18 research outputs found
The Single European Market and SMEs: A Comparison of its Effects in the Food and Clothing Sectors in the UK and Portugal
No full textSMALLBONE D., CUMBERS A., SYRETT S. and LEIGH R. (1999) The Single European Market and SMEs: a comparison of its effects in the food and clothing sectors in the UK and Portugal, Reg. Studies 33 , 51-62. The creation of a Single European Market in 1992 represented an attempt to accelerate the process of European economic integration. However, in terms of the actual impact of the Single Market process, most of the attention so far has concentrated upon the implications for the large firm corporate sector. In comparison, there has been a lack of in-depth analysis of the effects of the Single Market for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), despite the contribution to employment generation that is often prescribed for them in policy terms. This paper seeks to stimulate a more informed debate about the consequences of the Single Market for SMEs by contrasting the effects on firms in different spatial and sectoral contexts, drawing upon original survey evidence of SMEs in the food and clothing sectors in the UK and Portugal. SMALLBONE D., CUMBERS A., SYRETT S. et LEIGH R. (1999) Le marcheunique europeenet les PME: une comparaison de ses effets dans les secteurs de l'alimenation et de l'habillement au Royaume-Uni et au Portugal, Reg. Studies 33 , 51-62. L'etablissement d'un marche unique europeen en 1992 a represente une tentative d'accelerer le processus d'integration economique europeenne. Cependant, l'impact reelde l'echeance1992 s'etait fait sentir largement sur les grandes societes. Parcontre, rares sont les recherches approfondies quant a l'impact du marche unique sur les petites et moyennes entreprises (PME), en depit de leur ro⁁le de createurs d'emploi. Puisant dans les resultats des enque⁁tes originelles aupres des secteurs de l'alimentation et de l'habillement au Royaume-Uni et au Portugal, cet article cherche a susciter une discussion plus fondee sur les consequences du marche unique pour ce qui est des PME en comparant les effets sur les entreprises dans des contextes geographiqueset sectoriels differents. SMALLBONE D., CUMBERS A., SYRETT S. und LEIGH R. (1999) Der europaische Binnenmarkt und klein-bis mittelgrosse Unternehmen (SMC): ein Vergleich seiner Auswirkungen auf die Bereiche Lebensmittel und Bekleidung im Vereinigten Konigreich und Portugal, Reg. Studies 33 , 51-62. Die Schaffung eines europaischen Binnenmarktes im Jahre 1992 stellte einen Versuch dar, den Prozess des europaischen wirtschaftlichen Zusammenschlusses zu beschleunigen. Bisher hat sich jedoch die Aufmerksamkeit unter dem Aspekt der tatsachlichen Auswirkung des Binnenmarktprozesses auf die Implikationen furden korporativen Grossfirmensektor konzentriert. Im Vergleich damit fehlt es trotz des zur Schaffung von Arbeitsplazen geleisteten Beitrags, die politische Stellungnahme ihnen oft zuschreibt, an grundlichen Analysen der Auswirkungen des Binnenmarktsauf kleineund mittelgrosse Unternehmen (Small and Medium Enterprises - SME). Dieser Aufsatz sucht, eine besser fundierte Diskussion uberdie Konsequenzen des Binnenmarkts fur kleine und mittlere Unternehmen in Gang zu bringen, indem er die Auswirkungen auf Firmen in verschiedenen raumlichen und betriebssektoralen Zusammenhangen gegenubersellt, wozu Beweise von ursprunglichen Gutachten uber SME im Lebensmittel- und Bekleidungssektor im Vereinigten Konigreich und Portugal herangezogen werden.Single Market, Smes, Spatial And Sectoral Contrasts, Food, Clothing, Marche Unique, Pme, Contrastes Geographiques Et Sectoriels, Alimentation, Habillement, Binnenmarkt, Kleine Und Mittlere Unternehmen, Gegensatze Von Raum Und Betriebssektor, Lebensmittel, Bekleidung,
Rescaling employment relations: key outcomes of change in the privatised rail industry
No full textThe past decade has witnessed a revival of interest in the role of labour in political and economic restructuring. Following a period in the 1980s and early 1990s when trade unions and employees were routinely portrayed as passive victims of corporate restructuring, the past ten years have seen a resurgence of work by geographers highlighting the continued agency of labour. Despite this 'new labour geography', however, there has been little empirical research examining the uneven development of employment relations at a broad <i>industry</i> level. We address this issue by examining the changing geography of employment regulation in the UK’s privatised rail industry. A major shift in the scale at which industrial relations are organised has taken place under privatisation, away from national collective bargaining to a system of localised company bargaining. On the basis of secondary data gathered from industry sources, we provide an initial assessment of key outcomes of employment change in the rail industry. Our analysis indicates that considerable disparities in pay and conditions exist between different groups of workers, companies, and regions, although these are perhaps less extreme than suggested by the unions. In addition, the number of industrial disputes has escalated in the aftermath of privatisation. Moreover, instead of the set piece national strikes that took place in the nationalised industry, the majority of this strike action has been conducted against particular operators at the local and regional scales, reflecting the logic of company-level bargaining. At the same time, the membership of the three main unions has actually increased in recent years against a backdrop of long-term decline, suggesting that the decentralisation of collective bargaining presents unions with opportunities as well as challenges
The work of community gardens: reclaiming place for community in the city
No full textThe growth of community gardens has become the source of much academic debate regarding
their role in community empowerment in the contemporary city. In this article, we focus upon
the work being done in community gardens, using gardening in Glasgow as a case study. We
argue that while community gardening cannot be divorced from more regressive underlying
economic and social processes accompanying neoliberal austerity policies, it does provide space
for important forms of work that address social needs and advance community empowerment.
