Shifting Experiences of Work and Non-Work Life

bring, oeuvre & familiarity http//wes. sagepub. com/ look afterwards(prenominal) Burberry unsteady fol wretched throughs of motion and non- drub look sentence fol misfortunateing periphrasis Paul Blyton and jean Jenkins organise troth purchase order 2012 26 26 DOI 10. 1177/0950017011426306 The online version of this clause whoremaster be shew at http//wes. sagepub. com/content/26/1/26 Published by http//www. sagepublications. com On be half of British Sociological Association Additional ser debility and education for Work, Employment & Society usher out be found at e-mail Alerts http//wes. sagepub. com/cgi/alertsSubscriptions http//wes. sagepub. com/subscriptions Reprints http//www. sagepub. com/journalsReprints. nav Permissions http//www. sagepub. com/journalsPermissions. nav Citations http//wes. sagepub. com/content/26/1/26. refs. hypertext mark-up language Version of Record Feb 17, 2012 What is This? Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of bathe on border 21, 2013 Beyond prolixity condition Life later Burberry bring uping produces of p fix and non- acidulate determine hobby verbosity Work, Employment and Society 26(1) 2641 The Author(s) 2012Reprints and permission sagepub. co. uk/journalsPermissions. nav DOI 10. 1177/0950017011426306 wes. sagepub. com Paul Blyton Cardiff University, UK jean Jenkins Cardiff University, UK Abstract This clause sheds in the buff joyous on neglected beas of recent function- keep discussions. draft on a try of a largely young-bearing(prenominal) manpower do redundant by manu grinder re location, the absolute absolute volume posteriorly holding natural selection exercise in a variety of tempt settings, the results illust step horizons of both(prenominal) prescribed and electr superstargative spill all e rattlingwhere from pasture to non- guide heraldic bearinger.In addition, the findings add to the festering crook of studies that highlight the conditions under which odd- craft(prenominal) prunes detracts from, instead than contri howeveres to, booming expire- living history counter brace. The conclusion discusses the key for for a to a greater extent multi-dimensional approach to blend in-life issues. Key denominations unsmooth get passing play, tyrannical/ forbid spil hit the hayr, redundancy, re- participation, change call forth-life fit portal Recent discussion of the alliance amidst subject field and non- domesticate life often f it centeringed on the nonion of kick the bucket-life balance has tended to give preference to ii aspects of that kindred everyplace new(prenominal)(a)(a)s. First, thither has been a label temperament to consider the impact of add on non- carry life to a much greater extent than vice versa. Second, as Corresponding author Jean Jenkins, Cardiff University, Aberconway Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, Wales, UK. email emailprotected ac. uk Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of bath on present 21, 2013 27 Blyton and Jenkins guest (2002 260) has pointed out, there has been an equal tendency to seek travel-life conflict sooner than hit the books plausibly positive draws inside that dealinghip. For Guest (2002 263), this reflects a widely held view that everyplace the past generation the push of execution has become a to a greater extent g overning feature of m some(prenominal) volumes lives, as a result of among other things comprehend increases in playact demands and a wide interpenetrate antepast to show fr eighter by marching(a)s grand hours ( break down to, for compositors slip, McGovern et al. , 2007 Perlow, 1999).Coupled with the return in fe potent fight mart participation, curiously among women with dependent children, this is seen to increase pressure on non- black market natural action by step-down the triumphion and/or energy uncommitted to fulfil external responsibilities. Where the possibility for positive spillover (Staines, 1980) mingled with work and nonwork life has been examined, this has primarily been under taken by loving psychologists, trackly climax the issue both from an individual positioning and with the non-work focus primarily on the family.Examples complicate studies that rush identified a positive association amid an individuals clientele happiness and their satisfaction with family life (for example, Near et al. , 1987). Less attention has been intercommunicate to to a greater extent than(prenominal)(prenominal) aggregate levels of analysis more naturally explored by sociologists, much(prenominal)(prenominal) as the tempt of the work group or economic consumption participation on life exterior work (for a re presentlyned exception, see Grzywacz et al. , 2007, and for earliest sociological accounts, see Horobin, 1957 Tunstall, 1962).Yet, despite the attention habituated to the potence for positive spillover of indiv idual-level factors, even so among psychologists the lighten up caution of extend has been to examine possible conflictual rather than beneficial affinitys among aspects of work and non-work life. In their meta-analysis of 190 studies of associations between work and family, for example, Eby et al. (2005) found al almost three term the count of studies focusing on the invidious pay of unmatchable sphere on the other, compargond to those considering possible favourable do.Even more starkly, of all the studies examining the nark of work on family or vice versa, less than ace in vanadium of the studies entertained the possibility of the relationship universe characterized by both favourable and unfavourable do. A recent correction involving a largely female manufacturing men make redundant by pulverization motion, most of whom succeedingly found choice battle in a variety of work settings, allows for examination of some of the neglected aspects of the relation ship between work and life outside work.In several(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) respects the disposition of this orbit in hurt of the work and its location a large enclothe manufacturer, Burberry, in the Rhondda Valleys of South Wales is somewhat distinctive. In earlier metres the flora had been one among a cluster of factories in its topical anestheticity, hardly the pooh-pooh of scorch and manufacturing meant that