Co-production and enforcement

Design principles discussion 

Co-production in the form of third-party collaboration should be guided by developed design principles. They include recognition of capabilities of society and the state, routinization of informational and resource flows, prioritization, and involvement of political support.

The state regulators and worker organizations should cooperate in certain way, but enforcement by inspectors would be less efficient and substitutable than immediate collaboration of worker organizations with the employed workers. Thus, the employees would have guaranteed capabilities to enforce labor standards in ongoing work processes. Examination of the working conditions will be carried out by appropriate inspector engaged in every-day practice. Therefore, co-production should emphasize and fortify this aspect. Distribution of workers (workers, organization, firms of high road) will concretize the directions of enforcement improvement and intensification. Special attention should be drawn to provision of improvements of enforcement of labor standards regarding immigrants working in hard conditions for small payment. Their rights should be especially executed through co-production.

Fulfillment of the society-state divisions with information flows and resources enables the participants of worker organizations and the states to collaborate with the authorities, to collect data, and to make quick decision on the level of enforcement of labor standards. Putting priority on clear, trust, and open communication will empower worker organizations to be aware of the contracting relations and specifics of working conditions. Moreover, different worker structures and cooperative forms of society-state division will promote the demand on labor market and team spirit for the employees. Political support is not completely efficient, as it is sensitive towards political competition and regular change of policy. However, it assists in assessment of criteria of compliance to labor standards from the perspective of political actors to advocate for such partnerships. 

Co-production may enhance enforcement through the primary analysis. The relationship is planned to be formalized for both certain worker organizations and a wide range of powers. The composition of third-party mechanism of action includes also organization of public interest as the fortified factor of enforcement. Co-production would be beneficial through the participation of organizations and state agencies. Although co-production is directed at collaboration of organizations and the state to decrease the accidents and irrational usage of HR, these design principles should also include the approval and criteria of payment for the work group performance. 

Evaluation of co-production 

Efficiency of co-production performed by the state and local authorities will be evaluated through the following criteria:

1. The degree of compliance with the company's operating purposes;
2. Level of management of the organizations included in a partnership through co-production;
3. Reliability of the co-production;
4. Compliance with other elements of the operating system.

To assess the degree of compliance with the objectives of the operating system, the entire organization will use subjective indicators: 

• The presence of dedicated departments, whose work is directed at achieving the main objectives of the company;
• Subordinate units implementing priority function of the main parties;
• The concentration of the units operating in the direction of the main goals of the operating system in a single unit, allowing horizontal communication easier and exploit synergies.

It is important to determine whether the co-production is compliant to the object of management. This is reflected in the balance of the functions and objectives of management according to the strength of the workers' volume and complexity of work required to ensure the completeness of the information security of management processes and technological means.

The level of control inherent in the system of production can be assessed using the following indicators:

• The level of centralization of functions characterizes the level of concentration of management functions in the upper levels of the hierarchy. The level of centralization can be estimated by the coefficient reflecting the allocation of functions of certain elements to the total number of functions;
• Accepted standards of control are the number of employees subordinated to one inspector;
• Coordination level reflects the level of use of mechanisms of integration of shared resources and activities;
• The complexity of the operating system is determined by the number of divisions, groups, departments, and qualified level of the hierarchy;
• The formalization of the operating system describes the scope of the use of rules and regulatory mechanisms of standardization work in the organization;
• Balanced distribution of rights and responsibilities is a compliance with the allocated elements of the structure of the rights of their responsibility;
• The degree of autonomy of action units is an indicator of the level of independence and workers' organizations in the activities.

The reliability of co-production refers to the level of implementation of the security of communication, which provides relative stability of the system as a whole. A number of organizations are relatively interdependent with others. Therefore, conformity with co-production system in general and other elements, in particular, should be evaluated, too.

Evaluation in detail

Texas employees were not provided with compensation according to the goals of the partnerships and were not insured as it was prescribed by the principle of secure working conditions. Therefore, the level of co-production and enforcement of labor standards there was extremely low due to the absence of the practice of health and security measures. Occupational risks plans were not fulfilled with appropriate data on factual and potential injuries and accidents according to the principle of supplement of processes with information flows.

Construction companies opted out compensation coverage in terms of their saving strategy. This addresses the principle of prioritization indicating that these companies prefer to introduce certain cost saving strategy instead to ensure healthy working conditions for the employed people. In addition, there is no any worker organization that addresses low indicator of reliability of co-production. 

To sum up, construction companies were engaged in a number of problems necessities co-production and enforcement of labor standards. Factual compliance of performance by Texas constructing contractors and subcontractors should be involved to attract attention to this issue. Design principles start the implementation of co-production process. Its efficiency will be evaluated by a number of detailed indicators for proper further analysis and improvement.