Labour relations and demand relations: a case study of the ‘unemployment effect’

1980 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Labour Relations

scholarly journals Gender Aspects Referring to Social Policy in Labour Relations in a Modern Society (Case Study of Mothers)

2020 ◽  
pp. 117-125
Author(s):  
Anna Gizatullina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Family Obligations ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Material Benefits ◽  
Gender Aspects ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Status Level

The article focuses on two approaches to gender aspects of social policy in labour relations in a modern society (a case study of mothers). One of them deals with introducing gender into existing theories of social policy. The other is based on the assumption that fundamental theories are incomplete in their fundamental prerequisites and therefore new models of social policy regarding labour relations of mothers should be worded. The approaches are founded on the relationship implying "state – market – family" link. The article gives a brief description of the current social policy in Russia in regards to labour relations of mothers. It discloses general issues in management of labour relations of mothers including women's unemployment, occupational segregation, above regarding management of labour activity of mothers are integral parts of the general social problem of labour relations in modern conditions. Additionally, we highlight the relationship between mothers' working life and family obligations. The article analyzes the economic activity dynamics and women's employment rate in the period 2008–2017. The data gathered is based on age, gender, marital status, level of women's occupation in their main post. Finally, we identify some measures to be taken to improve the existing social policy in labour relations of mothers. These measures consist in the establishment of legally fixed "free time", the construction of a socially fair system of material benefits and privileges, the construction of a developed infrastructure in the form of various services.

The Closed Shop and the National Health Service: A Case Study in Public Sector Labour Relations

1988 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Harrison
Keyword(s):  
National Health Service ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Health Service ◽  
National Health ◽  
Health Authority ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Labour Relations

ABSTRACTDuring the second half of the 1970s, the practice of the closed shop became widespread in some parts of the British public sector, but was resisted in others. This paper examines the issue in relation to the National Health Service, where trade unionists made frequent demands for the closed shop and where many managers were apparently not unwilling to concede it. Yet very few closed shops actually resulted. The paper examines the origin and patterns of these demands, health authority policies towards them, and their outcomes in terms both of the operation of the closed shops which were agreed, and the reasons for failure to agree. The conclusion is that although NHS industrial relations had apparently matured very rapidly between 1973 and 1977, the trade unions were neither strong enough nor united enough to enforce the closed shop; nor were industrial relations so far developed as to make the practice a natural next step.

Whither Industrial Democracy? The Federal Government and Organized Labour in the Telegraph Industry during the First World War

2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 517-539
Author(s):  
STEVEN PARFITT
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
First World War ◽  
Industrial Democracy ◽  
World War ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Federal Intervention ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World ◽  
Telephone Administration

The recent historiography of American labour in the First World War pays special attention to the idea of industrial democracy. The federal government, historians argue in various ways, played a major role in defining that term and affecting how trade unionists, employers and all kinds of industrial and political reformers fought over and applied their own definitions of industrial democracy. In this article I look at one case study of wartime federal intervention in labour relations, between the Commercial Telegraphers' Union of America (CTUA) and the Western Union Telegraph Company. During the war both parties were subject to intervention from the National War Labor Board, the main federal arbitration agency, and then, after nationalization of the telegraphs, the federal Telegraph and Telephone Administration. The experience of the CTUA is more or less at odds with recent general accounts of First World War labour. In this article I argue that this experience points towards a change of emphasis regarding federal-style industrial democracy, placing greater stress on its role in leading directly to the non and antiunion industrial policies practised by many employers in the 1920s, in addition to its encouragement of trade union growth in wartime.

scholarly journals Bottling the Colonial Unconscious: Ethical value networks and the commodification of fairness in the South African wine industry

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Kelle Howson
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Network Formation ◽  
Wine Industry ◽  
The South ◽  
Commodity Fetishism ◽  
Value Networks ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Economic Upgrading

