Outsourcing in the public sector: the role of supervision in the face of precarious work

Abstract

Outsourcing, as a workforce management policy, has been constituted as one of the central mechanisms used by capital engineering, based on flexible forms of hiring and precarious work. However, while the subsidiary liability of private entities has been ensured by jurisprudence, even after the outsourcing arrangement has been relaxed, it has been hindered within the Public Administration, either because of the impossibility of recognizing the employment relationship - in view of the constitutional requirement of the public tender - either by the understanding signed by the Supreme Court that the automatic liability of the public entity should not be admitted. In this context, this study intends to understand the mechanisms used by the Public Administration for the supervision of administrative contracts for the provision of services in a scenario of increasing neoliberal rationality and advancing outsourcing in the public sector.