it had become the macroscopicgest employer for a relatively isolated corporation in an economically depressed area. Thus, tour in operation, the milling machinery exerted a considerable impact on the non-work lives (both in impairment of family and association of interests) of its workforce.Indeed, there was a symbiotic relationship between residential district and work in our case that resonates with Cunnisons (1966) earlier garment pulverization learn. much(prenominal) windows on the fundamental interaction of manufacturing bot any(pre nominal) and federation are becoming change magnitudely obsolete in the scene of manufacturing turn in the UK and the ever- changing nature of what a work has become. The field of get hold of provides insight into the journey of a redundant manufacturing workforce into spic-and-span Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of tubful on bound 21, 2013 28 Work, Employment and Society 26(1) mployment in the coeval exertion merchandise. In this, there are work points of reference to be raddled with Bailey et al. s (2008) study of redundancy at the MG Rover graft at Longbridge, Birmingham, UK, even though that study dealt with respondents from a quite diverse demographic and skills base. Manufacturing transaction in Britain has typically involved workers motorcoachy all-encompassing meter and this pattern overly prevailed in change situate factories, including our case (see Kersley et al. , 2006 78 likewise Phizacklea, 1990 66).Factory catch and the pau city of good jobs in the warm topical anestheticity gave workers limited choice and the subsequent troth experience of more of our female respondents (the bulk of whom were over 45 eld of age) involved under sedulous jobs in the returns vault of heaven. Their retorts use fully contri exclusivelye to discussions (led by Walsh, 2007 Walters, 2005 Warren, 2004, among others) on the extent to which (and conditions under which) temporary operative whitethorn contri furthere to (or detract from) a made work-life balance.It is unmingled from the present prove that both temporary profession peculiarly the lower incomes deriving from that work and the privation of stability in the hours worked, had a material contradict impact on different aspects of non-work life. What emerges is a vista that highlights the obstacles to positive spillover in half-time, low absorb serving orbit occupations which fail to gainer workers stability and protection measures in terms o f represss, hours or moolah.To explore these issues, the remainder of the article is divided into quintette regions. First, the scene of the study is outlined the nature of the community and the pulley of the grind that was the focus for our enquiry. Second we describe our investigation and our hold connection with a sample of the workforce make redundant and their trade marrow representatives. The troika and after(prenominal) part sections trace the changing nature of the relationship between study and life outside work the keel from a largely positive o a more problematic association as employment experiences altered. season the third section examines the association between Burberry and broader features of workers lives, the intravenous feedingth explores work and non-work experiences of workers following the Burberry closure. This intravenous feedingth section explores, among other things, the cause of parttime functional and uncertain work hours on the famil ies and loving lives of our respondents.The final, twenty dollar bill percent section reflects on the findings and stresss the place of work-life enquiries adopting a more mount-sensitive and multi-dimensional approach to the interconnections between work, family and community. The context the locality and the pulverization This study centres on the experiences of women and men employed by Burberry, until the closure of its manufacturing plant in South Wales in 2007. The Burberry milling machinery studied was located in Treorchy, a former coal-mining town in the Rhondda Valleys.This region truism permanent morphologic change during the last quarter of the twentieth century, due to the acute decline of coal mining and blade (Williams, 1998 87, 121). Regeneration has been a regional government priority exactly the relative geographical isolation of vale towns like Treorchy presents extra challenges for individuals in locomotion for work and in any case for agencies char ged with attracting option comes of investment (Bryan et al. , 2003).Founded in 1939, the mill changed self-command more than once, with Burberry beingness a customer end-to-end its history and taking full ownership in the late Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of clean on attest 21, 2013 29 Blyton and Jenkins 1980s. At its height, the manufacturing plant employed 1500 employees and though employment levels had contracted to round three hundred by 2007, it remained a key employer in the area. As was the case in Cunnisons (1966) study, the community outside the workplace entered the factory gates in the form of amilial ties, friendships and long-established associations and over time the plant had acquired a watertight local identity as an example of the surviving manufacturing sector and a bastion of jobs in the Valleys. The factorys workforce was overwhelmingly female, reflecting the gender profile of the habiliments sector frequently (Winterton and Tap lin, 1997b 10). Low levels of enlisting in latter course of studys had resulted in an ageing workforce, with the majority of workers at the factory being 45 mean solar days or older.As part of a buyer-driven global tax chain (Gereffi, 1994), the British clothing diligence has experienced structural change associated with outsourcing and external moulding of production (Jones, 2006 101). While Burberry had erst set itself apart from the trend to off-shoring by focussed differentiation and niche merchandise (Winterton and Taplin, 1997a 194) of its high value garments as quint inbornly British, in 2006 it joined the ranks of other producers and gave tag of its intention to relocate the Treorchy plants production to China in the interests of cheaper crunch costs.The shock of the nonice of closure was late felt in a community with limited prospects of alternative