Workplace regimes in  western europe, 1995–2015:  Implications for intensification,  intrusion, income and  insecurity

The article investigates the emergence of ‘new’ forms of working such as ‘lean production’ and  ‘learning organisations’ in Western Europe, 1995–2015. First, the article identifies the dominant  forms of work organisation (‘workplace regimes’) across Western Europe, including new  ‘pressure’ and ‘extreme’ varieties of previously identified regimes. Second, the article analyses  the implications of these workplace regimes for various important worker outcomes – insecurity,  income, intensity of work and intrusion of work into non-working life – and assesses the ‘trade-offs’ of different outcomes across regimes. Third, the article assesses the changing distribution  of these regimes, whether certain forms such as Lean Production are coming to dominate the  division of labour, and where and for whom. The shape of the ‘new world of work’ is increasingly  Lean, but remains open to political contestation – both in how regimes themselves are organised  and in the mix of regimes in particular societies and for particular workers.