Pub Date : 2019-05-24DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780198841463.003.0006
N. Nattrass, J. Seekings
Chapter 6 reviews the history of collective bargaining in the South African clothing manufacturing industry. We show that its profoundly dualist character (high- and low-productivity firms co-existing) has historical and market-related roots and highlight the role of wage policy during and after apartheid in shaping the regional location of firms. The rise of China as a global producer of clothing had a profound impact on the South African industry—but it was the simultaneous introduction of national collective bargaining and the enforcement of minimum wages on relatively low-wage labour-intensive firms that drove the job losses. We describe the 2010/11 ‘compliance drive’ that resulted in legal action against the National Bargaining Council for the Clothing Manufacturing Industry by low-wage employers, including the Chinese firms (that is, owned by people who originated from Taiwan, Hong Kong, or China) in Newcastle seeking to obtain relief from the imposition of sector-wide minimum wages on their labour-intensive firms. Whilst trade union strategy as well as government policy adapted to some extent and many employers transformed their enterprises into workers’ co-operatives, that is to circumvent wage regulation, the outcome was nonetheless the preclusion of employment growth in this crucial sector.
{"title":"Decent Work Fundamentalism and Job Destruction in the South African Clothing Manufacturing Industry","authors":"N. Nattrass, J. Seekings","doi":"10.1093/OSO/9780198841463.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780198841463.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 6 reviews the history of collective bargaining in the South African clothing manufacturing industry. We show that its profoundly dualist character (high- and low-productivity firms co-existing) has historical and market-related roots and highlight the role of wage policy during and after apartheid in shaping the regional location of firms. The rise of China as a global producer of clothing had a profound impact on the South African industry—but it was the simultaneous introduction of national collective bargaining and the enforcement of minimum wages on relatively low-wage labour-intensive firms that drove the job losses. We describe the 2010/11 ‘compliance drive’ that resulted in legal action against the National Bargaining Council for the Clothing Manufacturing Industry by low-wage employers, including the Chinese firms (that is, owned by people who originated from Taiwan, Hong Kong, or China) in Newcastle seeking to obtain relief from the imposition of sector-wide minimum wages on their labour-intensive firms. Whilst trade union strategy as well as government policy adapted to some extent and many employers transformed their enterprises into workers’ co-operatives, that is to circumvent wage regulation, the outcome was nonetheless the preclusion of employment growth in this crucial sector.","PeriodicalId":186177,"journal":{"name":"Inclusive Dualism","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115046522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-24DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780198841463.003.0007
N. Nattrass, J. Seekings
Chapter 7 argues that the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (SACTWU) strategy was complicated by its dual role as a trade union and investment manager. Having taken advantage of investment opportunities provided through ‘black economic empowerment policies’ to grow substantial financial assets and later also direct investments in the clothing manufacturing industry, the union, in effect, was both a representative of labour as well as a capitalist. Its political connections meant that it was well positioned to take advantage of subsidies. The incentives and opportunities facing SACTWU were consistent with a union strategy to have a smaller body of better-paid workers rather than growing its membership of lower-wage workers through labour-intensive job creation. SACTWU is suspicious of the growth of workers’ co-operatives (seeing them as sham and designed solely to avoid minimum wage regulation). We argue that the potential for workers’ co-operatives to generate more transparent and inclusive productive and distributional practices is exciting and consistent with inclusive dualism.
{"title":"The Political Economy of Upgrading","authors":"N. Nattrass, J. Seekings","doi":"10.1093/OSO/9780198841463.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780198841463.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 7 argues that the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (SACTWU) strategy was complicated by its dual role as a trade union and investment manager. Having taken advantage of investment opportunities provided through ‘black economic empowerment policies’ to grow substantial financial assets and later also direct investments in the clothing manufacturing industry, the union, in effect, was both a representative of labour as well as a capitalist. Its political connections meant that it was well positioned to take advantage of subsidies. The incentives and opportunities facing SACTWU were consistent with a union strategy to have a smaller body of better-paid workers rather than growing its membership of lower-wage workers through labour-intensive job creation. SACTWU is suspicious of the growth of workers’ co-operatives (seeing them as sham and designed solely to avoid minimum wage regulation). We argue that the potential for workers’ co-operatives to generate more transparent and inclusive productive and distributional practices is exciting and consistent with inclusive dualism.","PeriodicalId":186177,"journal":{"name":"Inclusive Dualism","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125392986","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-24DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780198841463.003.0003
N. Nattrass, J. Seekings
Chapter 3 argues that the ILO’s decent work agenda is insensitive to the needs of countries with high unemployment. We identify thirteen developing countries whose unemployment rate in 2016 was over twice the mean for low- and middle-income countries. Most are war-torn, post-communist, and unfree. However, for a set of Southern African countries, high unemployment is the consequence of domestic policy within a regional context of relatively limited opportunities for smallholder agriculture and dominated by the strength of the South African economy. Contemporary development policy advice, especially from the ILO, prioritizes labour productivity growth without confronting the need to foster relatively low-productivity employment to provide jobs for large numbers of relatively unskilled people in these countries. Rising labour productivity in the surplus labour countries during the 2000s came at the cost of stagnant, and even falling, employment rates. Given inadequate welfare support for the unemployed, such growth paths undermined inclusive development in these countries.
