ABSTRACT
The 1980s growth of casualised employment in the British economy coincided with a shift in prevailing economic theories and policies. Broadly, from the late nineteenth century, working conditions had become increasingly regulated by law and by recognised trade unionism. An influential lobby among employers had accepted a regulated economy on the grounds that official trade unionism and negotiated settlements were less disruptive than unofficial militancy. During the 1980s, this was to be challenged and the advantages of a ‘flexible’ workforce stressed. Right-wing arguments for flexibility have stressed the need to cut labour costs in order to be competitive. But ‘flexibility’ also found left-wing advocates who saw a shift from large-scale factories on the Fordist model to a post-Fordist
organisation of production as creating liberatory ‘new times’ for workers released from the discipline of Taylorism. They tended to slide from a description of economic trends into an uncritical celebration which did not examine the actual implications of flexibility for casualised workers. On the other hand, some critics of post-Fordism have simply condemned the new conditions of employment instead of acknowledging that they have any positive features or asking what kind of organisation might be developed in changing circumstances.1
