Challenging hegemonic deregulation? The UK Gangmaster Licensing Authority as a model for the regulation of casual work

The gangmaster system has been characterised as a highly exploitative form of labour contracting and a relic of coercive nineteenth century practices associated with the recruitment and control of casual workers. Its continued existence in the UK was brought to popular attention in 2004 when 23 Chinese cocklepickers, employed by a gangmaster, drowned at Morecambe Bay in Lancashire: the Gangmaster Licensing Authority (GLA) was subsequently legislated into existence to regulate the industry. The gangmaster system represents ostensibly contradictory facets of contemporary British labour markets: on the one hand, it has been described as both an historical form of labour associated with a teleological view of capitalist development, and a resurgent ‘medieval ’ set of working practices; on the other, it is heralded as a successful form of regulatory labour market intervention and a model to emulate in other sectors in which precarious and temporary forms of work are the norm. This paper employs the Gramscian notion of hegemony and Karl Polanyi’s concept of the double movement to examine the extent to which the regulation of gangmasters can be seen as an ideological and practical shift away from the normative ideal o