{"title":"Labour Productivity and Employment in Surplus Labour Countries","authors":"N. Nattrass, J. Seekings","doi":"10.1093/OSO/9780198841463.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780198841463.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 3 argues that the ILO’s decent work agenda is insensitive to the needs of countries with high unemployment. We identify thirteen developing countries whose unemployment rate in 2016 was over twice the mean for low- and middle-income countries. Most are war-torn, post-communist, and unfree. However, for a set of Southern African countries, high unemployment is the consequence of domestic policy within a regional context of relatively limited opportunities for smallholder agriculture and dominated by the strength of the South African economy. Contemporary development policy advice, especially from the ILO, prioritizes labour productivity growth without confronting the need to foster relatively low-productivity employment to provide jobs for large numbers of relatively unskilled people in these countries. Rising labour productivity in the surplus labour countries during the 2000s came at the cost of stagnant, and even falling, employment rates. Given inadequate welfare support for the unemployed, such growth paths undermined inclusive development in these countries.","PeriodicalId":186177,"journal":{"name":"Inclusive Dualism","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131390545","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-24DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780198841463.003.0005
N. Nattrass, J. Seekings
Chapter 5 considers the debate over ‘sweatshops’ in the clothing manufacturing industry, arguing that the moral economy of rival positions entails different understandings of the relationship between wages, profits, and employment. Many contemporary arguments reflect those made over a century earlier in Britain and the US. However, whereas the British Fabian socialists sought (and achieved) the simultaneous expansion of labour protection and welfare support for the unemployed, the contemporary anti-sweatshop movement focusses solely on wages. By the early twentieth century in Britain, those who lost their jobs because of rising minimum wages could expect support from the welfare system. In twenty-first-century surplus labour countries, the unemployed fall through what meagre welfare nets exist. In this context, the potential trade-off between wages and employment matters for poverty and inequality. Chapter 5 also reviews the evidence on the impact of rising minimum wages on employment both internationally and in South Africa. The impact is typically neutral or mildly negative, suggesting that policymakers are generally careful about not raising minimum wages excessively. There is, however, evidence that it is mostly unskilled workers who lose jobs when job losses occur.
{"title":"The Moral Economy of Low-Wage Work","authors":"N. Nattrass, J. Seekings","doi":"10.1093/OSO/9780198841463.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780198841463.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 5 considers the debate over ‘sweatshops’ in the clothing manufacturing industry, arguing that the moral economy of rival positions entails different understandings of the relationship between wages, profits, and employment. Many contemporary arguments reflect those made over a century earlier in Britain and the US. However, whereas the British Fabian socialists sought (and achieved) the simultaneous expansion of labour protection and welfare support for the unemployed, the contemporary anti-sweatshop movement focusses solely on wages. By the early twentieth century in Britain, those who lost their jobs because of rising minimum wages could expect support from the welfare system. In twenty-first-century surplus labour countries, the unemployed fall through what meagre welfare nets exist. In this context, the potential trade-off between wages and employment matters for poverty and inequality. Chapter 5 also reviews the evidence on the impact of rising minimum wages on employment both internationally and in South Africa. The impact is typically neutral or mildly negative, suggesting that policymakers are generally careful about not raising minimum wages excessively. There is, however, evidence that it is mostly unskilled workers who lose jobs when job losses occur.","PeriodicalId":186177,"journal":{"name":"Inclusive Dualism","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122680495","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-24DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780198841463.003.0002
N. Nattrass, J. Seekings
Chapter 2 discusses the Lewis model of development with surplus labour and the ongoing relevance of his dualist approach as demonstrated in the industrialization of Hong Kong, India, Bangladesh, etc. We show, using examples from the South African clothing manufacturing industry, that relatively high- and low-wage firms exist in the same industry by using different technologies and targeting different product markets. There is no necessary ‘race to the bottom’. Industrial policy can usefully promote competitiveness across a range of technologies, supporting labour-intensive technologies (especially in contexts of high unemployment) without undermining firms in more skill- and capital-intensive niches. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications of unemployment for development strategy, and for the relationship between development and inequality.
{"title":"Dualism and Development","authors":"N. Nattrass, J. Seekings","doi":"10.1093/OSO/9780198841463.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780198841463.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 2 discusses the Lewis model of development with surplus labour and the ongoing relevance of his dualist approach as demonstrated in the industrialization of Hong Kong, India, Bangladesh, etc. We show, using examples from the South African clothing manufacturing industry, that relatively high- and low-wage firms exist in the same industry by using different technologies and targeting different product markets. There is no necessary ‘race to the bottom’. Industrial policy can usefully promote competitiveness across a range of technologies, supporting labour-intensive technologies (especially in contexts of high unemployment) without undermining firms in more skill- and capital-intensive niches. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications of unemployment for development strategy, and for the relationship between development and inequality.","PeriodicalId":186177,"journal":{"name":"Inclusive Dualism","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121122487","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：