The Self-Deceiving State: The ‘Model Employer’ Myth

Abstract

It is a fondly held belief internationally that the state sector, and whatever its other shortcomings, is at least a ‘model employer’ or preferential employer for state workers. In countries where the state sector is large — and two of the largest individual employers in Western Europe are UK state sectors — this is a substantial assumption which has influenced the characterization and analysis of the more general behaviour of the state in recent decades. If the study of the UK Private Finance Initiative in the previous chapter suggests an almost alarming degree of modesty is possible on the part of nation states with respect to their own capabilities, then their alacrity to claim ‘model employer’ status also requires critical academic engagement. Quite generally, we are faced here with an apparent paradox: the liberalization of public services, fuelled by private sector interests through a panoply of international institutions (not least the World Trade Organization through the General Agreement on Trade in Services),¹ has been a global phenomenon with increasing reach and depth and involves inter alia the transfer of workers from public to private sector employment. At the same time, the capacity of states across the globe to characterize themselves as model employers with respect to their own workers (a large and growing proportion of whom are women) suggests a deficit in private sector employment practice which should warn against liberalization.