Labour Economics and Industrial Relations

We examine how the impact of the recent crises on firm performance, in terms of risk of shutdown, differed depending on firm size. We use a panel of linked employer-employee data covering the period 2002-2012 and investigate whether the effect of firm size varies over the business cycle and with the type of shock associated with two phases of economic contraction: the Financial Crisis and the Sovereign Debt Crisis. Our results show that smaller firms are more likely to shutdown than larger firms, with micro firms being nearly three times more likely to shutdown than large firms. However, within each size band, micro firms are found to experience at least similar rates of survival during the two crises, relative to large firms, to those observed in the pre-crisis period; while medium sized firms are found to be more vulnerable during the financial crisis period, but show more resilience during the sovereign debt crisis. Overall, however, the results suggest that during the sovereign debt crisis firms faced higher probability of closing than during the financial crisis.

The question of social dumping has again climbed the EU policy agenda. In this article, we call into question some established views of social dumping that conceptualize the relationship between EU internal market and Member States in binary terms. Based on an analysis of relevant case law, and drawing on the conceptual tools provided by critical legal geography, we show that the project of EU integration relies as much on the scalar differentiation of powers as it does on the 'upward' shift of powers from the national-to the supra-national level. We propose an understanding of EU internal market law as productive of a 'labour law patchwork', defined by the simultaneous fragmentation and overlap of labour law regulations across and within EU Member States. Here, we re-conceptualize cross-border social dumping as a 'game of jurisdiction'-a set of strategic moves by actors within a multi-scalar and multi-jurisdictional space.

Trade unions have been analysed quantitatively primarily in their role as vested interest organisations, attempting to quantify the excludable benefits they provide to members rather than examine their wider impact in an institutional context. Power resource theory acknowledges unions as social agents but assumes the willingness to oppose neoliberalism is constant, limited only by scarce power resources. Whilst true in general terms, this fails to explain trends of increasing labour market dualism in resource-rich industrial relations regimes. This article examines social solidarity as a union power resource, measuring the impact of trade union membership on social attitudes of solidarity. Data were collected from the 2016 European Social Survey for 18 countries, grouped into five distinct industrial relations regimes. The findings suggest that, at European level, union membership still has a significant effect on all dimensions of social solidarity, but these relationships vary significantly across industrial relations regimes.

The European strategy for growth has a twofold aim: to become an innovative union and to enhance labour flexibility. Yet, few have addressed the question of whether these two strategies are compatible or concurrent. Through a review of the literature, this article addresses this question by focusing on different types of labour flexibility (functional, contractual and financial), and two types of innovation outcomes: employee-driven innovation (EDI) and organizational innovativeness. Using insights from different research traditions, sound evidence is found for a positive relation between different forms of functional flexibility and both EDI and organizational innovation. This is nevertheless not so for contractual and financial flexibility. Indications are found that these types of labour flexibility are potentially negative for both EDI and organizational innovation. Yet, trends in the European labour market and EU backed policies do not focus on enhancing functional flexibility, but rather aim to increase contractual and financial flexibility.

Based on long-term fieldwork in multiple locations, our article questions the approach that posits a Chinese model of work and employment relations as increasingly exporting its form of labour management and dominating worldwide. It does so by focusing on Europe and discussing two labour regimes considered as typically Chinese: the Chinese fashion workshops in the Italian fashion industry, and the Foxconn electronics plants in the Czech Republic. Our findings bring new insights to bear on issues for which research is still thin on the ground and challenge the hypothesis of a 'Chinesisation' of work and employment practices in Chinese small firms and MNCs operating in Europe. We move the focus away from the simple analysis of firm management prevailing in the literature and suggest that, in order to understand the firm's behaviours, the role of the state, the unions, the migrant workers and the role of temporary work agencies should all be taken into consideration.

The goal of this paper is twofold: to comparatively analyze the social performance of global and local berry supply chains and to explore the ways in which the social dimension is embedded in the overall performance of food supply chains. To achieve this goal, the social performance of five global and local food supply chains in two countries are analyzed: wild blueberry supply chains in Latvia and cultivated raspberry supply chains in Serbia. The study addresses two research questions: (1) What is the social performance of the local and global supply chains? (2) How can references to context help improve understanding of the social dimension and social performance of food supply chains? To answer these questions, two interlinked thematic sets of indicators (attributes) are used—one describing labor relations and the other describing power relations. These lists are then contextualized by examining the micro-stories of the actors involved in these supply chains. An analysis of the chosen attributes reveals that global chains perform better than local chains. However, a context-sensitive analysis from the perspective of embedded markets and communities suggests that the social performance of food chains is highly context-dependent, relational, and affected by actors' abilities to negotiate values, norms, and the rules embedded within these chains, both global and local. The results illustrate that the empowerment of the chains' weakest actors can lead to a redefining of the meanings that performance assessments rely on.

