This paper discusses the role of labour regulation and trade unions in collective organisation of workers in non-standard, diffuse and informal labour relations in the Global South. The central argument is that labour institutions interlink with and co-create different configurations of informality and hence possibilities for collective organisation. This argument responds to calls in global labour studies for new conceptions of labour struggles that go beyond Eurocentrism and a narrow focus on traditional tools and institutions of workers’ power in the global context. Challenging the formal-informal dualism, the empirical material presented in this paper suggests a more nuanced understanding of the role of labour regulation and trade unions as sites for both the production and the contestation of the category of informal work. This is illustrated by efforts for collective organisation of hard-to-reach workers in the two dissimilar sectors of street vending and domestic work in Tanzania. Using the power resources approach as a conceptual framework for structuring the analysis, the paper examines how collective organisation interlinks dynamically with specific configurations of labour informality which derive from the labour and employment relations, labour legislation, trade union strategies, and public discourses in each sector.
{"title":"Labour institutions and the dynamic production of informality: collective organisation of hard-to-reach workers in Tanzania","authors":"Ilona Steiler","doi":"10.15173/glj.v14i3.5330","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v14i3.5330","url":null,"abstract":"This paper discusses the role of labour regulation and trade unions in collective organisation of workers in non-standard, diffuse and informal labour relations in the Global South. The central argument is that labour institutions interlink with and co-create different configurations of informality and hence possibilities for collective organisation. This argument responds to calls in global labour studies for new conceptions of labour struggles that go beyond Eurocentrism and a narrow focus on traditional tools and institutions of workers’ power in the global context. Challenging the formal-informal dualism, the empirical material presented in this paper suggests a more nuanced understanding of the role of labour regulation and trade unions as sites for both the production and the contestation of the category of informal work. This is illustrated by efforts for collective organisation of hard-to-reach workers in the two dissimilar sectors of street vending and domestic work in Tanzania. Using the power resources approach as a conceptual framework for structuring the analysis, the paper examines how collective organisation interlinks dynamically with specific configurations of labour informality which derive from the labour and employment relations, labour legislation, trade union strategies, and public discourses in each sector.","PeriodicalId":44737,"journal":{"name":"Global Labour Journal","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135081433","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}
{"title":"Review of Agarwala, Rina (2022) The Migration-Development Regime: How Class Shapes Indian Emigration","authors":"S. Irudaya Rajan","doi":"10.15173/glj.v14i3.5629","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v14i3.5629","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44737,"journal":{"name":"Global Labour Journal","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135081886","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}
{"title":"From Pension Reform to Regime Crisis: The Social Movement of 2023 in France","authors":"P. Rouxel, Karel Yon","doi":"10.15173/glj.v14i2.5519","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v14i2.5519","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44737,"journal":{"name":"Global Labour Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48014040","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}
This article analyses strike statistics over the last twenty years (2000–2020) in South Africa to have a concrete understanding of the state of labour (organised and unorganised). The article makes a new contribution by showing how one can use Lenin’s quantitative method as a framework which I develop to assist in reading the qualitative aspects of worker mobilisation, an aspect which is markedly absent from contemporary analyses of labour. By utilising the quantitative method, the article shows whether the labour movement as an agent of social change is withering away, and who the leading sections (per industrial sector) of the labour movement are; it also indicates the qualitative shifts over time. The trends over the last twenty years indicate that there have been demonstrable qualitative shifts in strike dynamics in South Africa. KEYWORDS: South Africa; strike statistics; industrial action; Lenin
{"title":"Industrial Action in South Africa (2000-2020): Reading Strike Statistics Qualitatively","authors":"Eddie Cottle","doi":"10.15173/glj.v14i2.5111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v14i2.5111","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyses strike statistics over the last twenty years (2000–2020) in South Africa to have a concrete understanding of the state of labour (organised and unorganised). The article makes a new contribution by showing how one can use Lenin’s quantitative method as a framework which I develop to assist in reading the qualitative aspects of worker mobilisation, an aspect which is markedly absent from contemporary analyses of labour. By utilising the quantitative method, the article shows whether the labour movement as an agent of social change is withering away, and who the leading sections (per industrial sector) of the labour movement are; it also indicates the qualitative shifts over time. The trends over the last twenty years indicate that there have been demonstrable qualitative shifts in strike dynamics in South Africa.\u0000KEYWORDS: South Africa; strike statistics; industrial action; Lenin","PeriodicalId":44737,"journal":{"name":"Global Labour Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47843620","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}
Research on private regulation of labour standards in global production networks often highlights their continuing failure despite the fact that lead firms no longer consider them as mere window dressing. Fewer analyses delve into their on-the-ground effectiveness to benefit workers. This article joins a context-specific approach with quantitative analysis to examine whether labour standards used in private regulation improve employment relationships in suppliers of global production networks. Based on a single-country case study of Brazil, we look at the extent of their adoption by suppliers across sectors, their complementarity with national labour institutions, and whether the adoption of labour standards at supplier site level is likely to support labour agency. Our findings show little effectiveness of labour standards against those dimensions. The presence of labour standards at supplier level alone has no significant impact and varies greatly across sectors. It is only if workers are aware of the presence of such standards that it might support their agency when union membership is taken as proxy. Yet, the correlation could also be the other way round: awareness of labour standards depend on being a member of a union in the first place. KEYWORDS: private regulation; certification; labour standards; corporate social responsibility (CSR); global production networks
