13,163 research outputs found
The trade-labour nexus : global value chains and labour provisions in European Union free trade agreements
No full textLabour standards provisions contained within the European Union’s (EU) free trade agreements (FTAs) are a major iteration of attempts to regulate working conditions in the global economy. This article develops an analysis of how the legal and institutional mechanisms established by these FTAs intersect with global value chain governance dynamics in counoutries with contrasting political economies. The article formulates an original analytical framework to explore how governance arrangements and power relations between lead firms in core markets and suppliers in FTA signatory countries shape and constrain the effectiveness of labour provisions in FTAs. This analysis demonstrates how the common framework of labour provisions in EU trade agreements, when applied in a uniform manner across differentiated political-economic contexts, face serious difficulties in creating meaningful change for workers in global value chains
The challenge of labour in China: strikes and the changing labour regime in global factories
No full textChina has become a global manufacturing centre with its `unlimited' supply of low cost and unorganised peasant workers. The potential of Chinese workers to change this condition has significant meaning for global labour politics. This study offers an ethnographic portrait and a sociological account of the transformation of labour relations and labour politics in China from 2004 to 2008 focusing on workers' strikes, community and organisation. It reveals how wages and working conditions are bargained, fought over, and determined in the global factories. Geographically this study concerns the city of Shenzhen, China's first Special Economic Zone (SEZ), where labour conflict is most prevalent. Historically, it is traced back to the late 1970s to explore how the pattern of labour conflict has changed over time. The author spent one year conducting participant observation based in a grass-roots labour non-governmental organisation (NGO) in an industrial zone from 2005 to 2006. A multi-case method is used to document workers' stories to strive for a higher wage and better working conditions and their relationships with management, NGOs, the trade union and the local state. The author suggests that benefiting from an expanding labour market, an escalating dynamic community, and the skilled and supervisory workers' network, workplace struggle has exerted significant challenges to the state authorities and the global capital. The capital responded to these challenges by work intensification, production rationalization, expansion and relocation. The local state reacted by better enforcement of the labour regulations and steady enhancement of the minimum wage rate, while the central state initiated a new round of labour legislation to better protect workers. The author refers to the changing labour regime in this stage as `contested despotism'. Its potential to give way to a new form of factory regime is dependent on the possibility of effective workplace trade unionism
Child Labour in the Gambia
No full textChildren are the pillars of the future of every society Thus we need to research all aspects related to them as what they are today is what they will be tomorrow For any child labor study to be of any essence it must be understood as part and parcel of the societal interaction in which children are the principal actors in the different stages Essentially child labor study cannot be separated from the human family Data on child labour are very scarce particularly in The Gambia and it is often difficult to measure the largely hidden work of children The ILO has recently designed a new approach which has been piloted in four countries including developing nations and the results used to generate global estimates At present the worldwide record suggests that the estimate of children involved in child labour ranges from 300-400 million which is approximately 4 to 5 of 2 8 billion economically active person
Building Global Labour Networks: The Case of the Global Labour University
No full textThe article discusses the experience of the Global Labour University project. Summarizing major challenges labour is facing in adapting to the structural changes of globalisation, the paper puts the idea of a Global Labour University in the broader context of labour's needs to respond to a dominantly pro-business, pro-market globalisation discourse. The second part of the article introduces and critically discusses the Global Labour University project as an initiative to contribute to the need for global research, teaching and networking for a fairer globalisation
Young people and the post-recession labour market in the context of Europe 2020
No full textThis article examines how the recent global recession, together with the general flexibilization of labour markets, is affecting young people. We examine different forms of social exclusion, including unemployment, temporary employment contracts and periods of inactivity, as well as the subjective insecurity arising from such labour market exclusion. We also examine what Member States have done to address this issue, especially as part of their response to the crisis. At both EU (through the Europe 2020 strategy) and national levels specific policy measures exist that target young people in the labour market, but these are mostly supply-driven. Thus, they do not take into account the true problems young people are facing, including problems finding first-time employment and bad-quality jobs with little prospect of moving up the employment ladder. In conclusion, a new generation with higher exposure to systematic labour market risks than previous generations is being left to fend for itself with little appropriate state support
Ten Years of the Global Labour Journal: Reflecting on the Rise of the New Global Labour Studies
No full textThe article examines the origins of the Global Labour Journal (GLJ) and its goal of broadening labour studies. It shows how, over the past decade, the GLJ has recorded and analysed the forms of action and organisation that fall outside the traditional focus of labour studies. Through a range of careful case studies, the Journal has made an important contribution to the growing field of global labour studies. The two topics that have been the focus of most attention across all types of submissions have been: 1) precarious work and new forms of labour struggles; and 2) international trade unionism or transnational/global labour. The Journal has been successful in giving a platform to content from the Global South, but it is uneven and limited. Another major limitation is the failure to bridge the divide between the big questions raised in the Marx/Polanyi debates during the early phase of the Journal with the more concrete accounts of labour rediscovering its power on the periphery of labour movement. The article concludes by pointing towards possible options facing labour and the choices facing the GLJ.
KEY WORDS: Global labour; global labour studies; precarious work; future of labou
Labour Dispute Resolution in Botswana: Mapping a Boundary between Labour Courts and Collective Judicial Responsibility.
No full textIt is a fact that the introduction of labour courts in some developing African countries was a case of need Others subjectively concentrate on issues of jurisdiction and status which is why they define the labour court as an ad hoc tribunal or an administrative agency and so should be restricted to that status as an outgrowth of the Executive The major culprit is the senior courts of law and record Historically this may be because at establishment the labour courts were not provided for as senior courts of record in the constitutions A simple explanation is that at independence the post-colonial governments retained much of the constitution around which independence was negotiated During those early days there was no industrialisation and mass formal employment and therefore no serious labour disputes that might have threatened the stability of the state The proponents of exclusion of Labour Courts LC or Industrial Courts IC contend that By courts is meant the courts of civil judicature and by tribunal is meant those bodies of men who are appointed to resolve controversies arising from certain special laws----Certain special matters go before tribunals and the residue goes to the ordinary courts of civil judicatur
Global Labour Journal: Editors' Introduction (May 2017)
No full text"Editorial." Global Labour Journal (May) 8(2). Rina Agarwala, Jenny Chan, Alexander Gallas, and Ben Scull
Global Labour Journal, Editors' Introduction (Jan 2015)
No full text2015. "Editors' Introduction." Global Labour Journal (January) 6(1). Rina Agarwala, Jenny Chan, Alexander Gallas, and Ben Scull
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