In developing this argument we use recent geographical scholarship concerning the generative
role of place in bringing together individuals and communities in new collective forms of working.
Community gardens are places that facilitate the recovery of individual agency, construction of
new forms of knowledge and participation, and renewal of reflexive and proactive communities
that provide broader lessons for building more progressive forms of work in cities
Scaling up community action for tackling climate change
No full textTackling climate change requires a set of deeply intertwined geographical responsibilities whereby actors at and across different geographical scales are intimately connected. Creating effective strategies requires far more than an invocation for individual behavioural change in thinking globally and acting locally, but attention to the multi‐scalar conflicts, tensions and also opportunities to develop the most appropriate collective responses. In this paper, we use the example of community gardening initiatives in a large UK city to critically interrogate the problems facing groups at the local neighbourhood level in pursuing sustainability agendas. We focus on the organizational imperative to create a multi‐scalar food policy partnership at the city level as a way of confronting dominant global neoliberal urban competitiveness agendas. Our results emphasize the critical importance of scalar politics in enabling effective climate change strategies
Rescaling employment relations: key outcomes of change in the privatised rail industry
No full textThe past decade has witnessed a revival of interest in the role of labour in political and economic restructuring. Following a period in the 1980s and early 1990s when trade unions and employees were routinely portrayed as passive victims of corporate restructuring, the past ten years have seen a resurgence of work by geographers highlighting the continued agency of labour. Despite this ‘new labour geography’, however, there has been little empirical research examining the uneven development of employment relations at a broad industry level. We address this issue by examining the changing geography of employment regulation in the UK’s privatised rail industry. A major shift in the scale at which industrial relations are organised has taken place under privatisation, away from national collective bargaining to a system of localised company bargaining. On the basis of secondary data gathered from industry sources, we provide an initial assessment of key outcomes of employment change in the rail industry. Our analysis indicates that considerable disparities in pay and conditions exist between different groups of workers, companies, and regions, although these are perhaps less extreme than suggested by the unions. In addition, the number of industrial disputes has escalated in the aftermath of privatisation. Moreover, instead of the set piece national strikes that took place in the nationalised industry, the majority of this strike action has been conducted against particular operators at the local and regional scales, reflecting the logic of company-level bargaining. At the same time, the membership of the three main unions has actually increased in recent years against a backdrop of long-term decline, suggesting that the decentralisation of collective bargaining presents unions with opportunities as well as challenges.
Labour, organisational rescaling and the politics of production: union renewal in the privatised rail industry
No full textResearchers are becoming more alert to the importance of geography to union renewal in counteracting the strategies of corporate and state actors. In this article the example of the UK's rail industry is used to show how privatisation created a new geography of employment relations. Unions responded to the destruction of national collective bargaining and a new fragmented geography of employment relations through organisational restructuring, which, in different ways, was marked by a continuing commitment to a politics of production in connecting grassroots workers to national leaderships. Engaging with the new labour geography, however; the article argues that a further critical element in renewal has been the unions' ability to rethink their internal geographies and scalar relations to contest change at the level of the workplace.labour geography; rail privatisation; trade unions; union renewal
Glasgow’s Community Gardens: Neoliberal Spaces or Sites of Radical Potential? Geographies of the Anthropocene
No full textNo abstract available
Glasgow's Community Gardens: Sustainable Communities of Care
No full textDrawing upon new approaches to thinking about care this research set out to explore the inter-relationships between sustainability, health, well-being and the urban environment. Through actively engaging with existing grassroots projects involved in community gardening in Glasgow, the project goes beyond existing top-down public policy initiatives, to explore bottom-up and collaborative models of urban regeneration. The research project underpinning this report was designed in collaboration with grassroots community garden groups in the city. Bringing together the experiences and opinions of volunteers and staff working in these gardens and a number of experts and activists in the related areas of Urban Agriculture (UA) and urban green space use, the report identifies a number of ways in which gardens benefit communities. It also assesses a number of challenges faced by community groups as they try to construct a sustainable future for community gardening in Glasgow.
After a brief introduction to community gardening in Glasgow, this report outlines a range of benefits accrued to individuals that participate in community garden activities and the wider communities that live in relative proximity to the gardens. The report then considers the main challenges faced by community garden groups in the city
Contesting neoliberal urbanism in Glasgow's community gardens: The practice of DIY citizenship
No full textIn this journal, it has been suggested that citizens practising community gardening “can become complicit in the construction of neoliberal hegemony”. Such hegemony is maintained, it is argued, through the day-to-day work of neoliberal citizen-subjects, which “alleviates the state from service provision”. In this paper we acknowledge that community gardens are vulnerable to neoliberal cooptation. But, even where neoliberal practices are evidenced, such practices do not define or foreclose other socio-political subjectivities at work in the gardens. We contend that community gardens in Glasgow cultivate collective practices that offer us a glimpse of what a progressively transformative polity can achieve. Enabled by an interlocking process of community and spatial production, this form of citizen participation encourages us to reconsider our relationships with one another, our environment and what constitutes effective political practice. Inspired by a range of writings on citizenship formation we term this “Do-It-Yourself” (DIY) Citizenship
