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Abstract

By applying the social reproduction theory, this study proposes a critical conceptualization of the relations between the worker family and offshoring labour in transiting economies. The theoretical foundation of this article underscores that a thorough study of offshoring requires an examination not only of the workplace, worker and employment relations but also of the familial relations within the workers’ households. Based on interviews with workers and their family members, which I conducted in the host community of a consumer electronics facility in Romanian Transylvania, in this article I show how familial support helps to manage limitations that result from the precarious nature of offshoring labour and the transitional realities of the destination countries and how it ultimately serves as a means of achieving greater inter-generational emancipation. The study of familial relations in offshoring’s destination countries provides a better understanding of global labour relations and the way offshoring labour is reproduced in transiting countries. It also shows how the global capitalist system causes tensions with the processes of social reproduction in low-welfare economies, which usually host offshoring investments.

Keywords

Age ethnography family gender global capitalism offshoring social reproduction social reproduction theory

Introduction

Existing studies of offshoring are mainly concentrated on the managerial and economic aspects of the offshoring process, with particular attention paid to topics, such as worker management, the workplace and employment relations. Labour relations are central to this research as is the study of interdependencies and networks that develop in both the sending and host economies (Guillen and Garcia-Canal, 2009; Lakhani et al., 2013), the offshored workplace and its organisation (Jensen, 2009, Meyer et al., 2011) and the reaction of the host economy to offshoring (Sengupta and Gupta, 2012; Woodard and Sherman, 2015). Critical studies of offshoring have outlined its role in global deregulation, diminishing the role of trade unions and weakening representation of the working class (Lee and Trappmann, 2014; Varga, 2014). Offshoring has been identified as a key element of new global labour relations, which have led to the active labour population often falling below the poverty line (Pun, 2005), and connected to managerial techniques that interfere with workers’ private lives (Lee, 2007; Mills, 1999) as it expands control over work and free time (Cravey, 1998; Salzinger, 2003).

The focus of the literature on offshoring on relationships between workers and managers has as a whole led to ignoring the social-reproductive functions that sustain and make offshored labour possible. These functions include, for instance, at-home family care, cooking or income sharing among the workers’ family. It is necessary to address the complex set of social reproductive processes that allow a worker to take up offshored work on certain employment conditions in order to gain a more complete understanding of today’s global labour relations established through offshoring practices. Understanding the reproductive context of offshored labour and the perceived benefits of employment in an offshore company makes it possible to uncover the outcomes of offshored labour that have not been extensively addressed in the literature.

To do so, this article utilises social reproduction theory that emphasises the reliance of capitalism on the domestic sphere, where labour is produced and reproduced for the process of the valorisation of capital. This lens makes it possible to study the structural contradiction of capital, for instance, by analysing competition strategies based on wage compression, which in parallel reduce the ability of labour to reproduce itself (Bhattacharya, 2017; Fraser, 2017; Jefferson and King, 2001; Luxton and Bezanson, 2006; Meaghar and Nelson, 2004; Peterson, 2005; Vosko, 2002). This article considers this contradiction in the context of offshored labour, relying on empirical data from an ethnographic study of a host community of a consumer electronics assembly facility in Transylvania, Romania. This plant was Romania’s largest foreign investment at the time, which provided over 4000 low-skilled positions. Offshored by a West European transnational corporation, the investment was created in 2008 on the initiative of the investor and was co-sponsored by the local government that provided the land and developed the infrastructure.

This article expands on the existing literature by adding the problem of reproduction into an analysis of offshoring. Broadening this scope to include labour’s dependency on the family makes it possible to clearly see the reliance of offshored labour on the support provided by worker families. Addressing offshored labour, the ‘mutual dependency’ between the family and wage labour is unveiled, which I conceptualise as a series of beneficial interrelations between a worker’s employment and familial resilience and support. On the one hand, this dependency denotes an extreme form of exploitation. Offshoring targets disadvantaged populations and mobilises their resources, beyond their labour, as well as those of the family. This exploitation relies on at-home work of family members, and family resources, such as housing and financial reserve. On the other hand, offshoring stimulates desires of inter-generational economic upgrade. Familial support is seen by families as a symbolic emancipation from the local status quo, achieved by younger family members when they become employed by the foreign company. Offshored labour feeds the dream of economic progress and emancipation, partially because of the hope that the next generation will be better off due to its integration in the global capitalist system. This dynamic also unveils the central role of the family in the social reproduction of labour (Fraser, 2017; Luxton and Bezanson, 2006; Peterson, 2005; Vosko, 2002), giving insights relevant to the conceptualisation of relations among the social reproduction of labour, offshoring and the process of capital accumulation.

The lens of social reproduction theory helps to understand familial involvement in the global capitalist production system that is mediated by offshoring labour. Mutual dependency between labour and familial support exposes previously unidentified relations typical to low-welfare contexts of transiting economies. Understanding offshored labour from the worker family perspective allows for a fuller picture on global industrial production and employment, advancing the existing literature on offshoring in destination countries.

