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Replantar Un Campo: Derecho Internacional Del Trabajo Para El Siglo Xxi, Lance A. Compa Sep 2017

Replantar Un Campo: Derecho Internacional Del Trabajo Para El Siglo Xxi, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

No abstract provided.


Re-Planting A Field: International Labour Law For The Twenty-First Century, Lance A. Compa Sep 2017

Re-Planting A Field: International Labour Law For The Twenty-First Century, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] In this talk I want to trace the development of the field and how international labour law has taken root in five areas: 1) trade legislation (namely, the US and EU Generalized System of Preferences), 2) trade agreements, 3) international organizations, 4) corporate social responsibility, and 5) lawsuits in national courts. In each, I try to give one or two examples of how international labour law works in practice. But first, some background on the international labour law field and my involvement with it.


Contesting Firm Boundaries: Institutions, Cost Structures, And The Politics Of Externalization, Virginia Doellgast, Katja Sarmiento-Mirwaldt, Chiara Benassi Aug 2017

Contesting Firm Boundaries: Institutions, Cost Structures, And The Politics Of Externalization, Virginia Doellgast, Katja Sarmiento-Mirwaldt, Chiara Benassi

Virginia Doellgast

This article develops and applies a framework for analyzing the relationship among institutions, cost structures, and patterns of labor–management contestation over organizational boundaries. Collective negotiations related to the externalization of call center jobs are compared across 10 incumbent telecommunications firms located in Europe and the United States. All 10 firms moved call center work to dedicated subsidiaries, temporary agencies, and domestic and offshore subcontractors. A subset of the firms, however, later re-internalized call center jobs, in some cases following negotiated concessions on pay and working conditions for internal workers. Findings are based on 147 interviews with management and union representatives, …


Management Whipsawing: The Staging Of Labor Competition Under Globalization, Ian Greer, Marco Hauptmeier Jul 2017

Management Whipsawing: The Staging Of Labor Competition Under Globalization, Ian Greer, Marco Hauptmeier

Ian Greer

The authors examine management whipsawing practices in the European auto industry based on more than 200 interviews and a comparison of three automakers. They identify four distinct ways in which managers stage competition between plants to extract labor concessions: informal, hegemonic, coercive, and rule-based whipsawing. Practices at the three auto firms differed from one another and changed over time because of two factors: structural whipsawing capacity and management labor relations strategy. In the context of economic globalization, whipsawing is an effective means for managers to extract concessions, to loosen national institutional constraints, and to diffuse employment practices internationally.


World Champions In Hospital Privatisation: The Effects Of Neoliberal Reform On German Employees And Patients, Nils Böhlke, Ian Greer, Thorsten Schulten Jan 2016

World Champions In Hospital Privatisation: The Effects Of Neoliberal Reform On German Employees And Patients, Nils Böhlke, Ian Greer, Thorsten Schulten

Ian Greer

[Excerpt] Over the past decade, German hospitals have been privatised at a rate not seen in any other country. In response to massive public-sector debt and the resulting investment backlog, many state and local governments have been privatising hospitals. The most common arguments for privatisation are repeated in a recent study commissioned by the association of private hospital owners (Bundesverband Deutscher Privatkliniken - BDPK) namely that private hospitals manage in a more efficient manner and are economically more successful (Augurzky, Beivers et al., 2009). Indeed, in some cases, private for-profit hospital companies have invested generously and turned inefficient public hospitals …


Experimentation And Decentralization In China’S Labor Relations, Eli D. Friedman, Sarosh Kuruvilla Oct 2015

Experimentation And Decentralization In China’S Labor Relations, Eli D. Friedman, Sarosh Kuruvilla

Sarosh Kuruvilla

In this introduction to the special issue ‘Changing work, labour and employment relations in China’, we argue that China is taking an experimental and decentralized approach to the development of new labor relations frameworks. Particular political constraints in China prevent interest aggregation among workers, as the central state sees this as posing a risk to social stability. Firms and local governments have been given a degree of space to experiment with different arrangements, as long as the categorical ban on independent unions is not violated. The consequence has been an increasingly differentiated labor relations landscape, with significant variation by region …


