The millions of farm workers in the Global South are an important resource for smallholder producers. However, research on their labour organisation is limited. This article focuses on smallholder farm workers in Ghana’s cocoa sector, drawing on insights from qualitative interviews and the concept of bargaining power. We review the labour relations and working conditions of two historical and informally identified labour supply setups (LSSs) in Ghana’s cocoa sector, namely, hired labour and Abusa, a form of landowner–caretaker relations, (...) and identify an imbalance of horizontal power. Further, we analyse the labour relations and working conditions of an emerging and formal LSS in Ghana’s cocoa sector: private labour providers (PLPs). We argue that PLPs are likely to address the imbalance of horizontal power between farm workers and smallholders and bring about significant improvements in the working conditions of farm workers. We also assess the sustainability potential and limitations of PLPs and argue that tensions exist. We contribute to the growing horizontal power perspective by providing avenues for research and policy related to promoting sustained labour rights for farm workers in smallholder agriculture in the Global South. (shrink)

This article examines the ethical characteristics of MNEs employee relations in developing countries. Specifically, it addresses various ethical issues relating to labour relations and trade unions in extractive industries in Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia. Data collected in these countries indicate that criticisms aginst MNEs relating to labour issues and labour practices in developing countries are not lessening. The discussion is lent focus and direction through the analysis of critical incidents from the perspectives of various stakeholders: government, oil (...) and mining companies, and leaders of trade unions. Tensions over pay, expatriate employments as against the locals, negotiation rights and employees well-being are evident. The argument advanced is that the MNEs operating in the extractive industries of Africa will have to improve their relations with local employees in order to bridge the legitimacy gaps that exist. An improved mutual understanding between the MNEs and trade unions is required for both actors to have a smooth working relationship. (shrink)

The existence of cooperative labor relations within leading firms in South Korea, amid unfavorable national-level economic and political institutions, merits study by comparative political economists. Late industrializing Korea lacks the conditions that sustain cooperative labor relations in other nonliberal capitalist countries like Germany and Japan. More relevant, therefore, are debates over the emergence and practice of “high performance work systems” in the unfavorable environments of advanced liberal and developing country capitalism. As a successful late industrializing country (...) that combines both advanced and developing capitalism characteristics, Korea represents a useful testing ground for ideas about HPWS. This article will examine cooperation in four leading Korean firms and use the findings to advance key HPWS debates about the possibilities of participation and the conditions under which cooperation can emerge and be sustained. (shrink)

The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 has been widely portrayed as an anachronistic piece of legislation that needs to be reformed or abandoned. In the absence of reform, many US labor unions try to avoid the NLRA process altogether by organizing workers outside the confines of the law. But Somos un Pueblo Unido, or “Somos,” a worker center in New Mexico, has been using a novel interpretation of the NLRA less to boost union density than to (...) develop an alternative to contract unionism. By helping nonunionized workers use Section 7 of the NLRA to act concertedly in their own defense, I argue, Somos is combating employer abuse, in the short run, and demonstrating that worker centers and their memberships may be transforming the US labor movement, in the long run. Their experiences illustrate the ability of organizations to redeploy existing institutional resources with potentially transformative results. (shrink)

Using data on submitted and published manuscripts in Feminist Economics from 1995 to 2019, we examine differences in method and scope used by authors residing in the Global North and Global South. We specifically focus on research methods, intersectional analyses, region of analysis, and co-authorship status. Further, using logistic regression models, we examine the relationship between authors’ location and use of research methods. We find authors in the Global South are more likely to engage in empirical and mixed-methods papers compared (...) to Global North authors in our sample. Moreover, a greater share of Global South authors engage in intersectional analysis and exhibit geographical focus on developing countries. Drawing insights from the Feminist Economics manuscripts data, we argue that encouraging Global South research can contribute to the goals of the field of feminist economics – aimed at inclusivity, diversity of standpoints, and plurality in research methods, thereby improving overall economic research. (shrink)