This essay aims to discuss the conditions for a successful implementation of the European Youth Guarantee in Italy. In principle, the program should be able to affect the frictional and mismatch components of unemployment, if not the Keynesian and neoclassical ones, as the experience of Scandinavian countries suggests. However, this requires an in-depth transformation of the entire school-to-work transition system, involving not only public employment services, but also educational and training systems. To tackle the Keynesian and neoclassical components of unemployment, instead, it is vital to rethink European austerity and reduce the labor wedge.

Nigeria is the largest recipient of remittances in sub-Saharan Africa and literature suggests that impact of remittance inflows depend on the country’s specific characteristics. Most studies on remittances in Nigeria are on its impact on economic growth, inequality and poverty reduction. In a bid to create more knowledge, the study examines how remittances to Nigeria affect labour force participation using propensity score matching (PSM) with data sourced from 2015/16 Nigerian General Household Survey (GHS). The results of propensity score matching reveals that receipt of remittances increased both labour force participation for non-farm economic activities and labour force participation in urban areas, perhaps as a result of investing received remittances in new business ventures. In addition, remittance inflows raised economic activeness of the younger members of the labour force who constituted a greater percentage. Our paper therefore recommends the proper functioning of institutions aimed at facilitating remittance inflows as well as enhancing the utilization of such remittances in industry-based business start-ups.

Keywords: labour force participation, migration, remittance, sustainable growth, unemployment
JEL: J21, J61, J89, O15, J64

Purpose – Until now, there has been scant evidence on the proportion and characteristics of employees working without a written contract or terms of employment. To begin to fill this gap, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the prevalence and distribution of employees without written contracts or terms of employment in the European Union (EU), examining whether they are unevenly distributed across countries and EU regions, and whether it is vulnerable population groups who are more likely to be without such written contracts.

Design/methodology/approach – A 2013 Eurobarometer survey comprising 11,025 face-to-face interviews with employees in the 28 member states of the EU (EU-28) is reported.

Findings – The finding is that it is less socio-demographic and socio-economic characteristics, and more firm size, institutional environment and spatial factors that are important in explaining the prevalence of
employment without a written contract. Thus, governments should address not individuals but rather the formal institutional failings and asymmetry between civic and state morality, in order to reduce the level of employment without a written contract, and focus their attention on smaller firms, larger towns and Southern European countries, especially Cyprus, Malta and Portugal.

Research limitations/implications – Future research needs to evaluate whether and how the conditions of employment (e.g. wage rates, health and safety conditions, holiday entitlements) of employees without written contracts or terms of employment differ to their equivalents who have written contracts or terms of employment. This will reveal the implications of workers not being issued with written contracts or terms of employment.

Originality/value – This is one of the first extensive evaluations of the prevalence and distribution of employees without written contracts or terms of employment.

It is often argued that job insecurity and precarious work are on the rise. However, the evidence to back these arguments remains mixed and inconclusive. In this study, we define and measure precarious work in Finland using five variables that reflect both objective and subjective insecurity: atypical employment, actually experienced unemployment, the threat of dismissal or unemployment, poor chances of finding a new job, and low earnings. Results based on Statistics Finland’s Quality of Work Life Surveys from 1984–2013 indicate that, from a labour market or forms of employment perspective, the proportion of precarious wage earners has increased from 11% in 1984 to 13% in 2013. From a second perspective, however, focusing on changing working conditions, growing inequality and eroding social security mechanisms, we also analyse how a precarious labour market position is related to intrinsic job quality. Precarious workers experience decreased levels of skill and discretion, and they work in a less supportive environment than other employees.

