The formation and destabilization of the standard employment relationship in Norway

2018 ◽  
pp. 320-338
Author(s):  
Per Bonde Hansen ◽  
Anders Underthun
Keyword(s):  
Employment Relationship ◽  
Standard Employment Relationship

scholarly journals Equality through precarious work regulation: lessons from the domestic work debates in defence of the Standard Employment Relationship

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 507-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deirdre McCann
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Work ◽  
Employment Relationship ◽  
Precarious Work ◽  
Standard Work ◽  
Contractual Arrangements ◽  
Substantive Equality ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
Temporal Dimensions ◽  
Standard Employment Relationship

AbstractPrecarious work is a crucial impediment to substantive equality. This paper examines the regulation of precariousness in the light of two recent trends: the casualisation of employment in the wake of the crisis, and global efforts to regulate domestic work (e.g. ILO Domestic Workers Convention (No 189)). It takes these developments as an opportunity to explore the effective regulation of contemporary labour markets, and in particular the role of the Standard Employment Relationship (SER). The paper returns to two prominent accounts of the SER: Vosko's critique of SER-centrism in non-standard work regulation and Bosch's notion of the flexible-SER. It argues that the domestic work debates confirm the value of a modernised SER in its temporal dimensions. Yet the literature on precarious work tends to focus on regulatory settings in which the standard model remains dominant. The key contemporary challenge is to identify strategies that will embed this model in settings in which it is in decline or was never deep-rooted. Drawing on the notion of ‘reconstructive labour law’, the paper argues for innovative legal mechanisms that prompt the construction of flexibilised SER-type relationships. It concludes, however, that for these strategies to be effective, casualisation must be identified not only in contractual arrangements but also in working-time practices.

scholarly journals The future of the standard employment relationship: Labour law, new institutional economics and old power resource theory

2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 374-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judy Fudge
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
New Institutional Economics ◽  
Employment Relationship ◽  
Resource Theory ◽  
Labour Law ◽  
Manufacturing Firm ◽  
Power Resource ◽  
Power Resource Theory ◽  
Standard Employment Relationship

This article addresses two questions about the standard employment relationship that have become prominent in labour law literature: Does it exacerbate inequality? Is its decline inevitable? The focus is on the second question and emphasizes the extent to which the standard employment relationship was both embedded in, and the outcome of, an institutional ensemble that was fashioned out of the post-war capital–labour compromise in industrialized democracies. The analysis proceeds in three steps. The first is conceptual and stresses the distinctive nature of labour as a fictive commodity, and the recurring regulatory dilemmas that arise in any attempt to institutionalize a labour market. The second step historicizes and contextualizes the employment relationship, emphasizing politics and conflict (power resource theory) over rational choice and coordination (new institutional economics) as the basis for its institutionalization. The emphasis on politics, power and labour leads to the third step, which focuses on how the broad process of financialization influences three key institutions – the large manufacturing firm, the democratic welfare state and autonomous trade unions – that have been crucial for the development of the standard employment relationship.

The Age of Increased Precarious Employment: Origins and Implications

2020 ◽  
pp. 29-48
Author(s):  
Wayne Lewchuk
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Research Group ◽  
Employment Relationship ◽  
Social Implications ◽  
Southern Ontario ◽  
Precarious Employment ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Standard Employment Relationship

This chapter explores why employment rules and norms took the form they did, the prevalence of precarious employment in the labour market today, and the social implications of the era of Increased Precarious Employment. The employment norms associated with the era of Increased Precarious Employment represent one component of a broader shift to a neoliberal form of social organization. The chapter begins by reviewing the factors that led to the transition from the Standard Employment Relationship and the forces that shaped the employment relationship in the era of Increased Precarious Employment. It then examines debates over how to measure the prevalence of the precarious workforce, before considering the impact of precarious employment on households, families, and communities. The chapter looks at the findings of the Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario research group.

Youth Employment, Informality, and Precarity in the Global South

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shailaja Fennell
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Labor Migration ◽  
Global South ◽  
Employment Relationship ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
Market Theory ◽  
Rural Labor ◽  
Increase Productivity ◽  
Standard Employment Relationship

Characteristics of labor markets are often assumed to be universal, when in fact they are peculiar to patterns of employment in Europe and North America. This essay makes these universalist assumptions about labor markets for youth explicit, challenging their foundational claims in relation to trends in parts of the Global South. Urbanization, the Standard Employment Relationship (SER), and the notions of precarity are all analyzed for their Northern biases. The work of early labor market theorist W. Arthur Lewis is then explored, critiquing how his theory was reduced to one aspect—rural labor migration to urban factory work to increase productivity—when it had complex social, political, educational, and policy-related implications. Southern scholars should not be interpreted in terms of their relevance to Northern processes. They should be grappled with on their own terms, in relation to the Southern contexts from which they speak. Finally, an agenda for Southern labor market theory building is offered.

