Pub Date : 2023-10-09DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10124
Brandon Hunter-Pazzara
{"title":"Unions Renewed: Building Power in an Age of Finance, written by Martin, Alice and Annie Quick","authors":"Brandon Hunter-Pazzara","doi":"10.1163/24714607-bja10124","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10124","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42634,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Labor and Society","volume":"52 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135146502","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 : 2023-10-05DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10125
Ayyaz Mallick
Abstract This is a short reflection essay on the work of the acclaimed Marxist critic Aijaz Ahmad, who passed away in March 2022. The essay focusses on the form and method of Ahmad's writing, while also considering his seminal interventions on nationalism, imperialism, and literary criticism.
{"title":"Aijaz Ahmad and the Actuality of the National","authors":"Ayyaz Mallick","doi":"10.1163/24714607-bja10125","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10125","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This is a short reflection essay on the work of the acclaimed Marxist critic Aijaz Ahmad, who passed away in March 2022. The essay focusses on the form and method of Ahmad's writing, while also considering his seminal interventions on nationalism, imperialism, and literary criticism.","PeriodicalId":42634,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Labor and Society","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135483660","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 : 2023-10-05DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10127
Winona G.W. Wood
{"title":"Work Work Work: Labor, Alienation, and Class Struggle, written by Yates, Michael D.","authors":"Winona G.W. Wood","doi":"10.1163/24714607-bja10127","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10127","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42634,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Labor and Society","volume":"65 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135547845","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 : 2023-10-05DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10130
Jenny Chan
{"title":"Workers and Change in China: Resistance, Repression, Responsiveness, written by Elfstrom, Manfred","authors":"Jenny Chan","doi":"10.1163/24714607-bja10130","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10130","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42634,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Labor and Society","volume":"123 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135484272","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 : 2023-08-25DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10123
A. Trần
Using a systemic and institutional analysis of transnational dynamics in the recruiting, hiring and placement of Vietnamese female migrants in domestic work in Saudi Arabia, this article showcases the experiences of Vietnamese female domestic workers in Saudi Arabia and contributes to the social protection and migrant domestic worker literatures. It contributes a critical analysis on whether bilateral labor agreements can be mechanisms for social protection of migrants. Focusing on the case of Vietnam, I argue that the bilateral labor agreement (bla) signed between Vietnam and Saudi Arabia, enacted by the Vietnamese labor brokerage state and the Saudi Kafala systems, is a form structural violence because it fails to provide social welfare and protection for Vietnamese women domestic workers. In this systemic/structural violence, intersectionality shows that not all female workers suffer the same since ethnic minority workers most often suffer more than the majority (Kinh) female workers. Moreover, inside the Kafeel (the employer/sponsor) homes of this system, most of these female workers suffer, as unfree labor, from being transferred from one house to another, resulting in precarity, cycle of debt and dispossession of their rights.
{"title":"Bilateral Labor Agreement with Gendered and Unfree Labor: Vietnamese Women Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia","authors":"A. Trần","doi":"10.1163/24714607-bja10123","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10123","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Using a systemic and institutional analysis of transnational dynamics in the recruiting, hiring and placement of Vietnamese female migrants in domestic work in Saudi Arabia, this article showcases the experiences of Vietnamese female domestic workers in Saudi Arabia and contributes to the social protection and migrant domestic worker literatures. It contributes a critical analysis on whether bilateral labor agreements can be mechanisms for social protection of migrants. Focusing on the case of Vietnam, I argue that the bilateral labor agreement (bla) signed between Vietnam and Saudi Arabia, enacted by the Vietnamese labor brokerage state and the Saudi Kafala systems, is a form structural violence because it fails to provide social welfare and protection for Vietnamese women domestic workers. In this systemic/structural violence, intersectionality shows that not all female workers suffer the same since ethnic minority workers most often suffer more than the majority (Kinh) female workers. Moreover, inside the Kafeel (the employer/sponsor) homes of this system, most of these female workers suffer, as unfree labor, from being transferred from one house to another, resulting in precarity, cycle of debt and dispossession of their rights.","PeriodicalId":42634,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Labor and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48152477","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 : 2023-07-24DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10122
Juan Arasanz Díaz, Pablo Sanz de Miguel
Food-delivery digital labour platforms started to operate in Spain in 2016. As in other national contexts, these platforms have misclassified workers as independent contractors rather than employees, shifting responsibilities and risks onto workers who have been forced to operate under marketized relationships lacking protection. This paper analyses trade unions practices and strategies targeted towards food-delivery platform workers (riders) in Spain. The findings are based on desk research and fieldwork consisting of semi-structured interviews with representatives from different trade unions and self-organized workers’ associations. The article shows how trade unions’ strategies resting on litigation and social dialogue ended up with the first legislation in Europe which introduced a rebuttable presumption of employment in the field of delivery platforms. At the same time, it shows the limitation of those strategies resting on institutional power resources due to the fragmentation of workers’ interests and the newly platforms’ strategies to circumvent labour law.