The process of economic globalization has over the years accelerated the pace of labour policy convergence. In the Indian context, labour law since 1991 has witnessed a paradigm shift while embracing a policy of global integration. The ambit of labour relations is now being related with private practice or the informal settings, leading to multiple concerns over labour justice and security. In compliance with global standards, the continuous emphasis upon labour flexibility characterised by flexible labour employment, performance based remuneration, (...) increasing portion of casual labour, has raised several concerns. This paper is an attempt to highlight the attempted and achieved labour law policy convergence in India, coupled with a few suggestions for balance in global national comittments towards labour welfare. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the poker analogy is unsuitable as a model for collective bargaining negotiations. Using the poker game analogy is imprudent, its use undermines trust and ignores the cooperative features of business, and its use fails to take into account the values of dignity and fairness which should characterize labor-management negotiations. I propose and defend a model of ideal family decision-making as a superior model to the poker game.

The Lithuanian success of implementing international obligation in order to encourage the regulation of labour relations by means of collective agreements is analyzed in this article. It is emphasized that development of social partnership is too slow, coverage of regulation of labour relations by means of collective agreement also is low-level and collective agreements basically are made at the plant level. It is noticed that, because of the need to find a suitable balance between implementing the international obligation (...) to encourage regulation of labour relations by means of collective agreements, and the necessity to undermine the raison d’être of the regulation by means of collective agreements itself, as the process, where attitudes of social partners has to be harmonised at maximum, the state has limited scope to influence the process of making collective agreements. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Globalization has brought increased attention to the notion that labor rights such asfreedom of association—the right of workers to organize a union—are fundamental human rights. However, the vigorous opposition to freedom of association by US firms is largely ignored in the business ethics literature and exacerbated by compensatory corporate citizenship rating mechanisms that tend to mask labor rights deficiencies. I argue that because freedom of association is a hypernorm, instrumental to fully realizing basic human rights, labor rights (...) and human rights are largely inseparable. Thus, respect for labor rights is a non-substitutable requisite of corporate citizenship. I conclude by providing examples of corporate labor relations strategies that respect freedom of association and business firms that are leading the way. (shrink)

Labour and employment law no longer has a monopoly on regulating labour relations and is facing a crisis as its effectiveness is questioned. Codes of conduct adopted by companies to recognise their social responsibility for the global supply chain are instruments that can usefully complement labour and employment law. The aim of this paper is to analyse in depth the legal nature of codes of conduct and their impact on labour and employment law. Will the use of codes of (...) conduct reinforce the crisis of labour and employment law in the era of globalisation or will these codes be part of a solution to this crisis? Do we have to consider codes of conduct as competitors to labour and employment law or as an opportunity for rethinking the way that labour and employment law norms should be produced and applied? (shrink)

Employee mobility is a phenomenon that challenges workplace ethics. This paper argues that despite on‐going attempts by management and consultants to build and install employee loyalty, and despite the complexity of relationships between employees and their organization, employee mobility remains a common phenomenon in today’s market. Courts, at least Israeli courts, perceive the employee–employer relationship as almost purely contractual and thus strive to protect workers first, often ignoring deeper commitments such as loyalty. This results in a certain dissonance in the (...) relationships between employees and employers. (shrink)

’An opportunity now exists to adopt an ethical approach to labour relations on the basis of a recognition by all parties of legitimate rights and duties and an acceptance of mutualism and trust.’Dr Sheldrake is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and Government, City of London Polytechnic, and author of Industrial Relations and Politics in Britain 1880‐1989.

The particularities of Chinese union practices in the private sector and their impacts on the labor relations climate have raised much controversy. This paper presents the findings of a study that analyzed data from 926 enterprises in Chongqing, China, through the lens of institutional trust. The study was designed to examine the influence of union practices on the labor relations climate at the enterprise level. Particular attention was paid to the possible moderator effect that both employee (...) and management trust in unions had on the labor relations climate. We found that employee–union trust positively moderated the impact of union practice on the labor relations climate. However, if management–union trust exceeded employee–union trust, management–union trust weakened the moderator effect of employee–union trust. In other words, management–union trust negatively moderated employee–union trust. This article is organized as follows. In section “Introduction,” we introduce the institutions Chinese unions operate in, especially regarding disputes over the effects on the labor relations climate. In section ‘Theory and hypotheses,” we review the literature and develop the hypotheses. In section “Materials and methods”, we describe the data and method, and in section “Results,” we present the results of the model. Finally, in section “Discussion,” we discuss the implications for China’s union development and note the limitations of the study. (shrink)

