ABSTRACT
The ‘flexible labour market’ was a resounding catchphrase of British economic and political life during the 1980s. It was ruthlessly pursued via legislative action to reduce trade union power, with the closed shop and secondary picketing being in the front-line of attack. Regulations protecting the employment rights of workers were weakened and the wages councils, custodians of minimum wages in low-wage industries, were abolished. Public services, such as refuse collection, were contracted out to the private sector. Fixed-term contracts and performance-related pay were introduced into activities as diverse as policing and academic life. All this was done in the conviction that the market paradigm of the neoclassical textbooks was the appropriate instrument for sorting out wage and employment levels. In a brave new world of flexible prices and quantities, homo economicus would ensure labour market clearance and productivity growth.
In a ‘flexible’ labour market where employment is little regulated (in terms of pay, working hours, restrictions on dismissal, etc.) the creation of low-paid, part-time, short-term or otherwise non-standard jobs is unconstrained, and there is a high level of job turnover, employers screen less intensively before hiring.
(OECD 1992: 207)