This introduction establishes the context for a series of articles exploring the outcomes for work, employment, worker orientation and service quality from the emerging context of austerity in public services in three countries – Canada, the UK and Australia. The paper outlines the development of outsourcing in care under new public management and identifies broad trends in work and employment pre-austerity. It reveals contracting-out and new public management-diminished public provision, radically altering the non-profit sector. The financial crisis is the latest in successive rounds of market-based reform that are deepening these tendencies. Despite some national variations, new public management led to the pay of the predominantly female front line workforce across the three countries failing to keep pace with public sector counterparts, as well as cuts in pensions, sick pay, and travel and subsistence allowances. Finally, it outlines how the accompanying papers explore new facets and themes in care work during austerity.
AlboGEvansB (2011) Permanent austerity: The politics of the Canadian exit strategy from fiscal stimulus. Alternative Routes: A Journal of Critical Social Research22: 7–28.
2.
AtkinsonCLucasR (2013) Worker responses to HR practice in adult social care in England. Human Resource Management Journal23(3): 296–312.
3.
BachS (2012) Shrinking the state or the Big Society? Public service employment relations in an era of austerity. Industrial Relations Journal43(5): 399–415.
4.
BachSBordognaL (2011) Varieties of new public management or alternative models? The reform of public service employment relations in industrialized democracies. International Journal of Human Resource Management22(11): 2281–2294.
5.
BainesD (2014) What’s new about the new austerity? Care work in the nonprofits. In: BainesDMcBrideS (eds) Orchestrating Austerity: Impacts and Resistance, Halifax: Fernwood, pp. 186–197.
6.
BainesD (2004a) Caring for nothing. Work organization and unwaged labour in social services. Work, Employment and Society18(2): 267–295.
7.
BainesD (2004b) Pro-market, non-market: The dual nature of organizational change in social services delivery. Critical Social Policy24(4): 5–29.
8.
BainesD (2010) Neoliberal restructuring/activism, participation and social unionism in the nonprofit social services. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly39(1): 10–28.
9.
BainesD (2011) Restructuring and labour processes under marketisation: A Canadian perspective. In: CunninghamIJamesP (eds) Voluntary Organizations and Public Service Delivery, New York: Routledge, pp. 168–171.
10.
BainesDCunninghamIFraserH (2011) Constrained by managerialism: Caring as participation in the voluntary social services. Economic and Industrial Democracy32(2): 329–352.
11.
BartelsPRCozziG (2013) “The Big Society”, public expenditure and volunteering. Public Administration Review77(2): 340–351.
12.
BordognaLNeriS (2011) Convergence towards an NPM programme or different models? Public service employment relations in Italy and France. International Journal of Human Resource Management22(11): 2311–2330.
13.
BrennerNPeckJTheodoreN (2010) Variegated neoliberalization: Geographies, modalities and pathways. Global Networks10(2): 182–222.
14.
CareyM (2009) ‘It's a bit like being a robot or working in a factory’: Does braverman help explain the experiences of state social workers in Britain since 1971?Organization16(4): 505–527.
15.
Carey M (2011) Here today, gone tomorrow? The ambivalent ethics of contingency social work. Critical Social Policy 31(4): 540–561.
ClarkeJNewmanJ (2012) The alchemy of austerity. Critical Social Policy32(3): 299–319.
18.
CunninghamI (2008) Employment Relations in the Voluntary Sector, London: Routledge.
19.
CunninghamIJamesP (2011) Public service delivery and the voluntary sector: Trends, explanations, and implications’. In: CunninghamIJamesP (eds) Voluntary Organizations and Public Service Delivery, New York: Routledge, pp. 225–238.
20.
CunninghamIJamesP (2014) Public service outsourcing and its employment implications in an era of austerity: The case of British social care. Competition and Change19(1): 1–18.
21.