My commentary calls attention to what makes Mr. Bowie's paper well worth intensive consideration. In my brief evaluation, however, I only lay out three incoherent elements of his proposed family model of labor-management relations.I argue that complete job security is not compatible with complete freedom to change firms; that, in practice, such security for all employees is not compatible with the shifting demand of our economic system, and that the model includes two kinds of spouse relationships — one (...) affectional and another competitive — that are incoherent with one another. My point is not that Mr. Bowie's model is fatally flawed, but that it needs to be improved. (shrink)

Labor market deregulation has been at the core of the changes in the political economy during the last decades. The pervasive neoliberal wisdom has depoliticized the nature and effects of this process, a bias that has also affected the scholarship, which often overlooks its power dimension. This article aims to explore the role of power in the labor market to offer some theoretical insights for empirical research and public debate. Departing from the worker–employer “contested exchange” at the workplace, (...) the article pivots on the concept of “decommodification” to grasp the institutional arrangements that shape this relationship at the institutional level of power. Furthermore, the article addresses the symbolic dimension of power and how epistemic reflexivity enables us to examine whether social research ideologically depicts or conceals the role of power in the study of labor relations, as illustrated by two subjects in vogue: the insiders–outsiders divide and the activation policy. The article concludes with a discussion of the normative implications of the preceding argument about freedom as nondomination for workers. (shrink)

The AAUP faculty union, established in 1973 on the University of Bridgeport campus, followed a policy of maximum militancy. Typically, this strategy was met by an ad hoc and often poorly informed administrative response, and ended in the bitter two-year faculty strike of 1990–1992. The absence of a coherent union relations strategy on the administration's part and a pattern of militant confrontation wherein the union almost always prevailed virtually guaranteed such an outcome.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze from a strategic ethical perspective four selected shareholder resolutions reported by the Social Issues Service of the Investor Responsibility Research Center regarding international labor and workplace standards. Particular attention will be paid to specific employee relations issues at the operating and tactical level of individual multinational firms. The paper concludes with policy recommendations for proxy statements.

This article focuses on how men's sexualization of work relations and the workplace contributes to job-level gender segregation among coal miners. The findings suggest that sexualization represents men's power to stigmatize women in order to sustain stereotypes about them as inferior workers. In particular, supervisors use stereotypes to justify women's assignments to jobs in support of and in service to men. Once in these jobs, men's positive evaluations of women workers become contingent upon their fulfillment of men's gendered expectations. (...) These processes foster the gender typing of jobs and lead to the gendered division of labor underground. (shrink)

I analyze the Brazilian novelist Clarice Lispector's novella, The Hour of the Star, in terms of the entwinements of beauty with economic mobility and abandonment, . . . with constructions of cultural citizenship and liminality.

Cette étude fournit une analyse comparative des politiques liées à la position des personnes handicapées sur le marché du travail en Finlande et en Italie, deux pays où l’écart d’emploi entre les personnes handicapées et non handicapées est relativement faible. Cette étude examine les politiques visant à améliorer la position des personnes handicapées sur le marché du travail et se base sur la littérature existante et des entretiens avec des experts. L’analyse comparative montre que ces deux pays emploient des approches (...) politiques différentes. En Finlande, les compensations sont relativement élevées et les politiques mettent l’accent sur la prévention. Cependant, les mesures d’activation pour les bénéficiaires de compensations d’invalidité font défaut. En Italie, les politiques se concentrent sur l’activation. La loi italienne sur les quotas oblige les entreprises à embaucher des personnes handicapées. En outre, les coopératives sociales offrent des emplois aux personnes handicapées. Les résultats suggèrent que les efforts visant à garantir des mesures de compensation et d’activation adéquates, combinés à des processus créés pour construire une société inclusive, peuvent contribuer à améliorer la situation du marché du travail pour les personnes handicapées. (shrink)