{"title":"Do Labour Standards Improve Employment Relationships in Global Production Networks? A Cross-sector Study in Brazil","authors":"Jean-Christophe Graz, Patrícia Rocha Lemos, Andréia Galvão","doi":"10.15173/glj.v14i2.5088","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v14i2.5088","url":null,"abstract":"Research on private regulation of labour standards in global production networks often highlights their continuing failure despite the fact that lead firms no longer consider them as mere window dressing. Fewer analyses delve into their on-the-ground effectiveness to benefit workers. This article joins a context-specific approach with quantitative analysis to examine whether labour standards used in private regulation improve employment relationships in suppliers of global production networks. Based on a single-country case study of Brazil, we look at the extent of their adoption by suppliers across sectors, their complementarity with national labour institutions, and whether the adoption of labour standards at supplier site level is likely to support labour agency. Our findings show little effectiveness of labour standards against those dimensions. The presence of labour standards at supplier level alone has no significant impact and varies greatly across sectors. It is only if workers are aware of the presence of such standards that it might support their agency when union membership is taken as proxy. Yet, the correlation could also be the other way round: awareness of labour standards depend on being a member of a union in the first place. \u0000KEYWORDS: private regulation; certification; labour standards; corporate social responsibility (CSR); global production networks","PeriodicalId":44737,"journal":{"name":"Global Labour Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48173431","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}
{"title":"Review of: Jenny Chan, Mark Selden and Pun Ngai (2020) Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn, and the Lives of China’s Workers","authors":"Jaesok Kim","doi":"10.15173/glj.v14i2.5502","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v14i2.5502","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44737,"journal":{"name":"Global Labour Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67246397","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}
Against the backdrop of workplace restructuring globally, post-apartheid South Africa is experiencing consistently high levels of unemployment, the deterioration of employment security and limited improvements in earnings. This article investigates the changing nature of labour-intensive production in the South African labour market and the gendered individualisation of risk associated with precarious or non-standard forms of employment. The article expands on the critical theoretical narrative about the challenges of labour under neo-liberalism by applying a gendered political economy analysis to the experiences of precariousness among workers in the South African manufacturing sector. By focusing on the interconnections between gender and political economy, this article delinks questions about the crisis of labour from a narrow focus on skills and refocuses our understanding in terms of the structural determinants of vulnerabilities in the labour market. The article argues that the gender composition of informal and precarious work in the post-apartheid labour market has significant implications for addressing the persistent racialised and gendered inequalities in the South African economy. KEYWORDS: labour market restructuring; informal employment; precarious work; gender JEL CLASSIFICATION: J21; J30; J71; J80
{"title":"Precarious Work and the Gendered Individualisation of Risk in the South African Manufacturing Sector, 2002–2017","authors":"Siviwe Mhlana","doi":"10.15173/glj.v14i2.5098","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v14i2.5098","url":null,"abstract":"Against the backdrop of workplace restructuring globally, post-apartheid South Africa is experiencing consistently high levels of unemployment, the deterioration of employment security and limited improvements in earnings. This article investigates the changing nature of labour-intensive production in the South African labour market and the gendered individualisation of risk associated with precarious or non-standard forms of employment. The article expands on the critical theoretical narrative about the challenges of labour under neo-liberalism by applying a gendered political economy analysis to the experiences of precariousness among workers in the South African manufacturing sector. By focusing on the interconnections between gender and political economy, this article delinks questions about the crisis of labour from a narrow focus on skills and refocuses our understanding in terms of the structural determinants of vulnerabilities in the labour market. The article argues that the gender composition of informal and precarious work in the post-apartheid labour market has significant implications for addressing the persistent racialised and gendered inequalities in the South African economy.\u0000KEYWORDS: labour market restructuring; informal employment; precarious work; gender\u0000JEL CLASSIFICATION: J21; J30; J71; J80","PeriodicalId":44737,"journal":{"name":"Global Labour Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45148243","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}
Owusu Boampong, Sabina Appiah-Boateng, N. Yaw Osei, R.K.Y. Ametefe
The issues facing surrogates are labour issues. However, there is scanty literature on the working conditions of surrogates in sub-Saharan Africa. This article explores the labour conditions of these unprotected and invisible reproductive workers in Ghana. In-depth interviews were conducted with key informants between 2018 and 2019. The study revealed the following: 1) Baby agents were increasingly playing a dominant role in the surrogacy industry, and through the surrogacy homes are able to create docile and disciplined surrogates. 2) Surrogacy agreements were oppressive and designed to reinforce the control over the bodies of surrogates. 3) Pregnancy-related scars leave emotional scars on the minds of surrogates. We recommend state regulation of the industry to ensure strict supervision of baby agents to minimise exploitation of surrogates. KEYWORDS: surrogacy home; baby agents; surrogates; commercial surrogacy; Ghana
{"title":"Commercial Surrogacy: Invisible Reproductive Workers in Ghana","authors":"Owusu Boampong, Sabina Appiah-Boateng, N. Yaw Osei, R.K.Y. Ametefe","doi":"10.15173/glj.v14i2.5287","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v14i2.5287","url":null,"abstract":"The issues facing surrogates are labour issues. However, there is scanty literature on the working conditions of surrogates in sub-Saharan Africa. This article explores the labour conditions of these unprotected and invisible reproductive workers in Ghana. In-depth interviews were conducted with key informants between 2018 and 2019. The study revealed the following: 1) Baby agents were increasingly playing a dominant role in the surrogacy industry, and through the surrogacy homes are able to create docile and disciplined surrogates. 2) Surrogacy agreements were oppressive and designed to reinforce the control over the bodies of surrogates. 3) Pregnancy-related scars leave emotional scars on the minds of surrogates. We recommend state regulation of the industry to ensure strict supervision of baby agents to minimise exploitation of surrogates.\u0000 KEYWORDS: surrogacy home; baby agents; surrogates; commercial surrogacy; Ghana","PeriodicalId":44737,"journal":{"name":"Global Labour Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44728597","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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