work and within a workplace with a dependablehearted affable network. In his earlier study of garment workers, Lupton (1963 723) mentions that factory life was make tolerable by the forthcoming groupings that evolved within their walls, and that workers attachment to the bon ton sprang very largely from their emotional attachment to the lessened group of friends rather than any love for work that had particular intrinsic value, or for their employer.As well as the loss of these sorts of relationships, the Burberry workers in like manner feared the loss to the local community of a factory which had, over its 70- socio-economic class history, become symbolical of secure employment and was regarded, as one respondent commented, as a guaranteed job a job for life. Thus, when Burberry make its announcement, the workforce reacted with outrage and disbelief. A roughshod exploit attracted considerable media attention, but the plant c drift offd in meet 2007 (for a discussion of the closure campaign, see Blyton and Jenkins, 2009).For the majority of our respondents, closure meant the end of their workplace community and the rupture of friendships and associations that had been built up over lifetimes. It also meant entry into a new world of job front or enforced retirement in the context of low pay and limited choice. The study Using look back, interview and observational methods, we agree examined several aspects of the redundancies, and individuals subsequent employment experiences, over a longitudinal interrogation plosive speech sound which had key stages in 2007, 2008 and 2009.The re wait began in January 2007, and initially concentrated on the workers campaign a brightenst closure of the plant. Regular interviews were held with regular and lay league representatives, and shop-floor supply, and a curtly succeed was issued to employees in February 2007, while the plant was be quiet open. A nurture survey of the solutions of redundancy was issued in display 2008 (one year after plant closure) and interviews with sodality representatives cave in c ontinued up to the present. In addition, the authors tended to(p) various public and trade union bear uponings and workers reunions occurring since the plant closure. Downloaded from wes. sagepub. om at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 30 Work, Employment and Society 26(1) As the initial 2007 survey sought-after(a) information specifically on employees response to the union campaign against closure, it has still a limited contribution to make to this articles focus on the effects of redundancy. The 2008 survey and interviews conducted in 2009 provided the main tooth roots of information except well-nigh the effects of redundancy. It was in this stage of the research that the focus was on workers employment experiences since redundancy as well as aspects of their previous employment and comparisons were drawn between life forwards and after Burberry.The 2008 survey was posted to the households of 191 former shop-floor staff (all the staff we were able to secure plaza add resses for) and 80 usable replies were received (a response rate of 42%). Reflecting the lower levels of recruitment at the factory in latter geezerhood, 70 per cent of the respondents were 45 geezerhood or older (74% were married or surviving with a partner, and 70% had no children life sentence at home). Of the 80 respondents, 71 (89%) were female. The regular union representative for the largest union in the plant, the GMB,1 themed the ratio of female to male employment within the factory at 8020.Employment records could non be achieveed to verify this estimate but it was a good face of the profile of shop-floor union membership, which s in additiond at around 80 per cent density. In January 2009, the 28 respondents to the 2008 survey who had indicated their willingness to participate in ongoing research were clutched and take oned to participate in interviews near their experiences since redundancy. Eleven agreed and semistructured interviews took place, focusing on t heir experiences while employed at the factory and the way their lives had changed in the two years since the closure.Interviews took place in respondents own homes and lasted, on average, one hour and 40 proceedings. deuce interviewees were male, nine were female. Despite the predominance of female respondents in the survey and interviews, male workers at the plant participated in all phases of the research in rough isotropy to their original at the workplace, and work-life issues for both men and women in the study were vetoly impacted by low gainful(a), insecure work in the prevailing labour market environment.In terms of its representativeness and relevance for wider social enquiry, it is ac experienced that this study has many an(prenominal) a(prenominal) distinct features in terms of workplace and location, but it passs to the building of generalizations (see Gerring, 2004 341, 352) in two areas. First, Burberrys own cost-foc utilize rationale for closure highlights t he workings of the garment value chain and the fact that low pay female workers in a get along economy are now too expensive to manufacture garments even those at the high end of the sell market.Thus, what is examined in this case is a particular display case of the new forms of inconsistency (Glucksmann, 2009 878) which result from an multi guinea pig division of labour where labour is mundaneized and recommodified in the service sector of the global northeastern (see Standing, 2009 7078) as manufacturing relocates for cheaper people and more favourable regulatory regimes elsewhere. Second, the respondents experiences of job search dedicate to analysis and understanding of the modern British labour market and the increasing phenomenon of nvoluntary parttime working, particularly among women (Yerkes and Visser, 2006 253). In this respect, Bailey et al. s (2008) study of job search and re-employment of Longbridge workers is a useful comparator for the present enquiry even though their respondents differed from the Burberry workforce in that 90 per cent were male and were mainly professional, skilled, semi-skilled or technical workers. The Longbridge results indicate that, post-closure Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 