Globalisation and the Contested Process of International Corporate Restructuring: Employment Reorganisation and the Issue of Labour Consent in the International Oil Industry
Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online September, 2000
Globalisation and the Contested Process of International Corporate Restructuring: Employment Reorganisation and the Issue of Labour Consent in the International Oil Industry
Labour is typically treated as a passive victim of corporate restructuring processes in discourses on globalisation, rendered helpless by rationalisation and downsizing, and structurally place-bound and defenceless against increasingly mobile and footloose capital. This paper forms part of a growing body of work in the geographical literature that seeks to contest this view, reinserting labour as an actor in the context of globalisation. Specifically, we consider labour as an autonomous agent in the corporate labour process, through an examination of the impact of current processes of organisational restructuring in multinational corporations upon employment relations. We argue that corporate restructuring is a socially embedded, and therefore highly problematic, process involving issues of negotiation, consent, and resistance between managers and workers, and that current restructuring is therefore destabilising established patterns of social relations by which corporations secured worker consent in the past. Our argument is developed using a case study from the international oil industry.
AckroydSThompsonP, 1995, “All quiet on the workplace front?”Sociology29615–633
3.
AllenJHenryN, 1997, “Ulrich Beck's Risk Society at work: Labour and employment in the contract service industries”Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series22180–196
AtkinsonJ, 1985, “Flexibility, Uncertainty and Manpower Management”, report 89, Institute of Manpower Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, Sussex
6.
BaileyPParisottoARenshawG, (Eds), 1993Multinationals and Employment: The Global Economy of the 1990s (International Labour Office, Geneva)
7.
BartlettC AGhoshalS, 1989Managing Across Borders: The Transnational Solution (Century Business, London)
8.
BorusAZellnerWHolsteinW J, 1990, “The stateless corporation”Business Week 14 May, pages 52–60
9.
BravermanH, 1974Labour and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (Monthly Review Press, New York)
10.
BurawoyM, 1979Manufacturing Consent (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL)
11.
CarnoyMCastellsMBennerC, 1997, “Labour markets and employment practices in the age of flexibility”International Labour Review136(1) 27–48
12.
CavoulacosPDeffargesE, 1997, “Achieving profitable growth in E & P: New strategies, business model”Oil and Gas Journal May, 42–46
13.
CresseyPScottP, 1992, “Employment, technology and industrial relations in the UK clearing banks: Is the honeymoon over?”New Technology Work and Employment783–96
CrumpJ, 1997, “Strategic alliances fit pattern of industry innovation”Oil and Gas Journal March, 59–63
16.
CumbersA, 1994, “New forms of work and employment in an ‘old industrial region’? The offshore construction industry in the North East of England”Work Employment and Society8531–552
17.
DeetzS, 1992, “Disciplinary power in the modern corporation”, in Critical Management Studies Ed. AlvessonM, (Sage, London) pp 21–45
18.
DickenP, 1998Global Shift: Transforming the World Economy (Chapman, London)
19.
DickenPForsgrenMMalmbergA, 1994, “The local embeddedness of TNCs”, in Globalization, Institutions and Regional Development in Europe Eds AminAThriftN, (Oxford University Press, Oxford) pp 21–45
20.
DoeringerPPioreM, 1971Internal Labour Markets and Manpower Analysis (D C Heath, Lexington, MA)
21.
Du GayP, 1996Consumption and Identity at Work (Sage, London)
22.
DunningJ, 1993The Globalization of Business (Routledge, London)
23.
FineBLapavitsasCMilonakisD, 1999, “Addressing the world economy: Two steps back”Capital and Class6747–90
24.
FloridaRKenneyM, 1991, “Organisation vesus culture: Japanese automotive transplants in the US”Industrial Relations Journal22(3) 181–196
25.
FosterJLipkaJMaguinessHMunroA, 1994, “Competition and co-operation in the UK offshore oil industry”, working paper, Department of Applied Social Sciences, University of Paisley, Paisley, PA1 2BE, UK
GallG, 1993, “Industrial relations in UK clearing banks: A comment on Cressey and Scott”New Technology Work and Employment867–73
28.
GasteenASewellJ, 1994, “The Aberdeen offshore oil industry: Core and periphery”, in Employer Strategy and the Labour Market Eds RuberyJWilkinsonF, (Oxford University Press, Oxford) pp 226–257
29.
GiddensA, 1990The Consequences of Modernity (Polity Press, Cambridge)
30.
GindinS, 1997, “Notes on labor at the end of the century: Starting over?”Monthly Review49140–157
31.
GoldthorpeJLockwoodD, 1963, “Affluence and the British class structure”Sociological Review11133–163
32.
GordonDEdwardsRReichM, 1982Segmented Work: Divided Workers (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
33.
GordonR, 1995, “Globalisation, new production systems and the spatial division of labour”, in The New Division of Labour: Emerging forms of Work Organisation in International Perspective Eds LittekWCharlesT, (De Gruyter, Berlin) pp 161–207
34.
