The Making of Cheap Labour Power: Nokia’s Case in Cluj

This paper describes the procedures that minimized labour costs in a typical offshore factory of a large corporation from the global market: the Nokia factory in Cluj, Romania. Two interrelated factors contributed to this. Firstly, the arrival of neoliberal economic rationality created favourable conditions for transnational capital’s free passage through the country. Secondly, under the imperative of flexibilization, the 2011 Labour Code modifications diminished employee rights and increased employers’ privileges, allowing companies such as Nokia to freely assemble the region’s labour force – engaging it in a complex production process – and disassemble it without any major consequences. Flexibilization permitted the use of outsourced labour power in the form of external employees, partly from rural areas, with short-term contracts and minimum wages.