31 Blyton and Jenkins igher earning occupations were more seeming to travel for work and were accordly much better placed to fill in with job loss men were more likely to find alternative regular jobs redundant workers needed ongoing concomitant and training women were more likely to be found in odd-job(prenominal) employment in the service sector and those workers touching from manufacturing into public services in education, health and social business (as did the majority of the Burberry respondents) describe the largest decline in salary, which Bailey and colleagues (2008 54) refer to as a particular indicator of growing labour market polarization and inequality.In detailing key fact ors in successful efforts at re-employment, Bailey et al. s findings help to lighten up what was take from the demographic and skills profile of the Burberry respondents and highlight the factors which limited their prospects for re-employment. It is evident in the Burberry case that low gainful, full-time female manufacturing workers classed as unskilled became low salaried, part-time service sector workers out of necessity not choice.The majority of workers could not travel for work due to a range of factors, among which low loot, job insecurity and the close convergency between their work and non-work lives were prime considerations. While it was perhaps the very legacy of misfortunate pay and the marginalization of womens work as unskilled at the Burberry plant which presented the greatest challenges for e-employment, the factory had undoubted compensations it offered a working hebdomad that had fixed boundaries of time and effort, perceived job security, norms of employ ment that followed womens life patterns and strong sociable groupings, all of which allowed workers to make positive accommodations between their paid and recreational working lives. In the contemporary low-skilled labour market outside the plant, most of these compensations were absent and the combined effects of low hourly rates of pay and episodic part-time hours in their changed employment eroded any positive spillover from work.The following sections examine these factors in greater detail. The changing relationship between work and life outside work Burberry and community integration As the majority of employees and our respondents were female, a key issue in the findings colligate to the intersection of paid and complimentary work in the lives of women workers. on the job(p) pass away up to home in a closely knit workplace had helped women manage the integration of their work and non-work lives in various ways these were explored in interviews at the time of the closur e, in word formless discussions at public publications, and in the interviews conducted in 2009.Five factors in particular were most commented on in relation to ways in which the factory was positively interconnected with the lives of the workers in the community. First, frequent reference was make to the advantages of the workplaces proximity to their homes No bus farthere to pay, on the doorstep. I could get off the house at 25 to eight and be clocking on at a quarter to. We apply to dismiss at 4. 40 and Id be home by 4. 45. I could get on with my ironing in advance tea. I absolutely hated it the day I started, but it was so snug youd finish at 4. 0 and be home at pentad. Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 32 Work, Employment and Society 26(1) This proximity was also helpful in coping with unforeseen domestic emergencies We didnt earn a lot but I had a job where I was near to home. I could cope with all the commitments in my se p ostulateered life, if my generate was taken ill for example. The certify most greensly referred-to factor was the dependableness of the company as a source of employment, with relatives able to read a word with Personnel to secure employment for other family members.Interviewees referred to relatives made redundant several times from other manufacturing jobs before getting security in a job at Burberry. Many had several members of their family working at the factory. It was like a family when I started work, my mother worked there, her sister worked there, my fathers sister worked there, my own sister worked there and I had two or three cousins there. come out of the 14 houses in my street, 10 of them had Burberry workers nutrition in them.Such was the prevalence of familial ties throughout the plant that one interviewee commented that her husband continuously referred to his mother by her first stir when inside the factory, formula that there was no point in calling her Mam because there were so many mothers and children on the shop-floor. A form of people met their future spouses at the plant and patterns of life-time work within the factory traditionally facilitated exit and re-entry into work, following childbearing.The expectation of a job being operable resulted in many women giving up work to have families, in the knowledge accurate up to the last years of re-employment at a later date. A third advantage for life outside work was perceived to be the factorys predictable working hours. more or less all staff (over 95%) at Burberry were employed full-time, with the factory operating Monday to Friday, 7. 45 a. m. to 4. 40 p. m.As one respondent commented after the closure, she really missed the Monday to Friday terrestrial this routine being something else that was seen to compensate for the low wage rates paid at the factory (and a routine absent from many jobs subsequently begeted, as discussed below). Fourth, many references were ma de to the social aspects of work, with interviewees and survey respondents using terms such(prenominal) as their Burberry family and one big family, where they saw their neighbours every day.Though aspects of the work routines were inform as strict, the work cash dispenser was clearly punctuated by all the laughs they had, and the day-by-day chat. Comments on the latter included formally we were supposed to start at 7. 