The (dis)advantages of sector-level bargaining: Outsourcing of cleaning work and the segmentation of the Israeli industrial relations system

Abstract

This article examines the segmentation of the corporatist industrial relations system through a historical analysis of the public-sector outsourcing process in Israel, which occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. Emphasizing the intersection of class, race/ethnicity and gender in Israeli society, the article analyses outsourcing of cleaning work as the adoption of labour market vulnerability into the industrial relations system. It uses intersectionality to demonstrate how the promotion of outsourcing through sector-level bargaining acted as a means of labour market control and industrial relations centralization, thus legitimizing precarious employment forms. Stressing the links between intersectionality and outsourcing practices in the Israeli corporatist system sheds light upon structural segmentation and differential representation of vulnerable workers in a centralized industrial relations system.

The organizational inclusion turn and its exclusion of low-wage labor

“…Another aspect of the organization-environment relationship is the ways in which cleaning work has increasingly become part of a multi-employer landscape through outsourcing and subcontracting (Benjamin et al, 2010; Bondy, 2018; Davies and Ollus, 2019; Preminger, 2018; Strömmer, 2016). These studies indicate that the changing organizational boundaries create a lack of regulatory oversight on the work of cleaning, which leads to the question: Who is responsible for the working conditions of low-wage workers when work is subcontracted or outsourced?…”

“…These studies indicate that the changing organizational boundaries create a lack of regulatory oversight on the work of cleaning, which leads to the question: Who is responsible for the working conditions of low-wage workers when work is subcontracted or outsourced? Furthermore, the precarious forms of employment in the cleaning sector lead to a further increase in income inequality (Lawson, 2010), a decline in employment security (Rubery and Urwin, 2011) and a growing segmentation in labor markets (Bondy, 2018).…”

New Labor Actors Under Corporatism: Complementarity and the Renewal of Class Representation for Precarious Workers

“…This article is built on an analysis of two case studies taken from the context of corporatist labor relations-the enforcement of labor rights in the construction sector and building services in Israel. These examples are suited to an appraisal of the changing nature of precarious workers' representation due to the long-lasting erosion of traditional union representation in these areas (Bondy, 2018;Shalev, 2017). Furthermore, as they are typically characterized by precarious employment and continuous exclusive representation of workers (Bondy, 2018;Mundlak, 2003), the chosen cases also demonstrate the growing activity of new labor actors (Preminger, 2017(Preminger, , 2018, making a promising prism for analyzing new actors' implications for the representation of precarious workers and for complementing traditionally exclusive unions.…”

“…There, autonomous central regulation developed without organizing or authentically representing workers' interests, and exclusive representation strategies were the norm (e.g. Bondy, 2018;Mundlak 2020).…”

“…Israel serves as an ideal laboratory for this analysis, given its corporatist traditions, characterized by highly exclusive nature, especially toward women and ethnic or national minorities (e.g. Bondy, 2018;Mundlak, 2003), and the (partial) exhaustion of the corporatist structure since the 1980s (Grinberg, 1991;Mundlak, 2007) in favor of bottom-up strategies of workers' representation (Bondy and Mundlak, 2019;Preminger, 2018). Focusing on representation of precarious workers, traditionally excluded and marginalized by the monopolist union, the article will claim that the Israeli corporatism makes conflicts between labor actors a prominent means for the transformation of both union legitimacy and precarious workers' representation.…”