Workplace regimes in Western Europe, 1995–2015: Implications for intensification, intrusion, income and insecurity

Abstract

The article investigates the emergence of ‘new’ forms of working such as ‘lean production’ and ‘learning organisations’ in Western Europe, 1995–2015. First, the article identifies the dominant forms of work organisation (‘workplace regimes’) across Western Europe, including new ‘pressure’ and ‘extreme’ varieties of previously identified regimes. Second, the article analyses the implications of these workplace regimes for various important worker outcomes – insecurity, income, intensity of work and intrusion of work into non-working life – and assesses the ‘trade-offs’ of different outcomes across regimes. Third, the article assesses the changing distribution of these regimes, whether certain forms such as Lean Production are coming to dominate the division of labour, and where and for whom. The shape of the ‘new world of work’ is increasingly Lean, but remains open to political contestation – both in how regimes themselves are organised and in the mix of regimes in particular societies and for particular workers.