CunninghamIBainesDCharlesworthC (2014) Government funding, employment conditions and work organization in non-profit community services – A comparative study. Public Administration92(3): 582–598.
22.
DansonMWhittamG (2011) Scotland’s civic society v England’s big society? Roles of the VCS in public service delivery. Social Policy and Society10(3): 353–363.
23.
DaviesS (2011) Outsourcing and the voluntary sector: A review of the evolving policy landscape. In: CunninghamIJamesP (eds) Voluntary Organizations and Public Service Delivery, New York: Routledge, pp. 15–36.
24.
EvansBHusseyI (2011) Introduction: Organizing for austerity. Socialist Studies/Etudes Socialistes7(1//2): 37–41.
25.
GreerIGreenwoodIStuartM (2011) Beyond national ‘Varieties’ public-service contracting in comparative perspective. In: CunninghamIJamesP (eds) Voluntary Organizations and Public Service Delivery, New York: Routledge, pp. 153–167.
26.
HarleyWAllenBSargentL (2007) High performance work systems and employee experience of work in the service sector: The case of aged care. British Journal of Industrial Relations45(3): 607–633.
27.
HemmingsM (2011) ‘What problems you got?’: Managerialisation and union organising in the voluntary sector. Industrial Relations Journal42(5): 473–485.
28.
HoodCDixonR (2013) A model of cost-cutting in government? The great management revolution in UK central government reconsidered. Public Administration91(1): 114–134.
29.
JessopB (2002) The Future of the Capitalist State, Cambridge: Polity Press.
30.
McBrideS (2014) ‘In Austerity We Trust’. In: BainesDMcBrideS (eds) Orchestrating Austerity: Impacts and Resistance, Halifax: Fernwood, pp. 10–20.
31.
McDonald C (2006) Challenging Social Work: The Institutional Context of Practice. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
32.
McDonaldCChenowethL (2009) (Re) shaping social work: An Australian case study. British Journal of Social Work39(1): 144–160.
33.
McDonaldCCharlesworthS (2011) Outsourcing and the Australian nonprofit sector. In: CunninghamIJamesP (eds) Voluntary Organizations and Public Service Delivery, New York: Routledge, pp. 185–201.
34.
O’BrienRZhangF (2014) Structural adjustment for the north. In: BainesDMcBrideS (eds) Orchestrating Austerity: Impacts and Resistance, Halifax: Fernwood, pp. 21–33.
35.
OsborneS (2006) The new public governance?Public Management Review8(3): 377–387.
36.
PageS (2005) What's new about the new public management? Administrative change in the human services. Public Administration Review65(6): 713–727.
37.
PeckJ (2012) Austerity urbanism: American cities under extreme economy. City16(6): 626–655.
38.
RuberyJRaffertyA (2013) Women and recession revisited. Work, Employment and Society27(3): 414–432.
39.
RuberyJUrwinP (2011) Bringing the employer back in: Why social care needs a standard employment relationship. Human Resource Management Journal21(2): 122–137.
40.
Scottish Government (2014, November) One Scotland: The Government’s Programme for Scotland 2014–15, Edinburgh: Author.
41.
ShortM (2011) Trade union organising in the voluntary sector. In: CunninghamIJamesP (eds) Voluntary Organizations and Public Service Delivery, New York: Routledge, pp. 54–72.
42.
SmithK (2007) Social work, restructuring and resistance: ‘Best Practices’ gone underground. In: BainesD (ed.) Doing Anti-Oppressive Practice: Building Transformative, Politicized Social Work, Halifax/Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, pp. 145–159.
43.
SmithS (2010) Nonprofits and public administrations: Reconciling performance management and citizen engagement. The American Review of Public Administration40(2): 129–152.
44.
SpitzJ (2011) Intentioned recession: An ideologically driven re-structuring. New Political Science33(4): 445–465.
45.
Van TilJ (2000) Growing Civil Society: From Nonprofit Sector to Third Space, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
