Labor Relations Commons^™

Dependent Self-Employment: Trends, Challenges And Policy Responses In The Eu, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

European Platform Undeclared Work 2017 Platform Survey Report: Organisational Characteristics Of Enforcement Bodies, Measures Adopted To Tackle Undeclared Work, And The Use Of Databases And Digital Tools, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

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

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.

The Politics Of Shorter Hours And Corporate-Centered Society: A History Of Work-Time Regulation In The United States And Japan, Keisuke Jinno

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Shorter working hours drew much attention as a means of fighting unemployment and crisis in capitalism during the first half of the twentieth century. Nowadays, shorter work-time is rarely considered a policy option to fix economic or social issues in the United States and Japan. This dissertation presents a history of work-time regulation in the United States and Japan to examine how and why its developments and stalemate took place.

In the big picture, developments of work-time regulation during the first half of the twentieth century were a part of concessional modifications of class relations, a common phenomenon in many …

Intermediary Cooperative Associations And The Institutionalization Of Participate Work Practices: A Case Study In The Danish Public Secto, Ole Henning Sørensen, Virginia Doellgast, Anders Bojesen

Virginia Doellgast

Scandinavian countries are known for having a high adoption of cooperative models of work design. This article investigates the role of parity labour market associations, termed intermediary cooperative associations, in the dissemination of these models. Findings are based on an examination of the Centre for the Development of Human Resources and Quality Management (SCKK), a social partnership-based organization that funds workplace development projects at state workplaces, and of nine participative development projects that received financial and logistical support from the SCKK. These projects increased union and management commitment to partnership-based approaches to problem-solving, despite their ambiguous results for both …

Still A Coordinated Model? Market Liberalization And The Transformation Of Employment Relations In The German Telecommunications Industry, Virginia Doellgast

Virginia Doellgast

This paper examines recent changes in collective bargaining and employer strategies in the German telecommunications industry following market liberalization in the late 1990s. Germany’s distinctive co-determination and vocational training institutions encouraged large firms to adopt employment systems in technician and call center workplaces that relied on high levels of worker skill and discretion. However, organizational restructuring is undermining these gains, as firms use outsourcing and the creation of subsidiaries to escape or weaken company-level collective agreements. These trends have substantially weakened unions and contributed to the further disorganization of coordinated bargaining structures. Findings are based on interviews with union and …

Introduction: Institutional Change And Labor Market Segmentation In European Call Centers, Virginia Doellgast, Rosemary Batt, Ole H. Sorensen

Virginia Doellgast

This article examines the dynamics of workplace change in European call centers. Survey data and case studies from Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain show large national and sectoral differences in institutional inclusiveness and labor market segmentation. These reflect variation in the institutional constraints and resources available to employers and unions as they adjust to market changes. However, union strategies to organize new groups and close gaps in existing regulations are becoming increasingly important as restructuring undermines traditional forms of bargaining power.

Vertical Disintegration And The Disorganisation Of German Industrial Relations, Virginia Doellgast, Ian Greer

Virginia Doellgast

Drawing on case studies from the telecommunications and auto industries, we argue that the vertical disintegration of major German employers is contributing to the disorganisation of Germany’s dual system of in-plant and sectoral negotiations. Subcontractors, subsidiaries, and temporary agencies often have no collective bargaining institutions, weaker firm-level agreements, or are covered by different sectoral agreements. As core employers move jobs to these firms, they introduce new organisational boundaries across the production chain and disrupt traditional bargaining structures. Worker representatives are developing new campaign approaches and using residual power at large firms to establish representation in new firms and sectors, but …

Institutional Change And The Restructuring Of Service Work In The French And German Telecommunications Industries, Virginia Doellgast, Hiroatsu Nohara, Robert Tchobanian

Virginia Doellgast

This study analyses recent changes in collective bargaining institutions and their implications for employer strategies in the French and German telecommunications industries, drawing on case studies and survey data from call centre workplaces. Findings demonstrate that differences in both formal institutions and past logics of action influenced actor responses to changing markets and ownership structures. French trade unions were more successful in establishing encompassing bargaining structures and reducing pressures for pay differentiation, due to state support for the mandatory extension of agreements and unions’ strategic focus on centralizing bargaining. In contrast, bargaining in Germany has become increasingly fragmented and decentralized …

Collective Voice Under Decentralized Bargaining: A Comparative Study Of Work Reorganization In Us And German Call Centres, Virginia Doellgast

Virginia Doellgast

This article compares the process of and outcomes from work reorganization in US and German call centres, based on four matched case studies in the telecommunications industry. Both German cases adopted high-involvement employment systems with broad skills and worker discretion, while the US cases relied on a narrow division of labour, tight discipline and individual incentives. These outcomes are explained by differences in institutional supports for collective voice. Works councils in the German companies used their stronger participation rights to limit monitoring and encourage upskilling at a time when US managers were rationalizing similar jobs. Findings demonstrate that industrial relations …

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

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.

