Annika Schönauer

Temporary Work in Coordinated Market Economies: Evidence from Front-Line Service Workplaces

The growing use of temporary contracts in Europe raises the question of whether long-term employment relations are eroding in coordinated market economies, where protective regulations are historically strong. This paper, using data from establishment-level surveys conducted in 2003–2005, examines the institutional and organizational factors that have shaped the extent of use of temporary contracts in call centers in six European countries: Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, and Sweden. While differences in regulatory regimes appear to have influenced employer behavior in some cases, the exceptions are striking, as the countries with the most stringent restrictions on temporary workers were among the heaviest users of such workers. By contrast, firm-level strategies that retained work in-house and invested in work force skills and training were consistent predictors of the use of long-term contracts as opposed to temporary ones.

Divide and Serve: The Labour Process in Service Value Chains and Networks

This article discusses various aspects of labour processes in services characterized by value chains that cross organizational, company, regional or national boundaries. Starting from value chain analysis it first addresses the main conceptual issues in the investigation of service value chains and networks from a labour process perspective. Second, it highlights three particular themes in the analysis of the labour process in services and illustrates these with empirical examples: modularization of services and codification of knowledge, organizational flexibility and flexible employment, and the concurrence of co-operation and competition. In the conclusion, the article sketches significant characteristics of services and service work that need to come into focus in value chain and network analysis from a labour process perspective.

Collective Bargaining and Temporary Contracts in Call Centre Employment in Austria, Germany and Spain:

This study compares the effectiveness of bargaining institutions in regulating temporary contracts in Austrian, German and Spanish call centres. Unions’ capacities to bargain over the expansion and conditions of temporary contract use are shaped by bargaining structures and state regulation of various temporary contract types. National capacities to regulate the use of outsourcing and coordinate collective agreements with workplace bargaining are particularly effective in limiting the use of temporary contracts. Nonetheless, cross-national analysis indicates that employers are adept at exploiting very specific forms of temporary contracts in order to circumvent regulations and evade collective bargaining.

The Production of ‘Placelessness’: Digital Service Work in Global Value Chains

This chapter explores the spatial dynamics of value chains and networks, the delocalisation and relocation of digital work and the degree of its local embeddedness. The main aim is to argue that ICT-intensive business functions and jobs are not as such highly mobile or independent from place. Rather, such features are usually the result of lengthy restructuring and reorganisation projects or processes in which ‘placelessness’ is being produced. We examine value chain dynamics and the delocalisation and relocation of digital work, drawing on three cases: software development, shared service centres and business process outsourcing, and crowdsourcing via online-platforms.

European diversity of work sharing as a crisis measure: The experiences of Austria, Belgium, France and the Netherlands: New Developments and Beyond

‘Work sharing’ is a labour market instrument devised to distribute a reduced volume of work to the same (or similar) number of workers over a diminished period of working time in order to avoid redundancies. This fascinating and timely study presents the concept and history of work sharing and explores the complexities and trade-offs involved in its use as both a strategy for preserving jobs and a policy for increasing employment.