From The Firm To The Network: Global Value Chains And Employment Relations Theory, Tashlin Lakhani, Sarosh Kuruvilla, Ariel Avgar Oct 2015

From The Firm To The Network: Global Value Chains And Employment Relations Theory, Tashlin Lakhani, Sarosh Kuruvilla, Ariel Avgar

Sarosh Kuruvilla

We posit that traditional employment relations theories that focus on individual firms embedded in distinct national institutional contexts are no longer adequate for the analysis of employment relations in a globalized era where production and services are increasingly coordinated across countries and firms. Building on Global Value Chain theory, we introduce a configurational framework that explicitly addresses the employment relations implications of the interconnections within and between firms in the global economy. We argue that different value chain configurations will evidence different employment relations patterns and we validate our framework by applying it to the study of three contemporary global …


Großbritannien: Noch Immer Heimat Des Neoliberalismus?, Ian Greer Sep 2015

Großbritannien: Noch Immer Heimat Des Neoliberalismus?, Ian Greer

Ian Greer

Großbritannien wurde zur Referenzgröße für neoliberale Reformen, und dies nicht nur aufgrund der Entwicklung unter Premierministerin Thatcher. Die Regierungen von New Labour (1997-2010) leiteten ebenfalls kontinuierlich Reformen ein, um die »Abhängigkeit vom Sozialstaat« zu bekämpfen. Damit hielten sie Großbritanniens Status als eine der am meisten ungleichen Gesellschaften Europas aufrecht. Der leichte wirtschaftliche Aufschwung führte dazu, dass die Erwerbslosenquote bei ungefähr acht Prozent verharrte, und eine neue Regierungskoalition von Konservativen und Liberaldemokraten verschärfte Kürzungen bei Sozialausgaben und kündigte Entlassungen im öffentlichen Sektor an, so dass eine weitere Verschlechterung der Lage zu erwarten ist.


The European Migrant Workers Union: Union Organizing Through Labour Transnationalism, Ian Greer, Zinovijus Ciupijus, Nathan Lillie Sep 2015

The European Migrant Workers Union: Union Organizing Through Labour Transnationalism, Ian Greer, Zinovijus Ciupijus, Nathan Lillie

Ian Greer

Despite the presence of hyper-mobile migrant workers in the European Union, there is very little research on transnational union organizing efforts. This paper examines the European Migrant Workers Union (EMWU), which signalled a shift by the German union Industriegewerkschaft Bauen-Agrar-Umwelt (IG BAU) in its approach to migrant workers away from national protectionism and toward transnational organizing. The EMWU, however, failed to thrive as an organization, primarily because of decisions by other unions to reject the transnational approach and instead to defend existing jurisdictions. We argue that this inaction constitutes a setback for union reassertion of control over markets and for …


Social Movement Unionism And Social Partnership In Germany: The Case Of Hamburg’S Hospitals, Ian Greer Sep 2015

Social Movement Unionism And Social Partnership In Germany: The Case Of Hamburg’S Hospitals, Ian Greer

Ian Greer

This paper traces the emergence of social movement unionism in Hamburg, Germany, as labor’s channels of influence have broken down and economic pressures have intensified. Trade unionists have responded to the privatization of the municipal hospitals by mobilizing members and building coalitions around issues beyond their members’ immediate interests, including democracy and public service quality. Although the loss of union influence has facilitated social movement unionism, in East Germany economic crisis has had a demobilizing effect.