{"title":"Union Strategies for the Representation of Platform Delivery Workers in Spain","authors":"Juan Arasanz Díaz, Pablo Sanz de Miguel","doi":"10.1163/24714607-bja10122","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10122","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Food-delivery digital labour platforms started to operate in Spain in 2016. As in other national contexts, these platforms have misclassified workers as independent contractors rather than employees, shifting responsibilities and risks onto workers who have been forced to operate under marketized relationships lacking protection. This paper analyses trade unions practices and strategies targeted towards food-delivery platform workers (riders) in Spain. The findings are based on desk research and fieldwork consisting of semi-structured interviews with representatives from different trade unions and self-organized workers’ associations. The article shows how trade unions’ strategies resting on litigation and social dialogue ended up with the first legislation in Europe which introduced a rebuttable presumption of employment in the field of delivery platforms. At the same time, it shows the limitation of those strategies resting on institutional power resources due to the fragmentation of workers’ interests and the newly platforms’ strategies to circumvent labour law.","PeriodicalId":42634,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Labor and Society","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41499735","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 : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10119
N. Boavida, Isabel Roque, A. Moniz
The use of digital platforms for managing work grew considerably in Portugal, especially in the aftermath of the Great Recession. This new form of digital and platform work intensified the use of an on-demand workforce, not involved in the bargaining process, subject to indecent working conditions, social control and surveillance and the possibility of accessing social benefits, creating new obstacles for organising. Between 2019 and 2021, semi-structured interviews with workers, activists involved in associations and social movements, trade unionists and key informers were conducted. Also desk research involved five case-studies in Portugal, as part of a European research project. Results allowed to establish a typification of digital platform workers and to analyse collective action and voice in the country.
{"title":"Collective Voice and Organizing in Digital Labour Platforms in Portugal","authors":"N. Boavida, Isabel Roque, A. Moniz","doi":"10.1163/24714607-bja10119","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10119","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The use of digital platforms for managing work grew considerably in Portugal, especially in the aftermath of the Great Recession. This new form of digital and platform work intensified the use of an on-demand workforce, not involved in the bargaining process, subject to indecent working conditions, social control and surveillance and the possibility of accessing social benefits, creating new obstacles for organising. Between 2019 and 2021, semi-structured interviews with workers, activists involved in associations and social movements, trade unionists and key informers were conducted. Also desk research involved five case-studies in Portugal, as part of a European research project. Results allowed to establish a typification of digital platform workers and to analyse collective action and voice in the country.","PeriodicalId":42634,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Labor and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43034273","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 : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10120
R. Turaeva
This paper aims to introduce the concept of capitalising precarity to analyse the situation of precarious migration in migrant unfriendly contexts such as Russia. The material analysed in this paper concerns welfare and health inequalities in Russia. Welfare of labour migrants in Russia (both for internal Russian migrants and for foreign migrants) is de facto non-existent and largely self-organised by migrants themselves. State migration policies of Russia as well as welfare policies in the destination countries (Central Asia) are formulated in papers but in practice do not function to ensure some kind of wellbeing and social protection. Working conditions both at home (in Central Asia) and in destination countries (Russia and Kazakhstan) do not comply with average requirements of wellbeing of workers. I was shocked but not surprised to see Central Asian migrant workers in winter cleaning the roofs of Russian houses without any protection. The paper analyses the situation of intermixing of legal and informal practices which have a direct implication for wellbeing of migrants in Russia. The working conditions in Russia for both migrant and non-migrant labour violate basic principles of human rights. The paper also shows that even citizenship does not automatically provide direct access to social welfare where the latter is bound to the permanent registration (propiska). Continuous precarity is capital for other actors such as those who can profit from it such as police officers or other migrants themselves. The findings of this research contribute to the broader literature of labour and welfare in terms challenging the boundaries between citizenship and mobility.
