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Articles 1 - 16 of 16
Full-Text Articles in Labor Relations
Social Dumping As Marketization: Management Whipsawing In Europe’S Auto Industry, Ian Greer, Marco Hauptmeier
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 …
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.
Political Entrepreneurs And Co-Managers: Labour Transnationalism At Four Multinational Auto Companies, Ian Greer, Marco Hauptmeier
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.
How Institutions And Business Strategies Affect Wages: A Cross-National Study Of Call Centers, Rosemary Batt, Hiroatsu Nohara
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 …
Alienated Politics: Labour Insurgency And The Paternalistic State In China, Eli Friedman
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 …
Regional Integration And Transnational Labor Strategies Under Nafta, Maria Cook
Regional Integration And Transnational Labor Strategies Under Nafta, Maria Cook
Maria Lorena Cook
[Excerpt] This paper argues that while the internationalization of the economy has tended to weaken national labor movements, the internationalization of domestic politics may expand the traditional arenas for strategic action for labor unions. In particular, the North American Free Trade Agreement has been portrayed by some of its many critics as representing the consolidation of a neoconservative or neoliberal project that will not only shape the future economic development of the region, but also constrain its social policies and limit its political options (Grinspun and Cameron 1993: Chapter 1). However, these same critics have also noted that the debate …
The Advocate’S Dilemma: Framing Migrant Rights In National Settings, Maria Cook
The Advocate’S Dilemma: Framing Migrant Rights In National Settings, Maria Cook
Maria Lorena Cook
This article identifies and explores the dilemma of migrant advocacy in advanced industrial democracies, focusing specifically on the contemporary United States. On the one hand, universal norms such as human rights, which are theoretically well suited to advancing migrants’ claims, may have little resonance within national settings. On the other hand, the debates around which immigration arguments typically turn, and the terrain on which advocates must fight, derive their values and assumptions from a nation-state framework that is self-limiting. The article analyzes the limits of human rights arguments, discusses the pitfalls of engaging in national policy debates, and details the …
Unauthorized Migration And Border “Control”: Three Regional Views, Maria Cook
Unauthorized Migration And Border “Control”: Three Regional Views, Maria Cook
Maria Lorena Cook
This is a revised transcript of a talk given at the Latin American and Iberian Institute at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, on February 29, 2008.
Reviving The Labor Movement: A Comparative Perspective, Lowell Turner
Reviving The Labor Movement: A Comparative Perspective, Lowell Turner
Lowell Turner
[Excerpt] In recent years, the long-declining U.S. labor movement has refocused in new and promising ways on rank-and-file mobilization, in organizing drives, collective bargaining conflicts and political campaigns. Such efforts are widely viewed as the best hope for revitalizing the labor movement: breathing new life into tired old unions, winning organizing drives and raising membership levels, increasing political influence, pushing toward the power necessary to reform labor law and ineffective labor institutions. The stakes are high and the goals ambitious: to close the "representation gap" at the workplace, reverse growing economic and social inequality, and build new coalitions for expanded …
Paths To Global Social Regulation – What Can Americans Learn From The European Union, Lance Compa, Lowell Turner
Paths To Global Social Regulation – What Can Americans Learn From The European Union, Lance Compa, Lowell Turner
Lowell Turner
[Excerpt] For American proponents of global justice, social Europe appears distant yet inspirational, with all its weaknesses still a "vanguard" model for the social regulation of the global economy. We believe that a great deal can be learned by other countries, regions and the global economy as a whole from the ongoing experience of European economic and social integration. We also believe, however, that American experiences with NAFTA as well as with contemporary labor movement revitalization and coalition building offer positive lessons for Europeans and other actors in the global North and South. As much as we admire the European …
Making Transnational Collaboration Work, Michael Gordon, Lowell Turner
Making Transnational Collaboration Work, Michael Gordon, Lowell Turner
Lowell Turner
[Excerpt] The need for transnational collaboration among unions across the world is great and growing in the global economy. Case studies presented in this book demonstrate the active fermentation in cross-border relations and a variety of different approaches, goals, and targets. Yet the barriers to successful collaboration among unions in different countries remain immense: from differences in union structure, ideology, and culture to conflicting interests and differing levels of economic development. What unions have accomplished by operating internationally is important, indeed much more substantial today than ever before. Yet these efforts remain a drop in the bucket compared to the …
Conclusion: Uncertain Outcomes Of Conflict And Negotiation, Lowell Turner
Conclusion: Uncertain Outcomes Of Conflict And Negotiation, Lowell Turner
Lowell Turner
[Excerpt] To elaborate on each of these points, the findings presented in this book can be summarized as follows. First of all, the German model, that is, a social partnership approach to the negotiation of terms and conditions for the organization of an advanced market economy has worked in the past. We believe, on the basis of extensive collective research on different aspects of the political economy of the Federal Republic, both before and after unification, that the preservation of a reformed social partnership in Germany is highly desirable as an alternative to less regulated forms of capitalism in the …
Revitalizing Labor In Today's World Markets, Lowell Turner
Revitalizing Labor In Today's World Markets, Lowell Turner
Lowell Turner
[Excerpt] Competitiveness for firms is possible via the high road or low road, or some combination of the two. For a nation, however, if competitiveness means the ability of a country's firms to sell on world markets while contributing to rising average incomes and living standards at home, then only the high road will do, especially for advanced industrial societies such as Germany and the United States. The tragedy of today's touted "American model" is that it is based too much on the low road, and as a result includes growing income polarization and a deep "representation gap." American workers, …
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?
[Review Of The Book Unions And Workplace Change In Canada], Alexander Colvin
[Review Of The Book Unions And Workplace Change In Canada], Alexander Colvin
Alexander Colvin
[Excerpt] Some leading unions in Canada are notable for the diversity of their responses to workplace change. These unions' policies and strategies, which range from the Steelworkers' (USWA) bold experiment in employee ownership and co-determination at Algoma Steel to the Autoworkers' (CAW) activist response to the pressures of the Japanese production and management systems at the CAMI auto plant, have produced significant variation in change processes and outcomes. This range of activity by Canadian unions in response to workplace change provides a fertile area for study by industrial relations researchers, as well as important challenges for policy makers and practitioners …