‘How could management let this happen?’ Gender, unpaid work and industrial relations in the nonprofit social services sector

Abstract

In order to compete in increasingly tight quasi-markets generated by government cutbacks and contracting-out, management in nonprofit agencies have argued that wages and benefits must be reduced or jobs and services will be cut. These arguments have motivated some of the female-majority workers to join and/or organize unions and undertake strike action. Focusing on two case studies exploring restructuring in the highly gendered nonprofit social services in two liberal welfare states (Scotland and Canada), this article explores shifts in industrial relations at the agency level, as well as workforce resistance and union activism. Through the analysis of gendered unpaid work and gendered forms of social and union solidarity, this article extends feminist political economy and mobilization theory. It also suggests convergences at several layers of practice and policy, including private and nonprofit industrial relations cultures, managerialism and the underfunding of contracted-out government services.

‘I feel like I’m in poverty. I don’t do much outside of work other than survive’: In-work poverty and multiple employment in the UK

“…A further structural constraint in terms of upholding a cycle of financial hardship and IWP for many of our respondents was the ongoing impact of state-led austerity policies (see also Baines and Cunningham, 2020). Many of the workers in this study had their employment outsourced which resulted in having cuts to working hours or wage freezes, hence, essentially a cut in wages.…”

“…Rubery et al (2018) note how such precarious working is becoming the 'new norm', which is emblematic in the growth of subcontracted work, ZHCs and dependent self-employment. Baines and Cunningham (2020) also draw attention to the waves of austerity measures with organisational restructuring initiatives involving wage freezes, job losses, cuts to services and outsourcing across the public sector and the third sector. In terms of the drivers of precarisation, Alberti et al (2018) identify the role of the state together with managerial strategies with senior managers driving explicit forms of precarisation by imposing particular contracts of employment, such as ZHCs, temporary agency work and subcontracting (Forde and Slater, 2016).…”

“…In 2008 the UK experienced the most severe economic crisis since the 1930s (Baines and Cunningham, 2020). As this section will demonstrate, this directly impacted on the workers we interviewed with pressures on reducing costs and the outsourcing of work.…”

Crisis, Pandemic, and Beyond: Nonprofits and Adaptive Capability of Communities

“…The first notable characteristic is that nonprofit work is gendered, with women constituting an overwhelming majority of the workforce. As a result of the dynamics of asymmetrical power relations, market and managerial relations of conflict and consent will largely concern a female-dominated workforce (Baines & Cunningham, 2020). In addition, as a sector that relies heavily on the intrinsic motivations of the workforce (Baluch, 2017), nonprofit organizations may be exploiting the commitment of their employees, particularly the female capacity for seemingly endless care.…”

“…La première caractéristique à noter est que le travail des OSBL est genré, dans la mesure où ce sont les femmes qui constituent la grande majorité de la main-d'oeuvre. Dans un milieu où les relations de pouvoir sont asymétriques, des rapports de marché et de gestion où prédominent le conflit et le consentement exerceront une influence certaine sur une main-d'oeuvre à prépondérance féminine (Baines et Cunningham, 2020). En outre, en tant qu'organismes qui dépendent de la motivation intrinsèque de leurs employés (Baluch, 2017), les OSBL sont peut-être en train d'exploiter outre mesure l'engagement de leur personnel, particulièrement la capacité prétendument inexhaustible des femmes à promulguer des soins.…”