Studying the offshored workforce

In addressing offshore investments, the business and management literature have predominantly concentrated on the managerial and economic dimensions of the process. It has considered a number of employee- and labour-related topics, but usually at the inter-firm and firm–employee levels. A large part of this research has focused on labour relations in global value chains and global production networks (Lakhani et al., 2013) or theories of multinational enterprise (Guillen and Garcia-Canal, 2009; Marginson et al., 2010). Moreover, studies have concentrated on labour agency shifts (Rainnie et al., 2011), challenges to organised labour (Kshetri and Dholakia, 2009), casualisation of employment (Barrientos and Kritzinger, 2004) and the implications of a firm upgrading for labour (Barrientos and Rossi, 2011). Significant research has examined issues connected to distinct national and institutional contexts (Meyer et al., 2011; Figueiredo, 2011) as well as the inter-cultural aspects of offshoring projects (Nicholson and Sahay, 2004). This included studies of the governance process (Gooris and Peeters, 2014), organisational adaptation (Asmussen et al., 2016) and organisational change in both home and host firms (Jensen, 2009; Lewin and Peeters, 2006). Finally, the key area of the study has focussed on new workers in the receiving economies (Woodard and Sherman, 2015) and issues that arise there, such as the attitudes towards the offshoring of labour among employees in hosting states (Linder, 2011; Sengupta and Gupta, 2012) or worker reactions to a high level of supervision and control (Budhwar et al., 2006).

Whereas the mainstream literature has investigated the role of offshoring in generating economic growth, restructuring local industries, or producing spill-over effects in the host country (Fabry and Zeghni, 2006; Pavlínek, 2004; Winkler, 2013), the critical literature has extensively shown how offshoring leads to an expansion of the ‘working poor’, an active labour population falling below the poverty line (Pun, 2005; Salzinger, 2003). In economically advantaged areas, offshoring produces adverse effects, connected to pressures to create more ‘business friendly’ environments. These pressures translate to the difficult situation of workers and trade unions, who struggle to accept more flexible forms of employment; and of nation states that are faced with pressures of lowering taxes and levels of employment protection (Lee and Trappmann, 2014; Varga, 2014). In places where the industrial process is offshored, detrimental effects take a different form. Especially within the manufacturing sector, the core of the labour force is composed of women, often highly exposed to exploitation as they are without work alternatives and migrate to industrial zones (Brooks, 2007; Cravey, 1998; Ong, 1987; Ong, 1991). The large power inequalities manifest themselves not only in the employment conditions, but also in the managerial techniques used. For instance, investors often deliberately violate workers’ right to a private life by digging into their family lives (Mills, 1999), extensively controlling private and free time (Lee, 2007; Pun, 2005; Pun and Smith, 2007) or causing workers to lose control over their own time at work and its scope (Cravey, 1998; Fernández-Kelly, 1983; Salzinger, 2003).

The political economy literature on offshoring has extensively debated that the offshoring power imbalance between capital and labour has its roots in structural limitations that stem from both the investments’ labour conditions, such as low-pay and precarious work conditions and the reality of destination countries, with social instability and economic turbulence. In Eastern Europe free-market reforms provoked a radical decrease in the number of industrial jobs (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2012), accompanied by broader social turbulence caused by crumbling state support and shrinking state welfare (Deacon, 1992; Haney, 2002) and led to a reduction of the formerly extensive social services, such as medical and child care or labour protection. As a result, this systemic shift has deepened social problems, strongly impacting disadvantaged populations of industrial and agricultural workers (Bohle and Greskovits, 2007; Brainerd, 2000; Einhorn, 1993; Fortuny et al., 2003; Funk and Mueller, 1993; Pascall and Kwak, 2005; Torres, 2011).

Using an empirical example from this type of national context, this study proposes to expand the existing theorisations of offshoring by incorporating the social reproduction of labour by the family, making the reliance of new global labour relations on this reproductive work visible. Social reproduction theory demonstrates how the ‘production of goods and services and the production of life’ is an integrated process (Luxton, 2006: 36). It studies the tension between labour and capital, for instance, considering how profit maximalisation reduces the ability of workforce to reproduce itself (Bhattacharya, 2017; Fraser, 2017; Jefferson and King, 2001; Luxton and Bezanson, 2006; Meaghar and Nelson, 2004; Peterson, 2005; Vosko, 2002). In other words, it studies the processes enabling the worker to work, related to household organisation and duties besides work, such as personal finances, family responsibilities and at-home tasks. In the context of transforming economies, the neo-liberal shift promoted the idea that the individual, rather than the market or state, is responsible for its own reproduction (Bakker, 1996; Federici, 2012; Ferge, 1997). The acceptance of the free market in many regions around the globe has signified a rejection of the state’s responsibility for regulation and social provisioning, which was heavily promoted under socialism and Keynesian–Fordism (Cameron, 2006; Vosko, 2000). Economic transitions, new open markets and the development of offshoring practices have created a global division of labour, which is based on the exploitation of weakened populations and a strong reliance on women’s labour (Federici, 2012). This has led to a major reproduction crisis and the need to sustain families using private resources, both financial and non-financial (Bakker, 1996; Laslett and Brenner, 1989).

Drawing on these works, this article highlights the ‘mutual dependency’ between workers in the offshored firms and their families. On the one hand, this allows us to observe how offshored labour relies on at-home support, and on the other hand, it brings into focus the effects of offshored production on whole local populations, including those who are not employed as labour. Destination countries provide an extreme case for observing how offshoring produces what Nancy Fraser has called ‘the social-reproductive contradiction of financialised capitalism’ (Fraser, 2017: 22), that is, the possibility for sustained capital accumulation only through adverse effects to the reproduction system it relies on.

Methodology

The data for this article were collected as part of a larger ethnographic project conducted in Romania, which concentrated on the socio-economic role of FDI presence in post-socialist Europe. I conducted interviews with workers from the region and members of the hosting community, as well as expert interviews with politicians, scholars and journalists. I was an observer–participant in events, such as protests, press conferences or worker meetings, and I followed the media. While I was in the field, the investment was re-located to Southern Asia after a 4-year presence. My fieldwork (spanning 16 months) involved building an extensive case study of the investor’s activity and its outcomes for the workers and their families (Burawoy, 2009).

