In Sweden, the labour movement historically had influenced both society and politics. In recent times, it is considered a change in society with a stronger employer party while the unions weakened by reduced unionisation. This study aims to highlight the presence of individualistic and collectivistic approaches to the labour market in relation to union density. The different approaches are investigated in the labour market by means of a quantitative survey. The study's survey items are workers in the timber industry. The study results indicate that the study's workers union level corresponding national average. The decline in union membership also includes the study workers. The study results also show that younger workers are less susceptible to join unions. The results do not reject the existence of individualistic approach, but demonstrates predominantly collectivistic approach among the study's workers. The study results can be understood from the trade organization's historically strong position in the industry. The employees' strong collective approach emphasizes the union's continued relevance to the labour market.

This thesis set out to examine how teachers understand, experience and respond to mandated curriculum reforms in English in years 11 and 12 at a Senior High School in Western Australia over the period 2004 – 2005. The time period is significant as it is a halfway point between the commencement of the new policy driving reform of senior secondary education and the partial settlement of the policy and curriculum reform. The research is conceptualised using labour process theory as a means of analysing how teachers are being separated from their intellectual work throughout this curriculum reform process. The methodology chosen to inform this research is a dual approach using critical ethnography of lived individual experiences and critical policy ethnography to analyse the changing landscape of education policy in Australia. This dual approach offers a system level of understanding of mandated curriculum reform with an emphasis on the individual experience of expert teachers implementing the contested curriculum reform. Several central themes emerged over the course of the research: growing deprofessionalisation of teachers’ work; intensification of workload and curriculum creation; technocratisation of teacher roles; diminishing autonomy, increased accountability and responsibility; and heightened external surveillance and control. Significantly, the data also captured and analysed in this research demonstrates how teachers are continually experiencing the processes of reprofessionalisation as a consequence of sustained critical reflective practice and the imposition of mandated curriculum reform. The data also relates the need for an authentic consultation between teachers and policy makers/government authorities in order for curriculum reform to be successfully established and taken up in secondary State schools. The processes of reprofessionalisation are a source of continued professional renewal and reinvigoration for the teachers involved.

Drawing on labour process theory and Bourdieu’s field theory, this study explores the challenges that newspapers face in maintaining their relevance to readers in an age where news has been de-commoditised and made readily available on the web. Empirically the study is based on four case studies of incidents where different newspapers were reported to the Press Ombudsman for inaccurate reporting in recent years. In-depth interviews were conducted with key informants from the selected cases. In addition to that, a key informant from the office of the Press Ombudsman was also interviewed to provide further insight into the effectiveness of the Press Code in regulating accuracy in news reporting as well as the challenges that newspapers are faced with in that regard. It is argued that the digitalisation of media increases the tension between the production of news as a public good vs. its delivery as a commodity that has to ensure profit. Media is an essential pillar of democratic South Africa as it provides news to ensure that citizens are informed about issues that concern them and have the ability to make decisions on matters of concern – i.e. a public good. It is therefore crucial that news be reported in an accurate and professional manner adhering to the standards set by the Press Code. Newspapers are faced with the challenge of ensuring a balance between producing news that is accurate and adheres to the set standards outlined in the Press Code while also ensuring that they remain profitable – i.e. news as a commodity. The findings from this study illustrate that all errors are not due to commercial pressure and that newspapers therefore still have room to manoeuvre, put differently, there is room for agency. This implies that newspapers have to come up with strategies to continue to produce news effectively and attempt to avoid errors in news reporting. As is shown, in some instances quality of news can be compromised in the long run, as in the case of sensationalising news stories and headlines. When news is sensationalised, it is reported in an exaggerated manner and this may result in the accuracy of the news story or headline being lost. Pressures existent in the process of news production in addition to inadequate training and inadequately verifying information from news sources were found as some of the challenges in journalists’ and/or editors failures to appropriately apply the Press Code in news reporting. Failure to adhere to and appropriately apply the Press Code results in inaccurate news reporting by newspapers. / Dissertation (MSocSci)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Sociology / unrestricted

