Precarious Labour In The UK: The Impact Of Neoliberalism and The Possibilities For Resistance and Organisation

This paper seeks to examine resistance to precarious employment in the UK. It has been the focus of recent debate in the UK, both in academia and in the labour movement. In academia there have been debates between Guy Standing (2011) and Kevin Doogan (2009) amongst others about the extent and implications of precarious employment. The use of statistical evidence is a particular point of contention; ranging from some arguments relying on very little of it to others claiming it negates the concept. However statistics alone provide only a partial picture, as the category of precarious employment is heterogeneous: it is not simply about being on a specific kind of temporary contract. The experience of precarity is an important component of work today, and an understanding that draws on Bourdieu’s (1998) notion of ‘précarité’ as a ‘mode of domination’ is useful for developing this further. The paper will attempt to historicise precarity in the UK as part of capital’s response to the crisis of the 1970s and the rise of Neoliberalism. These processes were enforced with a series of defeats for the trade union movement, which have left low levels of membership concentrated mainly in the public sector and large sections of the private sector without traditional forms of working class organisation. There has been resistance to precarious employment. The examples of university teaching staff, call centre workers, and the campaigns against zero-hour contracts will be examined to understand how new forms of struggle can lay the basis for the renewal of workers’ organisation. The paper will argue how the historical examples of new unionisation in the 1880s and 1930s can inform contemporary debates on overcoming precarity.