scholarly journals The revival of China's organised Labour 1973-86

1970 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Morris
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Policy ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Enterprise Level ◽  
Chinese Trade ◽  
Post Cultural Revolution

This paper analyses the development and role of Chinese trade unions in the post Cultural Revolution era. The growth of organised labour fronz virtual dissolution in the late 1960s is charted at national and enterprise level. The text outlines significant post 1973 trade union involvement in industrial welfare, education and productivity. The current status of wage fixation and grievance handling in Chinese labour relations is also explored. The paper concludes by appraising Chinese trade unionisrn and its relationship to industrial policy in recent times.

scholarly journals Brazilian Trade Unions

2009 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 250-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Lang ◽  
Mona-Josée Gagnon
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Union Leader ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Daily Activities ◽  
Heavy Body ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Trade Unionism ◽  
Labour Legislation

Many analysts of Brazilian industrial relations share a determinist vision of the country’s trade unionism, according to which the unions maintain a paradoxical yet atavistic relationship with the heavy body of laws that provide them with advantages while limiting their freedom. We tested this vision by conducting field enquiries into the daily activities of two Brazilian unions: the ABC Metalworkers Union and the Seamstress Union for the Sao Paulo and Osasco Region. In this article, we present the results of our case studies and what they reveal about Brazilian trade unionism’s relationship with the labour legislation. We also briefly discuss former trade union leader and current President Lula’s recent attempts to reform the country’s labour relations system.

Trade Unions and the Quadripartite Interactions in Strike Settlement in China

2010 ◽  
Vol 201 ◽  
pp. 104-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng Chen
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Social Basis ◽  
Low Degree ◽  
The Government

AbstractAlthough the Chinese government has claimed to be pursuing tripartism for labour relations, the non-judicial resolution of interest conflict in enterprises is largely a process of quadripartite interaction. In addition to the government and employers, the trade unions and workers are separate players: labour strikes in China are always launched by unorganized workers rather than by trade unions, whose task is to defuse the situation. Such a quadripartite process is dominated by the government, with the trade union playing a mediating role, not only between workers and the government but also between workers and employers. The process involves certain explicit and implicit rules, as well as distinct dynamics. This research examines the institutional and social basis of quadripartite interaction and how it led to the settlement of strikes. It demonstrates that although it can effectively defuse workers' collective action, a quadripartite process of conflict resolution reflects a low degree of institutionalization of industrial relations in China.

Trade Union Ambivalence Toward Enforcement of Employment Standards as an Organizing Strategy

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid Landau ◽  
John Howe
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Minimum Standards ◽  
The Past ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Employment Standards ◽  
Legislative Framework ◽  
Core Part

Trade unions in Australia have long played an important role in the enforcement of minimum employment standards. The legislative framework today continues to recognize this enforcement role, but in a way that is more individualistic and legalistic than in the past. At the same time that the law has evolved to emphasize the representation and servicing role of trade unions, the Australian union movement has sought to revitalize and grow through the adoption of an “organizing model” of unionism that emphasizes workplace-level activism. This Article explores how these seemingly opposing trends have manifested themselves in the enforcement-related activities of five trade unions. Considerable diversity was found among the unions in relation to the extent to which and how the unions performed enforcement-related activities. However, all five unions spent significant time and resources on monitoring and enforcing employer compliance with minimum standards and saw this work as a core part of what they do. The case studies suggest, however, that the way in which this work is undertaken within unions and by whom has changed significantly in recent decades. While there was evidence that enforcement work was used tactically by unions in certain cases, this was largely on an ad hoc basis and there was little indication that the enforcement work was integrated into broader organizing objectives and strategies. Overall, the unions were ambivalent, if not skeptical, as to the capacity for enforcement work to grow unions through building workplace activism and collective strength.

scholarly journals The International Trade-Union Movement and the Founding of the International Labour Organization

2005 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reiner Tosstorff
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
International Labour Organization ◽  
High Expectations ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
Union Movement

Accounts of the founding of the International Labour Organization (ILO) usually emphasize the role of social-reformist intellectuals and politicians. Despite the indisputable role of these actors, however, the international labour movement was the actual initiator of this process. Over the course of World War I, the international labour movement proposed a comprehensive programme of protection for the working classes, which, conceived as compensation for its support of the war, was supposed to become an international agreement after the war. In 1919, politicians took up this programme in order to give social stability to the postwar order. However, the way in which the programme was instituted disappointed the high expectations of trade unions regarding the fulfilment of their demands. Instead, politicians offered them an institution that could be used, at best, to realize trade-union demands. Despite open disappointment and sharp critique, however, the revived International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) very quickly adapted itself to this mechanism. The IFTU now increasingly oriented its international activities around the lobby work of the ILO.

ASSESSING THE ROLE OF AUTONOMOUS TEACHERS’ TRADE UNIONS IN ANGLOPHONE CAMEROON, 1959–1972

2006 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-436
Author(s):  
PIET KONINGS
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Substantial Improvement ◽  
The Other ◽  
Educational Reforms ◽  
Political Roles ◽  
The Government ◽  
Constant Source

In the literature on African trade unions during decolonization and in the immediate post-independence period, two schools of thought can be distinguished: one is pessimistic about the unions' economic and political roles, and the other is optimistic. This study attempts to assess the role of autonomous teachers' trade unions in Anglophone Cameroon during the period 1959–72. The emergence, development and dissolution of these unions appears to have closely followed the region's political and educational reforms. It is argued that two main issues formed a constant source of conflict between the government and these unions, namely the preservation of trade union autonomy, and union demands for a substantial improvement in members' conditions of service.

scholarly journals Taming Labor: Workers’ Struggles, Workplace Unionism, and Collective Bargaining on a Chinese Waterfront

ILR Review ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (5) ◽  
pp. 1053-1077 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Pringle ◽  
Quan Meng
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Container Terminal ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Enterprise Level

This article examines the case of the Yantian International Container Terminal (YICT) to consider under what conditions unions can provide effective workplace representation in China. The authors draw on semi-structured interviews to analyze how and why the union was effective, despite rigid prohibitions against organizing outside of the Party-led All-China Federation of Trade Unions. The authors argue that the YICT union developed a system of annual collective bargaining that tamed the power of militant dockworkers and helped prevent strikes. This outcome required an effective enterprise-level trade union that was nevertheless able to influence and manage members’ somewhat ambiguous acceptance of its role. Ultimately, workers’ interests were partially represented and their acquisition of associational power—in the form of trade unions—increased.

