The Labour Process in the Bombay Handloom Industry, 1880–1940

2008 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
DOUGLAS E. HAYNES
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Indian Industry ◽  
Labour Process ◽  
Wage Labour

AbstractAnalyses of capital-labour relations in Indian industry during the colonial period have generally been confined to studies of large-scale units. This essay turns to an examination of the organization of the workplace among handloom producers in the Bombay Presidency during the period between 1880 and 1940. While recognizing the importance of contradictions between weaving families and various kinds of capitalists, the essay eschews any straightforward model of “proletarianization” to characterize this relationship. Weavers possessed methods of resistance, particularly “everyday” actions, which thwarted efforts to impose tight regimes of labour discipline within the workshop. Seeking to contain these resistances, shahukars (putting-out merchants) and karkhandars (owners of establishments using wage labour) developed complex social relationships with their workers based upon patronage, debt, and caste. Consequently, collective protest in the industry was limited, and when it did emerge in Sholapur during the later 1930s, it was highly conditioned and constrained by the multiple lines of affiliation weavers had with karkhandars.

Historical Context of Agricultural Commercialisation in Ghana: Changes in Land and Labour Relations

2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Awetori Yaro ◽  
Joseph Kofi Teye ◽  
Gertrude Dzifa Torvikey
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Agrarian Change ◽  
Wealth Accumulation ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Global Capital

This paper provides a broad review of agrarian change in Ghana by highlighting the major developments in the agrarian political economy and their implications for agricultural commercialisation and its modifying influence on land tenure systems, livelihoods, production systems, social relations, and labour relations. While current land tenure arrangements and labour relations in Africa are often explained in terms of globalisation, we argue that the historical context of agricultural commercialisation in Ghana shows continuities and discontinuities in agrarian relations from the colonial period to the present. We also argue that changes over the years have blended with globalisation to produce the distinct forms of labour relations that we see today. The commercialisation of agriculture in Ghana has evolved progressively from the colonial era aided by policies of coercion, persuasion and incentives to its current globalised form. The expansion in the range of commodities over time necessarily increased the demand for more land and labour. The article contributes to the literature by providing great insights into changes in land and labour relations due to increasing commercialisation, and how these enhanced wealth accumulation for the richer segments of society and global capital to the detriment of the poor throughout Ghana’s agrarian history.

The Early Nineteenth-Century Port of London: Management and Labour in Three Dock Companies, 1800-1825

1994 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony R. Henderson ◽  
Sarah Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Labour Process ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Labour Management

This essay addresses the impact of industrialisation on the experience of work during the early 1800s. It presents the idea that industrial relations focused less on trade unions and more on broad labour/management contact and gave a new emphasis to the significance of the labour process. Also featured is a map of The Port of London in the 1830s, which is used as an example for evidence of change within the pre-industrial pattern of management/labour relations.

20. Collective Redundancies

2020 ◽  
pp. 810-840
Author(s):  
David Cabrelli
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
The Law

This chapter examines the law on collective dismissals, which involves the large-scale lay-off of labour by an employer. It first considers the meaning of ‘collective redundancies’ and discusses the basic obligations of the employer, namely the provisions of information, consultation and notification. It then turns to the detail of Chapter II of Part IV of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (TULRCA); the nature and extent of the employer’s obligations; and the consequences when the employer fails to comply with the statutory information and consultation procedures in section 188 of TULRCA.

scholarly journals Corporate culture: The perceptions of personnel managers in South Africa

1987 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 235-242
Author(s):  
J. Viljoen
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Corporate Culture ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Strong Association ◽  
Management Style ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Perceived Performance ◽  
Culture Strength ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Managerial Employees

In this paper some core dimensions along which corporate culture can be analysed are identified. It is argued that, for large scale studies of corporate culture, personnel managers are the most appropriate sampling base. Using a mailed questionnaire a sample of 199 South African companies was surveyed in order to isolate their cultural attributes as perceived by the personnel manager. The research findings revealed: (i) a strong association between strategic management style and perceived culture strength; (ii) greater perceived performance potential and better labour relations amongst strong culture companies, and (iii) significant differences in perceived culture strength between managerial and non-managerial employees. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Kenya and China's labour relations: infrastructural development for whom, by whom?