GramsciA, 1971Selections from the Prison Notebooks (Lawrence and Wishart, London)
35.
HansonSPrattG, 1992, “Dynamic dependencies: A geographical investigation of local labor markets”Economic Geography68373–405
36.
HarrisonB, 1997Lean and Mean: Why Large Corporations Will Continue to Dominate the Global Economy (Guilford Press, New York)
37.
HerodA, 1997a, “From a geography of labour to a labour geography: Labour's spatial fix and the geography of capitalism”Antipode291–31
38.
HerodA, 1997b, “Labor as an agent of globalization and as global agent”, in Spaces of Globalization: Reasserting the Power of the Local Ed. CoxK, (Guilford Press, New York) pp 167–200
39.
HerodA, 1998, “Of blocks, flows and networks”, in Unruly World? Globalization, Governance and Geography Eds HerodATuathailG ÓRobertsS M, (Routledge, London) pp 162–195
40.
HirstPThompsonG, 1996Globalization in Question (Polity Press, Cambridge)
41.
HowarthS, 1997A Century in Oil: The Shell Transport and Trading Company (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London)
42.
JacobyS, (Ed.), 1995The Workers of Nations: Industrial Relations in a Global Economy (Oxford University Press, New York)
43.
JonasA, 1996, “Local labour control regimes: Uneven development and the social regulation of production”Regional Studies30323–338
44.
KerrKHarrisonFMyersC, 1960Industrialism and Industrial Man (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)
45.
LeysCPanitchL, 1998, “The political legacy of the Manifesto”, in Socialist Register 1998 Eds LeysCPanitchL, (Merlin Press, Woodbridge, Suffolk) pp 18–48
46.
MartinRSunleyPWillsJ, 1996Union Retreat and the Regions: The Shrinking Landscape of Organised Labour (Jessica Kingsley, London)
47.
MasseyD, 1984Spatial Divisions of Labour (Macmillan Education, Basingstoke, Hants)
48.
MilkmanR, 1998, “The new labour movement: Possibilities and limits”Contemporary Sociology27(2)125–129
49.
MoodyK, 1997Workers in a Lean World (Verso, London)
50.
MoranJ, 1998, “The dynamics of class politics and national economies in globalisation”Capital and Class6653–84
51.
MorganK, 1997, “The Learning Region: Institutions, innovation and regional development”Regional Studies31(5) 491–504
52.
MunckR, 1998, “Labour dilemmas and labour futures”, in Labour Worldwide in the Era of Globalization Eds MunckRWatermanP, (Macmillan Education, Basingstoke, Hants) pp 3–23
53.
OhmaeK, 1989, “Managing in a Borderless World”Harvard Business Review67152–161
54.
OliverNWilkinsonB, 1992The Japanisation of British Industry: New Developments in the 1990s (Blackwell, Oxford)
55.
OzakiM, 1996, “Labour relations and work organisation in industrialised countries”International Labour Review13537–58
56.
PeckJ, 1996Work-place: The Social Regulation of Labour Markets (Guilford Press, New York)
57.
PioreM JSabelC, 1984The Second Industrial Divide: Possibilities for Prosperity (Basic Books, New York)
58.
PIRA Energy Group, 1998, “Common financial strategies found among top 10 oil and gas firms”Oil and Gas Journal9627–33
59.
PollertA, 1988, “Dismantling flexibility”Capital and Class3442–75
60.
PortasR, 1997, “Leaner and meaner? Productivity improvements in the global oil industry”, oral paper presented at the Offshore 97 conference, Aberdeen, September
61.
ScaseRGoffeeR, 1989Reluctant Managers: Their Work and Lifestyles (Unwin Hyman, London)
62.
SturdyAKnightsDWillmottH, (Eds), 1992Skill and Consent: Contemporary Studies in the Labour Process (Routledge, London)
63.
SymondsM, 1994The Culture of Anxiety: The Middle Class Crisis (The Social Market Foundation, London)
64.
UN, 1995World Economic and Social Survey (United Nations, New York)
65.
WalshJ, 2000, “Organizing the scale of labor regulation in the United States: Service sector activism in the city”Environment and Planning A321593–1610
66.
WestergardJ, 1965, “The withering away of class: A contemporary myth”, in Towards Socialism Eds AndersonPBlackburnR, (Fontana, London)
67.
WillsJ, 1998, “Building labour institutions to shape the world order? International trade unionism and European Works Councils”, paper presented at Economic Geography Research Group seminar “Institutions and Governance” 3 July, Department of Geography, University College, London; copy available from the author, Department of Geography, Queen Mary and Westfield College, London
68.
WillmottH, 1997, “Rethinking management and managerial work: Capitalism, control, and subjectivity”Human Relations50(1) 1329–1359
69.
YeungH W C, 1998, “Capital, state and space: Contesting the borderless world”Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series23291–310