The Cominform: A Five-Year Perspective

1953 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 368-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard S. Morris
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
World Federation ◽  
Union Activity ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Actual Role ◽  
The World ◽  
Communist Movement

Five years ago the Comintern loomed once again as a spectre on the European horizon with the founding in Poland, September 1947, of the Information Bureau of the Communist Parties of the USSR, Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia (expelled June 1948), France, and Italy. It has since become both fashionable and convenient to identify the “Cominform” with all aspects of international Communist activity, ranging from the most general of policy directives to an isolated Communist-led strike. The indiscriminate identification of “Cominform” with international Communist activity provides the layman with a convenient stereotype which spares him the trouble of further inquiry. For the student of Communism, however, this lack of precision merely results in obscuring the actual role of the Cominform, as it is known to us, and more particularly, its function within the configuration of various covert and overt instrumentalities of the international Communist movement. To speak, for example, of a “Cominform” policy of collectivization or of a “Cominform” purge trial in the Balkans, or to suggest by “Cominform” the whole web of controls of national Communist parties maintained by the USSR is to ascribe a role and importance to the Cominform that it simply does not have. For without minimizing the importance of the function the Cominform has come to discharge, it may be said that its role is essentially that of a central, but by no means the most important, propaganda instrument of the international Communist movement, designed primarily to provide public guidance and information to the leadership of various national Communist parties. Thus Pravda and the USSR radio broadcasts furnish daily guidance to the international Communist movement, and the World Federation of Trade Unions is continuously engaged in attempting to bring trade union activity in line with Communist policy.

scholarly journals DETERMINING THE THRESHOLD FOR ORGANIZATIONAL RIGHTS: THE LEGAL QUAGMIRE FACING MINORITY UNIONS RESOLVED – South African Post Office v Commissioner Nowosenetz No (2013) 2 BLLR 216 (LC)

Obiter ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Clarence Tshoose
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
South African ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Post Office ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Industry Level ◽  
Pluralistic Approach ◽  
The Right ◽  
Conditions Of Employment

The issue of organizational rights facing minority unions has been a quagmire since the advent of the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995(hereinafter “the LRA”). This quagmire exists, notwithstanding the fact that the Constitution affords every trade union the right to engage in collective bargaining (s 23 of the Constitution, 1996). The acquisition of organizational rights by trade unions plays a crucial rolein as far as collective bargaining is concerned. It is through collective bargaining that unions are able to negotiate with employers regarding the terms and conditions of employment. Commentators have often viewed the LRA as favouring larger unions and as conferring clear advantages on unions with majority support at the industry level. Chapter III of the LRA regulates collective bargaining. Whereas this chapterostensibly promotes a pluralistic approach to organizational rights it is unequivocally biased towards majoritarianism. This is the case despite minority trade unions fulfilling an important role in the current labour system especially when it comes to the balance of powerin the employment arena. In light of the above, the legal quagmire faced by the minority unions in the quest for acquiring organisation rights in terms of the relevant provisions of the LRA is clearly illustrated by the decision in South African Post Office v Commissioner Nowosenetz No ((2013) 2 BLLR 216 (LC) (hereinafter “ the South African Post Office case”)).

scholarly journals Lviv printings general professional assosiation of mutual assistance in 1856-1867. Analysis of activity

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (11) ◽  
pp. 6-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. R. Berest
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Mutual Assistance ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Short Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation

The attempt to analyze and show the important role of Lviv printers and to describe their role in the development of Galician society has been made in the article. This attempt has been made on the basis of documents, the principle of historicism, scientific and objective approach. The importance and problematic of the comprehensive study of the oldest history of the creation, formation and development of Lviv printers’ professional co-operation of mutual assistance has been highlighted, and the history and activities of this organization in stages have been described. In general, trade unions emerged as an independent united self-defense organizations and they were formed in the form of workers’ associations and mutual assistance funds. During the first half of the nineteenth century the crystallization of the activities of trade unions happened under the influence of various measures, hold by the administrations, the police and the authorities. This contributed to the further unification of labor and the creation of all-city union of printers in Lviv. It is quite logical that the basis of their actions was their desire to achieve and get the working solidarity, mutual support and assistance. The activities of the trade union were regulated by the statutes. First of all, the purpose of the establishment and operation of the organization was socio-economic, cultural and educational ones. Those purposes were approved by the relevant state authorities and, thus, prevented trade unions from participating in political life.The short period of the 1860-1880s can be considered to be a separate stage in the process of the formation of the mass trade union movement in Galicia. Together with the trade unions of printers, settlers, brokers, masons, carpenters, builders, tanneries, metal workers, doctors, pharmacists, tradesmen, postmen, civil servants, lawyers and many others united and became active partners of the region.The problem, which has been investigated in the article, has a valuable scientific significance as it allows to solve one of the most important issues: to get the historical understanding of activities of Lviv trade union organizations, which have not been thoroughly studied yet.

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