Disconnected Amid the Networks and Chains: Employee Detachment from Company and Union after Offshoring
| Author | Leo McCann |
| Date | 01 June 2014 |
| Published date | 01 June 2014 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12014 |
Disconnected Amid the Networks and
Chains: Employee Detachment from
Company and Union after Offshoring
Leo McCann
Abstract
Much has been written about the relocation of services jobs away from OECD
nations by offshoring. But what happens to those who remain employed at
workplaces where offshoring has been carried out? Based on survey and inter-
view data of UK insurance and banking staff, this article explores employees’
subjective understandings of the impacts of offshoring. The article brings
together literature on Global Commodity Chains and Labour Process Theory,
as it expands the focus of research on offshoring from macro/meso discussions
of globalization and firm strategy into more micro-level analysis of employee
interpretations of workplace change. The data indicate a collapse in morale and
work dignity for UK financial services workers and suggest that offshoring is
not associated with a rise in skill levels of surviving jobs. Many staff reported a
climate of detachment and cynicism after offshoring. Detachment and disaffec-
tion applies to employees’ feelings towards their employer and their union, and
is discussed as a paradoxical by-product of the growing incorporation of ser-
vices work into Global Commodity Chains or Global Production Networks.
1. Introduction
Services work is increasingly drawn into global divisions of labour through
complex forms of international outsourcing or ‘offshoring’. Where manufac-
turing firms have led the way in forming Global Commodity Chains (GCC)
(Gereffi and Korzeniewicz 1994; Gereffi et al. 2005) and Global Production
Networks (GPN) (Dicken et al. 2001; Henderson et al. 2002; Humphrey
2003) in the development and assembly of complex industrial goods, the
globalization of services has followed similar paths. Services are increasingly
delivered through complex webs of subcontracting, often utilizing offshore
Leo McCann is at the University of Manchester.
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British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/bjir.12014
52:2 June 2014 0007–1080 pp. 237–260
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/London School of Economics. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
workforces for contact centres or back office processing (Blinder 2006;
Howcroft and Richardson 2011; Taylor 2010). Offshoring, therefore, repre-
sents ‘the next wave of globalization’ (Dossani and Kenney 2007) as services
are deregulated and opened to international competition.
Advocates of offshoring argue that it enables greater business efficiency
and increased shareholder value (Farrell et al. 2006; Mankiw 2004).
Although it may lead to redundancies in OECD nations, it creates desirable
new jobs (in both the high- and low-wage nations) and makes better use
of the ‘global’ labour force for English-speaking graduates in developing
nations. It tends to be described as ‘inevitable’, meaning that any attempt to
restrict it is self-defeating and unworkable, much like any other restraint of
trade, such as import tariffs (Collins and Brainerd 2005). Many claim that
offshoring is actually beneficial to OECD nations, in that it mostly eliminates
the lower-end jobs, providing opportunities for richer nations to focus on
higher-end, higher-skilled, more knowledge-intensive jobs (Farrell 2005).
This view is reminiscent of many claims made in the GCC and GPN literature
(such as Gereffi et al. 2005), in that explanations for the rise of offshoring are
derived from efficiency arguments; if the low-wage, low-skill work is off-
shored, companies can refocus their attention on higher-value activities, such
as product design and innovation, or product strategy and marketing, as
formerly integrated large firms are ‘deverticalized’ and made more responsive
and flexible (Sturgeon 2002). The potential, however, for widespread loss of
highly paid, middle-class, white-collar jobs is a major concern in advanced
economies following on from decades of blue-collar job destruction (Blinder
2006; Harrison and McMillan 2006: 7; Mushero 2006).
Although important, these debates focus on the macro-level and have little
to say about the micro details of how offshoring affects workplaces and
workers, particularly in terms of how employees and unions might experi-
ence, interpret and respond to it. Research into how offshoring affects the
experience of work has, thus far, been limited (Davis-Blake and Broschak
2009). This article contributes to debates on offshoring of service work by
focusing on this neglected area. Based on a workplace sociology perspective,
the article examines the subjective impacts of offshoring on workers
employed in establishments that have used offshoring in recent years. Inter-
view and survey data from members of the Unite trade union employed in
banking and insurance firms provide a range of subjective views on various
interlinked elements of the micro-organizational consequences of offshoring.
From the perspective of the employees interviewed and surveyed, offshoring
is described not as a fearful destroyer of millions of jobs but as one of
several unpopular restructuring moves. In an interesting paradox, members
described a sense of growing isolation and detachment from their employer
and from their union, even as the literature on offshoring and outsourcing
emphasizes connections such as global communication technologies and
notions of ‘networks’ and ‘chains’. In contrast with the advocates of offshor-
ing and to the general thrust of the GCC/GPN literature, survey data suggest
that UK trade union members do not believe that offshoring leads to
238 British Journal of Industrial Relations
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/London School of Economics.
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