Africa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 89 (4) ◽  
pp. 680-695 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita Plummer
Keyword(s):  
Development Strategy ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Youth Unemployment ◽  
Transport Sector ◽  
Employment Practices ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Construction Firms ◽  
Vision 2030 ◽  
The Government

AbstractThe Kenyan government's long-term development strategy, Vision 2030, has emphasized infrastructural investments, which it believes will lead to sustained economic growth. The government has appealed to China to fund large-scale projects in the transport sector, and as a consequence of this, construction firms from China have emerged as significant employers in the country. While the Kenyan government contends with the ongoing burden of youth unemployment, it must also reconcile the ambiguities of China's role in Africa and its implications for the labour market. This article examines two Chinese-built infrastructure projects in Kenya and their intersection with several issues involving migrant labour and local rumours of Chinese prisoners, as well as the state's vision for industrialization and youth employment. Kenyans utilize both online and interpersonal channels of discourse to critique present-day employment practices in the transport sector, and it is argued that these counter-channels of discourse represent a particular articulation of knowledge used by Kenyans to construct meaning and interpret ambiguous situations. Through a theoretical analysis of rumour, this article illustrates how ordinary Kenyans are pooling their intellectual resources to understand Sino-Kenyan labour relations in the absence of transparency and participatory government processes in the infrastructure sector.

Weighted social networks for a large scale artificial society

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (02) ◽  
pp. 1550276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zong Chen Fan ◽  
Wei Duan ◽  
Peng Zhang ◽  
Xiao Gang Qiu
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Clustering Coefficient ◽  
Generation Model ◽  
Social Phenomenon ◽  
Artificial Society ◽  
Synthetic Population

The method of artificial society has provided a powerful way to study and explain how individual behaviors at micro level give rise to the emergence of global social phenomenon. It also creates the need for an appropriate representation of social structure which usually has a significant influence on human behaviors. It has been widely acknowledged that social networks are the main paradigm to describe social structure and reflect social relationships within a population. To generate social networks for a population of interest, considering physical distance and social distance among people, we propose a generation model of social networks for a large-scale artificial society based on human choice behavior theory under the principle of random utility maximization. As a premise, we first build an artificial society through constructing a synthetic population with a series of attributes in line with the statistical (census) data for Beijing. Then the generation model is applied to assign social relationships to each individual in the synthetic population. Compared with previous empirical findings, the results show that our model can reproduce the general characteristics of social networks, such as high clustering coefficient, significant community structure and small-world property. Our model can also be extended to a larger social micro-simulation as an input initial. It will facilitate to research and predict some social phenomenon or issues, for example, epidemic transition and rumor spreading.

Monoproductive Traits in Brazil’s Economic Past

2004 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-141
Author(s):  
Edward J. Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
National Income ◽  
Economic Structure ◽  
World Market ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Colonial Policy ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
The World ◽  
Foreign Commerce

During the first three hundred years of its existence, Brazil had no opportunity to develop its potential natural resources for the benefit of its inhabitants. Portugal, Brazil’s mother country, exploited the colony as a source of wealth for itself and did not administer it for the purpose of creating a sound economic structure for the good of Brazil. Its foreign commerce was a Crown monopoly until 1808. During this colonial period, easily exploited minerals and those crops which would command quick, lucrative profits on the world market, were stressed by Portuguese administrators. Thus, early in its history, the disastrous seeds of monoculture were sown in Brazil. These products were taken to Lisbon, which served as a jobbing center for the Empire, and from there they were distributed by vessel to other countries. Large-scale industry was discouraged by Portugal, and in some instances, actually forbidden. In this, Portugal was following the general colonial policy common to many European nations during that period. Characteristic of the Portuguese attitude was Queen Maria’s order in 1785 for the destruction of all industries and factories in Brazil that were not devoted to the production of sugar; a product from which Portugal at this time derived much of its national income. In return for the lucrative slave crops of sugar and cotton, the colony was forced to buy expensive finished goods from the mother country. The exchange profited Portugal greatly and strangled Brazil economically.

scholarly journals Sharecropping and livestock specialization in France, 1830–1930

2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
JUAN CARMONA
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Scale Economies ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Livestock Farming ◽  
Quality Of Work ◽  
Wage Labour ◽  
Potential Scale ◽  
Livestock Rearing

Historians of sharecropping in France have usually emphasized its negative effects on growth and on the workers' welfare. However, from about 1840 the regions of central and western France, regions where sharecroppers were especially numerous, were also areas that saw great improvements and the specialization in commercial livestock. As the author shows, landowners from these areas used sharecropping contracts in order both to seize the opportunities given by the potential scale economies in livestock rearing and to take advantage of family labour at a time of increasing wages. After presenting some basic data regarding sharecropping contracts, the second section is intended to describe the improvements in livestock farming in the area under sharecropping after 1840 and the contribution of landowners. Section III offers an explanation of why landowners preferred sharecropping to fixed-rent contracts. Three causes in particular are identified: (i) a lack of physical and human capital sufficient to allow potential farmers to engage in large scale farming; (ii) the contribution of landlord managerial expertise; and (iii) the fact that the complexity of mixed farming required a quality of work that would have been too expensive with wage labour. In a final section the ways in which the success of sharecropping minimized transaction costs are discussed.

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