In order to explore the linkages between ‘new jobs’, conditions of work and employment in these jobs and more or less favourable outcomes for employees’ quality of work and life, WALQING combines data analysis on the chief European data sources, in-depth comparative investigation of stakeholder policies, organisational arrangements and strategies, and the perspectives and agency of individuals in ‘new jobs’. WALQING involves interest organisations and other stakeholders from an early point in time by focusing on existing policies and arenas and gaps in these policies and taking an action-research perspective.
Its aims are:
1. to identify expanding economic activities in Europe with problematic configurations in terms of low wages, precarious employment and lack of social integration;
2. to investigate existing social partner and other stakeholder policies seeking to improve conditions in these industries and involve stakeholders in the assessment of both problematic and favourable practices;
3. to analyse possible relations between various ways of organising new types of work in terms of contractual arrangements, working hours, etc., and the impact on the quality of work and life, as well as the conditions of configurations that are favourable and sustainable on both the organisational and the individual level;
4. to bring together institutionalist, organisational and action-research perspectives in order to transfer examples of good practice beyond their national context and to explore the limitations of such transfers;
5. from these analyses, to identify gaps in stakeholder, national and European policy that may contribute to locking organisations and individuals in patterns of low-wage and poor job quality and investigate the possibilities to transfer examples of organisational strategies that support higher-quality paths.
Start date: 01/12/2009
Finish date: 01/11/2012
Financing: European Commission (7 PM – Agreement SSH-CT-2009-244597)
Responsable researcher: Albert Recio
Team: Fausto Miguélez, Sara Moreno, Josep Maria Antentas, Alejandro Godino, Joan RodrÃguez, Laia Castelló
Documents and publications:
Recio, Albert/GodinoAlejandro (2011): Trabajadores invisibles: la calidad del empleo en el sector de limpieza de edificios y locales en España walqing social partnership series 2011.17, A report for WP5 of the WALQING project, SSH-CT-2009-244597, Barcelona, November 2011
MORENO, Sara; GODINO, Alejandro; RECIO, Albert (2014): “Servicios externalizados y condiciones laborales: De la competencia de precios a la presión de los tiempos de trabajo”. SociologÃa del Trabajo, núm. 81, pp. 50-67.
RECIO, Albert; MORENO, Sara; GODINO, Alejandro (2015): “Out Of Sight: dimensions of working time in gendered occupations”, en U. Holtgrewe, V. Kirov, M. Ramioul (eds.) Hard Work in New Jobs. The quality of work and life in European growth sectors. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 189-207