This article is based on selected material that was collected over a 4-month period in 2011. It is composed of in-depth face-to-face interviews held in households of the hosting community. The respondents were selected through purposive sampling (Teddlie and Yu, 2007) and included two groups: workers at the offshoring plant (22 total, 9 males and 13 females) and at least one family member of each worker (27 total). All families lived in the plant’s hosting community that composed of nearly 4000 inhabitants. The first group of respondents comprised of shop floor operators, responsible for the assembly process and warehouse employees in the plant. The second group consisted of the spouses (11), parents (9), grandparents (4) and siblings (3) of workers. The studied households were multi-generational with an average number of six people, including children. The interview data were complemented by field notes from the period of study.

The first part of the interviews with workers and families was open. Interviewees were asked to introduce themselves and talk about their work, narrating their personal and professional trajectories in order to contextualise their family life and professional experience. In the second part, specific questions were asked using a semi-structured questionnaire with open answers. The questions were relevant to respondents’ work in the offshoring plant, workplace relations, financial matters, work-life balance (including at-home duties and additional jobs), lifetime career trajectory and personal background, including past employment, family and education. The questions addressed to family members focussed on the household and topics, such as sources of income, division of at-home labour and financial planning (including saving strategies and planned investments). Thematic codes were developed inductively both during and after data collection.

Each interview was recorded, transcribed without any modification in Romanian and coded using qualitative analysis software MaxQDA. I used qualitative and inductive techniques to recursively code and identify patterns in the data concerning elements of the at-home and work relationships (Coffey and Atkinson, 1996). In the second phase of coding, I adjusted my code structure to capture the further elements of this relationship. The following sections examine the dynamics of these mutual relations more closely. The passages included in this article were translated into English after the data analysis process was completed. The identity of the respondents is anonymised because a large number of respondents preferred to remain anonymous.

The Romanian context

In this study, I use the empirical example of a rural community that hosted a large-scale investment specialising in the production of consumer electronics. This case exemplifies challenges faced by offshoring destinations in transiting economies. Prior to the investment, the community was no different from thousands of similar rural populations in post-socialist Europe (Borzutzky and Kranidis, 2005; Jastrzebska-Szklarska, 2002; Lerman et al., 2004). Located at some distance from an urban area, it faced a lack of employment opportunities and struggled with outward migration and an ageing population. During 2008, a manufacturing plant was built by a well-known European manufacturer, it created over 4000 low-skilled jobs. The community became the home to Romania’s largest exporter, adding up to over 1% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). The investment was, therefore, a very significant element of Romania’s transition process.

Compared to the other economies of the former Eastern bloc, post-socialist Romania has experienced long-lasting political difficulties in establishing the framework of the post-socialist state (King and Sum, 2011). The situation delayed the influx of external capital and discouraged foreign investments. With time, the Romanian institutional structure was incrementally improved and was accompanied by economic growth. Unfortunately, these changes did not bring significant improvements of social conditions. Today, a large part of the Romanian population continues to face severe challenges as a result of a slack labour market. The overall wage level is among the lowest in the European Union (Goos et al., 2009). The social structure is also deeply polarised (Torres, 2011), and the main line of division is between urban and rural areas. Urban areas have proven to be more resilient despite the collapse of the housing market, among other difficulties, and provide a broader spectrum of work opportunities (Stanef, 2012). Rural areas, such as the one described, have faced stagnation caused by the complete collapse of collective farming (Heller, 1998; Kideckel, 1984; Sofer and Bordanc, 1998). Coping strategies include semi-subsistence farming and outward migration to the cities and abroad (Vlase, 2013).

Prior to the investment

You know, there is nothing in places like this [village] in Romania. Everybody just dreams about making money, living in a city, being wealthy and having a more international life. Instead, most people either try to live a life that they don’t have [refers to taking loans]. […] Or they just give up and start drinking. That’s easy when you have nothing. […] When they started building the [industrial] zone, everybody believed that this is the end of being stuck. That [the investment] will bring about a big change. I wouldn’t ever believe that the arrival of [investor’s name] is at all possible. […] I am not sure how to understand [the investment]. It did bring change, but not like I expected. (Male worker, 32)

As this passage illustrates, prior to the investment the community struggled with stagnation. Since 1989, its population was neither able to re-establish large-scale agricultural production, nor to find stable employment in other sectors. Instead, just as the next quote illustrates, families pursued small-scale subsistence agriculture and low-skilled jobs outside of the village, while also considering migration:

Take my life as an example. When I finished school I had no options. Seriously, none. Because it is not an option to go [emigrate] to Italy if you don’t have money or to work shitty jobs for shitty money commuting two hours every day. (Female worker, 23)

As this woman suggests, limited local opportunities for salaried employment encouraged daily commuting to urban areas, which was time-consuming and brought on additional costs.

Precarious jobs in cities offered a stable income, perceived as an asset for the household. However, many of these positions were based on informal work contracts, a common practice to reduce labour costs. This meant that many workers lacked medical insurance or any form of social protection, since they were officially unemployed:

Imagine, I worked [in the factory, in the city] helping to clean [rubble after demolition] in the summer. All in the dirt and rusty machinery from old times. If something happened, like if I got pulled into [the construction machinery], I would have to pay for the operation and lay where it happened. Everything was money from one hand to another [informal transactions]. (Male worker, 26)

This respondent emphasises the risky and precarious nature of his temporary job. His case was not a unique example and many young adults from the community faced the same problems, that is, a low and informal income and lack of medical protection.

