| 1. |
- Carter, Bob, et al.
(författare)
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Nothing gets done and no one knows why : PCS and workplace control of lean in HM revenue and customs
- 2012
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Ingår i: Industrial relations journal. - : Wiley. - 0019-8692 .- 1468-2338. ; 43:5, s. 416-432
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article examines the willingness and capacity of public sector unions to mobilise action against changes in the labour process in order to maintain some measure of control at the point of production. Taking as an instance an extended dispute in Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs over the introduction and impact of Lean processes, it marshals evidence gathered from documentary sources, branch representatives and national lay full-time officers to engage with the notion of a trade union bureaucracy. In taking a union with a left-wing leadership and a section with 80 per cent membership with an expressed willingness to escalate industrial action, the article tests Hyman's 1979 contention that, rather than a concentration on a bureaucratic caste, a much better explanation for conservatism centres on the nature of social relations within the union that encompass a wider layer of representatives.
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| 2. |
- Carter, Bob, et al.
(författare)
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‘Stressed out of my box’: employee experience of lean working and occupational ill-health in clerical work in the UK public sector
- 2013
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Ingår i: Work, Employment and Society. - : SAGE Publications. - 0950-0170 .- 1469-8722. ; 27:5, s. 747-767
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Occupational health and safety (OHS) is under-researched in the sociology of work and employment. This deficit is most pronounced for white-collar occupations. Despite growing awareness of the significance of psychosocial conditions – notably stress – and musculoskeletal disorders, white-collar work is considered by conventional OHS discourse to be ‘safe’. This study’s locus is clerical processing in the UK public sector, specifically Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, in the context of efficiency savings programmes. The key initiative was lean working, which involved redesigned workflow, task fragmentation, standardization and individual targets. Utilizing a holistic model of white-collar OHS and in-depth quantitative and qualitative data, the evidence of widespread self-reported ill-health symptoms is compelling. Statistical tests of association demonstrate that the transformed work organization that accompanied lean working contributed most to employees’, particularly women’s, ill-health complaints.
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| 3. |
- Carter, Bob, et al.
(författare)
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Taxing times : lean working and the creation of (in)efficiencies in hm revenue and costums
- 2013
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Ingår i: Public Administration. - : Wiley. - 0033-3298 .- 1467-9299. ; 91:1, s. 83-97
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The prevailing economic and budgetary climate is intensifying the search for methods and practices aimed at generating efficiencies in public sector provision. This paper investigates the increasingly popular bundle of techniques operating under the generic descriptor of lean, which promises to improve operational quality processes while simultaneously reducing cost. It offers a critical appraisal of lean as a fashionable component of public sector reform and challenges the received wisdom that it unambiguously delivers ‘efficiencies’. Quantitative and qualitative research in HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) centred on employees' experiences has indicated the extent to which work has been reorganized along lean principles. However, employees perceive that changes in organizational processes and working practices have unintentionally generated inefficiencies which have impacted on the quality of public service. These suggested outcomes raise wider concerns as lean working is adopted in other public sector organizations.
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| 4. |
- Carter, Bob, et al.
(författare)
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‘‘They can’t be a buffer any longer’ : Supervisors and class relations under white-collar lean production’
- 2014
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Ingår i: Capital and Class. - : SAGE Publications. - 0309-8168 .- 2041-0980. ; 38:2, s. 323-343
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article reasserts the value of the examination of class relations. It does so via a case study of tax-processing sites within HM Revenue and Customs, focusing on the changes wrought by the alterations to labour and supervisory processes implemented under the banner of ‘lean production’. It concentrates on the transformation of front-line managers, as their tasks moved from those that required tax knowledge and team support to those that narrowed their work towards output monitoring and employee supervision. Following Carchedi, these changes are conceptualised as strengthening the function of capital performed by managers, and weakening their role within the labour process.
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