Lifetime Migration In Colombia: Tests Of The Expected Income Hypothesis, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] People migrate and areas gain or lose population for a variety of reasons: differences in potential earnings, in job availability, in schooling opportunities, in quality of life, proximity to friends and relatives, and so on. The economic model of migration holds that the central factor determining individual migration decisions is the perceived opportunity to attain higher economic status. Area populations are expected to change differentially according to the economic opportunities offered. In empirical research in developed countries, economic factors have been shown to underlie most migration decisions. In developing countries, where the economic situation of the populace is far …

Time Travel, Labour History, And The Null Curriculum: New Design Knowledge For Mobile Augmented Reality History Games, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This paper presents a case study drawn from design-based research (DBR) on a mobile, place-based augmented reality history game. Using DBR methods, the game was developed by the author as a history learning intervention for fifth to seventh graders. The game is built upon historical narratives of disenfranchised populations that are seldom taught, those typically relegated to the 'null curriculum'. These narratives include the stories of women immigrant labour leaders in the early twentieth century, more than a decade before suffrage. The project understands the purpose of history education as the preparation of informed citizens. In paying particular attention to …

Perceived Organisational Injustice And Counterproductive Behaviour: The Mediating Role Of Work Alienation Evidence From The Egyptian Public Sector, Dr. Maha Ahmed Zaki Dajani, Dr. Mohamed Saad Mohamed

Business Administration

This study examines the relationship between the four dimensions of organisational justice, namely, distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice, and workers’ counterproductive behaviour, and whether work alienation has mediating effect in this relationship. These relationships were tested in a sample of 300 blue-collar workers operating in Egyptian public industrial context, only 236 responded positively. Results revealed that there are significant relationships between organisational injustice (in its four types) and counterproductive behaviours, and each of the work alienation dimensions partially mediated this relationship. These findings were discussed in the light of extant literature. Research limitations and implications for future research were …

Health Needs, Health Seeking Pathways, And Drivers Of Health Seeking Behaviors Of Female Garment Factory Workers In Cambodia: Findings From A Qualitative Study In Phnom Penh And Kandal Provinces, Population Council, The Evidence Project

Reproductive Health

Existing information on Cambodian garment factory workers’ (GFWs) barriers to health services has generally come from project implementation documents or general baseline studies of these projects, rather than independent, rigorous studies that specifically examine the health needs and health-seeking behaviors of workers. Since previous studies did not include specific indicators related to workers’ health needs and health-seeking behaviors, they cannot offer a complete picture of these important issues. To fill this critical knowledge gap, in partnership with the National Institute of Public Health, the Evidence Project/Population Council conducted a formative qualitative study under the USAID-funded WorkerHealth project to improve the …

Workplace Health And The Garment Sector In Cambodia, Bunmey Yat, Carolyn Rodehau, David Wofford, Ashish Bajracharya

Reproductive Health

In Cambodia, there has been considerable investment in improving the well-being of factory workers. Understanding the key stakeholders and their roles in improving worker health is essential for policy change and ensuring that interventions achieve sustainable, long-term impact in and around the workplace. This policy brief presents selected findings from a stakeholder and situational analysis undertaken by the Cambodia Worker Health Coalition (WorkerHealth) to understand the stakeholder landscape and policy environment for women’s health in the garment industry in Cambodia, with the objective of identifying leading stakeholders and their relationships, as well as strategies and opportunities for collaboration. Collaboration and …

To Work More Or Less? The Impact Of Taxes And Life Satisfaction On The Motivation To Work In Continental And Eastern Europe, Orkhan Nadirov, Khatai Aliyev, Bruce Dehning

Accounting Faculty Articles and Research

Using country-level data from 2000-2013, we test the relationship between life satisfaction (measured as how people evaluate their life as a whole rather than their current feelings) and the motivation to work (measured as aggregate hours of work). Our hypothesis is that even after controlling for average labor income tax rates in countries with high and low average hours worked, there is a significant negative association between the motivation to work and life satisfaction. The main findings of this paper are that the increase in the motivation to work per employee comes at the expense of life satisfaction, and differences …

Exploring The Impact Of Collective Bargaining Agreements On High Performance Work Practices, Nana Gyesie

2017 Program & Posters

The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore how collective bargaining agreements (CBA) hindered or enabled managers from creating and sustaining high performance work practices (HPWP).

Garment Sector Health Interventions In Cambodia: A Comprehensive Review, Molyaneth Heng, Ashish Bajracharya

Reproductive Health

As part of the WorkerHealth project, the Evidence Project/Population Council conducted a comprehensive review of garment sector health interventions, particularly reproductive health (RH) and family planning (FP)–focused projects, in Cambodia during the last five years. The results from the review support WorkerHealth’s objective of enabling evidence-based decisionmaking and programming related to the health and well-being of female garment factory workers in Cambodia, by documenting the range of garment sector health interventions and identifying best practices and gaps in programming and evaluation. This review identified a number of priority actions for current and future garment sector health interventions to consider in …