This issue of Futures of Work explores how processes of economic deregulation have impacted working conditions over the past decades. Following the stagflation crisis of the 1970s, the conservative administrations of Reagan and Thatcher in the US and the UK respectively started implementing what are commonly described as neoliberal reforms. Key aspects of their economic programmes were the retrenchment of the government sector, the privatisation of key public services, the liberalisation of the labour market, the outsourcing of production to low-wage regions and the deregulation of the private financial sector. Significantly, these interventions failed to deliver prosperity, particularly for low-income workers who bore the costs of these supply-side-oriented agendas.
What is interesting, however, is that working conditions and the bargaining power of workers over this period did not only deteriorate as a result of direct changes in labour legislation and protection but also because of broader reforms within the economy.
Regarding the public sector, its steady contraction has generated significantly higher workloads for the workers who remained employed without any major increases in their pay, particularly after the 2008 global financial crisis. Naturally, this has had a major impact on the quality of services people receive, whether from local councils, state-run schools, hospitals or public transport.
Simultaneously, welfare state retrenchment, characterised by cuts to social welfare programmes and austerity measures, has eroded the safety net for vulnerable populations. Reduced access to social assistance, healthcare and education not only exacerbates socioeconomic disparities but also perpetuates cycles of poverty. As essential support systems weaken, workers are left more vulnerable to economic shocks, such as job loss.
While COVID-19 urged governments to reincarnate public welfare to deal with the economic impact of lockdowns, most of them are now gradually returning to the austerity-oriented approach to public services and welfare provision. Both left- and right-wing politicians at the moment do not seem to challenge this return to cost–benefit-oriented approaches to government spending, which usually tie welfare provision to having an employment contract. This enforced link pushes working-class households to accept poor working conditions and low pay.
In addition, financial deregulation has continued uninterrupted since at least the early 1980s and has even been exacerbated since COVID-19. Financial volatility often translates into instability in employment, with workers facing greater uncertainty in job security and income stability, as investment plans highly depend on speculative investors’ preferences. As a consequence, managers of listed firms often actively undermine unions and employee voices and extensively use precarious work contracts to reduce labour costs and attract investors. Many recent examples, like the cases of the US-based video game company Activision Blizzard or Tesla’s plant in Sweden, show that this worrying trend is becoming the norm rather than the exception for listed firms.
This issue of Futures of Work includes five pieces that explore a number of issues related to how the current regime of economic (de)regulation shapes the world of work, from resistance in platform work and worker–management conflicts in global value chains to the deteriorating working conditions of police officers under austerity.
The first article by Takis Iliopoulos examines how the segmentation of production shapes the balance of power between workers and employers across global production networks and how the centrality of certain tasks for the production process allows certain workers to gain non-negligible benefits on the threat of disrupting such networks.
The second article by Malte Laub focuses on how austerity policies have expanded the range of tasks police officers have to do over the past years, effectively replacing teachers, healthcare professionals or social workers whose numbers are declining.
Iris Nikolopoulou, in the third article of this issue, analyses how the increasing influence of the financial sector has generated distinct paths in terms of working conditions between workers who are employed by private financial institutions and the rest of the economy.
Focusing on a related topic, Thibault Darcillon and Yasmine Mohamed discuss how the rising influence of institutional investors, like insurance companies and pension funds, as shareholders of private corporations is making them more oriented towards generating financial returns at the expense of decent wages and employment stability across OECD countries.
Lastly, the final piece of this issue by Greg Tsardanidis explores how food platform workers in Greece and Italy employed industrial action tactics including coordinated customer boycotts, leading to a major win in a very adverse environment: their classification as employees rather than zero-hours contractors.
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