Social Dumping As Marketization: Management Whipsawing In Europe’S Auto Industry, Ian Greer, Marco Hauptmeier Sep 2015

Social Dumping As Marketization: Management Whipsawing In Europe’S Auto Industry, Ian Greer, Marco Hauptmeier

Ian Greer

[Excerpt] The focus of this paper is one slow-burning change in the organization of capitalism in Europe, marketization (Greer and Doellgast 2013, Hauptmeier 2011). We argue that a specific species of marketization, management whipsawing, is causing social dumping in the automotive sector. By management whipsawing we mean the staging of economic competition by large corporations with several production units in a way that extracts labor concessions by pitting local workers against each other in contests for investment and production. Multinational companies (MNC) were the first movers and developed various management whipsawing practices; however, the term was also used historically to …


Organized Industrial Relations In The Information Economy: The German Automotive Sector As A Test Case, Ian Greer Sep 2015

Organized Industrial Relations In The Information Economy: The German Automotive Sector As A Test Case, Ian Greer

Ian Greer

This paper explores the effect of the information economy on industrial relations through the lens of the restructuring of German automotive sector. Historically, this sector has generated important insights about national “models” and the political economy of work. I argue that vertical disintegration has created new market-mediated boundaries that have undermined existing patterns of organized industrial relations.


Political Entrepreneurs And Co-Managers: Labour Transnationalism At Four Multinational Auto Companies, Ian Greer, Marco Hauptmeier Sep 2015

Political Entrepreneurs And Co-Managers: Labour Transnationalism At Four Multinational Auto Companies, Ian Greer, Marco Hauptmeier

Ian Greer

This paper examines labour transnationalism within four multinational automakers. In our sample, we find different forms of labour transnationalism, including transnational collective bargaining, mobilisation, information exchange and social codes of conduct. We explain these differences through the interaction between management and labour in the context of the company structure; of particular importance are transnational coercive comparisons by management and the orientations of worker representatives as political entrepreneurs or co-managers. We conclude that, although intensified worker-side crossborder cooperation were not preventing wage-based competition in general (due to the lack of between-firm coordination), they have reshaped employment relations within these MNCs.


Marktorientierung Und Anstellungsverhältnisse In Der Aktivierungsindustrie: Fallstudie Zu Großbritannien Und Deutschland, Ian Greer, Ian Greenwood, Mark Stuart Sep 2015

Marktorientierung Und Anstellungsverhältnisse In Der Aktivierungsindustrie: Fallstudie Zu Großbritannien Und Deutschland, Ian Greer, Ian Greenwood, Mark Stuart

Ian Greer

In diesem Beitrag beschreiben wir »Aktivierung« als staatlich finanzierte Industrie mit einem großen Personalbestand. Wir untersuchen die Beispiele Großbritannien und Deutschland, wo die wichtigsten Akteure die öffentlichen Arbeitsämter sind. Gemeint sind damit insbesondere die Bundesagentur für Arbeit (BA) und das Jobcentre Plus (JCP), welche selber Arbeitsvermittlung betreiben sowie Weiterbildung und Beratung für Erwerbslose an externe Unternehmen auslagern. Als weitere wichtige Akteure sind große Anbieter wie die deutschen Sozialverbände und die nationalen karitativen Verbände Großbritanniens zu nennen, aber auch Konzerne wie A4e, Maximus oder Ingeus. In vielen Ländern expandierte die Aktivierungsindustrie zusammen mit den steigenden finanziellen Mitteln für Aktivierungsprogramme. Auch veränderte …


Labor And Regional Development In The U.S.A.: Building A High Road Infrastructure In Buffalo, New York, Ian Greer, Lou Jean Fleron Sep 2015

Labor And Regional Development In The U.S.A.: Building A High Road Infrastructure In Buffalo, New York, Ian Greer, Lou Jean Fleron

Ian Greer

[Excerpt] In a country where worker representatives lack broadly institutionalized roles as "social partners," how can they play a constructive role in solving the problems of regional development? In Buffalo, New York, regularized, labor-inclusive procedures of problem solving involving multiple coalition partners – what we call a high-road social infrastructure – has emerged. Socially engaged researchers and educators have played a role in spreading lessons and organizing dialogue. Despite the emergence of regional cooperation, however, successful development politics are hampered by many of the same problems seen in European regions, including uncertainty about the best union strategy, hostility from business …


Industrial Relations, Migration, And Neoliberal Politics: The Case Of The European Construction Sector, Nathan Lillie, Ian Greer Sep 2015

