Flexible working conditions is used extensively in organizations today as a way to create flexibility for the employer. Recently we’ve been reading in the newspapers that this approach is a growing problem and the EU has warned Sweden twice that abuse of these forms of employment must be stopped. The Government has recently submitted a proposed rule change to reduce the possibility of stacking one temporary contract after another. Borlänge kommun makes themselves more flexible with the intermittent employments. This study aims to examine why infrequent employments, such as the intermittent employment is used and preferred by Borlänge kommun and how it’s perceived by affected employees in the organization. The questions related, besides why the intermittent employment is used by the organization and how its perceived by those involved, also includes the management of intermittent employment and how the organization is handling work contracts. The background information on the employment law implications gives the reader an insight into how the regulatory framework works surrounding the topic. The theory section highlights the main theories about flexibility and its different shapes and perspectives. For the study a qualitative approach is used. A case study with semi-structured interviews was performed. The respondents were employees involved in the staffing of intermittent employees and also members of the staff with an intermittent employment. The results show that the employment and contracts is correctly handled by labour law regulations. This study shows that Borlänge kommun uses intermittent employments extensively, with its 1 320 intermittently employees. If this is abuse, or not, is not clear from the result. The authors discuss, however, if that is the case. The intermittent employment is used mainly because of the great needs. This is because society is changing and the average age is increasing, both by those using the services and the employees. All respondents perceive the intermittent employment as most flexible for the employees. Respondents working in the staffing department say that they are not flexible enough. The intermittent employees’ working today does not cover the great need. Borlänge kommun think that the flexibility should benefit them more and is currently trying to become more flexible. The employees were generally satisfied with their work situation. Some tendencies of insecurity and uncertainty could be inferred from the intermittent employees answers. The author’s conclusions are that flexibility and the intermittent employment contracts mainly benefit the employer and the employees who actively choose this type of work, such as students. This kind of employment affects, however, the society and those who need a secure lifestyle. The necessary permanent contracts are becoming fewer and replaced by precarious and flexible employment conditions. / Flexibla arbetsformer används i dag flitigt i organisationer som ett sätt att skapa flexibilitet för arbetsgivaren. Nyligen har man kunnat läsa i tidningarna att detta arbetssätt är ett växande problem och EU har vid två tillfällen varnat Sverige att missbruk av dessa anställningsformer måste upphöra. Regeringen har i dagarna lagt ett föreslag på ändrade regler för att minska möjligheten att kunna stapla tillfälliga anställningar på varandra. Borlänge kommun gör sig mer flexibla med den intermittenta anställningen. Studien syfte är att undersöka varför den intermittenta anställningen används av Borlänge kommun och hur den upplevs av vissa berörda i organisationen. Frågeställningarna berör förutom, varför den intermittenta anställningen används i organisationen och hur den upplevs av berörda, även hanteringen av den intermittenta anställningen. Bakgrundsinformation om den arbetsrättsliga innebörden ger läsaren en inblick i hur regelverket ser ut kring anställningen och vad som krävs när det gäller avtalshantering. De teorier som används belyser främst teorier om flexibilitetens olika former och perspektiv, då den intermittenta anställningen är en del av den flexibla arbetsmarknaden. För undersökningen användes en kvalitativ metod. En fallstudie med semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes. Respondenterna var personal som arbetar med bemanningen av intermittent anställda samt intermittent anställda medarbetare. Denna studie visar att Borlänge kommun använder sig av timanställda i stor utsträckning, med sina 1 320 intermittent anställda. Om detta anses vara ett missbruk eller inte framgår inte av resultatet, författarna diskuterar dock om så är fallet. Resultat visar att anställningen och avtalen kring den intermittenta anställningen hanteras efter arbetsrättens regelverk. Den intermittenta anställningen används främst i kommunen för att behoven är stora. Detta främst på grund av att samhället förändras och medelåldern blir allt högre, både bland brukare och medarbetare. Den intermittenta anställningen upplevs idag av de respondenter som deltagit i undersökning som mest flexibel för arbetstagaren. De respondenter som arbetar på bemanningsavdelningen menar att de idag inte är flexibla nog. De timvikarier som arbetar idag täcker inte det stora behovet. Kommunen vill att flexibiliteten ska gynna arbetsgivaren mer och arbetar idag för att bli mer flexibla, bland annat genom att utöka den numeriska flexibiliteten med hjälp av utvecklade system för intermittenta anställningar. Medarbetarna var överlag nöjda med sin arbetssituation. Vissa tendenser till otrygghet och osäkerhet kunde utläsas ur respondenternas svar. Författarna har dragit slutsatsen att flexibiliteten och den intermittenta anställningen främst gynnar arbetsgivaren och de medarbetare som aktivt väljer denna typ av tjänst, till exempel studenter. Anställningen drabbar dock de som behöver en säker försörjning och samhället i stort. Nödvändiga tillsvidareanställningar blir färre och ersätts av otrygga och flexibla anställningsförhållanden.