This thesis aims at examining processes in capitalist food production through a case study of Vion’s Halls factory in Broxburn, Scotland, which closed in 2012. The researcher uses his position as a former employee to receive interviews with former workers at the factory to gain knowledge about what happened in the factory and how that relates to bigger developments in the economy. Concepts such as buyers-driven supply chains, absolute and relative value production and flexible accumulation are guiding the interviews, using parts of the extended case method. Through this theoretical approach, the intention is to reach a better understanding of the local process and its interplay with broader developments and at the same time hopes to contribute to the theoretical field. No solid conclusion about the relationship of power in the supply chain could be gained from the interviews even if, in line with other studies, it indicates a move toward a buyers-driven supply chain with production for the retailers’ labels instead of its own brand. This was not followed by changes in the form of production with more flexibility and adaptations to rapidly changing markets, as was the case in the clothing industry. Instead, the Fordist method of standardized mass production appears to be utilized. A picture emerges of how Vion tries to counteract falling profits by intensifying the work process and extending the hours of production. This was made partly through aggressive management and the employment of skilled agency workers, getting more produced with fewer workers and without any substantial investments in new machines or technology.

The academy school programme, OFSTED’s use of school performance data, and performance management and performance related pay reforms are dramatically transforming the work and employment landscape in teaching. Yet there is limited knowledge of teachers’ experiences of work in relation to this context. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the impact of these education reforms on school teachers’ working lives through a labour process perspective. A critical realist ethnography of an inner-city secondary academy school was conducted over four months. This comprised a six-week shadowing phase, document collection and 26 semi-structured interviews with Teachers, Managers, HR and Trade Union Representatives. Findings reveal that the removal of a contextual value added measure from school performance metrics leads to an increase in teachers’ workloads and an extension of their working hours. This is compounded by an unofficial erosion of teachers’ directed working time that infiltrates through the academy trust. Pressures on workload also stem from management-led initiatives generated by appraisals in leadership programmes. Furthermore, teachers’ work becomes standardised and re-organised through the heterarchical multi-academy trust model in an effort to improve the school’s OFSTED rating. Performance related pay reforms act as a parallel instigator to the standardisation of work, polarising the creative and mundane aspects of teaching across the workforce, whilst oppositional orientations to work form as the majority of teachers align with a shared sense of commitment to work. This thesis amalgamates labour process theory with the hollowing out thesis, making key theoretical, conceptual, empirical and methodological contributions, alongside practical recommendations. / Faculty of Management, Law and Social Sciences at the University of Bradford Scholarship

The broad objective of this thesis is to develop an understanding of factors affecting outsourcing in the hotel industry and also the role played by management accounting in hotel outsourcing. The thesis draws on transaction cost economics (TCE), agency, contingency, and labour process theories in the context of appraising factors motivating outsourcing. Two empirical phases have been undertaken in the study. The first phase involved a series of interviews with general managers and financial controllers in large South East Queensland hotels. The second phase involved two distinct questionnaire surveys of large Australian hotels. The first was administered to hotel general managers, and the second was administered to hotel financial controllers. Significant findings arising from the study include: 1. In light of the substantial international literature describing hotel outsourcing, it appears that outsourcing in Australian hotels is relatively limited. This appears to be particularly the case with respect to food and beverage related activities. 2. Mixed support is offered for the TCE model. Both the survey and interview data provide some support for TCE's prescription that frequently conducted activities will not tend to be outsourced. Two specific extensions are offered to this aspect of the model, however. Firstly, where activities are conducted to a minimal extent, it can be uneconomic to outsource. Secondly, where large activities are undertaken by a group of organisations, their enhanced purchasing power can result in inexpensive outsourcing arrangements. With respect to TCE's uncertainty proposition, support is offered for the view that the propensity to outsource will be greater where behavioural uncertainty is lower. No support has been offered with respect to environmental uncertainty. The interview data provides some support for TCE's asset specificity proposition, however, minimal support was found in the survey phase. Despite this, the many dimensions of asset specificity (eg. site specificity, human asset specificity, etc) provided a useful checklist of issues to be considered in relation to the outsourcing decision. 3. Negligible support was found for labour process theory (LPT) in the interview phase of the study. In light of this, and the need to narrow the study’s focus in the survey phase, LPT was not pursued further. LPT is a difficult construct to operationalise, given the social desirability error that may result. This may partially account for the absence of significant LPT findings in the interview phase. 4. The survey data provides some support for the agency theory view that risky activities will tend to be outsourced. 5. Considerable cross-hotel variation exists in management of, and accounting's involvement in, outsourcing decision making and control systems. Accounting appraisal of outsourcing proposals rarely includes long term oriented, sophisticated techniques such as "net present value". It appears this may be because outsourcing decisions are not conducted in the context of the formal capital budgeting process. 6. High performing hotels and hotels that conduct their outsourcing decisions in the context of a long term outsourcing strategic agenda have more sophisticated outsourcing management systems.

[pt] Em um contexto de profundas transformações nas relações de trabalho causadas pela tecnologia, milhares de entregadores se movimentam pelas ruas brasileiras entregando comida e outros itens sob o comando de plataformas digitais. Essa modalidade de trabalho, em ascensão nos últimos anos, tem sido alvo do interesse de pesquisadores em função das peculiaridades que a caracterizam. Um aspecto relevante a ser estudado diz respeito ao controle sobre esse tipo de trabalho. Nesta direção, a presente dissertação buscou entender de que forma o controle exercido pelos aplicativos é percebido pelos trabalhadores de entrega por aplicativos em suas relações de trabalho e quais as suas formas de resistência. Para isso foi feita uma netnografia em redes sociais que analisou 21 grupos no Facebook com 136 postagens de entregadores, e foi criado um grupo, Conversas sobre o trabalho por aplicativos, para complementar a coleta de dados. Todo o material coletado foi analisado com base em análise temática. A teoria do processo de trabalho de Harry Braverman foi utilizada para entender como o controle se manifesta nessas relações trabalho, desde o controle técnico e burocrático até o controle normativo e neo-normativo, bem como nas transformações que a tecnologia tem criado nas relações de trabalho e no controle algorítmico sobre os trabalhadores, exercido pelas plataformas digitais de entrega de comida, operando no Brasil. Os principais achados da pesquisa indicam que, embora o trabalho de entregador tenha características claras de precarização e intensificação do trabalho, sua inserção no contexto brasileiro, marcado por desemprego sistêmico e estrutural, faz com que essa atividade seja considerada como uma opção melhor do que o trabalho formal, sendo considerada mais garantida e, até mesmo, pertencente a uma elite entre os precarizados. Além disso, a construção identitária dos entregadores, marcada por discursos de reforço de estereótipos de masculinidade, como o do homem provedor e pai de família, bem como discursos de empreendedorismo, de liberdade ressignificada, ao depender somente do esforço pessoal do indivíduo, mascaram os aspectos deletérios desse tipo de trabalho. Argumenta-se que esses fatores contribuem para a produção do consentimento e enfraquecimento das possibilidades de resistência, da representação sindical e da transformação da realidade dos entregadores frente aos aplicativos. / [en] In a context of deep changes in labor relations caused by technology, thousands of food-delivery worker move through Brazilian streets delivering food and other stuffs by digital platforms. This kinda of work, which has been increase in recent years, has been the target of interest by researchers due to the peculiarities that characterize it. A relevant aspect to be studied concerns the control over this type of work. In this direction, the present dissertation get to understand how the control by applications is perceive by food-delivery worker through applications in their work relationships and what are their forms of resistance. For this, a netnography was carried out on social networks that had analyzed 21 groups on Facebook with 136 posts from food-delivery worker, and a group was created, conversations about work through applications. All material collected was analyzed based on thematic analysis. Harry Braverman s labor process theory was used to understand how control manifests itself in these labor relationships, from technical and bureaucratic control to normative and neonormative control, as well as the transformations that technology has created in labor relationships. and in the algorithmic control over workers, exercised by digital food delivery platforms, operating in Brazil. The main findings of the research indicate that, although the delivery job has clear characteristics of precariousness and work intensification, its insertion in the Brazilian context, marked by systemic and structural unemployment, makes this activity to be considered a better option than the formal work, being considered more guaranteed and even belonging to an elite in the middle of the precariat. In addition, the identity construction of the food-delivery worker, marked by discourses that reinforce masculinity stereotypes, such as the provider and family man, as well as discourses of entrepreneurship, of resignified and guaranteed freedom, depending only on the individual s personal effort, mask the deleterious aspects of this type of work. It is argued that these factors contribute to the production of consent and weakening of the possibilities of resistance, union representation and the transformation of the delivery people s reality in front of the applications.

