The (dis)advantages of sector-level bargaining: Outsourcing of cleaning work and the segmentation of the Israeli industrial relations system

Abstract

This article examines the segmentation of the corporatist industrial relations system through a historical analysis of the public-sector outsourcing process in Israel, which occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. Emphasizing the intersection of class, race/ethnicity and gender in Israeli society, the article analyses outsourcing of cleaning work as the adoption of labour market vulnerability into the industrial relations system. It uses intersectionality to demonstrate how the promotion of outsourcing through sector-level bargaining acted as a means of labour market control and industrial relations centralization, thus legitimizing precarious employment forms. Stressing the links between intersectionality and outsourcing practices in the Israeli corporatist system sheds light upon structural segmentation and differential representation of vulnerable workers in a centralized industrial relations system.