This paper examines the development of managerial control throughout the course of a flagship outsourced contract and discusses the implications of outsourcing for trade union strategy. Outsourcing provides a productive insecurity, enabling the contractor to link individual performance with contract renewal. However, this needs to co-exist with some semblance of stability, and under fixed-term contracting, the inherent contradiction between these two aims is exposed over time. Employee priorities become bounded by the workplace and by the term of the contract. Consequently, bargaining relationships, which were sustainable ‘in-house’, are called into question. The dilemma for trade unions arises from the need to re-build a wider agenda from this focus on the here-and-now.
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