This dissertation explores how a solitary writer becomes a social writer, entering into the industrial and community relations of mass publishing. A significant part of this transformation is managed through writing organizations which mediate between the corporate world and individual writers. Despite being one of the most prolific and commercially successful book-markets in a time when both publishing and reading are perceived to be under threat, romance fiction, because of its gendered and classed status, is often neglected by the academy and patronized in the media. Researched through observation of the largest romance writers groups in Canada, which I call City Romance Writers, this dissertation explores how writers’ associations help shape would-be writers into players in the professional market, negotiating the boundaries between professional and amateur, local and global, creative and market-driven. It explores how romance writers organize to manage risk and uncertainty in the publishing industry and how they make claims to legitimacy and authority in the public sphere. Finally, it examines how structures of gender, race and class shape the communities romance writers form and the claims they make. I argue that romance writers’ discourses and practices surrounding writing and publication are a revealing terrain for the exploration of contemporary issues of media production, flexible labour, gender and community. In part because of the particular characteristics of romance writing itself, these themes are also underpinned by the constant presence of love, as a discourse, an activity and a story. While revealing the importance of affective discourses of passion and love in mobilizing writers to embrace their own flexibility, this dissertation also argues that writers’ affective relationship with their writing is not fully contained by capitalism.

This dissertation explores how a solitary writer becomes a social writer, entering into the industrial and community relations of mass publishing. A significant part of this transformation is managed through writing organizations which mediate between the corporate world and individual writers. Despite being one of the most prolific and commercially successful book-markets in a time when both publishing and reading are perceived to be under threat, romance fiction, because of its gendered and classed status, is often neglected by the academy and patronized in the media. Researched through observation of the largest romance writers groups in Canada, which I call City Romance Writers, this dissertation explores how writers’ associations help shape would-be writers into players in the professional market, negotiating the boundaries between professional and amateur, local and global, creative and market-driven. It explores how romance writers organize to manage risk and uncertainty in the publishing industry and how they make claims to legitimacy and authority in the public sphere. Finally, it examines how structures of gender, race and class shape the communities romance writers form and the claims they make. I argue that romance writers’ discourses and practices surrounding writing and publication are a revealing terrain for the exploration of contemporary issues of media production, flexible labour, gender and community. In part because of the particular characteristics of romance writing itself, these themes are also underpinned by the constant presence of love, as a discourse, an activity and a story. While revealing the importance of affective discourses of passion and love in mobilizing writers to embrace their own flexibility, this dissertation also argues that writers’ affective relationship with their writing is not fully contained by capitalism.

