Chris Forde

‘All that is Solid?’: Class, Identity and the Maintenance of a Collective Orientation amongst Redundant Steelworkers

This article explores the importance of class and collectivism to personal identity, and the role this played during a period of personal and collective crisis created by mass redundancy in the Welsh steel industry. The research findings demonstrate the importance of occupational identity to individual and collective identity formation. The apparent desire to maintain this collective identity acted as a form of resistance to the increased individualization of the post-redundancy experience, but rather than leading to excessive particularism, it served as a mechanism through which class-based thinking and class identity were articulated. It is argued that the continued concern for class identity reflected efforts to avoid submergence in an existence akin to Beck’s (1992) vision of a class-free ‘individualized society of employees’.These findings therefore challenge the notion of the pervasiveness of individualism and the dismissal of class and collective orientations as important influences on identity formation.

Work–life balance and older workers: employees' perspectives on retirement transitions following redundancy

Work-life balance and older workers : Employees’ perspectives on retirement transitions following redundancy

Redundancy as a critical life event moving on from the Welsh steel industry through career change

This article investigates the process of moving on from redundancy in the Welsh steel industry among individuals seeking new careers. It identifies a spectrum of career change experience, ranging from those who had actively planned their career change, prior to the redundancies, to those ‘at a career crossroads’, for whom there were tensions between future projects, present contingencies and past identities. It suggests that the process of moving on from redundancy can be better understood if we are able to identify, not just structural and cultural enablers and constraints but also the temporal dimensions of agency that facilitate or limit transformative action in the context of critical life events. Where individuals are located on the spectrum of career change experience will depend on the balance of enabling and constraining factors across the four aspects considered, namely temporal dimensions of agency, individuals’ biographical experience, structural and cultural contexts.

Contingent work in the UK and Sweden: evidence from the construction industry

This article explores the use of contingent forms of employment in two diverse country contexts—the UK and Sweden—and investigates the influence of changing regulatory and economic conditions over ...

Networks of Support for New Migrant Communities

This article examines the role of support mechanisms for new migrant communities provided by networks of statutory, third-sector and refugee community organisations. The article explores the dynamics of the relationships between support groups, with analysis located in the urban context of NorthTown. The findings point to the possibility of tension between migrant support groups where there is a perceived need to compete over resources or political influence. Moreover, it is argued that there is a risk that institutional goals of organisational sustainability may take precedence over substantive goals of support provision. The ability of support groups to assert agency in terms of strategic responses to structural constraints on sustainability is explored. It is argued that an organising logic based on the creation of a political community within the new migrant population can prove more sustainable than contingent communities based on commonalities of language or nationality.

Built on Shifting Sands: Changes in Employers’ Use of Contingent Labour in the UK Construction Sector

There has been widespread interest across various national contexts in employers’ use of contingent forms of labour. The tendency to conflate different contract types into catch-all categories has increasingly given way to recognition of the differences between forms of labour. Despite this, systematic comparisons of employers’ attitudes to different forms of labour remain an underdeveloped area of research. Drawing on an original survey of the UK construction sector this paper offers new insight into employers’ attitudes to different forms of contingent labour and tracks changes in their use. Uniquely, the analysis of movement between different forms of labour goes beyond approaches that focus on the dichotomy between direct and contingent labour to trace a more complex pattern of movement between the different contingent forms. This more nuanced picture of changing patterns of employers’ use of contingent labour suggests an area for development in future research.

A mutual gains perspective on workplace partnership: Employee outcomes and the mediating role of the employment relations climate

Recent years have witnessed increased research on the role of workplace partnership in promoting positive employment relations. However, there has been little quantitative analysis of the partnership experiences of employees. This article examines how the kinds of attributions employees make regarding indirect (union‐based) and direct (non‐union‐based) employee participation in workplace partnership might influence the process of mutual gains. It uses employee outcomes to reflect partnership gains for all stakeholders involved (i.e. employees, employers and trade unions). The article contributes to existing knowledge of workplace partnership by examining the potential role of the employment relations climate as an enabling mechanism for the process of mutual gains. The findings suggest mutual gains for all stakeholders are varied and mediated through the employment relations climate.

Reflections on work and employment into the 21st century: between equal rights, force decides

In this introductory article, the editors of Work, Employment and Society reflect on the journal’s body of published work and present the main contributions of the 25-year anniversary issue. As a journal of record WES is now well established and offers extensive conceptual insights into, and empirical analysis of, contemporary trends and experiences of work, employment and unemployment. Yet academic scholarship should also aspire to comment, critique and counter; four themes are elaborated, with reference to the issue’s contributions, to illustrate this: labour market change; work in the service sector; post-Fordism, disconnection and financialization; and moral economy and counter movements.

Fearing the Worst? Threat, Participation and Workplace Productivity

This article investigates the impact of the threat of job loss and participation on productivity using data from the 1998 British Workplace Employee Relations Survey. Threat and participation have often been seen as alternative devices for motivation: the former based on coercion, the latter based on cooperation. The study examines whether there are any joint effects between the two. Specifically, does the impact of participation on workplace productivity vary according to the threat of job loss? The study finds little evidence of a direct effect of the threat of job loss on productivity, but strong support is found for the notion that worker participation can enhance productivity. This effect is found not to be affected by local unemployment but it is observed that the joint presence of participation and other ‘threat’ variables measuring the level of supervision do impact on productivity outcomes.

Labour market regulation and the ‘competition state’: an analysis of the implementation of the Agency Working Regulations in the UK

This article examines the changing role of the state, through an analysis of the development and implementation of the EU Temporary Agency Work Directive in the UK. The article outlines and utilizes the concept of the ‘competition state’ to help frame and comprehend the UK Government’s approach to negotiating and shaping the Directive. Using archival, secondary and primary research, the article shows how the state continues to exercise important choices nationally and internationally which, in turn, have profound implications for the operation of labour markets. The article shows how, despite a veneer of fairness, the state has developed a regulatory instrument which provides uneven protection for workers, favours the actions of employers, promotes further flexibility in the use of temporary labour contracts and, by taking advantage of compromises at the European level, creates further market-making opportunities for well-established large agencies in the sector.