45 but some of us used to go in 15 minutes early for a chat before we started work. Once youd done your soma piecework target you could take a break and go upstairs to the toilets for a chat.As in Luptons study (1963 723), the workers did not reckon the tensions or the work of factory life at the Burberry plant, which was hard and low paid, particularly for the majority of female workers who earned lesser more than the study minimum wage. Comments rough their Burberry family were made alongside derogatory remarks about Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at Uni versity of Bath on March 21, 2013 33 Blyton and Jenkins their former employers. Thus nostalgia for factory life was reserved for memories of events and those friendships and people that had characterized workers experience of employment at the plant.There were also more organized social activities such as charity fund-raising events, works trips and parties which were clearly cherished (and missed) and, in combination with the informal relations between workers, had contributed significantly to the ongoing contact with others in the community. In addition to these four aspects of positive connection between work and non-work life, respondents identified two besides, related attributes of their work that had relevance for life outside the factory.First, several commented on the skills they had acquired at Burberry and the positive feelings that this had given them (pride at being a Burberry worker). Examples of reported skills were numerous, including the interviewees who pointed o ut hand-sewers unbosom working at the plant in 2007, and indicated their level of skill in comments such as we used to prove the methods (proving a method involved transferring a soma from planning into full production, something necessary from time to time with difficult garments, and requiring considerable expertise). some(prenominal) referred to the national awards for excellence win by the factory, to the long hours they had worked beyond their contracts, and being always acuate to get the work out. nigh associated with the pride in their skills, a number of respondents reported an acquired perspective that reflected responsibilities held within the factory which they felt had been undermined by job loss. The quest to maintain social status and social identity has been recognized in studies of redundancy among men, such as former steel workers (Harris, 1987 36).From several ex-Burberry respondents came comments that they were shocked to find themselves inured in the job search service as low skilled or unskilled (as a result of generally leave outing certified or true qualifications), with their former status within the plant often being replaced by alternative employment in junior-level service sector jobs. One interviewee, for example, who had held executive programy responsibilities at Burberry, commented that her neighboring employer (the retail chain Argos) entrusted her with virtually no responsibility they didnt know me or what Id done.In their study, Bailey et al. (2008 50) comment on the crucial influence of the local labour market for re-employment, together with true skills, the need for ongoing training detain and help with travelling for work. Our findings lead us to agree that the propensity to travel and prepare for work are key determinants of success in job search, and this former supervisor at Burberry was an example of what occurs when low paid, insecure, occasional work makes travel too costly.Though she had taken advan tage of short-term training courses offered by local employment services, she was unable to gain recognition for the skills she had acquired over 40 years of factory working and had been able to obtain alone two temporary jobs since factory closure. She depict the consequent effects on her sense of purpose and identity and the negative physical and emotional effects of being a job-seeker for the first time in her life in her mid-50s, as devastate and the cause of depression.All told, our respondents (even those who said they had grown to bang their new employment and were earning more) expressed wo at the loss of the social factors that have been discussed in this section, which constituted significant compensations for the comparatively low wage rates at the Burberry plant. after closure, the legacy of years of low pay and particularly the marginalization of womens work as unskilled meant that Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 34Work, Em ployment and Society 26(1) job search was an activity that prioritized the local labour market. Once workers entered new forms of employment, however, they did so without the supporting structure of the social network and sense of identity that (for them) had delineate the experience of being a Burberry worker. The changing relationship between work and life outside work redundancy, re-employment and social isolation The vast majority of the redundant Burberry workers curtail their job search to their own locality.This choice was partly facilitated by the building of a new Wal-Mart Asda store, along with the availability of care work with the local authority. Data from the local Job midsection Plus corroborate our finding that the majority of Burberry workers prioritized proximity of alternative employment over other factors such as remaining in confusable occupations or moving for alternative manufacturing opportunities elsewhere. The context of low pay made relocation financi ally phantasmagoric, even if it had been desired. In 2007 the local jobs market was dominated by part-time hours, relatively low earnings and little perceived security.These criteria fall far short of an incentive to move established households and lose the support network of family, community and friends. As well as the risk of not finding better or secure employment elsewhere, workers faced the constraints of the housing market and the low property values indication of deindustrialized areas, which effectively trap people in regions of high unemployment (McNulty, 1987 42). Relocation was therefore an unrealistic option for the majority of our respondents, but this did not prevent it being proposed for consideration during the process of job search.One male interviewee recounted his first let down to a local Job inwardness Plus, where he was faced with a forefront he found outrageous Do you know the first thing they Job Centre staff said to me was, Are you prepared to move? C an you believe that? Why would I want to move away? I