Beyond consensus: the state and industrial relations in the United Kingdom from 1964 to 2014

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 692-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Martinez Lucio
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The State ◽  
Employee Relations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Worker Rights ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Role Of The State

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reflect on some of the problems and issues emerging from the changing role of the state in the UK’s industrial relations since 1964 – the year the Labour Party was elected to power under Harold Wilson’s leadership. The paper argues that the UK has seen an uneven set of developments in terms of the role of the state in the industrial relations system. Increasingly progressive interventions on a range of subjects such as equality, health and safety and others have coincided with a greater commercialisation of the state and greater fragmentation. Design/methodology/approach – This is based on a reflective review of various texts and a personal interest in the role of the political in the arena of employee relations. It references a range of texts on the subject of the state in the context of the UK’s employee relations system. Findings – In political terms there has been an uneven and incoherent set of positions which have meant that there is a growing set of tensions and breakdown in the political consensus over worker rights. In addition, the agencies of the state and other state bodies entrusted with the development of a more socially driven view of industrial relations have been increasingly and steadily undermined and weakened by governments especially those on the right. The political context of industrial relations has become fractured and unable to sustain a coherent longer term view. Originality/value – The paper tries to bring out the role of the political context and the way in has shaped the changing terrain of industrial relations and argues that the question of fragmentation is not solely visible in employee relations but in the broader political context.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 159-178
Author(s):  
Mike Allen ◽  
Lars Benjaminsen ◽  
Eoin O’Sullivan ◽  
Nicholas Pleace
Keyword(s):  
Social Services ◽  
The State ◽  
European Countries ◽  
The Political ◽  
Administrative Culture ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
State And Market ◽  
The Individual

Chapter 7 draws together some of the lessons that can be learned from the experiences of three small European countries in responding to homelessness. It is clear that responses to homelessness are embedded and enmeshed in the political and administrative culture of the individual countries, particularly the role of the state, both centrally and locally, in the provision of housing, welfare, and social services. Homelessness cannot be responded to as a separate issue from this broader context, and this is particularly the case in Finland and Ireland, where the roles of the state and market are understood very differently.

scholarly journals The political economy of unfree labor and the state: An Indonesian case study

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-78
Author(s):  
Benni Yusriza
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Unfree Labor ◽  
Victim Protection ◽  
Trafficking Victims

Employing the concept of unfree labor, this article explores the role of the state in reinforcing victims’ vulnerability and shaping the political economy of trafficking practices. Based on a case study of trafficking victims in Benjina and Ambon, Maluku Province, Indonesia, I argue that Indonesian authorities’ intervention was driven not by humanitarian interest, nor by the concern for the protection of migrant workers’ rights, but rather by the intent to advance a political and economic agenda against the Thai fishing industry. Consequently, the intervention ignored the exploitative relations of production that underpinned the vulnerability of victims, despite being conducted in the name of victim-protection and improving livelihoods.

scholarly journals The state, employment, and regulation: making work not pay

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jo Grady
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
The State ◽  
Employee Relations ◽  
Alternative Analysis ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Low Pay

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of specific active labour market policies (ALMP) and increased use of zero hour contracts (ZHCs) in creating an environment in which low-wage jobs flourish. Alongside these, it examines the role of financialization over the last 30 years in fostering the nuturalization of policies that institutionalize low wages and deregulate the economy in favour of big business. Design/methodology/approach This paper draws upon academic literature, official statistics, and analyses via the concept of neoliberalism. Findings This paper demonstrates that via a set of interconnected macro and micro factors low pay is set to remain entrenched in the UK. It has demonstrated that this is not the result of some natural response to labour market demands. Far from it, it has argued that these policy choices are neoliberal in motivation and the outcome of establishing low pay and insecure employment is a significant character of the contemporary labour market is deliberate. Research limitations/implications This paper encourages a re-think of how the authors address this issue of low pay in the UK by highlighting alternative forms of understanding the causes of low pay. Practical implications It presents an alternative analysis of low pay in the UK which allows us to understand and call into question the low-pay economy. In doing so it demonstrates that crucial to this understanding is state regulation. Social implications This paper allows for a more nuanced understanding of the economic conditions of the inequality caused by low pay, and provides an argument as to alternative ways in which this can be addressed. Originality/value The paper examines the relationship between the rise of neoliberalism and finance capital, the subsequent emergence of the neoliberal organization, the associated proliferation of ALMP and ZHCs, and the impact of these on creating a low-wage economy. It makes the argument that the UK’s low-wage economy is the result of regulatory choices influenced by a political preference for financialization, even if such choices are presented as not being so. Thus, the contribution of this paper is that it brings together distinct and important contemporary issues for scholars of employee relations, but connects them to the role of the state and neoliberal regulation.

scholarly journals Moments of Rupture. Changing the State Project for Teachers: a Regulation Approach Study in Education Industrial Relations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Patricia Gay Simpkin
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Early Response ◽  
The State ◽  
National State ◽  
State Sector ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The Government ◽  
Professional Project

