Employment Relations in Outsourced Public Services: Working Between Market and State

236 Pages·2020·2.677 MB·English

by  Anna Mori

Anna Mori
Employment
Relations in
Outsourced Public
Services
Working Between
Market and State
Employment Relations in Outsourced Public
Services
Anna Mori
Employment
Relations
in Outsourced Public
Services
Working Between Market and State
Anna Mori
Department of Social and Political Sciences
University of Milan
Milan, Italy
ISBN 978-3-030-24626-6 ISBN 978-3-030-24627-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24627-3
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Foreword
Public administrations and public service employment relations have
been under stress in recent decades in many European countries, with
an intensification in several cases after the 2008 economic crisis and
the ensuing sovereign debt crisis. Employment levels, working condi-
tions, salary increases and pension benefits have been a privileged target
of government policies in response to the crisis, often within a wider
strategy of public sector restructuring. Processes of privatisation, marke-
tisation and outsourcing of public services, which in various countries
already started in the 1980 and 1990s, have played a major role in this
strategy, inevitably affecting employment relations institutions and prac-
tices in the sector.
In this book, Anna Mori focuses in particular on outsourcing pro-
cesses in three European countries—Britain, Denmark and Italy—
examining in depth two sub-sectors in each national case, local
government and health care, with about 90 interviews to various stake-
holders and protagonists of these processes, complemented by docu-
mentary analysis. The volume has at least three merits.
First, the design of the research, and its presentation in the following
pages, is well structured. An introductory chapter sets the problem and
v
vi Foreword
raises the main research questions, framing them within wider debates
that interest the field of studies. The debate regarding the effects of mar-
ket pressures in undermining the traditional distinctiveness of public
service employment relations, once taken for granted. The question con-
cerning the role of institutions and of state action in mediating com-
mon market pressures, differentiating their consequences on working
conditions and employment relations institutions and practices. The
related, long-standing question about the convergence/divergence of
national employment relations systems, rooted in the varieties of capi-
talism versus the neoliberal trajectories literature. The central part of
the book consists of six chapters, two for each country, one providing
a background framework of country-specific administrative and regula-
tory traditions as well as of public service employment relations, and the
second one devoted to the empirical analysis and to the presentation of
its findings. The last chapter summarises and discusses the results of the
national case studies in comparative perspective, drawing general conclu-
sions about the research questions raised at the beginning of the book.
Second, differently from previous research, the analysis is not confined
to the sole public sector, but covers both public and private sectors. To
some extent, this is due to the very nature of the problem under exam,
since outsourcing processes almost inevitably break and trespass the
boundaries between the two sectors. However, the adoption of a more
comprehensive perspective allows the author to grasp the effects of out-
sourcing on working conditions and employment relations not only of
public service personnel but also of private workforce employed in con-
tracted services, suitably highlighting the more general consequences of
these processes on the national employment relations system as a whole.
Third, the findings of the national case studies are interesting and the
conclusions are well balanced. The evidence collected in the fieldwork
convincingly shows how similar outsourcing processes in response to com-
mon market pressures are managed in different ways in the three countries
under exam, with rather diverse consequences on working conditions and
employment relations. It shows as well how these differences are linked
to the overall regulatory system and institutional and cultural tradition
of each country, suitably including in the analysis the role of trade unions
and state action. In particular, drawing on the notion of market risks
Foreword vii
distribution, Anna Mori highlights how the three national cases fit well the
alternative patterns depicted in the literature. With its inclusive industrial
relations system, weak boundaries in the trade union structure between
private and public sector employees, and a role of the state that limits
employers’ discretion in outsourcing processes through specific labour pro-
tection devices in procurement practices, Denmark is a clear example of
how market risks for workers can be effectively contained (the hedging of
risks pattern). At the opposite pole, Britain, with the overall weakening of
the mechanisms of job protection, is a case of recommodification of work,
while Italy, with the dualisation between, on the one hand, a large majority
of employees who have kept full or at least partial job protection and, on
the other hand, public temporary staff who bore the main costs of out-
sourcing processes, well exemplifies the pattern of transferring of risks.
The analysis carried out by the author in a way allows her to take an
intermediate stance with regard to the traditional debate between the
trajectories of neoliberal transformation and the varieties of capitalism
theses. The strength of market pressures, which challenge and to some
extent weaken all established employment relations systems, is widely
underlined throughout the book. In the same time, however, the three
national case studies highlight how these pressures and challenges are
filtered through country-specific state traditions and employment rela-
tions institutions, which significantly influence and differentiate their
ultimate impact on working and labour market conditions. Neither
a universal trend towards a common neoliberal transformation of
European employment relations systems, obscuring any difference
between countries, nor an acritic re-proposition of the VoC argument
that neglects powerful market pressures towards neoliberal trajectories—
this is the general interpretation adopted by the author.
In so doing, this book offers empirical evidence and useful insights
that provide an important contribution to the broader debate in com-
parative political economy and employment relations literature about
the convergence/divergence of national systems of labour regulation,
beyond the specific issue of the outsourcing of public services.
Milan, Italy Lorenzo Bordogna
June 2019
Acknowledgements
My warmest thanks go to all those who have supported and helped me
during this research project, and in particular during my Ph.D., from
which this book draws upon.
First of all, many thanks to Lorenzo Bordogna for his valuable sup-
port and for having guided and supervised me during the Ph.D., the
following years of post-doc and the preparation of this manuscript.
Thank you to Stefano Neri for his help and recommendations. I would
like to thank all the people I met during my research stays abroad start-
ing from the King’s College London staff and, above all, Stephen Bach
for carefully advising me and Ian Kessler for his help. Many thanks to
the FAOS staff for the warm welcome and, in particular, thank you to
Mikkel Mailand for his supervision, to Nana Wesley Hansen for her
caring support and to Christian Lyhne Ibsen for the advices.
I would like to thank also all the colleagues who helped and advised
me during my research fellowship at the Warwick Business School
where I had many occasions to present and discuss this project. In par-
ticular, thank you to Guglielmo Meardi, Paul Marginson, Manuela
Galetto and Stefano Gasparri.
ix
x Acknowledgements
A huge thank goes to all the people that have dedicated to me their
valuable time for the interviews in Italy, Denmark and Britain: your
help has been precious, I am indebted.
I have really appreciated the constructive feedbacks and useful
insights I received on this project during conferences and seminars
attended over the last years: thanks a lot to all those I met around
Europe and, in particular, from my department in Milan.
A special thank goes to my mentor and friend Paride and to my per-
sonal consultant and good friend Eleonora.
Thank you Ada, mom, dad and of course granny: I owe you so, so
much.
Contents
1 Employment Relations in Outsourced Public Services:
Working Between Market and State 1
Part I The Case of Italy
2 Public Services Under Austerity: Structure of the Public
Sector and Drivers of Outsourcing 33
3 State-Controlled Dualisation Between Public
and Private Employment: Implications for Labour
and Employment Relations 59
Part II The Case of Denmark
4 The Search for Public Services Efficiency: Structure
of the Public Sector and Drivers of Outsourcing 91
xi