Introduction

This chapter is concerned with how developments in employment relations, understood as the nature of the relationship between employers and workers, and the contemporary management of employment relations have contributed to the current crisis of work. It demonstrates how intensified neoliberalization, by promoting deregulation, enabling greater managerial control and weakening labour, has contributed to greater employer flexibility, with adverse consequences for workers, particularly in more financialized settings and in a context of greater automation. The crisis of employment relations is thus a product of the increased disconnect between managerial imperatives for short- term efficiency improvements, with the consequence that labour is increasingly treated as a commodity, and workers’ aspirations for decent work and to have their labour valued. This has heightened the antagonisms we discuss in Chapters 1 and 2.

This disconnect was particularly evident at the height of the COVID-19 crisis. As the chapter shows, the expectation that the experience of the pandemic would temper the trend of labour commodification, because workers’ efforts were better valued and their interests more clearly recognized, was somewhat misplaced. The imperative for short- term efficiency gains meant that employers prioritized managerial control and flexibility objectives, with adverse consequences for workers. There is an increasing recognition of the contribution that a greater focus on sustainability in employment relations can make to improving the quality of people's jobs and addressing environmental degradation, particularly by mitigating the effects of the climate emergency. However, the last part of this chapter shows that efforts to manage employment relations in a sustainable way, in order to tackle the climate crisis and promote decent work, are of very limited effectiveness, not least because of the large extent to which corporate interests are privileged.

Neoliberalization, financialization and labour commodification

As we explain in Chapter 1, the contemporary crisis of work is, in important ways, a function of a long- term process of neoliberalization that commenced in the 1980s. When it comes to employment relations, one of the most notable features of this process concerns the marked increase in employer discretion, particularly in the Global North, arising as a consequence of greater labour market deregulation and the diminished power of the trade unions (Baccaro and Howell, 2017).