Gender and Employment Restructuring in British National Health Service Manual Work

Abstract

While managerial initiatives to cut costs through increased labour flexibility are widespread, we have limited knowledge of the micro-politics of gender and contemporary restructuring at the local level: of the processes and dynamics through which flexibility and other initiatives reconstitute or transform gendered patterns of work and advantage in specific workplaces. This case study, based upon extensive interviewing, observation, and examination of documentary materials, examines the gender implications of several different types of restructuring initiatives in three types of manual work at two hospitals in an NHS Trust. On the whole, it finds that restructuring created more continuity than change in gendered patterns of work and advantage in the two sites. The case study suggests, first, that employment restructuring incorporates elements of structural, institutional and interactive gendering; managers use women's subordination in the workplace and labour markets to achieve their objectives, and male workers actively resist loss of their advantages. Second, it suggests that competitive tendering exercises have a disproportionately negative impact upon women workers, while functional flexibility initiatives are somewhat more positive. Third, the case study suggests union resistance to restructuring is limited and particularly circumscribed in relation to restructuring of women's jobs.

Rational or demoralized responses to work restructuring in Hong Kong?

“…Concern for production costs is the impetus for the organization to solicit temporary and contracted employment in order to avoid the costs involved in the internal labor market (Uzzi & Barsness, 1998). New technology also facilitates flexible employment allowing people to work at their own pace and convenience (Kahn, 1999;Uzzi & Barsness, 1998). To change the employment mode, many organizations have to eliminate managers and make redundant employees originally affiliated with the organizations (ArmstrongStassen, 2002; Baron et al, 1999).…”

‘Doing Something Meaningful’: Gender and Public Service during Municipal Government Restructuring

“…Less research attention has been devoted, however, to the question of how employees, in affirming their identities through their work, also shape the restructuring process as they adapt to, contest, and resist the conditions they face. Yet employee responses are an important part of the restructuring process because, as the work of some researchers suggests, the gendered outcomes of restructuring are partly contingent upon the ways women and men process and comply with or contest the changes to their work (Creese, 1999; Greene et al ., 2002; Kahn, 1999; Taylor and Tyler, 2000). For example, Creese (1999) finds that union strategies of resistance to the 1980s restructuring of a public utility in Canada (BC Hydro) prioritized the interests of senior white men — unintentionally, she argues — because the men active in the union were ‘negotiating masculinity’ as they were pursuing economic goals.…”

“…For example, Creese (1999) finds that union strategies of resistance to the 1980s restructuring of a public utility in Canada (BC Hydro) prioritized the interests of senior white men — unintentionally, she argues — because the men active in the union were ‘negotiating masculinity’ as they were pursuing economic goals. Kahn’s (1999) study of two hospitals in the National Health Service Trust shows that implementing flexibility strategies led to reduced pay, fewer hours and increased work intensity in jobs typically held by women cleaners and food service workers, while male porters — supported by their union — were able to resist attempts to erode their working hours and pay. In the eyes of the men, the attempted restructuring meant a feminization of their work.…”

“…In the context of restructuring, the research emphasis is on how management draws on gendered divisions and meanings to meet economic goals and, in so doing, reinforces gender inequality (Benschop and Doorewaard, 1998; Collins, 2005; Cunningham et al ., 1999; Goode and Bagilhole, 1998; Mills, 1998; Newsome, 2003; Taylor and Tyler, 2000; Wallace, 1999; Webb, 2001). Less often do researchers focus on employees’ motives and understandings — that is, on how gendered meanings and identities mediate organizational change as workers actively take up, resist or transform management plans for change (but see Cockburn, 1983; Creese, 1999; Greene et al ., 2002; Kahn, 1999; Thomas and Davies, 2002).…”

Hållbart utvecklingsarbete i vård och omsorg : Ett institutionellt perspektiv på projekt i en professionell och byråkratisk kontext

“…Jämställdhets-forskning har visat att könsroller är svårföränderliga maktstrukturer och att många jämställdhetssatsningar därför misslyckas (Markovits & Bickford, 2014;Sundin, 2002). Förändringar som utmanar befintliga könsroller blir ofta kortsiktiga och organisationen återställs till utgång-släget (Abrahamsson, 2002;Kahn, 1999). I avhandlingen är denna forskning viktig för att uppmärksamma hur institutionella strukturer kan påverka ett hållbart utvecklingsarbete.…”