Despite their continuing importance to the UK economy and their employment of significant numbers of workers from a range of professions, the utilities have received scant attention from critical scholars of work. This neglect represents a missed opportunity to examine the impact of nearly twenty years of privatisation and marketisation on workers, their jobs and their unions. This thesis aims to make a contribution to knowledge here by investigating, contextualising and explaining changes in the labour processes of a privatised utility in the United Kingdom. The research is informed by oral history methods and techniques, rarely adopted in industrial sociology, and here used alongside labour process theory to reconstruct past experiences of work. Drawing on qualitative data sets, from in-depth interviews with a cohort of employees who worked continuously over three decades at the research site, British Gas’s Granton House, and on extensive company and trade union documentary evidence the research demonstrates how British Gas responded to restrictive regulation and the need to deliver shareholder value by transforming pre-existing forms of work organisation through introducing call centres. The call centre provided the opportunity for management to regain control over the labour process, intensify work and reduce costs. In doing so, the study identifies the principal drivers of organisational change, documents the process of change evaluates the impact on workers’ experience. Thus, as a corrective to much recent labour process theory the research offers both an ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ account of change over an extended time. The contrast between workers’ experience of working in the clerical departments and in the call centre could not be starker. Almost every element of work from which workers derived satisfaction and purpose was abruptly dismantled. In their place workers had to endure the restrictive and controlling nature of call centre work. The relative absence of resistance to such a transformation is shown to be a consequence of failures in collective organisation, rather than the totalisation of managerial control, as the postmodernists and Foucauldians would have it.

This dissertation compares the work and life of secondary public-school teachers in Ontario with different labour contracts during a time of crisis. The COVID public health crisis along with neoliberalism, the defunding of public education, and a climate crisis have all influenced governmental policies and the labour process of public secondary teachers in Ontario. The influences that different contracts can have on the labour process of teachers, how they feel towards their union, and the impacts on their individual health and household wellbeing before and during the first year of the COVID pandemic is the focus of this dissertation. To help explore these contexts and the influences on the life and labour of public secondary teachers in Ontario with different contracts, I have used research from studies in Labour Process Theory, precarious work, and educational labour to inform my analysis. Along with those areas of discourse, I have also used insights from research into Critical Realism and Thematic Analysis to think through and discuss the differences between the teachers I interviewed and connect their experiences with work, their union, and their individual health and household well-being to larger systems, structures, and histories. The interviews conducted revealed three points of interest: that precarious labour contracts can function as a disciplinary device, that larger contexts outside the contract shaped how the contract was experienced, and that teachers’ unions can act as a source of solidarity and security during a crisis and when there are certain associations with its purpose. This exploratory research aims to open up future areas of research into educational labour and differences between the experiences of educators with different contracts. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This project explored the differences between public secondary teachers with different contracts in Ontario before and during the COVID pandemic. It involved an online survey to help recruit participants and interviews with 36 teachers who were recruited from the online survey. Of the 36 teachers, 13 had permanent contracts, 16 had long term occasional (LTO) contracts, and 7 had occasional teaching (OT) contracts. The interviews and analysis revealed three points of interest: that precarious labour contracts in a tiered relationship with secure contracts can function as a disciplinary device, that larger contexts outside the contract shaped how the contract was experienced, and that teachers’ unions can act as a source of solidarity and security during a crisis and when there are certain associations with its purpose. Teachers with different contracts had uniquely different experiences with their work, their union, and their individual health and household wellbeing before and during COVID.