said no, I wouldnt. This reaction was typical of the majority of our respondents. While the plant was still open but under carte of closure, Burberry provided employment consultants to help with job search and vacancies were posted on the factory notice-board.One interviewee described how she and other workers used to have a laugh about the jobs being announce hundreds of miles outside Rhondda, many of which were also part-time at minimum wage rates. Several interviewees commented (during the run-up to closure and in later interviews) that they regarded the posting of such jobs as not plainly ridiculous but also a cynical ploy to rig their agency, feeling that Burberry could claim it was doing all it could to meet its responsibilities to a workplace community that could find alternative work if only it took up the opportunities the company had researched on their behalf.For workers though, not only relocation but the option of effortless commuting was constrained by the distinct nature of work available. The costs and difficulties of travel for versatile shifts and short daily hours spread over 24 hours and five or heptad days of the work week were not likely to be sustainable on a low income. All these factors made relocation and travelling for work to different degrees economically impracticable. Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 35 Blyton and Jenkins control panel 1.Summary of patterns of work and earnings for former Burberry workers one year after redundancy Respondents Male (n=9) egg-producing(prenominal) (n=71) As % of total respondents 11% 89% works patterns prior to factory closure, March 2007 No. and proportion employed full-time 9 (100%) 68 (94%) Working patterns following factory closure, March 2008 No. of respondents in paid work 7 46 No. and proportion employed full-time 7 (100%) 19 (41%) No. and proportion in part-time work 0 27 (59%) Propor tion of respondents in paid work, 28% 23% eporting an increase in hebdomadal earnings Proportion of respondents in paid work, 71% 56% account a fall in every week earnings All (n=80) 100% 77 (95%) 53 26 (49%) 27 (51%) 24% 59% At the time of our 2008 survey, expert over two-thirds of the respondents were in paid work with the remainder divided roughly evenly between those who had retired and those still seeking employment. The majority of those in work were in the identical job that they found on passing Burberry, while 15 respondents had had two or more jobs since their redundancy.The areas of paid work entered by our sample were mainly in the manufacturing, home-care or retail sectors two-thirds of respondents in paid work entered relatively low-skill service sector employment. Table 1 highlights the studys findings on the nature of re-employment patterns. Just over half of the respondents in paid work were employed part-time, on hours ranging from six to 30 per week (and w ith a mean and mode of 20 hours).Most (88%) of those with part-time jobs reported that their actual hours wide-ranging week by week. Those in care work and retail jobs were especially likely to hold part-time contracts with variable hours. The care contracts, for example, typically began as (effectively) zero-hour contracts with no hours guaranteed until a training period was completed. After that, honourable 16 hours per week were ballparkly guaranteed, though workers could be asked to work as many as 30 hours in a week depending on demand.The same was true of retail work, though attaining a 30-hour week was far less common in that sector. For many, their parttime status (rather than their hourly rate of pay) was the principal reason why their weekly earnings were lower than they had been at Burberry. In several subsequent interviews, respondents commented that do ends meet while working part-time was only made viable by supplementary state benefits and that part-time employment dominated available opportunities rather than being a elect option.Both from survey responses and interview comments, it was also clear that many were subject to working time patterns that not only varied from week to week but were also highly uncertain, in terms of both time and duration. For those on variablehours contracts, their shifts could be scheduled during the daytime, eventide or weekends, and for many their forthcoming weekly schedule was known only at the latter end of the previous week. In interviews, the majority of respondents commented on the difficulties Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 6 Work, Employment and Society 26(1) created in their home lives by the division and unpredictability of their new work commitments. One interviewee, for example, employed full-time as a hotel receptionist in 2008 had had her hours cut to 20 per week when interviewed in 2009, and she received practiced ? 120. 00 gross weekly pay. Though contractually her employer undertook to issue shift patterns and times one month in advance, in utilize working patterns were given to her weekly. Shifts ran from 7 a. m to 3 p. m. , 10 a. m. to 6 p. m. , and 3 p. m. o 11 p. m. , and it was quite prevalent to have to undertake back-to-back shifts finale at 11 p. m. and starting work again at 7 a. m. She commented that the lash thing about the job was the clock and unpredictability of the shift work You cant plan anything. Ive honorable had to cancel a dentists appointment because theyve called me in for a shift and I cant make another appointment because I wont know what Im working next week. Without her parents help, this interviewee commented that she could not have coped with caring for her daughter.It was family support that allowed her to achieve any sort of balance, however imperfect, between her paid and unpaid working life and the tax-credit state benefit (effectively acting as a subsidy for a low paying employer) was a n essential factor allowing her to afford to travel to work and keep her employment. A further example of the negative impact of unpredictable hours concerned another respondent who now worked for the local authority (via their care work agency) and was a married mother of two children.Her employment was typical of work in this sector in that it began (in 2007) as a zero-hour contract, with actual hours of work determined altogether by demand. She received notice of her hours from each one weekend, for the following week. Her shifts were normally based on notional patterns of 8 a. m. to 10. 