Austerity, Welfare and Work. Etherington, David
David Etherington is Professor of Local and Regional Economic Development at Staffordshire University. Prior to working in the university sector, David worked in local government (including 10 years at Sheffield City Council) on economic and social regeneration policy. His research interests include Marxist political economy, welfare, work, employment relations, labour and social movements. He has brought this experience and expertise as a practitioner into policy research including work for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (Political Devolution Regional Governance and Tackling Deprivation [2007]), an ESRC/University of Sheffield (Knowledge Exchange Programme IAA) commissioned study Devolution and Disadvantage in Sheffield City (2016). He has published widely in international peer reviewed journals including Environment and Planning A, Journal of European Social Policy, Employee Relations, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society. More recently (March 2020) he has worked with the trade union movement and colleagues at Sheffield Hallam and Manchester Metropolitan Universities on insecure work in connection with the Sheffield Needs a Pay Rise Campaign, Tackling Labour Market Injustice and organising Workers: The View from a Northern Heartland.
Numerous people have contributed to this book in one way or another. I am extremely grateful to Martin Jones, Allan Cochrane and an anonymous reviewer for commenting on the initial drafts. A special mention to Helen Thompson who did an amazing job copy editing, as well as providing constructive comments. Also, thanks to Laura Vickers-Rendall, Amelia Watts-Jones and Millie Prekop of Policy Press for their assistance and support in writing the book.
Some of the material for the chapters has been derived from previous longstanding collaborative research with Martin Jones and Ruth Beresford. I have also drawn from work undertaken in relation to Sheffield Needs a Pay Rise (SNAP) campaign. I am extremely proud to be involved with this campaign working with Bob Jeffery, Pete Thomas, David Beel, Martin Jones and Martin Mayer (in his role as Secretary of Sheffield TUC). Thanks also to the many individuals and organisations interviewed in the course of the research.
The book also arises from stimulating and thought-provoking debate over the years with a number of friends and comrades. I am particularly indebted to Gitte Hesselman and Leif Mikkelsen for their help with the research on Denmark. Also, a warm thanks to Kate Flannery, Jamie Gough, Gerry Mooney, Paul Hickman, Mick Paddon, Colin Hampton, Lian Groves, Anne Daguerre, Stephen Syrett, Ian Roper, Ian Vickers, Mikkel Mailand, Anna Ilsøe, Jo Ingold, comrades from the Sheffield Stop and Scrap Universal Credit Campaign, and members of the Social Security Consortium (SSC; in particular Josie Tucker and Kelly Smith of Child Poverty Action Group who convene the SSC).
Finally, an appreciation of the love and support from my partner Kate and daughter Niamh which have spurred me on to complete this book.
There are now several books and journal articles published where there is a focus on austerity and its impacts. Richard Seymour’s (2014), Mary O’Hara’s (2015) and Vicki Cooper and David Whyte’s (2017) (just to name a few) are magnificent accounts on the negative impacts of austerity and the growing resistance to it. This book is an updated contribution to this debate except I take a different approach and perspective. At the time of writing (March 2020), two incidents have received significant press coverage. First is the death of Errol Graham who died of starvation in June 2018 when his benefits were cut off. Errol is one of thousands who have died as a result of austerity as the government moves towards downgrading or possibly phasing out benefits as a safety net (Butler, 2020). The second relates to the fact that there have been 440 health and safety incidents reported in the Amazon Company (UK) warehouses since 2015. The GMB union has reported that workers operate under a ‘culture of fear’. Tim Roache, the GMB general secretary, accused Amazon of treating workers like robots not human beings and said the official figures gave a ‘horrifying insight’ into the company’s warehouses (Sainato, 2020). In their study of Amazon in Wales, Bricken and Taylor (2018) argue that many workers are coming from the welfare system as the employment services (the Department for Work and Pensions) funnel claimants into low-paid and precarious work – or ‘compulsion into precarity’. Driving down wages and benefits are ‘two sides to the same coin’ in the pursuit of austerity. Increasing conditionality and compulsion in welfare and reducing employment rights and bargaining as I argue in this book, are interrelated.
The implications of this approach are that central to austerity is a ‘class strategy’ aimed at redistributing income and power away from the working class. The introduction of Universal Credit (UC) and the imposition of conditions for workers to claim benefits blurs the welfare work relationship. For the first time, people in work claiming UC can be subject to conditions and requirements on their claims which can mean that they could be subject to penalties and sanctions. For me, the struggle for a socially just welfare system requires changes to industrial relations that facilitate collective bargaining and trade union representation at work and which, in turn, will ensure that claimants moving into employment have rights and a voice. The book focuses on ways in which the welfare system can provide an adequate social safety net and support people into employment without imposing conditions and sanctions. I attempt to provide a voice and recognition of the role of trade unions as well as welfare and social movements in their struggle and resistance to austerity. In mapping out alternatives I draw on my research on Denmark, which has both a redistributive welfare system and coordinated collective bargaining. As I argue, not only does the austerity narrative and ideology need challenging but we need a different economic model. I present some thoughts and ideas in the concluding chapter on this.
Introduction: the crisis and austerity neoliberalism
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