Catálogo de publicaciones - revistas

<jats:p> This article analyses the reform of public service employment relations inspired by the New Public Management (NPM) approach, which has challenged both the traditional `sovereign employer' and `model employer' approaches to public service employment regulation. It envisages a double process of convergence: between public and private sector employment relations within each country, and in public service employment relations between different countries. However, the outcomes are mixed, and unexpected or perverse effects have often followed the reform attempts. These stem from a neglect of the distinctiveness of the public sector employer as a political institution and an excessive attention to moral hazard and agency costs. What is needed is a richer variety of mechanisms, more sophisticated and less unilateral than those borrowed from agency theory </jats:p>

<jats:p> This article uses the power resources approach to analyse the Global Union Federations’ (GUFs) use of the specific instances mechanism associated with the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. While this mechanism has serious limitations, it has proved to be a useful tool when combined with public campaigns and the exercise of other power resources at multiple scales. This is so, we argue, because the fact that multi-national enterprises themselves operate across national boundaries creates an incentive to engage power resources at a supranational level, as well as within the countries where they, or their suppliers, are present. As this finding suggests, consideration of unions’ power resources benefits from deeper consideration of the multi-scalar and interrelated character of union action and of the role that intermediary coordinating organizations like GUFs play in supporting the exercise of power at the supranational level. </jats:p>

<jats:p> This comparative study explores whether and how institutions can become a source of influence on accumulation dynamics in the labor process. It examines how employer strategies for the realization of value within the warehousing, parcel, and transport business divisions of a lead logistics multinational are operationalized in Germany, Belgium, and Sweden. Findings indicate within (and across) country variation in the operationalization paths we identify: compliance, avoidance, and exit. We explain the cross-country variation of each path by pointing to the strategies and negotiation processes pertaining to the usage of flexible labor at each workplace. We also illustrate that this usage relates to the mechanisms of optimization by standardization and of relational management used by employers to contain costs within the scope of each division’s managerial regime. </jats:p>