30 a. m. and 4. 30 p. m. to 6 p. m. over a seven-day period, but she never knew exactly how many hours she would be given (or which days she would work) for the week ahead. As a new employee, in common with all new recruits, she was classed as unremarkable and therefore had no guaranteed hours of work.The interviewee explained that this meant that she sometimes had four hours work for a week, but that this could just as likely be twenty or thirty, depending on what her supervisor assigned. enduring status was necessary to attain guaranteed minimum income equivalent to 16 hours work per week. As a casual, she said that planning her income or any sort of family event was impossible even knowing her hours one week in advance did not help as they can call you, anticipate you, any time and ask you to come in.And as a worker hopeful of allocation to a permanent team and reliant on the support of her line manager, this interviewee did not feel she had the scope to refuse any such request. In January 2010, she had still not been upgraded from casual status and could depend on just three hours work a week. atypical work patterns were not the sole obey of women workers. Men were more likely to obtain full-time work but, anecdotally, were more prostrate to lay-off or seasonally influenced working patterns.One of our male respondents found a seasonal, 40-hour a week job margina lly above the national minimum wage rate after several months of unemployment. With no security of contract or predictability of hours, he worked entirely according to the employers demand. In the summer he could work as many as 65 hours a week, reducing to 20 at other periods, and was laid off altogether in Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 37 Blyton and Jenkins the coldest months.Hours of work were notified one week in advance, but were frequently subject to change on the day. He regarded placing his time completely at the employers disposal as essential to keep his employment. This interviewee had a history of 30 years of regular employment at Burberry and commented that his new working life was a source of anxiety for the future. Jobs with such variable and unpredictable hours have become common in sectors such as retail (Backett-Milburn et al. , 2008 Henly et al. 2006 Lambert, 2008 Zeytinoglu et al. , 2004) and care (Henninger and Papousc hek, 2008 Rubery et al. , 2005). It is also clear that further variability occurs in real time as employees are requested at short notice to stay on, or leave early, to reflect particular work circumstances. For management, this access to variable hours offers a convey of deploying labour to shadow fluctuations both in demand and available staff but for the people we were interviewing, this variability and unpredictability had many drawbacks.In particular these disadvantages included a general uncertainty over their work schedule, making it difficult to plan activities outside work for some, increased problems of organizing childcare and maintaining a self-consistent care arrangement a upset to domestic routines such as repast times and a lack of stable income as earnings fluctuated with actual hours worked. In the 2008 survey, questions were also asked about changes in other areas of respondents non-work lives since the factory closure. Responses to a question about socializing and friendships since the closure showed a label deterioration.Almost three in five (58%) indicated that this aspect of their life had got worse, compared to 30 per cent saying it had stayed the same and a minority report an improvement. In subsequent interviews, several commented that they saw friends and neighbours much less now that Burberry had closed(a) and female interviewees remained emotional about their changed function even two years after the closure I miss the company I can pick the phone up and speak to people, but its not the same. Now, I have no social life. There are no friends passing here nd although people say they will keep in touch, they dont. A similar picture was evident in relation to community involvement. Over two in five of the survey respondents reported a decline in their community involvement since the factory closure, compared to approximately one in seven who reported an increase (the remainder reporting no change). Both in comments on the surve y and in interview comments, several references were made to having less money for going out, compared to former full-time earnings at Burberry.This was especially the case for part-time workers. Those working part-time were more likely (compared to their counterparts in full-time jobs) to indicate that both their level of friendships and community involvement had deteriorated in the time since the factory closure. From comments in interviews, it was evident that reduced involvement with friends and the community were issues related to the break up of the workplace community (which had acted as a conduit to wider community involvement), lack of income and the consequence of more fragmented work patterns.Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 38 Work, Employment and Society 26(1) shutdown While other responses made by the former Burberry workers indicated that the clothing factory was far from an ideal place to work, the factory merely engendered a strong sense of workplace community which in turn prolonged to various aspects of workers non-work lives. As a consequence, the workplace had a number of positive spillover effects into the non-work lives of its workforce.The frequency of interpersonal contact, access to employment for family members, the sense of pride, skill and status that the work generated and the proximity of work to home all were seen to create a beneficial effect on the workers lives more generally. The way that, for many, these factors later diminished, further underlines what the workers had gained from working at Burberry. ulterior work, much of it part-time and/or with irregular and unpredictable hours, undermined the stability of contact, interaction and social life that had prevailed hitherto.Widespread reductions in earnings exacerbated this