Industrial Relations, Migration, And Neoliberal Politics: The Case Of The European Construction Sector, Nathan Lillie, Ian Greer

Ian Greer

Transnational politics and labor markets are undermining national industrial relations systems in Europe. This article examines the construction industry, where the internationalization of the labor market has gone especially far. To test hypotheses about differences between “national systems,” the authors examine the United Kingdom, Finland, and Germany, alongside European-level policy making. Regardless of overall national institutional framework, employers seek to avoid industrial relations rules, while unions attempt to relocalize labor relations. Both use shop-floor, national, and European power resources. The authors argue that comparative industrial relations should take seriously the connection between action at the national and transnational levels.


Regional Integration And Transnational Politics: Popular Sector Strategies In The Nafta Era, Maria Lorena Cook Sep 2015

Regional Integration And Transnational Politics: Popular Sector Strategies In The Nafta Era, Maria Lorena Cook

Maria Lorena Cook

[Excerpt] This chapter argues that although economic integration between the United States and Mexico had been taking place for some time, it was the formal recognition of this process as represented by the discussions surrounding the North American Free Trade Agreement that facilitated transnational political action by non-state actors. Whereas the globalization of the economy and the prevalence of neoliberal economic policies may be considered by some to undermine popular sector organization and actions, formal recognition of regional economic integration in North America has produced a ‘transnational political’ arena that has expanded the resources available to non-governmental groups, increased their …


Working Through The Past: Labor And Authoritorian Legacies In Comparative Perspective, Teri L. Caraway (Ed.), Maria Lorena Cook (Ed.), Stephen Crowley (Ed.) Sep 2015

Working Through The Past: Labor And Authoritorian Legacies In Comparative Perspective, Teri L. Caraway (Ed.), Maria Lorena Cook (Ed.), Stephen Crowley (Ed.)

Maria Lorena Cook

[Excerpt] Democratization in the developing and post-communist world has yielded limited gains for labor. Explanations for this phenomenon have focused on the effect of economic crisis and globalization on the capacities of unions to become influential political actors and to secure policies that benefit their members. In contrast, the contributors to Working through the Past highlight the critical role that authoritarian legacies play in shaping labor politics in new democracies, providing the first cross-regional analysis of the impact of authoritarianism on labor, focusing on East and Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Legacies from the predemocratic era shape labor’s …


The Globalization Of Service Work: Comparative Institutional Perspectives On Call Centers (Introduction To A Special Issue Of The Industrial & Labor Relations Review), Rosemary Batt, David Holman, Ursula Holtgrewe May 2015

The Globalization Of Service Work: Comparative Institutional Perspectives On Call Centers (Introduction To A Special Issue Of The Industrial & Labor Relations Review), Rosemary Batt, David Holman, Ursula Holtgrewe

Rosemary Batt

This introduction to the special issue on the globalization of service work provides an overview of the call center sector and its development in coordinated, liberal market, and emerging market economies. The introduction's authors situate this research in literature on the comparative political economy and industrial relations. Drawing on qualitative research and a unique survey of 2,500 establishments in 17 countries conducted in 2003-2006, they discuss the extent of convergence and divergence in management practices and employment relations. They also describe the research methodology for the overall research project, highlight its major findings, and summarize the contributions of the thematic …


How Institutions And Business Strategies Affect Wages: A Cross-National Study Of Call Centers, Rosemary Batt, Hiroatsu Nohara May 2015

How Institutions And Business Strategies Affect Wages: A Cross-National Study Of Call Centers, Rosemary Batt, Hiroatsu Nohara

Rosemary Batt

This paper, drawing on a 2003-2006 establishment-level survey of 1,819 call centers in 15 countries, examines effects of industrial relations institutions and employer strategies on wage variation across coordinated, liberal, and emerging market economies. The authors find several contradictory patterns, which confirm theoretical predictions for some countries and contradict them for others, suggesting diverse institutional reactions to the emergence of a new economic activity. Consistent with prior research, Denmark, France, and Sweden exhibit patterns of low wage dispersion and no union wage premium, and the United States, Canada, and emerging market economies exhibit quite high levels of dispersion. Contrary to …