{"title":"Capitalising Precarity: Wellbeing of Migrants in Russia","authors":"R. Turaeva","doi":"10.1163/24714607-bja10120","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10120","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper aims to introduce the concept of capitalising precarity to analyse the situation of precarious migration in migrant unfriendly contexts such as Russia. The material analysed in this paper concerns welfare and health inequalities in Russia. Welfare of labour migrants in Russia (both for internal Russian migrants and for foreign migrants) is de facto non-existent and largely self-organised by migrants themselves. State migration policies of Russia as well as welfare policies in the destination countries (Central Asia) are formulated in papers but in practice do not function to ensure some kind of wellbeing and social protection. Working conditions both at home (in Central Asia) and in destination countries (Russia and Kazakhstan) do not comply with average requirements of wellbeing of workers. I was shocked but not surprised to see Central Asian migrant workers in winter cleaning the roofs of Russian houses without any protection. The paper analyses the situation of intermixing of legal and informal practices which have a direct implication for wellbeing of migrants in Russia. The working conditions in Russia for both migrant and non-migrant labour violate basic principles of human rights. The paper also shows that even citizenship does not automatically provide direct access to social welfare where the latter is bound to the permanent registration (propiska). Continuous precarity is capital for other actors such as those who can profit from it such as police officers or other migrants themselves. The findings of this research contribute to the broader literature of labour and welfare in terms challenging the boundaries between citizenship and mobility.","PeriodicalId":42634,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Labor and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48318309","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 : 2023-06-21DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10121
Rebecca Prentice, Mahmudul H. Sumon
Abstract After the 2013 collapse of Bangladesh’s Rana Plaza garment manufacturing building, the Rana Plaza Arrangement ( rpa ) provided work-injury compensation benefits to injured survivors and the families of those killed, funded by global apparel brands. This article draws upon qualitative interviews with international stakeholders—including global brands, activists, and the International Labour Organization ( ilo )—who developed and implemented the rpa , and survivors who claimed compensation payments. We analyse the rpa as an experiment in transnational social protection, which attempted to recentre labour rights and state responsibility after three decades of neoliberal labour governance. Arguing that social protection can be a technocratic “fix” to restore and make tolerable an injurious economic system, we demonstrate the inherent paradox of attempting to integrate precarious labour into decent and dignified social protection. The rpa ’s many failures suggest that state commitment to regulation and organized labour power are necessary ingredients for successful transnational social protection.
{"title":"Social Protection as Technocratic Fix?: Labour Precarity and Crises of Capitalism after Bangladesh’s Rana Plaza Collapse","authors":"Rebecca Prentice, Mahmudul H. Sumon","doi":"10.1163/24714607-bja10121","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10121","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract After the 2013 collapse of Bangladesh’s Rana Plaza garment manufacturing building, the Rana Plaza Arrangement ( rpa ) provided work-injury compensation benefits to injured survivors and the families of those killed, funded by global apparel brands. This article draws upon qualitative interviews with international stakeholders—including global brands, activists, and the International Labour Organization ( ilo )—who developed and implemented the rpa , and survivors who claimed compensation payments. We analyse the rpa as an experiment in transnational social protection, which attempted to recentre labour rights and state responsibility after three decades of neoliberal labour governance. Arguing that social protection can be a technocratic “fix” to restore and make tolerable an injurious economic system, we demonstrate the inherent paradox of attempting to integrate precarious labour into decent and dignified social protection. The rpa ’s many failures suggest that state commitment to regulation and organized labour power are necessary ingredients for successful transnational social protection.","PeriodicalId":42634,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Labor and Society","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135089863","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 : 2023-05-17DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10117
V. Murthy
This essay examines two readings of Hegel, namely Robyn Marasco’s The Highway of Despair: Critical Theory After Hegel and Stephen Houlgate’s Hegel On Being to construct a Hegelian political theory. From radically different perspectives, both books ask what it means to be “critical.” Some interpret being critical as implying avoiding ontological claims. Against this, I argue that Marxists should guard against reducing philosophy to history because this blinds us to the ontological conditions of historical narratives. Drawing on Houlgate’s book, the essay argues that by investigating general ontological conditions, one could construct a new critical theory of forms of consciousness. For example, through reading Hegel’s Logic and Phenomenology the essay suggests that recent experiences of despair might be connected to what Hegel calls the “unhappy consciousness,” which stems from both misunderstanding ontology and specific historical conditions. Radical political theories can mobilize despair when they understand its ontological and social conditions.
{"title":"Doubt, Despair and the Conditions of Left Hegelian Critical Theory","authors":"V. Murthy","doi":"10.1163/24714607-bja10117","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10117","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This essay examines two readings of Hegel, namely Robyn Marasco’s The Highway of Despair: Critical Theory After Hegel and Stephen Houlgate’s Hegel On Being to construct a Hegelian political theory. From radically different perspectives, both books ask what it means to be “critical.” Some interpret being critical as implying avoiding ontological claims. Against this, I argue that Marxists should guard against reducing philosophy to history because this blinds us to the ontological conditions of historical narratives. Drawing on Houlgate’s book, the essay argues that by investigating general ontological conditions, one could construct a new critical theory of forms of consciousness. For example, through reading Hegel’s Logic and Phenomenology the essay suggests that recent experiences of despair might be connected to what Hegel calls the “unhappy consciousness,” which stems from both misunderstanding ontology and specific historical conditions. Radical political theories can mobilize despair when they understand its ontological and social conditions.","PeriodicalId":42634,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Labor and Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44737793","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}
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