The authors use the 1999 North American Academic Study Survey to examine attitudes of American and Canadian faculty and administrators towards faculty unions and collective bargaining. Comparative and statistical analyses of the survey data show the effect of cultural, institutional, political, positional, socio-economic, and academic factors on support for collective bargaining and faculty unionism in American and Canadian universities. Analysis of the survey data shows that US-Canada differences generally outweigh positional differences among professors and administrators. Such factors as political ideology, experience with faculty bargaining, administrators’ opposition, institutional quality, income, gender, and academic discipline, are found to be significant determinants of the attitudes towards faculty unions and collective bargaining.

This paper investigates whether low levels of absence increase the probability of permanent employment and reduce that of unemployment for Swedish temporary workers. We investigate two reasons for absence: worker sickness and sickness of a dependent child. Using a competing risk estimation model, we find that sick leave reduces the probability of permanent employment for women and increases the probability of unemployment for men. Absence due to child sickness increases the risk of unemployment for women. Although the influence of sick leave varies substantially among different temporary jobs, replacement and probation workers are generally the most affected.

Empirical assessments of the forecasting power of spatial panel data econometric models are still scarcely available. Moreover, several methodological contributions rely on simulated data to showcase the potential of proposed methods. While simulations may be useful to evaluate the properties of a single estimator, the empirical set-ups of simulation studies are often based on strong assumptions regarding the shape and regularity of the statistical distribution of the variables involved. It is then valuable to have, next to simulation studies, empirical assessments of competing econometric models based on real data. In this paper, we evaluate competing spatial (dynamic) panel methods, selecting a number of data sets characterized by a range of different crosssectional and temporal dimensions, as well as different levels of spatial autocorrelation. We carry out our empirical exercise on regional unemployment data for France, Spain and Switzerland. Additionally, we test different forecasting horizons, in order to investigate the speed of deterioration of forecasting quality. We compare two classes of methods: spatial vector autoregressive (SVAR) models and dynamic panel models making use of eigenvector spatial filtering (SF). We find that, as it could be expected, the unbalance between the temporal and cross-sectional dimension (T >> n) does play in favour of the SVAR model. On the other hand, the advantage of the SVAR model over the SF model appears to diminish as the forecasting horizon widens, eventually leading the SF model to being preferred for more distant forecasts.

This paper investigates an example of variance from the Varieties of Capitalism literature in the case of a longstanding partnership between a major British food retail multinational company and the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW). We argue that it can be seen as a corporate attempt to institutionalize conflict and engage the energies of the employees in achieving corporate goals in a situation of high union membership density and recognition in the UK retail industry. The findings underline the importance of sectoral diversity within national capitalist economies in the context of increased internationalization and the significant role still played by labor even in a liberal market economy such as the UK.

We study the causal impact of revealing pro-unionism during the recruitment stage on hiring chances. To this end, we conduct a randomised field experiment in the Belgian labour market. When matched with employer and sector data, the experimentally gathered data enable us to test the heterogeneity of discrimination against pro-union applicants by the union density in the sector and the size of the firm. We find that disclosure of pro-unionism affects hiring chances in a negative way and that-in line with our expectations based on the literature-this negative impact is stronger in highly unionised sectors.

Relatively little is known about the youth labour market in Mongolia. This paper studies returns to education of 15-29-year-olds by taking advantage of a recent ad hoc School to Work Transition Survey. Based on augmented Mincerian earnings equations, education and work experience appear to be important determinants of earnings. Vocational does not provide higher wages than compulsory education. Factors bearing wage gains include: living in the capital city and in urban areas in general. Factors bearing wage penalties include: gender, informal work, training, using informal job search networks, herding. Union membership, being a migrant, the civil status are wage neutral.

From 21 February until 19 March, Britain’s university system was engulfed in its largest industrial dispute ever. Lecturers, professors and academic support staff at 61 universities, organised in the University and College Union (UCU), went on strike for 14 days to defend their pensions. At the time of writing (28 March), they continue to take actions short of striking, with 14 further days of strike action planned for the exam period.
In this article, I will give a brief overview of why lecturers, professors and academic support staff went on strike, how the strike movement developed and why the pensions dispute opened a whole array of other questions. By drawing on my own experiences during the strike, informal conversations, participation in union branch meetings and online fora, I argue that the proposed changes to lecturers’ pensions were the catalyst, whereas the causes of the unprecedented levels of strike action run deeper.

