Air France's Strategic Plan: Benevolent `New Despotism'?

Collective action and labour militancy interrupted: Back-to-work legislation and the state of permanent exceptionalism at Air Canada

“…This is in addition to efforts by employers to seek concessions through lockouts, transforming management structures and work processes, reducing staffing levels, and other means of altering the nature of employment and employment relations. Similar trends have been witnessed at Air Canada over the past three decades (Eaton, 1993; Jacques and Kepos, 2011) (see Table 2).…”

“…For decades, pressures to cut operating expenses by increasing the outsourcing and subcontracting of services, reducing staffing levels, and other means of enhancing profitability and competitive advantage have been witnessed internationally throughout the airline industry (Bush, 2015). Evidence from global carriers such as Qantas, Aer Lingus, Air France and British Airways demonstrates that these conditions are shaped by two interrelated forces: market-driven interests and political interventions determined to assist these objectives (Bray and Underhill, 2009; Eaton, 1993; Lansbury et al, 2010; Smith and Howard, 2012; Taylor and Moore, 2015). Such is the political economy of contemporary austerity measures (Thomas and Tufts, 2016).…”

“…This has meant dramatic cost-cutting efforts, flexibilization and outsourcing as means of facilitating processes of financialization (Harvey, 2005). Researchers have even invoked Burawoy’s (1983) concept of a ‘new despotism’ to describe the changes precipitated by these broader reforms within the industry (Eaton, 1993). Deployment of measures such as reactive and pre-emptive back-to-work legislation is used to weaken labour’s influence at the bargaining table when employers aim to cut wage and benefit costs, subcontract services, reduce pension obligations as well as introduce two-tier pension and compensation structures, among other objectives that define the Air Canada case.…”

Restructuring and Workplace Unionism at Manchester Airport

“…However, there has been no detailed examination of the impact of equivalent forms of restructuring on workplace unionism within Britain's municipally owned airports. In fact, the airport industry has been the subject of scant attention by industrial relations researchers for many years, despite the substantial changes that have occurred with major implications for workplace management-union relations (Eaton 1993;Hopfl 1993;Jubb 1977;Williams 1991;Warhurst 1994). This is all the more remarkable considering the centrality of the industry to the British economy, the evidence that, amidst the rapid growth in air travel, Britain's international airports will play an increasingly significant role in future years, and their distinct importance as major workplaces in their own right.…”