In terms of salary, the pay scale had a strong gender dimension. Men tended to work in more dangerous and physically demanding industries, such as agriculture and construction, and were paid significantly more. Women, in addition to doing most of the agricultural labour at home and fulfilling kinship roles, found jobs in the service and manufacturing industries, usually worked long hours, and were paid significantly less. Quite often if they had, or had had, other paid work, their at-home and agricultural labour tended not to be recognised in similar terms to paid labour. All community members shared a vision of stagnation and many discussed the possibility of migration, either to the city or West European countries.

Solidarity within households

When the plant was set up by a prestigious foreign investor, it generated hope for the stable employment and the improvement of the economic situation of many families in the area. Nearly, a generation had lived in stagnation, so the possibility of revival of the local labour market was perceived as a social improvement, not only bringing income but also enabling social protection, medical care and state support. As one woman commented,

There is nothing I wanted at this point more than to have a life in which I can afford to live without worrying about money or struggling for a better future. I just had [a child] then, and I was very worried about our future. […] It is a better life, having health insurance and money. (Female worker, 27)

This respondent discusses her hopes for changes brought on by the investment, concentrating on the importance of a stable economic position.

However, as the next quote shows, the work conditions at the investor were very poor:

As soon as [the investor] arrived, it turned out that they are screwing us and won’t pay us a good wage. The factory was nice, people there were nice, but an operator’s wage was low. Why? Because all that mattered was to produce cheaply. (Male worker, 21)

Hopes were cut down to size as soon as the wages were announced. Despite the high-financial cost of the investment, its enormous production capacity and the factory’s important role in the Romanian economy, the workers’ salaries in the plant were low, corresponding to the lower end of salary levels in the Romanian service industry. The majority of the workforce was recruited by the employment agencies and hired on temporary contracts. A shop floor operator’s salary ranged between 600 and 800 lei per month (120–160 GBP) plus additional benefits, like complimentary meals during the work day and food coupons for using outside of work. As another respondent said,

Do you know what you can buy after a whole month of working in Romania’s best factory? Nothing. If our fridge broke and I had to replace it from my salary, I would have literally zero money for [utility] bills or food. Can you imagine how ridiculous this is? (Female worker, 26)

Significantly, only about 30% of the shop floor benefitted from direct employment in the plant, and this group received a salary higher by about 120–160 lei (20–30 GBP), and benefits guaranteed under Romanian employment law, such as paid sick leave and maternity leave. In practice, both groups shared exactly the same responsibilities and duties. The following quote illustrates how workers perceived wage levels:

I guarantee you that no worker can survive on this wage on their own. You can’t live your life working in the plant [i.e. afford to live]. But this is Romania. It’s normal to live with your family and get their help. This is how it worked. People lived in their homes with their families, and this is how it was all okay. Obviously, you’d never rent a place with this wage – but listen, nobody even thought about renting, that’s the thing. What would you do? (Female worker, 28)

As the above quote illustrates, the plant did not only fail to provide a living wage for the workers but was also extensively dependent on family resources, which were necessary to allow the wage employment of the workers. Without the support of the family, this employment would not have been possible, as salaries were too low to cover the living costs. In other words, the domestic work of family members, subsistence food production, housing shared with the extended family and other sources of monetised income, such as the sale of agricultural products, were all fundamental for taking up jobs in this offshored plant. As the next passage shows, family members actively encouraged others to apply for jobs in the investment:

I have 3 sons and I wanted them all to try but only Radu got through [got the job]. The others don’t have patience. It’s not for the money that I wanted them to go there. I think it is a good place [to work]. […] They could have earned this pocket money and learned something [laughs]. […] I say pocket money, because it’s not a serious salary. Obviously, we would need to help them, but that’s no problem – look at the pantry [points at the kitchen]. (Female family member, 54)

As this respondent suggests, in many cases, parents of young adults treated factory jobs in a similar way to school attendance, gladly sponsoring and understanding offshored work as a means of their children’s personal development. One of the respondents, a father of a female worker, expressed the role of the workplace education in the following way: ‘As she did not get far in school, she needs to get skills at work. Experience in the factory, with foreigners, and at a good company – this will bear fruit in the future [refers to professional development]’ (male family member, 61).

To some workers who were more independent, usually over 30, employment meant an additional source of income and life security. An important role was played by the factory’s shift system: ‘It was weird, but it made sense. You spend two days chasing your cooking, gardening, disciplining children. Then you go to work for twelve hours, come back exhausted, rest and again you have a free day’ (female worker, 29). As this passage shows, the shift system was interpreted as allowing the worker to take up additional duties at home and chase other sources of income. The work schedule in the plant was divided into 11- or 12-hour shifts, ensuring a significant number of days off, including two following a night shift and one after a day shift. The 12-hour work day in the plant permitted, almost encouraged, complementing work in the plant with other activities. Many respondents expressed relief about the possibility to pursue additional employment: ‘It worked well, especially with night shifts. A day off, 11 hours of work which at night was not as intense, then two days. All this was really enough to chase some extra work’ (male worker, 38).