Ghana has made significant progress with the reduction of poverty over the last two decades. headcount poverty declined from 51.9% in 1991/92 to 39.5% in 1998/99 and to 28.5% in 2005/06. nonetheless, the extent to which poverty declined varied across the country and amongst different population groups. analysis of poverty trends in Ghana shows that poverty incidence among male headed households (mhhs) is higher than female headed households (fhhs), which is contrary to the "feminization of poverty" hypothesis. moreover fhh and mhh have experienced differential rates of decline in poverty incidence over the past two decades. This paper examines empirically the factors that determine poverty among male-headed and female headed households as well as those that explain the gap in the poverty incidence between the two groups using a logistic regression model and a twofold Blinder-oaxaca decomposition technique respectively. results indicate that factors that determine poverty among male-headed and female-headed households are similar but differ in terms of their effects. The twofold Blinder-oaxaca decomposition reveals that 61.7% of the poverty incidence gap is explained by differences in socioeconomic characteristics of male-headed and female-headed households whilst 38.3% is unexplained by these characteristics. The policy implications are discussed.

Coal is one of the Primary sources of Energy accounting for about 67% of total energy consumption in India. The production of Coal has increased from 35 million tons in 1951 to 409.3 million tons in 2004. At the same time, the Average Daily Employment (ADE) has increased from 352 thousand in 1951 to 405 thousand in 2004. However, the journey of Coal sector was not uniform throughout the five decades. It is shown in recent time that the productivity of labour in coal mines in Tamil Nadu and Orissa is very high in comparison with other major coal producing states, like, West Bengal and Jharkhand. However, the coal mining in Tamil Nadu and Orissa is mostly and increasingly dependents on Open-cast mining. The paper is wanted to show that the labour productivity in coal mine are the boom in productivity in Orissa and Tamil Nadu is only due to the
weighted average of different types of productivities. But, the coals at open-cast and below ground are not same. They are different in quality. So, we simply cannot add (although we are taking the weighted average) the two different quality things. That is why we are getting the problem of Addition.

The Bengal State Aid to Industries Act was passed in 1931 to enable state aid to be given mainly for the purpose of encouraging cottage industries on a small scale. The Act was the outcome of a recommendation made by the Indian Industrial Commission in 1918 which stated that "assistance... be given to small and cottage industries by the local Departments of Industries in the shape of small Government loans or by financing the purchase of plant on the hire-purchase system". This recommendation the Indian Industrial Commission made in view of the lack of financial facilities which stood in the way of extension of small and cottage industries and of those industries which were new to the economy of India. Moreover, it was felt that government financial assistance would also create a favourable environment for investors who till now were unwilling to invest money in undeveloped industries with uncertain prospects until government associated itself with those.

In this paper an attempt has been made to examine certain aspects of the Bengal State Aid to Industries Act, 1931. This has been done in three parts. Part I deals with the course of events leading to the passing of the Act. Part II is a critical study of its working while Part III evaluates its performance in Bengal till 1947. The various moves made to amend the Act and the Rules enacted thereunder are also discussed in Part III.

The paper examines variation in union density in advanced Western countries. It employs newly updated data on unionization which show that differences among industrialized Western nations persist overtime. The analysis includes examination of the role of corporatism, Left party power, Catholic party power, ethnic and linguistic diversity, the religious composition of the population, size of countries and labor force markets, proportion of the government and industry employment, government‟s share of GDP revenue. In addition to cross-national statistical analysis, union density rates are examined by major geographical and cultural clusters of countries, i.e., Northern countries, the Low Countries, English-speaking countries, German-speaking countries and Southern countries. We focus on divergence of union density between the United States and Canada, which belong to the same cluster of Western nations and have similar economic structures. We examine the role of social values and structural, economic, and political factors in divergence of unionism in Canada and the United States. Our analysis employs 1996 Lipset-Meltz survey data on attitudes towards unions in the United States and Canada as well as data from other surveys, such as the World Values Surveys.

El artículo tiene como objetivo abordar los conflictos de la empresa MercadoLibre con los representantes de los gremios de Camioneros y La Bancaria, dos tradicionales gremios de los sectores logístico y financiero de Argentina. Atendiendo a las características más distintivas de la empresa, así como su trayectoria, se pretende dar cuenta del poder de mercado que ha ido conformando tanto a nivel local como regional. De los conflictos analizados se concluye que la empresa estudiada representa un caso reciente y novedoso de cómo evitar los límites legales y laborales que despierta preocupación tanto para los Estados como para el devenir de las organizaciones de los trabajadores.

