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Full-Text Articles in Labor Relations
Still A Coordinated Model? Market Liberalization And The Transformation Of Employment Relations In The German Telecommunications Industry, Virginia Doellgast
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 …
Vertical Disintegration And The Disorganisation Of German Industrial Relations, Virginia Doellgast, Ian Greer
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 …
Management Whipsawing: The Staging Of Labor Competition Under Globalization, Ian Greer, Marco Hauptmeier
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.
The Changing Nature Of Labor Unrest In China, Manfred Elfstrom, Sarosh Kuruvilla
The Changing Nature Of Labor Unrest In China, Manfred Elfstrom, Sarosh Kuruvilla
Sarosh Kuruvilla
A qualitative shift is underway in the nature of labor protest in China. Contrary to prior literature that characterized strikes as being largely defensive in nature, the authors suggest that since 2008, Chinese workers have been striking offensively for more money, better working conditions, and more respect from employers. They explain these developments using a “political process” model that suggests economic and political opportunities are sending “cognitive cues” to workers that they have increased leverage, leading them to be more assertive in their demands. Such cues include a growing labor shortage, new labor laws, and new media openness. Their argument …
Experimentation And Decentralization In China’S Labor Relations, Eli D. Friedman, Sarosh Kuruvilla
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 …
Vertical Disintegration And The Disorganisation Of German Industrial Relations, Virginia Doellgast, Ian Greer
Vertical Disintegration And The Disorganisation Of German Industrial Relations, Virginia Doellgast, Ian Greer
Ian Greer
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 …
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.
Experimentation And Decentralization In China’S Labor Relations, Eli D. Friedman, Sarosh Kuruvilla
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 …
Labor Relations In A Globalizing World, Harry C. Katz, Thomas A. Kochan, Alexander Colvin
Labor Relations In A Globalizing World, Harry C. Katz, Thomas A. Kochan, Alexander Colvin
Alexander Colvin
[Excerpt] This book traces how labor, management, and governments acting as individuals or as groups have shaped and continue to shape the employment relationship. Employment is analyzed through the perspective of industrial relations, the interdisciplinary field of study that concentrates on individual workers and groups of workers, unions and other forms of collective representation, employers and their organizations, and the environment in which these parties interact.
Review Of The Book The Chinese Worker After Socialism, Eli D. Friedman
Review Of The Book The Chinese Worker After Socialism, Eli D. Friedman
Eli D Friedman
In The Chinese Worker after Socialism, William Hurst employs subnational comparison to explain different outcomes for workers in the process of reform of state-owned industry in China. In particular, Hurst provides in-depth analysis of regional variation of the sequencing and volume of layoffs, how the local state attempted to handle unemployment, actual outcomes in re-employment, and the dynamics of worker protest. By taking subnational regions as the unit of analysis, we see that the process of "smashing the iron rice bowl" has not been a unified and coherent project but rather one that has been messy, uneven, and subject to …
China Since Tiananmen: The Labor Movement, Ching Kwan Lee, Eli D. Friedman
China Since Tiananmen: The Labor Movement, Ching Kwan Lee, Eli D. Friedman
Eli D Friedman
[Excerpt] The twenty years since 1989 have brought two major developments in worker activism. First, whereas workers were part of the mass uprising in the Tiananmen movement, albeit as subordinate partners to the students, labor activism since then has been almost entirely confined to the working class. While the ranks of aggrieved workers have proliferated (expanding from workers in the state-owned sector to include migrant workers) and the forms and incidents of labor activism have multiplied, there is hardly any sign of mobilization that transcends class or regional lines. Second, we observe that a long-term decline in worker power at …
Remaking The World Of Chinese Labour: A 30-Year Retrospective, Eli D. Friedman, Ching Kwan Lee
Remaking The World Of Chinese Labour: A 30-Year Retrospective, Eli D. Friedman, Ching Kwan Lee
Eli D Friedman
Over the past 30 years, labour relations, and, indeed, the entirety of working class politics in China, have been dramatically altered by economic reforms. In this review, we focus on the two key processes of commodification and casualization and their implications for workers. On the one hand, these processes have resulted in the destruction of the old social contract and the emergence of marketized employment relations. This has implied a loss of the job security and generous benefits enjoyed by workers in the planned economy. On the other hand, commodification and casualization have produced significant but localized resistance from the …
Do International Freedom Of Association Standards Apply To Public Sector Labor Relations In The United States?, Lance A. Compa
Do International Freedom Of Association Standards Apply To Public Sector Labor Relations In The United States?, Lance A. Compa
Lance A Compa
[Excerpt] After November 2010 elections in the United States, human rights aspects of labor policy suddenly emerged at sub-federal levels. Elections in many states brought a sharp turn to conservative Republican rule. In this new climate, conflicts over workers’ rights took shape not at the ozone layer of high international policy, but at the oozing landfill level of local labor politics. Governors and legislatures in Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, Michigan, and other states moved to strip public employees of collective bargaining rights, blaming their wages and benefits for budget shortfalls. A vindictive North Carolina legislature made it unlawful for public school …
Codetermination In Comparative Perspective, Kathleen Thelen, Lowell Turner
Codetermination In Comparative Perspective, Kathleen Thelen, Lowell Turner
Lowell Turner
The trend of western industrialised societies is towards decentralization of collective bargaining and the active participation of the workforce in productivity and efficiency improvements. How well does the German model of co-determination perform in competition with liberal market economies? Compared with other countries, how adaptable is it?
United States Rubber Company In Southeast Asia, 1910-1942, Shakila Yacob Dr
United States Rubber Company In Southeast Asia, 1910-1942, Shakila Yacob Dr
Shakila Yacob
Welfare capitalism, the management ethos adopted by American business leaders in the early twentieth century, emphasizes the role of business rather than trade unions or government in taking care of its workers. This article focuses on the reasons why the United States Rubber Company (USRC), one of the four largest U.S. rubber manufacturers, promoted welfare capitalism at its rubber plantations on the east coast of Sumatra and Malaya between 1910 and 1942. In addition, this study assesses the development of USRC’s system of welfare in the areas of housing, profit sharing, pension plans, health care, and recreation. This article argues …