In many ways, the organisation of work in the plant responded to the existing household model:

They [the foreign investors] thought that they can come to Romania, pay people very little and then those people would earn extra money someplace else. Like my old man under Ceaușescu. He worked in a factory in town and in [the agricultural] cooperative. How else could somebody afford a living? (Male worker, 24)

This male worker referred to the tradition of combining multiple jobs in the region, known as the peasant–worker model, which has very long historical traditions going back to the 19th century through the inter-war period and socialism (Beck, 1975; Czegledy, 2002; Szelenyi and Kostello, 1996). Even though he expresses disappointment, he also describes an important function of household organisation, namely resilience based on the diversification of income. Worker families organised their lives in a similar way to worker–peasants, by pursuing salaried labour, working on family land plots, and occasionally selling their product, giving and receiving household support, such as taking care of children or the elderly and relying on other financial sources, such as the state pensions of the elderly. This complex network of dependencies within the household created a balanced and resilient organisation. Without this balance, pursuing work in the offshored plant for the salaries on offer would have not been possible. The next section shows how offshoring work and family organisation contributed to the emancipation of workers.

Emancipatory forces

Do I have to live like my mother does and do the farming, see all that dust and be unsure of how it will be next year? All I really want is normalcy: to go to the shop, buy things, live in a nice flat with central heating. I don’t need a garden or animals. I am tired of it. People get impressed [by the stereotypical village life] […], the ecological way of life, vegetables, but it is not fun. It’s actually annoying, but it keeps us living. You have five stores here, one pub. It’s not a real life when you are young. Is it wrong that I want to spend the money that I earned myself? They [the family] are doing so much [producing food] that I can be relaxed about finding food on my plate. (Female worker, 26)

I am happy, and we are quite well off. Maybe we can’t have everything, but it is a good living. A lot has changed in the way we see the world [after transition]. When I was his age [refers to a son working in the factory], I was already married and had two kids. He is not; but I understand it, [those were] different times. At least he works. All this complicated stuff, machines. He has plenty to do there. We can help him out, that’s no problem. This work is good for him, with all the computers and stuff. It has a future. (Parent of a male worker, 54)

As both passages illustrate, families and workers shared the perception of their symbiosis as a means of achieving inter-generational economic advancement in response to structural limitations. Years of stagnation in Romania, accompanied by the development of a consumer culture, created a desire for modernisation (Roman, 2003). Community members held the belief that the industrial workplace might lead to emancipation. Throughout the history of post-socialist states, waves of peasants looking for better employment and lives have migrated to cities (Kenney, 1997). Under socialism, the industrialisation of the Eastern bloc was based on the rapid transformation of rural populations into workers, who quickly adapted to urban lifestyles and became proletarians (Lebow, 1999; Stenning, 2000). Faith in the modernising power of the industrial workplace was also mirrored in the attitudes towards jobs in the factory, which were reflected in the respondents’ statements, including ‘it has a future’ (second quote mentioned above). And even though salaries were low and the investment itself failed to provide economic advancement, an important part in elevating workers economically was played by the family: ‘Working in [the name of the investor] might actually change his [the husband’s] life. You don’t know where it can lead to. Maybe the chances are low but definitely higher than when he worked in scaffolding’ (woman, 29). As this passage illustrates, workers’ families saw work in the investment as a symbolic emancipation from the local status quo for their children or spouses.

Some workers emphasised that they felt disconnected from their homes and at-home duties when at work: ‘I completely forget about the kids, about my husband, about the world that is outside the factory. There are no windows so I don’t even think about the passing time or weather outside’ (female worker, 42). The feeling of emancipation from household duties, even if only illusory, emerged. The members who previously had more at-home responsibilities, such as women, were able to legitimately delegate them to other family members, and they felt relieved: ‘When I am at work my mother takes care of the little ones. This works since she is at home anyway. And what I need is to just take a break and get out of there [for a while]’ (female worker, 23). The younger shop floor members, some of whom did not contribute to any household duties, were glad that they could find an occupation:

[My father] was going nuts with me sitting at home. He would not let me do anything, because he was observing my every move. Since I am here [working in the factory], I don’t have to do anything at home. They see it as time I earned to rest. (Male worker, 19)

The plant was described as a very important tool for the revival of the local population: ‘There was a lot of impressive things [in the factory]. But I was mostly happy that I was hired. Nobody else would want me [as an employee]. And this was my way of reaching pension [age]’ (female worker, 51). As this quote shows, some workers appreciated the investor’s inclusive policy, based on a lack of age or gender discrimination. It was implemented by higher-level transnational management, recruited by the investor to work in Romania. In this context, employment signified a higher labour standard for Romanian shop floor workers. Describing the social composition of the shop floor, both workers and families often referred to its equality despite its diversity. Older workers, such as the woman quoted above, stressed their goal of achieving pension age and the impossibility of finding formal, salaried employment elsewhere. Female respondents often referred to the situation in local Romanian firms, emphasising their difficulties in finding jobs. Their comments reflected broader trends in post-socialist labour markets: the strong marginalisation of women’s labour, scapegoating women as problematic employees, and in effect, their exclusion from the labour market (Kostera, 1994; Turbine and Riach, 2012). In contrast, the workers of the investment stressed equality among the plant workforce: ‘We were all paid the same, we dressed the same, had the same norms. You stop thinking about where you are from. Instead, you worry about the norms [the daily production plan]’ (male line manager, 29).

