Creating a multilayered representational ‘package’ for subcontracted workers: the case of cleaners at Ben‐Gurion University

• Date: 01 January 2018
• Published date: 01 January 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12201
• Author: Jonathan Preminger

Creating a multilayered representational

‘package’for subcontracted workers: the

case of cleaners at Ben-Gurion University

Jonathan Preminger

ABSTRACT

Research into the organising of subcontracted workers tends to focus on how such

campaigns contribute to union revitalisation, the shortcomings of non-union organi-

sations in comparison with classic unionism and opposition rather than complemen-

tarity between strategies. Analysing the organising of subcontracted cleaners at a

university, this article shifts this focus, evaluating the campaign in terms of how it

assisted the workers, regardless of whether it contributed to union renewal, and in

terms of complementarity between new and traditional industrial relations actors.

Drawing on the power resources approach, it asserts that collaboration across differ-

ent ‘paths to representation’can create a multilayered representational ‘package’in

which different organisations with different power resources take on different aspects

of what was once a (single) union’s role, covering each other’s shortcomings in a kind

of de facto representational ‘division of labour’.

1 INTRODUCTION

Subcontracted workers have long been recognised as a significant group within the

category of contingent and precarious workers. This form of employment is increas-

ingly widespread, creeping into professions previously considered bastions of ‘classic’

employment forms (Gumbrell-McCormick, 2011; Hannan et al., 2016; Wright, 2013).

Standard representation within unions is particularly difficult to achieve for

subcontracted labour due to the ‘triangular’employment relationship, where the

wage payer (the legal employer or the service provider) is not the employer in practice

(the institution paying for the services) (Davidov, 2015).

Many studies have investigated attempts to overcome the barriers to organising

subcontracted workers, including coalitions between unions and non-union civil soci-

ety organisations (CSOs). Such ‘new actors’in industrial relations (IR) (Heery and

Frege, 2006) have been recognised as having an important role in areas in which,

for various reasons, unions are weak (Osterman, 2006; Heery et al., 2012). Likewise,

the importance of community organising and ‘community unionism’has been noted,

along with new configurations of solidarity and power resources under changed cir-

cumstances. However, the dominant question in these studies is to what extent such

organising contributes to the revitalisation of organised labour. Moreover, an

❒Jonathan Preminger is a lecturer at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK.

Correspondence should be addressed to Jonathan Preminger, Cardiff Business School, Cardiff

University, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK. Email: premingerj@cardiff.ac.uk

Industrial Relations Journal 49:1, 34–49

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2018 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

important focus common to many of these studies is the friction between union aims

and strategies and those of CSOs involved in a given campaign. The possibility that

apparently contradictory aims of different organisations may complement each other

in improving employment terms for those at the heart of the struggle—the

subcontracted workers—has often been overlooked. In light of these emphases, this

study has two objectives: (i) to shift the focus decidedly towards the workers, evaluat-

ing the organisations involved in terms of how they assist those they claim to repre-

sent, regardless of whether the struggle contributes to union renewal; and (ii) to

shift the focus onto the complementarity between organising strategies and between

the organisations involved, and thus investigate the relationship between classic IR

actors (Dunlop, 1958) and new (Bellemare, 2000; Heery and Frege, 2006).

The study analyses the organising of subcontracted cleaners at Ben-Gurion Univer-

sity (2007). The case offers an excellent opportunity to compare different ‘paths to rep-

resentation’: the cleaners were represented by, though not members of, a large

established union (the Histadrut) but organised by a non-union Coalition for Direct

Employment, which recruited a small new union (Koach Laovdim) in its efforts to ob-

tain a concrete employment relationship directly with the university. In addition, four

years after the Coalition’s initial campaign, the Histadrut reached industry-wide col-

lective agreements which also covered the university cleaners. I compare the three

main entities involved (the Histadrut, Koach Laovdim and the Coalition) in terms

of (i) their structural position in labour relations; (ii) the frameworks through which

they operate and their limitations; and (iii) the level and type of participation they of-

fer to the workers at the heart of the issue—the cleaners. My purpose is not to discuss

union revitalisation or the decline of union power but to investigate how three differ-

ent ‘paths to representation’compare and complement each other, each offering a dif-

ferent advantage to the cleaners and creating between them a kind of de facto ‘division

of labour’in the representation of contingent workers. I thus respond to Tapia et al.

(2015: 176) who urge us to explore new claim-making routes in IR, routes which

‘might very well be the new reality for worker representation where unions have at best

coalition roles, a minor role, or no role at all’.

Empirically, this case enables a close comparison between three organisations work-

ing in different ways towards the same broad goal, which enriches our understanding

of the complexities of contingent worker representation. On a theoretical level, it re-

sponds to concerns over issues of empowerment and inclusion and counters the wide-

spread unionist approach which tends to evaluate coalition-based organising in terms

of union revitalisation, often overlooking the benefits of concrete gains for specific

workers and over-emphasising the clash of interests between unions and other CSOs.

The article asserts that collaboration across different levels of representation, through

different approaches, and drawing on different power resources, can create a multilay-

ered representational ‘package’in which different organisations take on different as-

pects of what was once the union’s role. Given the weakened state of unions facing

‘hard choices’when resources are scarce (Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman, 2013),

the ongoing difficulties of ensuring the basic rights of precarious workers, and increas-

ing disruptions to ‘standard’representational frameworks, this kind of multilayered

approach should be seen as an effective strategic option and not as a poor second to

classic unionising. Thus, this article contributes to our understanding of ‘what to do

when the [IR] system approaches collapse’(Turner, 2004: 3).

In order to clarify this ‘division of labour’, I will discuss the various organisations’

roles according to the power resources approach (see Wright, 2000: 962; Silver, 2003:

35Multilayered representation for subcontracted workers

© 2018 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd