This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Web of Science (4) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Rubery, J. Articles by Beynon, H. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Working Time, Industrial Relations and the Employment Relationship

Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UKjill.rubery{at}manchester.ac.uk

Kevin Ward

School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UKk.g.ward{at}manchester.ac.uk

Damian Grimshaw

Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UKd.p.grimshaw{at}mbs.ac.uk

Huw Beynon

Cardiff University School of Social Sciences, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3WT, UKBeynon{at}cardiff.ac.uk

This article explores the erosion of the standard working-time model associated with the UK's voluntarist system of industrial relations, and argues that its renegotiation is likely to be a critical factor in shaping the employment relationship of the future. As numerous studies over the last two decades have revealed, organizations have increasingly seen ‘time’ as a variable that can be manipulated to increase productivity or expand service provision, through making workers work harder, longer or according to management demands. These studies have also drawn our attention to the wider consequences of the increasing demands that organizations place on their employees in the name of ‘flexibility’, impacting both on what workers do while at work and how they organize and plan the other aspects of their lives. This article brings together two literatures, one on time and the other on industrial relations, and suggests that new working-time arrangements are changing the wage-effort bargain and blurring the previously clearly demarcated boundary between work and non-work time. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork in six large UK-based organizations, we argue that there is evidence of a move towards a new ‘temporality’ based on an employer-led model of working time, which differs significantly from both the traditional UK system of working-time regulation and that found in Continental Europe.

Key Words: employment relationship • intensification of work • non-working time • organizational change • working time

Time & Society, Vol. 14, No. 1, 89-111 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0961463X05050300


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				M. Thomas and N. Bailey Out of Time: Work, Temporal Synchrony and Families Sociology, August 1, 2009; 43(4): 613 - 630. [Abstract] [PDF]

				M. Moshe Temporary versus Permanent: Time framing in the Israeli political arena Time Society, March 1, 2009; 18(1): 154 - 171. [Abstract] [PDF]

				J. M. Maher, J. Lindsay, and S. Franzway Time, caring labour and social policy: understanding the family time economy in contemporary families Work Employment Society, September 1, 2008; 22(3): 547 - 558. [PDF]

				J. Lewis and M. Campbell UK Work/Family Balance Policies and Gender Equality, 1997-2005 Soc. Pol., April 19, 2007; (2007) jxm005v2. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]