Workers shared a similar conclusion: even though the investor offered low salaries, comparable to other low salaries in local female-dominated jobs, it also provided stable employment and medical insurance, and it operated in a transparent way. The work conditions were also important to men:

I was sick of dirt [working in construction]. I could not carry on doing it; I simply could not keep up. In the factory, it was almost like resting [compared to the other job]. […]. I had no bully above me [like a manager in a previous job]. (Male worker, 30)

Male members of the shop floor, such as the worker quoted here, saw employment as much lighter and easier when compared to other available manual jobs. Both male and female workers agreed that the egalitarian shop floor policy was a highly valued attribute of the plant. As the next quote illustrates, it also reduced the perceived difference between populations from rural and urban areas:

We had people coming straight from Cluj, such as students, but also from the village and everybody was equal. Nobody cared because we had the same clothes, the same duties and the same stress […] I probably would not have met most of those people elsewhere. (Female worker, 24)

Being part of the workforce was considered an important element of both private and professional life. This sense of belonging had an ambiguously emancipatory power as it fostered the ‘equalization’ of individuals independent of gender, education, urban/rural differences, yet based on low salaries offered to all. The next section shows how families favoured the youngest workers, seeing it as a way to foster their inter-generational social and economic mobility.

Inter-generational exceptionalism

Worker emancipation had a very strong financial dimension, as salaries provided new consumption possibilities. Even though the degree of the workers’ financial support of their extended households varied, in general, the youngest workers had the largest amount of freedom to spend money and the lowest amount of at-home duties. This was grounded in a local model of what I call ‘inter-generational exceptionalism’. Some adult workers, usually aged between 18 and 30, were not only exempt from at-home duties, such as working in the field or taking care of their younger siblings but also expected not to make any or limited financial contribution to the household. Young and unmarried workers rarely contributed to the family budget, usually narrowing their help to sharing food coupons and paying for occasional groceries. Even though male workers had greater freedom, this privilege also applied to young women. In the below passage, one young man described his family’s budget:

It’s really true that people work in the garden and don’t spend much. My grandparents get a pension but don’t really buy anything, truly. Not a single piece of clothing, nothing. Their money goes under the mattress [refers to savings], and they work in the garden and take care of the animals. My mom, too. My dad makes enough money to pay the bills. She buys groceries.

– Do you ever give them money [from your salary at the plant]?

– No, I don’t. But they really don’t need it, just as most people in the village. We have never had this conversation; it’s not necessary. I know they know that if they needed it, then of course. If something happened, it’s all theirs. We have just never stumbled upon this topic. They are happy for me, I think. (Male worker, 22)

This passage illustrates the favourable situation of young workers, reliant on the financial stability of a multi-generational household. The man emphasises the low-consumption needs of other household members, who refuse to accept money from his worker salary, either spending their own income on the household or saving it, having low-consumption needs. He also claims that in case of a need, he would share his income with no problem. His family’s situation was similar to that of other young workers’ families, who did not receive income from the plant into the home budget but left it to the earners.

The privileged situation of younger workers, therefore, manifested itself in home organisation. Older workers who were also responsible for co-organising the household emphasised that, despite inter-generational exceptionalism, their home budget was balanced. This occurred to a large degree due to the low needs of the parents and the grandparents. As one family member pointed out in response to a question about his son’s financial contribution: ‘The Romanian peasant survived centuries of captivity, wars, and communism. We can cope and know how to cope and survive on our land’ (family member, 59). However, the below passages from two different interviews show a discrepancy of inter-generational views of the organisation within the same household:

We had a conversation about [the fact that my grandson does not have responsibilities at home] […] with his mother. If he has a free day, he would sleep in late. Then he would get up, eat whatever was on the stove and watch TV or hang out with his pals. He is 22, a bachelor, won’t help. Most things he can’t do, because he has everything ready. The boy is like a king […]. When he is working, there is a bus outside, and it takes him 15 minutes to get to work. This is an easy life. (Male family member, mid-60s)

I wish I could help them [the family], but there is no such possibility. […] Seriously, I give them money, put it on the table. They leave it sitting there for days, but they won’t take it. What can I do or give them? They don’t even want to eat something that I buy in the store. How many times have I heard that they don’t want it, that they have their own [home produce], that I overpaid [refers to purchase at the store at a high price, rather than using own produce]? (Male worker, 21)

This situation exemplifies a discrepancy of expectations: the father wants the son to help out, while the son offers to share income, rather than physically participate in the fulfilment of household duties.

Nonetheless, in most households, the inter-generational tension was not verbalised. Instead, the privileged situation was treated as part of vocational training. As one of the family members put it while joking about the salaries in the plant, ‘sponsored placement with pocket money from [name of investor]’ (female family member, 34). Similar interpretations of co-sponsoring work of younger workers were repeatedly given, indicating that many families saw work of young workers in a similar way to work placements: low paid but equipping them with work skills. Families rarely discouraged the young workers from spending this money:

I think that he is young, and he really should have some experiences during his youth. He can’t be sitting in a village like a peasant, like we are, instead he could go to town, buy something, meet people. He should see some of the world [laughing], meet a nice girl [laughing]. (Female family member, 49)

This mother strongly believed that her son should autonomously ‘experience youth’ with his salary. Most parents of the youngest workers held a similar view. While accepting the impossibility of changing their lifestyles, they still held the belief that their children could experience this change, even if modernisation occurs at their cost. This attitude, previously not present due to the constraining power of local tradition, has changed in similar communities with the initial overenthusiasm for consumption in the market society (Kideckel, 2008; Todorova and Gille, 2010). This model contrasts with the practice of older workers, usually married and over the age of 30, who often remembered the times of the transition and maintained traditional gender roles. In this case, their low income from the plant functioned as a supplemental source of income that was incorporated into the household’s budget and shared with other members. In addition, they often continued fulfilling household-related duties, such as the production of food.