<p>The rise of ethical certifications was greeted with optimism by scholars, activists and development practitioners, who predicted they would help to redistribute power and profit more equitably in South-North commodity trade, which has long been an engine of wealth extraction and underdevelopment in the resource periphery. The explicit attachment of value to the social and territorial origin of agro-food products would allow marginalised producers to resist corporate governance, race-to-the-bottom processes, and commodity fetishism. This would result in the retention of higher value at the production end of the chain, thereby fostering sustainable development in rural areas in the Global South.  I investigate the extent to which power and profit is indeed redistributed more equitably in these new ‘ethical value networks’, through a case study of the South African wine industry. Complex apparatus of standards-setting, verification and auditing have formed the basis of strategies for post-apartheid transformation, redistribution and development in the South African wine industry, with progress conceptualised as taking place at the level of business. In this context, ethical certification constitutes a contemporary labour relations paradigm which in key ways reproduces ‘colonial unconscious’ discourses derived from the legacies of slavery, apartheid and farm paternalism. These embedded discursive power formations restrict the transformative potential of ethical certification. For ethical development to occur as a result of ethical value network formation, I argue that workers must gain greater agency and regulatory capability in the governance of these networks.  I find also that ethical certification has not been an effective economic upgrading strategy for the South African wine industry. Instead, due to their deployment within oligopolistic networks, ethics have become commodified, and subject to neoliberal governance. Northern retailers have used their existing power to accumulate the value created by alignment with ethical conventions, and to avoid the costs. Ethical certifications compound the severe ‘cost-price squeeze’ faced by wine producers. This case study has broader implications for the theory of ethical value networks: showing that they are relational, geographically contingent, and remain susceptible to asymmetric governance and accumulation patterns.</p>

scholarly journals Collective Bargaining and the Emergence of National Employer Organisation in the British Shipbuilding Industry

1991 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Lovell
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
General Nature ◽  
General Level ◽  
Shipbuilding Industry ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Trade Unionism ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
National Organisation ◽  
Northeast Coast

SUMMARYThe article takes shipbuilding as a case study in the development of collective bargaining in Britain during the period 1889–1910. During the period shipbuilding employers established an effective national organisation and were successful in drawing the unions into an industry-wide disputes procedure. These developments occurred notwithstanding marked differences in outlook and interest as between the two main centres of activity in the industry, the Clyde and the northeast coast. The more militant posture of the Clyde employers towards the unions is examined in relation to a number of key issues – the apprentice and machine questions, managerial prerogative, wage control. In interpreting the general nature of the transition that occurred in the industry's labour relations, the article questions the view that the move to national bargaining was associated with a general commitment to the joint regulation of employment rules. It further suggests that the general level of employer acceptance of trade unionism may have been less than is sometimes assumed. These conclusions may well have a significance beyond the case in question.

Varieties of capitalism in multinational companies: A comparative study of Volkswagen Slovakia and Kia Motors Slovakia

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-51
Author(s):  
Thomas Haipeter ◽  
Hyung Je Jo
Keyword(s):  
Host Country ◽  
Multinational Companies ◽  
Varieties Of Capitalism ◽  
Host Countries ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Labour Shortage ◽  
Foreign Operations ◽  
Power Position

This paper is about industrial relation (IR) strategies and practices in multinational companies (MNCs). It is based on a comparison of these practices in subsidiaries of different MNC within one country. We discuss how far differences and commonalities can be explained by national IR institutions, by company structures and cultures or by the agency of IR actors. In doing so, this will also address the broader question of how far the varieties of capitalism affect what MNCs do abroad and if, and in what way, they adapt to local conditions in terms of IRs and union structures. The paper is based on a case study comparison of two of the biggest automotive companies, Volkswagen and Hyundai, and their production locations in Slovakia. Both companies have different institutional backgrounds in their host countries with different patterns of labour relations, they are internationalized on a growing level and they both have foreign operations in identical countries like in Slovakia, which makes it possible to analyse the effects of institutions, strategies and labour agency by a comparison of establishments. There are two main findings exposing a strong interplay of the factors under scrutiny. First, in both companies, the local IR patterns are strongly shaped by the varieties of institutions at the company headquarters, whereas the IR institutions of the host country are adapted to them; and second, agency plays a growing role as the labour shortage improves the power position of the unions.

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