Caroline Murphy

Organising non‐standard workers: union recruitment in the Irish care sector

In 2004, Irelands largest union initiated its most comprehensive organising campaign to date, resulting in 12,000 care workers being organised. This article explores how unions can sustain campaigns among a dispersed workforce, and how public support and worker commitment can be leveraged to achieve structural changes in an emerging sector.

The unintended consequences of role-modelling behaviour in female career progression

Purpose Much of the literature identifies the positive nature of role models in career progression. The purpose of this paper is to take the contrary perspective and explore whether role-modelling behaviour of senior female managers can be unintentionally interpreted as negative, with an associated negative impact on career progression decisions of female managers. Design/methodology/approach To address this issue the authors took a grounded theory approach and 30 in-depth interviews were conducted with female middle-level managers in a wide range of Irish organisations. Findings The results of the interviews illustrate that role-modelling behaviour has the potential to negatively, rather than positively affect female career progression choices. Practical implications The unintended consequences of role-modelling behaviour of senior female managers highlights both the concept of negative role-modelling behaviour and identifies its impact on female managerial career progression. Originality/value This paper offers new insights into the construction of the global role model by introducing two new elements – the realistic role model and the departed role model.

Gender, Age, and Labour Market Experiences

Labour market demographics in much of the industrialised world are changing; workforces are ageing (Truxillo and Fraccaroli 2013), while at the same time, the workforce participation of women is increasing (Thevenon 2009). Such changes mean that the workforce has become more diverse. Linked with that, organisational interest in, and awareness of, the need for diversity management and equality has also increased as the impact of stereotyping and unequal treatment of particular groups is increasingly understood. Stereotyping and biased decision-making on the basis of an individual’s characteristics (e.g. age or gender) can have a profound impact on their labour market and workplace experiences. Furthermore, the stereotyping of particular groups plays a significant role in occupational segregation (both horizontal and vertical). While gender equality in the workplace has received significant attention for some time, and a rich body of literature exists on gender and labour market experiences, much less attention has focused on the impact of the combination of gender and age on worker’s labour market experiences during their working lives.

Fear and Leadership in Union Organizing Campaigns

This article adopts a mobilization framework to examine the crucial actions of workplace activists in overcoming fear of employer reprisal during union organizing campaigns in hostile environments. The article explores fear as part of the organizing process in two ways; first, we examine how fear can act as a stimulus for workplace activists to take action in an attempt to overcome the source of that fear. Second, we examine fear as an inhibiting factor in organizing, whereby the presence of fear hinders individuals from taking action. Using qualitative data from interviews conducted with workplace activists across a variety of campaigns in Ireland, this article examines the process through which workplace activists conquer their own sense of fear and undertake the task of mobilizing colleagues toward collective action in pursuit of union representation amid fear of employer reprisal.

Organising precarious workers: Can a public campaign overcome weak grassroots mobilisation at workplace level?

This article examines union efforts to recruit and mobilise precarious workers in a hostile environment. Formidable obstacles confront organisers’ attempts to mobilise workers to engage in collective action at workplace level in the Irish hotel sector. After an initial grassroots organising campaign, the Services Industrial Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU) adopted a public campaign as an alternative strategy to secure improvements in pay and working conditions in the sector. Our findings indicate that the union’s inability to create a sense of collective identity among workers or establish strong support for union organisation at workplace level was due to a combination of external economic factors and challenges at this level. In the absence of such support, the impact of a public union campaign is less widely felt by employers. We evaluate the extent to which this type of campaign can substitute for weak grassroots mobilisation and provide a sustainable basis for union presence in the sector.

Tripartite Responses to Young Workers and Precarious Employment in the European Union

Youth unemployment has long been a challenge for industrialised countries and has become a policy focus since the 1980s (Bell and Blanchflower 2011). While the rate of youth unemployment in many countries eased in the early part of this century, this progress was erased by the onset of the global financial crisis in 2007 (Arpaia and Curci 2010). Young people are now twice as likely to be unemployed compared to the general population (Choudhry et al. 2012). Young workers in Asia, Africa and the USA may experience similar employment issues, but this chapter focuses on Europe because of the particularly dramatic effect of the crisis on youth unemployment. Further, the variety of contemporary political economies allows for the examination of differing institutional responses to the young worker crisis and offers important social and political insights for other regions on how to address such issues.

Formal and informal long term care work: policy conflict in a liberal welfare state

Purpose The undervaluing of care work, whether conducted informally or formally, has long been subject to debate. While much discussion, and indeed reform has centred on childcare, there is a growing need, particularly in countries with ageing populations, to examine how long-term care (LTC) work is valued. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the way in which employment policies (female labour market participation, retirement age, and precarious work) and social policies (care entitlements and benefits/leave for carers) affect both informal carers and formal care workers in a liberal welfare state with a rapidly ageing population. Design/methodology/approach Drawing the adult worker model the authors use the existing literature on ageing care and employment to examine the approach of a liberal welfare state to care work focusing on both supports for informal carers and job quality in the formal care sector. Findings The research suggests that employment policies advocating increased labour participation, delaying retirement and treating informal care as a form of welfare are at odds with LTC strategies which encourage informal care. Furthermore, the latter policy acts to devalue formal care roles in an economic sense and potentially discourages workers from entering the formal care sector. Originality/value To date research investigating the interplay between employment and LTC policies has focused on either informal or formal care workers. In combining both aspects, we view informal and formal care workers as complementary, interdependent agents in the care process. This underlines the need to develop social policy regarding care and employment which encompasses the needs of each group concurrently.

The role of the state in shaping zero hours work in an atypical liberal market economy

Zero hours work typifies work where there are no guaranteed hours offered by the employer. This article examines the relationship between the state and the emergence of zero hours work in an atypical liberal market economy, Ireland. Based on interviews with informed stakeholders with a focus on four sectors – retail, health, education and accommodation/food – the article concludes that the actions of the state have created a weak regulatory environment that has facilitated the emergence of zero hours work. The findings are discussed with a theoretical frame using the concepts of accumulation and legitimation.

Occupations, age and gender: Men and women’s earnings in the Irish labour market:

While many studies investigate gender wage disparities, few have examined the impact of gender, education, part-time working and sector on earnings for men and women across different occupational groups and for different age groups. The purpose of this article is to undertake a more nuanced approach to further our understanding of the gender pay difference between men and women in different occupations in order to tackle and close this gap. The study’s findings suggest that the labour market is segmented into primary and secondary jobs. Additionally, the earnings returns for education are generally lower for women compared to men and women appear to fare better in the public sector in terms of a lower earnings gap for full-time and part-time employees and higher returns for education compared to women working in the private sector. The article concludes with a discussion of the policy implications.