Volume 66, Issue 3 - Special Issue: The Privatization of Work-Related Risk Control

This introduction starts by linking the privatization of work-related risk control to a political context in which social investment policies are prominent. Subsequently, a short overview of different forms of privatization is given. Finally, the different contributions to this special issue are introduced by either relating them to the governance or the consequences of privatization. Based on the contributions to the special issue, it is concluded first that the governance of privatized risk control poses difficult challenges of finding the right balance between public objectives and the involvement of private interests. Secondly, it is concluded that, by excluding or marginalizing the most vulnerable group, the privatization of risk control does not always achieve the equality of opportunities that social investment policies aim for. These risks of exclusion and marginalization seem to be particularly salient when the privatization of social investment policies is embedded in a context of retrenchment or a dualization of the labor market.

The public unemployment insurance program in Sweden has retrenched in terms of its benefit generosity in the last three decades. As a response to this trend, in which an ever-smaller proportion of the previous income of unemployed persons is compensated by public unemployment insurance benefit, complementary income insurance schemes provided by unions have expanded rapidly in the last 15 years, currently covering one half of the working population. What does this change mean for people who need income protection upon unemployment and are more likely to find themselves unemployed or underemployed? By analyzing survey-based benefit recipiency data among retail workers who were unemployed in 2014, this article explores the outcomes of the multi-pillarized unemployment benefit provision system in Sweden. While public unemployment insurance benefit does not fully compensate for the income loss for the majority of retail workers, the promise of a complementary income insurance scheme seems to be illusory for many individuals as they repeatedly oscillate between precarious work and benefits, accompanied by the burden of navigating a complex system.

The present study aims at investigating employer’s investments in the employability of employees. To do so, human capital theory and the employee-organization relationships approach (which rests on social exchange theory) is used to build three testable hypotheses, namely to argue that the kind of training employees need, the type of contract they have, and their behavior in the organization each matter for understanding employer behavior regarding training investments. These hypotheses are tested using a vignette study – which is a semi-experimental approach – to test decisions regarding training investments among 519 representatives of organizations in the Netherlands. Since each respondent scores three vignettes, the total number of responses is 1,557. The results show that, instead of exclusionary hypotheses, the hypotheses examined complement each other in such a way that a layered model consisting of the individual, the contractual, and the employment relationship can explain employer’s training decisions.

With increasing numbers of self-employed persons in the United Kingdom (UK) struggling to protect themselves via personal savings or private insurance against work-related social risks (an issue that has gained further importance in light of the Covid-19 pandemic), this article first discusses self-employment as a type of work that implies intrinsically privatised forms of risk management. Secondly, current social policy interventions towards vulnerable self-employed persons in the United Kingdom (UK) are analysed to identify the mix of instruments used for, on the one hand, investment and support and, on the other hand, conditionality, coercion and activation. Finally, we explore how responsibilities for risk management manifest themselves and argue that the expansion of activation and conditionality increases pressures upon self-employed workers with insufficient incomes and thus indicates a far-reaching risk privatisation, while undermining the idea of a meaningful social investment approach.

This contribution focuses on the governance of industrial accidents and occupational diseases. Prevention of work-related accidents and diseases and compensation of employee-victims can be the subject of public regulation, such as OHS regulation and social security. However, also private actors may be involved in the regulation of work-related accidents, especially when compensation of damage caused by work-related risks is not (sufficiently) covered by public regulation. These private actors include representatives of employers and employees, but may also include private insurers. In some jurisdictions liability insurers provide supplementary cover for OHS risks and policy-makers often expect that the monitoring by liability insurers will increase safety at work. The main research question addressed in this paper is whether insurers (and more particularly insurers of employers’ liability) are indeed able to contribute to safety at work. Taking a law and economics perspective, we expect that this depends crucially on the possibilities insurers have to control moral hazard and adverse selection. However, the extent to which liability insurers have a financial interest in combatting these phenomena plays an important role. That may crucially depend upon the generosity of the public compensation scheme. First, we recapitulate the economic theory of insurance to the extent that it relates to work-related risks. Second, we address the question whether in some jurisdictions insurers have actually made use of these instruments, based on a literature survey. Third, we examine information on insurance policies offered by insurers in The Netherlands and the United Kingdom, to analyse to what extent theory matches practice.

Mixed public/private governance regimes in social security are complex, legally intricate, and difficult to manage. This may operate as an obstacle for individual claimants when they want to protect themselves against decisions or actions of private actors or wish to enforce individual entitlements. Hence, individuals rely heavily on the corrective function exercised by the courts. Paradoxically, policies that create a public/private governance structure are not always geared towards strengthening access to justice for the individual. On the contrary, in the Netherlands, legislative changes and administrative practices purposefully raise the barriers to bringing cases to the independent judiciary. In this article, we analyse the relationship between the complex public/private governance regimes in social security and access to justice. It is argued that the policies should consider strengthening access to courts to counterbalance the weakened position of workers and vulnerable citizens.

This case study investigates the affective governing of young unemployed people, and it concludes that getting money in the Danish welfare state comes with an “affective price”. In the quest for a job, unemployed people have been increasingly responsibilized in order to live up to the ideal of the active jobseeker. Consequently, when faced with unemployment, they are encouraged to work harder on themselves and their motivation. Based on an interview study with young unemployed people (N=39) and field observations made at employment fund agencies in Denmark (2014–15), I explore how young unemployed people are governed by and through their emotions. By supplementing governmentality studies (Foucault et al. 1988, 2010) with the concept of “affective economy” from Ahmed (2014), I discuss how young unemployed people who receive money from the Danish state are placed in a situation of debt. The paper unfolds how this debt becomes visible as the unemployed people often describe feeling under suspicion for not doing enough, for not being motivated enough. Through an abundance of (pro) activity, they have to prove the suspicion of being lazy wrong, and through managing themselves as active jobseekers, they earn the right to get money from the state. Here motivation, passion and empowerment are key currencies. I discuss the intricate interplay between monetary and affective currencies as well as political implications in the context of the Danish welfare. The article contributes by making visible the importance of taking affective matters into account when investigating the complex relationship between politics and psychology.