaction ◽  
The Public ◽  
Alternative Solutions ◽  
Active Change

Structural change often means major changes in organisation and job losses. The normal reaction from employees is to oppose restructuring and to want to keep things as they are. Rather than just trying to oppose the proposition from management, the union may formulate their own alternative. With two propositions on the table, the negotiations may open up to more alternatives and compromises, as well as more partners and alliances. Consumer groups, the general public and governments are more likely to be supporters if the union has its own proposition. If the unions are not in a position to present alternative solutions, they may at least be able to formulate principles for alternative solutions. Examples of this type of strategy can be found at GM Europe where the unions managed to reduce lay-offs through an alternative strategy. Similar union policies can be found in the public sector in Sweden where unions got support from customers and the general public in resisting cutbacks.

A SURVEY OF THE USE OF GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN ENGLISH LOCAL AUTHORITY IMPACT ASSESSMENTS

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (01) ◽  
pp. 1250006 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. RIDDLESDEN ◽  
A. D. SINGLETON ◽  
T. B. FISCHER
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Spatial Analysis ◽  
Geographic Information Systems ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Geographic Information ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Embedded Gis ◽  
Almost All

Across the public sector, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial analysis are increasingly ubiquitous when making decisions involving people and places. However, historically GIS has not been prevalently applied to the various types of impact assessment. As such, this paper presents findings from a survey conducted in 2011 of 100 local authorities in England to examine how embedded GIS, spatial analysis and visualisation practices are to the process of conducting impact assessments. The results show that despite obvious advantages of applying GIS in these processes, applications employing basic techniques are at best sporadic, and where advanced methods are implemented, these in almost all instances are conducted by external contractors, thus illustrating a significant GIS under capacity within the sampled local authorities studied.

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