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Introduction

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Employment Relations in Financial Services

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Abstract

This study examines and analyses the employment experiences of workers in the financial services sector in Britain since the financial crash of 2007–2008. This is then to look at the human toll and tragedy of what has happened in terms of the erosion of workers’ terms and conditions of employment in banking, insurance and financial intermediation. Widespread redundancies, reduced worth of pensions and oppressive performance management systems have been some of the most obvious and widespread outcomes by which rapacious employers have responded to the deleterious impact of the financial crash upon their businesses and profitability. The purpose of these actions has been to protect and advance their material interests. The context of doing so has been that under an unchallenged regime of neo-liberal capitalism, the ‘credit crunch’ gave way to the financial crash and an unprecedented recession, with the financial services sector at its root and core, shortly leading the way to what has become known as an ‘age of austerity’. Yet for a very short period of time in Britain, the financial and economic crisis also became a political and ideological crisis for capitalism, as capitalism itself wobbled and witnessed widespread government intervention in a failing deregulated ‘free market’. The weakness of the left and labour unions generally in Britain and, more specifically, in the financial services sector, meant that this crisis of capitalism was resolved on capital’s terms and at the expense of labour. This was true of economy and society in general but particularly so in the financial services sector.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bradford, Bradford, UK

    Gregor Gall

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  1. Gregor Gall
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Correspondence to Gregor Gall .

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Gall, G. (2017). Introduction. In: Employment Relations in Financial Services. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-39539-9_1

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