Purpose Underlying much recent development in data science and artificial intelligence (AI) is a dependence on the labour of precarious crowdworkers via platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk. These platforms have been widely critiqued for their exploitative labour relations, and over recent years, there have been various efforts by academic researchers to develop interventions aimed at improving labour conditions. The aim of this paper is to explore US-based crowdworkers’ views on two proposed interventions: a browser plugin that detects automated (...) quality control “Gold Question” (GQ) checks and a proposal for a crowdworker co-operative. Design/methodology/approach The authors interviewed 20 US-based crowdworkers and undertook a thematic analysis of collected data. Findings The findings indicate that US-based crowdworkers tend to have negative and mixed feelings about the GQ detector, but were more enthusiastic about the crowdworker co-operative. Originality/value Drawing on theories of precarious labour, this study suggests an explanation for the findings based on US-based workers’ objective and subjective experiences of precarity. The authors argue that for US-based crowdworkers “constructive” interventions such as a crowdworker co-operative have more potential to improve labour conditions. (shrink)

Numerous labor-management issues possess ethical dimensions and pose ethical questions. In this article, the authors discuss four labor-management issues that present important contemporary problems: union organizing, labor-management negotiations, employee involvement programs, and union obligations of fair representation. In the authors view, labor and management too often view their ethical obligations as beginning and ending at the law''s boundaries. Contemporary business realities suggest that cooperative and enlightened modes of interaction between labor and management seem appropriate.

The Labour Code of the Republic of Lithuania was enacted on 4 June 2002. However, the practice of ten years has shown that even the systematisation of this branch of law by means of codification could not help avoiding gaps in labour law. The Lithuanian labour law system balances on the brink of flexibility, liberalisation and stability. The purpose of this article is to examine the legal side of this problem and to evaluate the quality of legal regulation of labour (...) relations, also to propose instruments and means to improve them. The main aim of the article is to show the difference between gaps in labour law and some similar (contiguous) legal phenomena that will also be discussed in the article. (shrink)

In the present article, the authors continue their sociological interpretations of theempiric data obtained in the research project “Aggregate Capital, Its Structure andRelation to Labour Migration” (2012). The following hypothesis has been proved: ahigher predisposition for the labour migration is more typical for economically activeregion’s inhabitants with fairly high amounts of some indicators of the aggregatecapital, especially physical capital, but with a comparatively lower amount of culturalcapital, which could transform into human capital and further into economic capital inLatgale or Latvia. (...) An in-depth analysis of the factors of life success has revealed that,in general, our respondents tend to assign the lead role not to the personal competitivecharacteristics (resources) but rather to the specificity of the social environment: anexplanation of life success by means of a set of variables that, on the whole, describeit as a socio-political innovation with criminal tendencies (political corruption) is themost spread one. (shrink)

In recent years, feminist scholarship on emotional labor has proliferated. I identify a related but distinct form of care labor, hermeneutic labor. Hermeneutic labor is the burdensome activity of: understanding and coherently expressing one’s own feelings, desires, intentions, and movitations; discerning those of others; and inventing solutions for relational issues arising from interpersonal tensions. I argue that hermeneutic labor disproportionately falls on women’s shoulders in heteropatriachal societies, especially in intimate relationships between women and men. I (...) also suggest that some of the gendered burdens of emotional labor that feminist scholars point out would better be described as hermeneutic labor. Drawing on feminist philosophy as well as findings from social psychology and sociology, I argue that the exploitation of women’s hermeneutic labor is a pervasive element of what Sandra Bartky calls the ‘micropolitics’ of intimate relationships. The widespread expectation that women are relationship maintenance experts, as well as the prevalence of a gendered demand-withdraw pattern of communication, leads an exploitative situation to appear natural or even desirable, even as it leads to women’s dissatisfaction. This situation may be considered misogynistic in Kate Manne’s sense, where misogyny is a property of social environments rather than a worldview. (shrink)