The exceptionalism also applied to young women, who were, however, more involved in the household work than their male counterparts. Reflecting traditional gender roles within consumer capitalism, there was more acceptance of their spending on clothing, going out or leisure time in the city. Men, on the other hand, were sometimes accused of ‘less responsible spending’ (family member, 59) on alcohol and consumer electronics. For all young workers spending freedom translated into practices aiming at building a lifestyle similar to their peers living in cities. For example, one young woman told me, ‘I was tired of being a village girl. This way I can have my nails done, buy a dress, feel attractive’ (female worker, 21). In a similar tone, workers of both genders emphasised that income gave them a chance to enjoy their leisure time and to go out. One of the most important rituals of workers in this age group was the co-ed trips to the city on Friday and Saturday nights, usually hitchhiking from the village: ‘When the only disco in the village was shut down, there was no way to have fun. We go to the city, but I still can’t find that prince [laughing]’ (female worker, 24). The salary allowed this group of workers experience a previously less accessible world, at the cost, and with full acceptance, of their family.

Excluded from home duties, the work environment and salary also provided opportunities to date and meet new people from outside of the community context, especially during work-related events and meetings. Interacting with other co-workers recruited from different backgrounds, including people from cities, other communities, and students, was considered an additional advantage of the employment. Both male and female workers emphasised their sexual freedom and attempt to be independent of traditional familial structures and pressures to get married early:

It is not the right time; I am not living like they [the parents] did. I am not going to worry about marriage. I don’t feel like it’s quite the moment yet. (Male worker, 27)

Thank God I have this job. I can still feel young and attractive. I really like that. I won’t lose it by sitting at home. (Female worker, 29)

The workforce emphasised the aesthetics of the workplace, often mentioning that these separated them from the ‘dirty, boring everyday life at home’ (male worker, 24). A female respondent stressed that ‘I simply can’t afford kids now. I don’t want to be living with so many people. There are enough of us in my house’ (female worker, 23). As this passage shows, a common claim that young workers had was that the operator’s wage was not enough to start one’s own family. Even though traditionally these young adults would have received support from their families, many emphasised their need for independence and ambitions to live without any external help. These opinions reflected the trend of ageing urban populations in post-socialist Europe and significantly questioned the traditional model of family life and reproduction.

In this context, the process of social reproduction of the workforce has been challenged. For young workers, the desire to be independent and to delay marriage was motivated by practical reasons. Historical tradition played a part, based on the fact that after 1989, the system of state care collapsed, which made it difficult for young families to thrive. Under socialism, the conditions in the Romanian state were especially favourable to young families in that they provided special work arrangements and privileges to mothers, which coincided with the unavailability of contraception and zero tolerance for abortion (Baban, 2000; Verdery, 1996). This situation changed, and it was usually the extended family who was responsible for providing childcare and other at-home duties.

At the same time, the systemic shift changed attitudes connected to parenthood and marriage, which were catalysed by the presence of the investor. A few female workers emphasised that they did not wish to become worker–mothers: employed outside of the home, responsible for the household, organising and fulfilling most household duties. ‘I do not have a fiancé; I don’t feel like cooking, cleaning, breeding and working at the same time. That’s just what my mother did’ (female worker, 22). Both female and male workers also argued that their generation does not have as many forms of institutionalised family support as their parents’ generation had. Even though statements about starting a family were strong, many workers considered marriage to be important ‘but it won’t happen for them as early as it did for their parents. Closer to thirty [years of age] perhaps’ (female worker, 24). The young workforce rejected taking on the reproductive model themselves, while benefitting from the family model’s care and pursuing salaried employment in the plant.

Discussion

Taking a social reproduction theory approach, this Romanian case study has allowed to investigate the mutual dependency between labour in offshored investments and the inter-generational family as an essential condition for the industrial employment in offshored plants. My analysis shows how the offshored labour process relies on the willingness of families to support this form of employment. This arrangement is based on local acceptance of the unfavourable working conditions, stimulated by the lack of alternatives and positive local perception of the offshoring workplace as providing different types of jobs and experiences (Bohle and Greskovits, 2007; Brainerd, 2000; Mills, 1999; Torres, 2011). This is palpable among the people living in rural areas, who favour any type of work that is not ‘dirty’ manual labour despite potentially higher salaries and job availability. This partially explains why offshored employment in a clean and technological environment is a temporary way of achieving modernisation and social upgrade. For older generation, it is a form of future investment aimed at improving the potential situation of the next generation. For younger workers, it is a mechanism of emancipation. Parallel situations take place in other parts of the world, where workers not only face stagnation following economic shifts but also hope for the lifestyle, privileges and work conditions of their Western, working-class peers. Workers, their partners and extended families understand underpaid offshoring positions as a means towards economic mobility, which, as my case has illustrated, exposed them to exploitation.

The exploitation of labour by the offshored plant also includes the worker’s extended family. Fulfilling social reproductive duties and dismissing income sharing not only allows workers to take up employment, but also, in a broader sense, enables the functioning of the production facility. The foundation of this uneven relation is the low-worker wage. Even though the production plant offers a unique work environment, low salaries are the main added value and motivation behind offshoring activity (Fabry and Zeghni, 2006; Pavlínek, 2004; Winkler, 2013). And, as a result, similar to other cases in the literature, low salaries limit the workers’ independence (Cravey, 1998; Fernández -Kelly, 1983; Salzinger, 2003). Moreover, this form of labour utilises intra-familial resources and cultural readiness for support of this type of work, indirectly linking familial engagement to the production process. Awareness of this relationship influences understanding of offshoring mobility and the cultural geographies of offshoring networks.

