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Changing workplace geographies: Restructuring warehouse employment in the Oslo region

Author

Listed:
  • David Jordhus-Lier
  • Anders Underthun
  • Kristina Zampoukos

Abstract

The article examines changing employment relations in Norwegian warehouses, and conceptualises the increasing use of temporary agency workers as a redrawing of workplace geographies. The empirical basis for the analysis is four qualitative warehouse workplace studies, including focus group and interview data. The theoretical framework of the article combines an adapted version of the territory-place-scale-network (TPSN) framework developed by Bob Jessop, Neil Brenner and Martin Jones with the concepts of labour control and labour agency. The analysis shows how a networked recruitment system based on Swedish labour migrants, mediated via temporary work agencies, encourage workers to work their way through levels of employment insecurity in order to secure permanent employment. The article argues that the blurring and redrawing of legal boundaries through labour hire can be understood as a territorial strategy of control that affects the workplace as a scale of justice for trade unions. Moreover, the analysis shows how managerial control is conditioned by workers’ individual, habitual and collective agency.

Suggested Citation

  • David Jordhus-Lier & Anders Underthun & Kristina Zampoukos, 2019. "Changing workplace geographies: Restructuring warehouse employment in the Oslo region," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(1), pages 69-90, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:51:y:2019:i:1:p:69-90
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X18787821
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Spermann, Alexander, 2011. "The New Role of Temporary Agency Work in Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 6180, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Geraldine Pratt, 1999. "From Registered Nurse to Registered Nanny: Discursive Geographies of Filipina Domestic Workers in Vancouver, B.C," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 75(3), pages 215-236, July.
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    4. Andrew Herod, 2000. "Workers and Workplaces in a Neoliberal Global Economy," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 32(10), pages 1781-1790, October.
    5. Chris Smith, 2006. "The double indeterminacy of labour power," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 20(2), pages 389-402, June.
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