IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v37y2023i2p352-372.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Welfare, Work and the Conditions of Social Solidarity: British Campaigns to Defend Healthcare and Social Security

Author

Listed:
  • Genevieve Coderre-LaPalme

    (University of Birmingham, UK)

  • Ian Greer

    (Cornell University, USA)

  • Lisa Schulte

    (Middlesex University, UK)

Abstract

When the welfare state is under attack from neoliberal reformers, how can trade unionists and other campaigners build solidarity to defend it? Based on 45 qualitative interviews, this article compares campaigns to defend British health services and social security benefits between 2007 and 2016. Building on the macro-insights of comparative welfare-state literature and the more micro-level insights of studies on mobilisation, community unionism and union strategy, it examines the factors that help or hinder the construction of solidarity. This research finds that building solidarity is more difficult when defending targeted benefits than universal ones, not only because of differences in public opinion and political support for services, but also because the labour process associated with targeting benefits, namely the assessing and sanctioning of clients, can generate conflicts among campaigners.

Suggested Citation

  • Genevieve Coderre-LaPalme & Ian Greer & Lisa Schulte, 2023. "Welfare, Work and the Conditions of Social Solidarity: British Campaigns to Defend Healthcare and Social Security," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 37(2), pages 352-372, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:37:y:2023:i:2:p:352-372
    DOI: 10.1177/09500170211031454
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09500170211031454
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/09500170211031454?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sharon C Bolton & Knut Laaser, 2020. "The Moral Economy of Solidarity: A Longitudinal Study of Special Needs Teachers," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(1), pages 55-72, February.
    2. Gill Kirton & Cécile Guillaume, 2019. "When Welfare Professionals Encounter Restructuring and Privatization: The Inside Story of the Probation Service of England and Wales," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 33(6), pages 929-947, December.
    3. Soss, Joe & Schram, Sanford F., 2007. "A Public Transformed? Welfare Reform as Policy Feedback," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(1), pages 111-127, February.
    4. Andy Hodder, 2014. "Organising young workers in the Public and Commercial Services union," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 153-168, March.
    5. Krachler, Nick & Greer, Ian, 2015. "When does marketisation lead to privatisation? Profit-making in English health services after the 2012 Health and Social Care Act," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 215-223.
    6. Glenn Morgan & Valeria Pulignano, 2020. "Solidarity at Work: Concepts, Levels and Challenges," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(1), pages 18-34, February.
    7. Böhm, Katharina & Schmid, Achim & Götze, Ralf & Landwehr, Claudia & Rothgang, Heinz, 2013. "Five types of OECD healthcare systems: Empirical results of a deductive classification," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(3), pages 258-269.
    8. Ganz, Marshall Louis, 2000. "Resources and Resourcefulness: Strategic Capacity in the Unionization of California Agriculture, 1959-1966," Scholarly Articles 12641805, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    9. Joakim Palme & Walter Korpi, 1998. "The Paradox of Redistribution and Strategies of Equality: Welfare State Institutions, Inequality and Poverty in the Western Countries," LIS Working papers 174, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    10. Vanessa Beck & Paul Brook, 2020. "Solidarities In and Through Work in an Age of Extremes," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(1), pages 3-17, February.
    11. Greer, Ian & Breidahl, N. Karen & Knuth, Matthias & Larsen, Flemming, 2017. "The Marketization of Employment Services: The Dilemmas of Europe's Work-first Welfare States," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198785446.
    12. Ian Greer & Thorsten Schulten & Nils Böhlke, 2013. "How Does Market Making Affect Industrial Relations? Evidence from Eight German Hospitals," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 51(2), pages 215-239, June.