Offshoring changes the mutual dependency between individuals within a family, observable in the balance of power in daily activities and inter-generational relationships. Locally, the described investment provided equal access to low-wage employment to different socio-demographic segments of the labour force. Work in the plant created opportunities for women and the youth to drop some or all reproduction work in the domestic sphere, calling traditional social relations both at work and at home into question. The work was very significant especially to those who felt trapped in traditional rural social and labour structures. In the plant, very few workers considered the work environment oppressive. Despite repetitive and physically demanding activities involved in the manufacturing process, employment signified liberation from the negatively perceived, traditional constraints and the rural environment. Self-subsistent social reproduction was challenged and delegated to other household members. While the oldest generations fulfilled the peasant and reproductive function of the household, the younger generations pursued industrial work.

The model of connecting at-home and outside work, in the case of post-socialist states, propagates the peasant–worker model of labour (Czegledy, 2002). However, unlike in socialist times, industrial employment contributes little to the household budget, rather fulfilling emancipatory ambitions of families, who understand industrial employment as an important mean of inter-generational social and economic mobility. In the described case, community and inter-generational emancipation emerges as a concept based on the at-home division of a variety of duties among different family members, their salaried incomes and responsibilities. All these actions aim at providing inter-generational support for the participation of young family members in the production. This is collectively understood by the family as a way of overcoming local stagnation and a first step towards achieving future social mobility. From the theoretical standpoint, this collective form of emancipation across generations is distinct from the common notion of emancipation as an individual phenomenon in organisation studies (e.g. Zanoni and Janssens, 2007). As the case demonstrates, emancipatory aspirations are shared and often encouraged by family members, who do not directly participate and benefit from its effects.

The proposed adoption of a political economy lens gives additional insights into the process of adaptation to the market economy at the family level, motivated by labour commodification in the offshored investment as well as intersecting with the long-lasting effects of market transition and the broader capitalist production. Mutual dependency between wage workers and workers’ families throws the future of worker populations into question. Households compensate for deteriorating economic conditions and the states’ low involvement in reproduction. As the burden of social reproduction remains largely on older generations, who are able to sustain financial and household continuity, the question is about the future of these configurations. For instance, if due to age older generations lose their ability to maintain social reproduction, the result may be the destruction of the subsistence capabilities of families. This also raises questions about the future reproduction of labour power, as generations naturally grow older (Vogel, 2013). In this case, separation from subsistence and dependency on low-monetary income creates a problematic situation in which the workforce is exposed to further financial exploitation, higher dependency on loans and loss of access to land.

This article provides a new perspective on the labour of workers, who cannot ensure their own social reproduction through industrial employment, but rather who heavily rely upon the inter-generational family to be able to remain employees of the international offshoring company. Familial involvement should be recognised as a necessary condition for contemporary global industrial production employment. By doing so in this article, I show another type of Polanyian struggle-based conflicting and the dialectical relationship of social protection and the free market (Burawoy, 2010; Polanyi, 1944), which in the described case takes a form of social protection provided by the family to enable capitalist labour at the global investment. Therefore, this study supplements critical literature that is concerned with the global exploitation of the workforce (Lee and Trappmann, 2014; Seidman, 2007; Varga, 2014; Webster et al., 2011) and offshoring’s reliance on low-skilled employment and low wages (Cravey, 1998; Lee, 2007; Mills, 1999; Pun, 2005; Salzinger, 2003). By using social reproduction theory (Bhattacharya, 2017; Fraser, 2017; Jefferson and King, 2001; Luxton and Bezanson, 2006; Meaghar and Nelson, 2004; Peterson, 2005; Vosko, 2002), it outlines how offshoring exploits resources of workers’ households, activating hopes for inter-generational social–economic progression. This study further contributes to the field addressing progressive degradation of employment practices, complementing the existing literature addressing labour in foreign investments in the disadvantaged regions (Cowie, 2010; Hochschild and Machung, 2012; Silver, 2003; Woolfson, 2007).

Conclusion

This article has drawn on social reproduction theory to explore the mutual dependency between offshored labour and the inter-generational family in Romania. By addressing the specificity of how workers and their families engage with wage labour in offshored plants, as well as how they evaluate and reflect upon this engagement, I have expanded the discussion of offshoring effects. To conclude, I call for future critical studies of offshoring systems and foreign direct investment to investigate further the multiple dimensions of this process beyond the workplace and from the perspective of family and community. This research will likely provide important insights into the mechanisms through which capital is today valorised globally extracting value not only from the workers but also more broadly from the households and communities of which there are part.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Associate Editor Patrizia Zanoni and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. He also thank people who read early versions of this manuscript: Emma Greeson, Jo Brewis, Justyna Jochym and Jacek Nowak.

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Tokyo Foundation (Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund).

ORCID iD

Milosz Miszczynski

Author biography

Milosz Miszczynski is an assistant professor of Management at Kozminski University, Warsaw, Poland. His past appointments include a post-doctoral position at University of Surrey’s Centre for the Digital Economy. His interests include studies of global political economy and concentrate on issues of social reproduction, alienation and workplace automation. Currently, Milosz is completing a project studying the effects of algorithmic management in Amazon’s warehouses.

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Mutual dependency: Offshored labour and family organisation in post-socialist Romania

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Studying the offshored workforce

Methodology

The Romanian context

Prior to the investment

Solidarity within households

Emancipatory forces

Inter-generational exceptionalism

Discussion

Conclusion

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Funding

ORCID iD

Author biography

References