A GLIMPSE INTO THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF LABOUR LAW AND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

2020 ◽  
Vol 551 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-28
Author(s):  
Cristina Mihes
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Employment Relationship ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Labour Law ◽  
Collective Agreements ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
The Future ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
Standard Employment Relationship

This paper seeks to take a look at recent labour law reforms in a number of selected CEE countries, and to examine the manner, in which the equation of standard employment relationship and the dynamics of collective bargaining processes have changed. The 1st section discusses the policy goals as well as drivers of legal changes, which have aff ected and guided recent labour law reforms in the sub-region. External infl uences over shaping of the new policy visions and recovery policies are also examined here. The 2nd section examines recent trends in regulating standard and non-standard employment relationship, as well as the collective agreements as determinants of working conditions and terms of employment. It also analyses the new approaches in the implementation of the guiding principles of collective bargaining, including the autonomy of the parties, and the principle of favourability. Furthermore, the 3rd section seeks to explore what the future looks like by traveling the paths opened by the works of the ILO Global Commission on the Future of Work, with a special focus on the Universal Labour Guarantee. Finally, a number of conclusions are drawn on the basis of the analysed data and policies.

The standard employment relationship in the information society

2004 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 231-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerhard Bosch
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Information Society ◽  
Employment Relationship ◽  
Female Employment ◽  
Spatial Proximity ◽  
Market Regulation ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Standard Employment Relationship

In the view of most authors, the long-established standard employment relationship (SER) has little future in the information society as external structural change comes to replace internal structural change. This article shows that, contrary to these beliefs in most industrialised countries, employment relationships have tended to become more stable in recent years, particularly among skilled workers, for the reason that spatial proximity and close social communication is gaining increasing importance in knowledge-based work. The author identifies the following six different causes underlying improvements or deterioration in the SER: (1) Flexibilisation of product markets, (2) rising female employment rates, (3) combination of education/training and work, (4) rising educational levels among the working population, (5) labour market regulation and deregulation, and (6) the employment situation. Changes in the SER are not being driven solely by the computerisation of production but also by other, very different forces which are at least as significant as technological change. The article concludes with an alternative paradigm taking as its starting point a new balance of internal and external mobility. As an alternative to the "Anglo-Saxon" model of the deregulated labour market, the author proposes a revitalisation of internal and occupational labour markets.

scholarly journals Is Precarious Employment Low Income Employment? The Changing Labour Market in Southern Ontario

Just Labour ◽  
2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wayne Lewchuck ◽  
Stephanie Procyk ◽  
Michelynn Lafleche ◽  
Dan Rosen ◽  
Diane Dyson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Employment Relationship ◽  
Southern Ontario ◽  
Precarious Employment ◽  
Relationship Norms ◽  
Standard Employment Relationship

This paper examines the association between incomeand precariousemployment, how this association is changing and how it is shaped by gender andrace. It explores how precarious employment has spread to even middle incomeoccupations and what this implies for our understanding of contemporary labourmarkets and employment relationship norms. The findings indicate a need to refineour views of who is in precarious employment and aneed to re-evaluate the natureof the Standard Employment Relationship, which we would argue is not onlybecoming less prevalent, but also transitioning into something that is less secure.

scholarly journals Challenges and Contradictions in the ‘Normalising’ of Precarious Work

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-527 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill Rubery ◽  
Damian Grimshaw ◽  
Arjan Keizer ◽  
Mathew Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Social Protection ◽  
Employment Relationship ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Precarious Work ◽  
Protection Systems ◽  
New Vision ◽  
State Subsidies ◽  
Social Protection Systems ◽  
Standard Employment Relationship

Precarious work is increasingly considered the new ‘norm’ to which employment and social protection systems must adjust. This article explores the contradictions and tensions that arise from different processes of normalisation driven by social policies that simultaneously decommodify and recommodify labour. An expanded framework of decommodification is presented that identifies how the standard employment relationship (SER) may be extended and flexibilised to include those in precarious work, drawing examples from a recent study of precarious work across six European countries. These decommodification processes are found to be both partial and, in some cases, coexisting with activation policies that position precarious work as an alternative to unemployment, thereby recommodifying labour. Despite these challenges and contradictions, the article argues that a new vision of SER reform promises greater inclusion than alternative policy scenarios that give up on the regulation of employers and rely on state subsidies to mitigate against precariousness.

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