situation with less disposable income to spend on a social life. These insights into work to non-work spillover contribute to the work-life debate in two ways . First, they underline the limitations of couching the discussion, as has been common, in terms of the negative impact of work on non-work life. It was clear among this group of workers that their former work experience at Burberry had generated various positive spillover effects, these only diminishing as they moved to other employment after the factory closed.Second, as was discussed at the head of the article, any attention that has been given to positive spillover from work to home has focused largely on the influence of individual work-related variables such as job satisfaction. Aspects of these individual-level factors were certainly present among the ex-Burberry workers a sense, for example, that the status acquired through responsibilities in the factory also had meaning in the non-work community.Importantly, what the present study underlines are more group level, sociological factors positively affecting areas of non-work life the importance, for example, of interaction a mong the workforce, reinforced by chat, gossip and having a laugh. Further, the way the factory delineate a source of family, rather than merely individual, employment and the proximate location of the factory in the Treorchy community further reinforced a sense of community both inside and outside the factory.The studys findings also contribute to the discussion on the extent to which parttime working can contribute to work-life balance or, put differently, the way part-time work reflects a preference for a particular balance of time between work and non-work (Hakim, 2000). Several authors (for example, Walsh, 2007 Walters, 2005 Warren, 2004) have already pointed to the shortcomings of using part-time work as an indicator of a preference and a strategy for achieving work-life balance noting in particular that this fails to take into account the heterogeneity of part-time work and that, for ome, working part-time is not a means to achieve work-life balance but rather a source of l ow pay and poor-quality jobs. The present study further underlines the need for a more differentiated view of part-time working. In our sample, while many working part-time in principle had more time available for non-work activities even when taking lengthy travelling times into account this did not translate into more time for friends or community activity. On the contrary, part-time working was associated with work-life Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013 9 Blyton and Jenkins impoverishment for this group more than work-life balance. For most of those on part-time contracts who had been used to working full-time, part-time work was an undesirable consequence of the kind of paid work available within the local labour market. The lower earnings that the part-time jobs generated and the variability and unpredictability of many working patterns detracted from, rather than contributed to, the quality of workers non-work lives. Overall, these f indings signal the value of a nuanced approach in discussions around work-life balance.In focusing on the associations of work to non-work life, this article has identified the ways in which associations may be positive or negative and has indicated that the nature of those associations may vary over time and from one context to another. As a result of tracing the subsequent employment experiences of the former garment workers in this study, it became clear that there is a act need for wider recognition not only of the heterogeneous nature of part-time work, but also the reasons why people are working part-time and the degree to which it is a voluntary, employeedriven choice.It was also clear that variable and unpredictable work patterns may exert a significant deleterious influence on the ability of workers successfully to organize and fully enjoy their lives outside work. Acknowledgements The authors would like to know and thank the union representatives and former Burberry empl oyees who participated in this research. We would also like to express our gratitude to the editor and three anonymous referees for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. 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In Taplin IM and Winterton J (eds), Rethinking Global Production A Comparative Analy sis of Restructuring in the Clothing Industry. Aldershot Ashgate, 117. Yerkes M and Visser J (2006) Womens preferences or represented policies?The development of part-time work in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom. In Boulin J-Y et al. (eds) Decent Working Time New Trends, New Issues. geneva International Labour Office, 23561. Zeytinoglu IU, Lillevik W, Seaton IMB and Moruz J (2004) odd-job(prenominal) and casual work in retail trade stress and other factors affecting the workplace. Relations Industrielles 59(3) 51643. Paul Blyton is Professor of Industrial Relations and Industrial Sociology at Cardiff Business School and Research Associate in the ESRC Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society (BRASS) at Cardiff University.His research interests include employee responses to organizational change, working time and work-life balance. Recent publications include The intelligent Handbook of Industrial Relations, co-edited with Nicola s Bacon, Jack Fiorito and Edmund Heery (Sage, 2008) slipway of Living Work, Community and Lifestyle Choice, co-edited with Betsy Blunsdon, tidy sum Reed and Ali Dastmalchian (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) Reassessing the Employment Relationship, co-edited with Edmund Heery and Peter Turnbull (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) and Researching Sustainability, co-edited with Alex Franklin (Earthscan, 2011).Jean Jenkins is a lecturer in HRM at Cardiff Business School. Her research interests include labour conditions and unionization in the global garment sector, working time and union-management partnership. Recent publications include Work Key Concepts, with Paul Blyton (Sage, 2007). accompaniment submitted January 2010 Date accepted November 2010 Downloaded from wes. sagepub. com at University of Bath on March 21, 2013