Experimentation And Decentralization In China’S Labor Relations, Eli D. Friedman, Sarosh Kuruvilla Apr 2015

Experimentation And Decentralization In China’S Labor Relations, Eli D. Friedman, Sarosh Kuruvilla

Eli D Friedman

In this introduction to the special issue ‘Changing work, labour and employment relations in China’, we argue that China is taking an experimental and decentralized approach to the development of new labor relations frameworks. Particular political constraints in China prevent interest aggregation among workers, as the central state sees this as posing a risk to social stability. Firms and local governments have been given a degree of space to experiment with different arrangements, as long as the categorical ban on independent unions is not violated. The consequence has been an increasingly differentiated labor relations landscape, with significant variation by region …


Getting Through The Hard Times Together? Chinese Workers And Unions Respond To The Economic Crisis, Eli D. Friedman Apr 2015

Getting Through The Hard Times Together? Chinese Workers And Unions Respond To The Economic Crisis, Eli D. Friedman

Eli D Friedman

How do post-socialist unions respond to market crisis? And what are the implications of this response for labor representation? Drawing on literature on post-socialist labor and union democracy, I argue that economic crisis affects not just labor – capital and labor – state relations, but also the relationship between union representatives and workers. Such a dynamic is highlighted by an empirical account of the divergent activities of workers and All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) unions in China following the economic crisis of 2008. While the union responded to mass unemployment with an administrative and policy-oriented strategy, workers took to …


Alienated Politics: Labour Insurgency And The Paternalistic State In China, Eli Friedman Apr 2015

Alienated Politics: Labour Insurgency And The Paternalistic State In China, Eli Friedman

Eli D Friedman

Is there a labour movement in China? This contribution argues that China does not have a labour movement, but that contestation between workers, state and capital is best characterized as a form of ‘alienated politics’. Widespread worker resistance is highly effective at the level of the firm be-cause of its ability to inflict losses on capital and disrupt public order. But authoritarian politics in China prevent workers from formulating political demands. Despite the spectacular repressive capacity of the state, the central government has in fact responded to highly localized resistance by passing generally pro-labour legislation over the past decade. The …


Insurgency And Institutionalization: The Polanyian Countermovement And Chinese Labor Politics, Eli D. Friedman Apr 2015

Insurgency And Institutionalization: The Polanyian Countermovement And Chinese Labor Politics, Eli D. Friedman

Eli D Friedman

Why is it that in the nearly 10 years since the Chinese central government began making symbolic and material moves towards class compromise that labor unrest has expanded greatly? In this article I reconfigure Karl Polanyi's theory of the countermovement to account for recent developments in Chinese labor politics. Specifically, I argue that countermovements must be broken down into two constituent but intertwined "moments": the insurgent moment that consists of spontaneous resistance to the market, and the institutional moment, when class compromise is established in the economic and political spheres. In China, the transition from insurgency to institutionalization has thus …


Aviation Internship Toolkit For The Next Generation Of Aviation Professionals, Lori J. Brown, James C. Fox Dec 2014

Aviation Internship Toolkit For The Next Generation Of Aviation Professionals, Lori J. Brown, James C. Fox

Lori Brown

On behalf of the Next Generation of Aviation Professionals (NGAP) Outreach partners, we would like to congratulate you on your first step toward building or improving a comprehensive, competitive internship program for your organization. Through internships and externships, a company can provide exciting work in aerospace and a rewarding learning experience for young professionals, who are the industry's future. Interns also will gain insight into the demands and tasks of the many roles, as well as the important internal and external interactions that make up the team. The power of internships as a first step to expose youth to careers …


Voice Without Say: Why Capital-Managed Firms Aren’T (Genuinely) Participatory, Justin Schwartz Aug 2013

