The industrial relations chameleon: collective bargaining in the facility management business
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-12-2020-0526 |
| Published date | 16 December 2021 |
| Date | 16 December 2021 |
| Pages | 1-18 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Alejandro Godino,Oscar Molina |
The industrial relations
chameleon: collective bargaining
in the facility
management business
Alejandro Godino and Oscar Molina
Centre d’Estudis Sociol
ogics sobre la Vida Quotidiana i el Treball (QUIT),
Autonomous University of Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain
Abstract
Purpose –The paper aims to analyze collective bargaining in the facility management business of these six
countries to explore similarities and differences between them. The analysis serves to test the differential
impact of the national institutional setting on the protection provided by collective agreements to facility
management workers.
Design/methodology/approach –The paper adopts a case study methodology to approach a facility
management multinational company providing services in six European countries (France, Italy, The
Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK) that represent different industrial relations systems with
variance in key dimensions of collective bargaining, including its structure, coverage and extension of
agreements.
Findings –The extension of the facility management business model has not always adopted a high-road
strategy aimed at enhanci ng the quality and efficiency through the in tegrated management and delivery of
services, which is expected to positivelyimpact employment conditions. Rather, it has, in many cases, been a
deliberate, low-roa d attempt to undercut wo rking standards, ta king advantage of the mu ltiple services
provided by the company in a c ontext of growing de-centra lization in collective ba rgaining. The results poi nt
to an important role of in dustrial relations in stitutions in shaping f acility management st rategies and
outcomes.
Originality/value –Similar to other forms of outsourcing, facility management leads to fragmented
employmentrelations. However, the concentration of outsourced workers under the same supplier organization
introduces opportunities to ensure the protection of workers, depending on the adoption of a high- or low-road
competitive strategy. This paper provides for the first time comparative evidence about industrial relations in
facility management businesses, a largely under-researched area.
Keywords Outsourcing, Employee relations, Industrial relations, Collective bargaining, Case studies,
Trade unions
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The outsourcing of companies’activities not only has become a defining trait of post-Fordist
organizations but also has experienced an important diversification in its mechanisms, the
actors involved and its outcomes (Harrison and Kelley, 1993). Currently, we are witnessing
Industrial
relations in
facility
management
1
© Alejandro Godino and Oscar Molina. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is
published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce,
distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial
purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license
may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
The authors would like to thank the research team of the “Relaunching Collective Bargaining
Coverage in Outsourced Services –RECOVER”project. The authors also thank Maarten Keune for his
valuable insights in the early idea of this article.
Funding: This study received funding support from European Commission, DG Employment, Social
Affairs and Inclusion (Award Number: VS/2016/0351).
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
Received 4 December 2020
Revised 16 June 2021
1 October 2021
Accepted 17 November 2021
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 44 No. 7, 2022
pp. 1-18
Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-12-2020-0526
the extension of new modalities and mechanisms based on the opportunities opened by new
technologies, including the growth of (bogus) self-employment, crowd employment through
platforms and the expansion of facility management (FM) companies, among others
(Drahokoupil, 2015). It is increasingly common to find companies relying on several of these
mechanisms, depending on the characteristics of the activities outsourced. Moreover, it is not
rare to observe provider companies further outsourcing some of the services/activities they
provide to clients, therefore contributing to a cascading outsourcing effect. Together, these
developments have contributed to blurring organizational boundaries and have made
organizational structures increasingly complex.
The changing and varied nature of outsourcing practices is a result of several factors,
including companies’characteristics, the sectoral context, the introduction of new
technologies facilitating remote control and work and the institutional and regulatory
environments. Moreover, the factors driving outsourcing decisions are equally diverse,
ranging from gaining flexibility and enhancing efficiency to reducing costs and avoiding
fiscal or labor market regulations (Doellgast and Gospel, 2013).
In this context, the growth and expansion of facilities and multi-service companies is
probably one of the most interesting developments in relation to outsourcing and its
implications for industrial relations and employment. Outsourcing is far from being a new
phenomenon, but only since the early 2000s has there been a significant expansion of FM
companies in Europe, though uneven across countries. FM companies provide integrated
servicesand the management of thoseservices to other companiesor facilities. Even thoughthe
integration and management components constitute the distinctive traits of this form of
outsourcing, the reality is that FM firms very often compete as any other service company
providingjust one service to client companies.As a matter of fact, rather than competingin the
integrated service providers market, FM companies often take advantage of the diversity of
services providedto engage in cost competition, thus underminingthe working conditions of
some groups of workers through the application of lower standards in collective bargaining.
This paper analyzes collective bargaining in the FM sectors of six countries to explore the
similarities and differences between them. The analysis serves to illustrate the differential
impact of the national institutional setting in conjunction with the development of the FM
sector on the protection enjoyed by FM workers through collective bargaining. It is,
moreover, argued that the extension of the FM business model has not always adopted a high-
road strategy enhancing the quality and efficiency through the integrated management and
delivery of services. Rather, it has, in many cases, been a deliberate low-road strategy taking
advantage of the multiple services provided and the opportunities offered by decentralization
in collective bargaining to reduce costs and deteriorate employment conditions.
Section 1 of the paper discusses FM in light of the literature on the characteristics and
impact of outsourcing and the specific characteristics of FM, including a typology of FM
companies. Section 2 then discusses the methodology and the analytical strategy used.
Section 3 shows the development of FM in the six countries compared. This is then followed
by the analysis of FM actors and collective bargaining processes across the six countries.
2. Outsourcing and facility management in the global value chain
Most production and service provision processes are sequential and require establishing the
so-called value chain, i.e. a relationship between the different processes required to produce a
good or service (Huws and Podro, 2012;Antr
as and Chor, 2013). The design of the economic
value-added formula in the 1990s advocated that companies were more efficient when they
removed as many items as possible from their balance sheets (Marchington et al., 2005).
Outsourcing should accordingly be interpreted first and foremost as a business strategy with
a financial/economic rationale. First, outsourcing is aimed at reducing costs in the short term
ER
44,7
2
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