The mass decline in agricultural labour in Britain since the industrial revolution has, ultimately, led to it becoming a significant ‘blind spot’ in the agricultural research agenda. Data regarding those who actively work at the ‘frontline’ of agriculture, and how they interrelate with other agents in their network to achieve multiple national and global agendas, is minimal. This thesis contributes and develops a comprehensive body of knowledge concerning the composition of labour on farms in the South West of England, as well as identifying and exploring contemporary relationships between farm labour contributors, the community; and the land, through the examination of the lived experience of different contributors to agricultural labour. These changes are considered under the lens of agriculture’s ever-encroaching challenges of productivity, labour skills shortages and sustainable intensification. A mixed-methods approach was adopted, incorporating a postal survey of 1251 farms, as well as 45 semi-structured interviews with farm labour contributors via a case study approach. Quantitative data provides a useful picture of those contributing to labour on farms in the South West of England, and brings attention to associated labour issues experienced by farmers. Qualitative data fleshes out these results with the guidance of Actor Network Theory. The concept of the lifescape is utilised to achieve this most pictorially while principles from the Human Capability Framework are applied to weaknesses in network chains that were revealed during the research process. Results reveal how new worker profiles have arisen from the increasingly flexible labour market, with contractors exposed as playing a progressively more crucial role to the survival of the industry. Due to an impending labour crisis, rapid technological development, and disparities in knowledge between farmers and other labour contributors, relationships of independence and interdependence between the various cohorts were discovered. Multiple actors within the lifescape of the farm labour contributor mean that clear distinctions cannot be made between farm, land, nature and community, with no single element more important than the other in the playing out of behaviours. Similarly, that same array of actors is seen to contribute significantly to the capacities, opportunities and freedoms available to farm labour contributors, and where a match between the two fails, substantial issues can be seen to arise. The research makes a valuable contribution to rural sociology through understanding the lifescape of the farm worker from the ground up. Overall, it addresses the importance of incorporating farm workers and contributors into the agricultural and more specifically, the sustainable intensification research agenda, particularly emphasising the importance of agricultural research and policy-making parameters being inclusive of all individuals who actively contribute to the land, rather than exclusive.

Economic reality of these days shows that pension, social, fiscal and educational system (we did not deal with flat politics friendly to young families) suffer from disputable till wrong decisions in last months and years. Many of such a decision seemed not to be effected based on scientific and expert analyses, results and recommendations but based on influence and obstinacy of the lobbyist parties and other groups. In the area of social politics we are missing the real social abstraction (i.e. long-term perspective of the social politics bearing) which could be acceptable by the residents. Pension savings and supplementary insurance act as barter -- we send to you contributions, you invest them into our bonds emitated to balance government debt (caused by this contributions as well) -- you have your profits, we have balance and meet liabilities. Fiscal system with its deductions, discounts and consolidations gives a favour to specific groups prior to the others. Social system with its substitutional durations, early pensions, excess indexation, parent leave duration and other advantages destroys natural development of the society, its revenues and expenditures. Early age educational system cannot ensure a sufficient pre-school education and changes parents into the bribees in bulk in order to find a place for their children (4-years and older). Than prolonged compulsory education causes prolonged entrance to the job market. High schools and universities throw up crowds of graduates without necessary practical skills which cause high amount of a young unemployment. We are the country of phenomenons. In the area of supplementary insurance support to the private pension companies we are the best. In the area of advanced women support for family and occupational life coordination (part-time jobs, flexible labour contracts, huge scale of pre-school day-care service) we are the worst and not only in domestic but also international comparison. We face absence of qualified work-force, human capital (necessary for healthy economic and social progress) in 50 or 60 years. This thesis has had for one's object to confirm or disconfirm the main hypothesis that with combination of defined important instruments and politics (aimed to non-financial benefits and huge flexible labour contracts supply) there is a possibility to achieve the long-term sustainability and balance of the pension account with not big shortage, no direction to destroy the whole economic development and with support to flexible job market. For children the thesis perhaps controversially looks as for human capital but from the economic point of view this is correct. In case of the Czech Republic the government approach does not work, the municipalities approach is absolutely unconceptual which restrains in many regions to achieve the co-operation of work and family life, to achieve the high standard of living of families, both due to unsupported pre-school day-care. We could accept one new solution -- no employers pension funds but employers pre-school day-care in co-operation with government and municipalities. This thesis established a hypothesis at the beginning which has been confirmed. PAYG in case of correct co-operation of important politics remains in long-term period stable (on condition 2 children for 1 mother), is just and effective. State income redistribution has moved to the service provider. Costs of such a day-care have been covered by revocation or reduction of the supplementary pension benefits, cancellation of the second pension pillar, shortening of the parent leave supplement, increasing of the employment and employees activity, increasing of efficiency and productivity and consequently profits of the companies and tradesmen. In combination with the high-quality fiscal politics without distortion and without one-side favouritism and senseless reliefs there has been secured stability of pension account, whole economy and public finance. Lower redistribution has been compensated by higher consumption and investment, government spending etc.