Voice Without Say: Why Capital-Managed Firms Aren’T (Genuinely) Participatory, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Why are most capitalist enterprises of any size organized as authoritarian bureaucracies rather than incorporating genuine employee participation that would give the workers real authority? Even firms with employee participation programs leave virtually all decision-making power in the hands of management. The standard answer is that hierarchy is more economically efficient than any sort of genuine participation, so that participatory firms would be less productive and lose out to more traditional competitors. This answer is indefensible. After surveying the history, legal status, and varieties of employee participation, I examine and reject as question-begging the argument that the rarity of genuine …


Organizing In The Nafta Environment: How Companies Use “Free Trade” To Stop Unions, Kate Bronfenbrenner Apr 2013

Organizing In The Nafta Environment: How Companies Use “Free Trade” To Stop Unions, Kate Bronfenbrenner

Kate Bronfenbrenner

[Excerpt] These findings point to both an enormous challenge and a great opportunity for American unions. Clearly, under NAFTA and other free trade agreements more and more employers will feel emboldened to threaten to close the plant during organizing campaigns, and workers and unions will find organizing increasingly difficult. At the same time, unions have an opportunity to overcome these barriers to organizing if they commit enough resources to run large-scale, aggressive campaigns which mobilize the rank-and-file workers to build a union in their workplace, regardless of the intensity of the employer’s campaign.


The Emergence Of A Standards Market: Multiplicity Of Sustainability Standards In The Global Coffee Industry, Juliane Reinecke, Stephan Manning, Oliver Von Hagen Mar 2013

The Emergence Of A Standards Market: Multiplicity Of Sustainability Standards In The Global Coffee Industry, Juliane Reinecke, Stephan Manning, Oliver Von Hagen

Stephan Manning

The growing number of voluntary standards for governing transnational arenas is presenting standards organizations with a problem. While claiming that they are pursuing shared, overarching objectives, at the same time, they are promoting their own respective standards that are increasingly similar. By developing the notion of ‘standards markets,’ this paper examines this tension and studies how different social movement and industry-driven standards organizations compete as well as collaborate over governance in transnational arenas. Based on an in-depth case study of sustainability standards in the global coffee industry, we find that the ongoing co-existence of multiple standards is being promoted by …


Securing Access To Lower-Cost Talent Globally: The Dynamics Of Active Embedding And Field Structuration, Stephan Manning, Joerg Sydow, Arnold Windeler Mar 2013

Securing Access To Lower-Cost Talent Globally: The Dynamics Of Active Embedding And Field Structuration, Stephan Manning, Joerg Sydow, Arnold Windeler

Stephan Manning

This article examines how multinational corporations (MNCs) shape institutional conditions in emerging economies to secure access to high-skilled, yet lower-cost science and engineering talent. Based on two in-depth case studies of engineering offshoring projects of German automotive suppliers in Romania and China we analyze how MNCs engage in ‘active embedding’ by aligning local institutional conditions with global offshoring strategies and operational needs. MNCs thereby contribute to the structuration of field relations and practices of sourcing knowledge-intensive work from globally dispersed locations.Our findings stress the importance of institutional processes across geographic boundaries that regulate and get shaped by MNC activities.


Les Relations Industrielles Mexicaines Et La Democratic Dans Le Context De L'Alena [Mexican Industrial Relations And Democracy Under Nafta], Maria Lorena Cook Jan 2013

Les Relations Industrielles Mexicaines Et La Democratic Dans Le Context De L'Alena [Mexican Industrial Relations And Democracy Under Nafta], Maria Lorena Cook

Maria Lorena Cook

Le Mexique est presentement en train de vivre une importante transition, qu'il s'agisse de son modele de developpement economique ou de son systeme politique. Sur le plan economique, le Mexique est passe d'un modele d'industrialisation sous une logique de substitution d'importations par des biens domestiques, modele forge dans les annees 30 et 40, a une strategie de developpement axee sur l'exportation et basee sur un modele neo-liberal. Sur le plan politique, le regime mexicain a subi de tres fortes pressions pour que son systeme, de type autoritaire, domine depuis plus de 60 ans par le Parti revolutionnaire institutionnel (PRI), fasse …