    13. Christian Lévesque & Gregor Murray, 2010. "Understanding union power: resources and capabilities for renewing union capacity," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 16(3), pages 333-350, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nana Wesley Hansen & Nick Krachler, 2024. "Conditions for cross-professional union coalition-building: When enough is enough, but solidarity also has its limits!," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 45(2), pages 530-555, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ruth Reaney & Niall Cullinane, 2024. "Inter-Union Solidarity and Strategic Group Identity: Insights from Works Councils in the French Car Industry," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 38(2), pages 377-398, April.
    2. Nick Krachler & Jennie Auffenberg & Luigi Wolf, 2021. "The Role of Organizational Factors in Mobilizing Professionals: Evidence from Nurse Unions in the United States and Germany," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 59(3), pages 643-668, September.
    3. Krachler, Nick & Greer, Ian, 2015. "When does marketisation lead to privatisation? Profit-making in English health services after the 2012 Health and Social Care Act," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 215-223.
    4. Takanori Sumino, 2016. "Level or Concentration? A Cross-national Analysis of Public Attitudes Towards Taxation Policies," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 129(3), pages 1115-1134, December.
    5. Alvaro S Almeida, 2016. "The Role Of Private Non-Profit Healthcare Organizations In Nhs Systems: Implications For The Portuguese Hospital Devolution Program," FEP Working Papers 577, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    6. Busemeyer, Marius R., 2021. "Health care attitudes and institutional trust during the COVID-19 crisis: Evidence from the case of Germany," Working Papers 01, University of Konstanz, Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality. Perceptions, Participation and Policies".
    7. Clem Brooks & Inés Calzada, 2011. "On policy feedback: insights from survey experiments," Working Papers 1102, Instituto de Políticas y Bienes Públicos (IPP), CSIC.
    8. Syed Imran Saqib & Matthew M C Allen & Miguel Martínez Lucio & Maria Allen, 2024. "Sustaining Solidarity through Social Media? Employee Social-Media Groups as an Emerging Platform for Collectivism in Pakistan," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 38(3), pages 636-656, June.
    9. Markus Helfen & Jörg Sydow & Carsten Wirth, 2020. "Service Delivery Networks and Employment Relations at German Airports: Jeopardizing Industrial Peace on the Ground?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(1), pages 168-198, March.
    10. Adam Fishwick & Lucila D’Urso, 2024. "Trade Union Solidarity in Crisis: The Generative Tensions of Worker Solidarities in Argentina," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 38(1), pages 44-62, February.
    11. John F. Geary, 2022. "Securing collective representation in non‐union European multinational companies: The case of Ryanair pilots’ (partial) success," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 60(3), pages 635-661, September.
    12. Mona Sandbæk, 2017. "European Policies to Promote Children’s Rights and Combat Child Poverty," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-13, July.
    13. Jin Wook Kim & Young Jun Choi, 2008. "Private Transfers and Emerging Welfare States in East Asia: Comparative Perspectives," LIS Working papers 507, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    14. Hipp, Lena, 2020. "Feeling secure vs. being secure? Qualitative evidence on the relationship between labour market institutions and employees’ perceived job security from Germany and the U.S," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 15(4), pages 416-429.
    15. Hrvoje Butković & Jan Czarzasty & Adam Mrozowicki, 2023. "Gains and pitfalls of coalitions: Societal resources as sources of trade union power in Croatia and Poland," European Journal of Industrial Relations, , vol. 29(1), pages 43-61, March.
    16. Cristiano Perugini & Gaetano Martino, 2008. "Income Inequality Within European Regions: Determinants And Effects On Growth," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 54(3), pages 373-406, September.
    17. Victoria Johnson & Walter W. Powell, 2015. "Poisedness and Propagation: Organizational Emergence and the Transformation of Civic Order in 19th-Century New York City," NBER Working Papers 21011, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Bruno, Bosco & Ambra, Poggi, 2016. "Government effectiveness, middle class and poverty in the EU: A dynamic multilevel analysis," Working Papers 344, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised 27 Jun 2016.
    19. Ammi, Mehdi & Fortier, Grant, 2017. "The influence of welfare systems on pay-for-performance programs for general practitioners: A critical review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 157-166.
    20. Brady, David, 2018. "Theories of the Causes of Poverty," SocArXiv jud53, Center for Open Science.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:37:y:2023:i:2:p:352-372. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.