‘You're Only as Good as Your Last Job’: the Labour Process and Labour Market in the British Film Industry

Recent debates surrounding the future of work and non-standard forms of employment have, especially in the United States, used the film industry as an exemplar and signifier of future industrial change. Much research conducted in the film industry implicitly or explicitly draws on the flexible specialisation framework to understand industrial organisation and labour market operation. It is the contention of this paper, however, that the dual labour market analysis associated with flexible specialisation explanations is too simplistic, failing to reflect the range of factors affecting labour market organisation and operation. The resulting static and atomised analysis is, as such, ill-equipped to conceptualise the complex patterns of organisation and movement evident in the highly uncertain context of film making. Furthermore, the operation and organisation of the labour market cannot be understood independently of the management of labour within the labour process. Production company management set the context and targets of work (in terms of work scheduling, pay, and conditions) and departmental heads retain method autonomy and control the recruitment and performance of `their' group members. However, this is the case within a context in which people need to continually resecure work and maintain positions within groups and contacts. Therefore, a seeming lack of control over tasks at the point of production is reinforced by the use of labour market mechanisms and influences their form.