<p>The purpose of this thesis is to examine the response of secondary school teachers to the Tomorrow's Schools education reforms. Their early response was made largely through their union, the Post Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA), in an industrial relations setting as the reform proposals were in development and taking their final shape. The interaction between the professional project of these teachers with the proposed reforms produced an outcome for secondary school education shaped by the interaction, rather than just by the reforms themselves. A case study situated at the intersection of industrial relations, state sector and education restructurings during the period 1984-1989 is the focus of the thesis. The argument is located within French regulationalist theory. The concept of the Keynesian Welfare National State provides a means for connecting education as part of the mode of regulation with the role of the state in New Zealand. The Fourth Labour Government entered into a political project that shifted the role of the state in the economy and society. The roots of the project lay in the discourse of economic rationalism. Policy resulting from this discourse was put into operation through legislation affecting all parts of the state. In education, the discourse of economic rationalism introduced a new approach, the values of which were at odds with those of the previous education settlement of the Keynesian Welfare National State. The object of the thesis is to trace the process of change within the secondary schools sector of education through the years 1984-1989 as the two different sets of values interacted. The assumption is made that institutional change results from a dynamic interaction between new ideas and continuities and discontinuities with the past. This allows for the possibility of the effects of agency on public policy. Analysis focuses on a series of industrial negotiations between the PPTA and the State Services Commission, the negotiating body for government. They took place as various government policy documents and resulting legislation altered the positioning of teachers within the state. The negotiations were of such a character that the educational discourses of economic rationalism and the education settlement of the Keynesian Welfare National State came into conflict and were debated at length. The thesis concludes that, by the end of the negotiations and despite the introduction of legislation on education, the values of secondary teachers remained substantially unchanged and in opposition to the intent of the government reforms.</p>

scholarly journals Comments to the article “The political role of the State in Cambridge theories of growth and distribution”

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 207-214
Author(s):  
JOÃO GABRIEL DE ARAUJO OLIVEIRA ◽  
RENATO NOZAKI SUGAHARA ◽  
JOANILIO RODOLPHO TEIXEIRA
Keyword(s):  
Income Distribution ◽  
Dynamic Equilibrium ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Essential Nature ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Stability

ABSTRACT This comment came to refute and correct the idea of Charles (2007) about the negatively implications in the income distribution when the government expand the consumption in favour to households. We prove that the political choice, to both cases (increasing consumption or increasing profit), impact positively the income distribution and does not affect the essential nature of the Kaldor neo-Pasinetti dynamic equilibrium results and the “Cambridge Equation”. The stability of the model is guarantee by applying the Olech’s Theorem to the case.

scholarly journals The Media Industry’s Structural Transformation in Capitalism and the Role of the State: Media Economics in the Age of Digital Communications

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Manfred Knoche
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Structural Transformation ◽  
Digital Communications ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Media Industry ◽  
Media System ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The Media

Abstract: This paper discusses how the capitalist media industry has been structurally transformed in the age of digital communications. It takes an approach that is grounded in the Marxian critique of the political economy of the media. It draws a distinction between media capital, media-oriented capital, media infrastructure capital and media-external capital as the forms of capital in the media industry. The article identifies four capital strategies that media capital tends to use in order to try to maximise profits: a) The substitution of “old” by “new” media technology, b) the introduction of new transmission channels for “old” media products, c) the definition of new property rights for media sectors and networks, d) the reduction of production and transaction costs. The drive to profit maximization is at the heart of the capitalist media industry’s structural transformation. This work also discusses the tendency to the universalization of the media system in the digital age and the economic contradictions arising from it. It identifies activity fields of the media industry’s structural transformation and shows how the concentration of the capitalist media markets is an essential, contradictory and inherent feature of the capitalist media system and its structural transformation. The paper identifies six causes of why capital seeks to employ capital strategies that result in the media industry’s structural transformation. They include market saturation, overaccumulation, the tendency of the profit rate to fall, capital-concentration, competition pressure, and advertising. The paper finally discusses the role of the state as an agent of capital in general and media capital in particular. It discusses the role of the state in privatisations, neoliberal deregulation, the formation of national competitive states, and various benefits that the state provides for media capital. This contribution shows that capital and capitalism are the main structural transformers of the media and communications system. For understanding these transformations, we need an approach that is grounded in Marx’s critique of the political economy.Translation from German: Christian Fuchs and Marisol Sandoval

scholarly journals Kulturowo-cywilizacyjna tożsamość państwa Izrael z perspektywy rosyjskiego neokonserwatyzmu w ujęciu aleksandra G. Dugina

2019 ◽  
pp. 197-214
Author(s):  
Marcin Składanowski
Keyword(s):  
Political Context ◽  
The State ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
State Of Israel ◽  
Modern Russian

The article aims to describe the civilizational aspect of the State of Israel in the historiosophic and geopolitical thought of Aleksandr G. Dugin, who is considered the most influential and controversial representative of modern Russian neo-conservatism. Firstly, the article presents the intellectual and political context of Dugin’s intellectual evolution. Secondly, it shows the role of the State of Israel in the conflict of civilizations. Thirdly, it describes Dugin’s interpretation of the cul-tural and civilizational identity of the State of Israel and its geopolitical conse-quences.   

Party plenum strengthens Xi’s grip on China

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Social Life ◽  
The State ◽  
Senior Leaders ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Political Economic

Subject The Communist Party's recent Fourth Plenum meeting. Significance The Communist Party concluded a five-day meeting of senior leaders on October 31. The meeting, called the ‘Fourth Plenum’, focused on institutional and intra-Party affairs. Press statements that followed were short on policy detail, but the meeting appears to have reaffirmed President Xi Jinping's efforts to place the Party and its ideology at the centre of China's political, economic and social life. Impacts Xi’s grip on the Party appears unassailable. There are no signs of Xi lining up a successor; he looks likely to remain leader for a third term. There are no indications that Beijing will compromise on US demands to reduce the role of the state in industry.

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