Abstract
This book is the product of an ambitious, six-year research project that investigated service sector work across three European countries: France; Norway; and the United Kingdom. A key concern is to understand what can be done to develop better quality jobs. Accordingly, the focus of the book is on how skills are formed and utilised and how working conditions are changing, drawing from empirical observation across three sectors – teaching (notably vocational schooling), fitness, and retail (cafes) – differentiated by occupation and skill level to cover the higher-end, middle and lower reaches of the labour market. The empirical analysis is careful and nuanced and located in a sensitive conceptual treatment of comparative employment dynamics.
The authors are keen to distance themselves from a formulaic comparative approach derived from the Varieties of Capitalism (VOC) perspective, insisting that: [Rather] than adopt a functionalist account of the relationship between national institutions and outcomes, the approach […] stresses the role of social relations and power struggles as central to an understanding of how institutions emerge, change and operate over time. (p. 60)
Central to this approach, the authors argue, ‘is the need to more fully comprehend the role of organized labour’ (p. 8). The contributions of the book are varied, but, crudely put, it challenges any suggestions of cross-national convergence in skill trends, work organisation and job design (p. 204), noting clear national differences as well as some similarities across the three sectors. That said, ‘The three jobs in Norway do afford higher levels of discretion and autonomy compared to the UK, although not always with those in France’ (p. 205).
The book is organised in three parts. The first four chapters focus on the conceptual framing of the analysis, the next three chapters present the empirical data, drawing from 244 interviews, and the final chapter discusses the comparative implications and some wider policy-related challenges. The seeming obsession by policy makers of the high skill narrative sets the scene: the supply side is typically privileged, the demand side is wanting, and over-qualification has increased. Designed to challenge this narrative, the study focuses specifically on the service sector, as this accounts for ‘a substantial proportion of national employment in all advanced economies’ (p. 3), which includes jobs ‘which are rooted in the national and […] local economy’ (p. 3), and hence more protected from international relocation. Comparative analysis across three economies with different models of capitalism may therefore shed insights into how skills can be formed and utilised in different ways and jobs designed so as to best make use of skills and human capital development.
Chapter 2 presents a systematic review of ‘work and skills in contemporary capitalism’, and cogently dispenses with generalised visions of upskilling, concluding that ‘the upskilling of jobs rests not upon […] simply changes in the supply of skills but upon institutions and the ability to regulate capital’ (p. 42, emphasis in original). Chapter 3 covers ‘national institutions, sectors, and work organization’, and outlines the core theoretical framework of the study, influenced by the ‘societal effects’ approach, as this is sensitive to class relations and power dynamics. The power and influence of unions is seen as particularly salient within an approach that ‘foregrounds the role of agency and conflict as a counterweight to the structural constraints of institutional path dependencies’ (p. 61), though this counterweight is often a difficult line to tread. Chapter 4 sets out in each country the institutions of industrial relations and contemporary and historical shifts in the national systems of regulation, welfare and skill formation. Neo-liberalism in the UK is seen to impose considerable limits compared to the more benign Norwegian employment regime, which exhibits ‘remarkable continuity and resilience’ (p. 89).
The empirical analysis uncovers complex and varied patterns of employment change across the three sectors. This challenges simple depictions of national employment logics, even if some clear points of demarcation are evident. The study of vocational teachers clearly shows how the principles of marketisation and the new public management have undermined the professional ethos of teaching in the UK, with rampant managerialism and performance monitoring, lower qualification requirements, work intensification and reduced autonomy. The profession has faced similar, if less acute, challenges in Norway and France, but these have been resisted, due to the increased power of organised labour, and traditions of professional status and autonomy have been protected. The cases of fitness instructors and cafe workers are less clear cut (where careful sample selection may be a challenge). Qualifications and job complexity were highest for French fitness workers due to legal regulation, and much lower for Norwegian workers. Similarly, low levels of qualification, job complexity and pay were common for cafe workers in all three countries, although the Norwegian workers had marginally higher levels of discretion and autonomy.
Overall the analysis is compelling. Yet, while the authors are careful to stress potential similarities across countries and aim to avoid crude all-encompassing national stereo-types, they do have a clear position that job quality is more likely in the Scandinavian context. This may well be the case, but key challenges are left hanging. First, while the authors rightly highlight the beneficial constraints afforded by the institutions of collective bargaining in Norway, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the implementation of national agreements at the local level is often problematic, even in this highly co-ordinated context. While the voice of unions was naturally relatively absent from this analysis, not least because of their lack of presence in the fitness and cafe sectors, the role of social relations and power struggles was also left somewhat underdeveloped at the organisational level. Second, as the book notes, borrowing policy from one system (such as the Nordic approach) to another (such as the UK) is beset with problems. In this regard, while the concluding comment on optimism and progressive possibilities (p. 215) is laudable, the emphasis on traditional collective bargaining, general education and divergent capitalisms was more question begging than a utopian vision. These are however points for debate. There is no doubt that this book is destined to become a classic and is the most significant contribution to the skills debate in at least the last 10 years.