The last decades, many scholars highlighted the shadow economic activities, regarding their disadvantages (unemployment, impoverishment etc) and advantages (intensifies competition, flexibility in employment etc). During the financial crisis, informal activities rose in noisy way, which triggered the development of special definitions to describe a wide range of actions which in turn have gradually configured and updated the content of the shadow economy term. In this paper we present the theoretical background of the shadow economy term, by selecting the main worldwide literature published from 1973 to 2018. Many studies have tried to definite the shadow economy term but none has ever presented explicitly the adjectives and nouns that are related to shadow economy. Taking into account this analysis it would be useful for the scholars to mention extensively the theoretical background about shadow economy, the critiques towards the school of thoughts, in order to choose the appropriate term in each case and to design and implement the indicative method to estimate the size of the shadow economy. JEL classification numbers: E26

Özet
Bu çalışmada, Türk iye’de Asgari Ücret Tespit Komisyonlarının yapısı ve işleyişine ilişk in k ısa bir
tarihçenin ardından, Asgari Ücret Tespit Komisyonlarında işçi ve işveren temsilcilerinin
yak laşımları, asgari ücretlerin ilk k ez merk ezi bir k omisyon tarafından tespit edildiği 1969 yılından
başlayarak incelenmiştir. 1969-2013 yılları arasındak i Komisyon k ararları temel alınarak yapıla n
analizde, ekonomik ve politik çevrenin, Komisyon k ararları üzerine etk ileri dönemselleştirilerek
tartışılmıştır. 1969-1979 dönemi, asgari ücret tespitinde tarafların temel yak laşımlarının oluştuğu
dönemdir. 1980-1989 dönemine, ask eri yönetim, anti demok ratik siyasi ortam ve neo -liberal
politik alar damgasını vurmuştur. 1990 -1993 döneminde yaşanan asgari ücret döngüsünün
ardından, 1994-2003 döneminde ek onomik k rizlerin ve Uluslararası Para Fonu (IMF) ile imzalanan
stand-by anlaşmalarının, Komisyon k ararları üzerindek i etk ileri yaşanmıştır. Nihayet 2004-2013
yılları, 2004 yılındak i yeni asgari ücret döngüsüne ve daha sonrak i marjinal reel artışlara rağmen,
asgari ücretlerin, geçimlik düzeyin altında k aldığı bir dönem olmuştur. Çalışmanın sonuç bölümü,
işçi ve işveren temsilcilerinin Komisyo nlardak i görüşleri üzerine genel değerlendirmelerden
oluşmak tadır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Türk iye’de asgari ücretler, Asgari Ücret Tespit Komisyonu, Asgari Ücret Tespit
Komisyonu k ararları, Türk iye İşçi Sendik aları Konfederasyonu (TÜRK -İŞ), Türk iye İşveren
Sendik aları Konfederasyonu (TİSK).
Abstract
In this study, following a brief history of the structure and functioning of the Minimum Wage Fixing
Commissions in Turkey, the approaches of the worker and employer representatives in the
Minimum Wage Fixing Commissions are examined starting with the year 1969 when the minimum
wage was first fixed by a central commission. In the analysis made on the basis of Commission’s
decisions between the years 1969-2013, effects of the economic and political environment on
Commission’s decisions are discussed for different periods. In the 1969 -1979 period, the basic
approaches of the parties concerning minimum wage fixing have been formed. The 1980 -1989
period is hallmarked by the rule of military, anti -democratic political environment and neo-liberal
policies. After the minimum wage cycle that occurred in the period of 1990 -1993, the impacts of
economic crises and the stand-by agreements signed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
on the Commission’s decisions are observed. Finally, 2004-2013 is a period when despite a new
minimum wage cycle in 2004 and marginal increases in real terms thereafter, minimum wages
remain below the subsistence level. Concluding part of the study consists of a general assessment on
the views of worker and employer representatives in the Commission.
Keywords: Minimum wages in Turkey, Minimum Wage Fixing Commission, Decisions of the Minimum
Wage Fixing Commission, Confederation of Turk ish Trade Unions (TÜRK -İŞ), Confederation of
Employer Associations of Turkey (TİSK).

Although women constituted a significant part of the total labour force in the mines of India, yet till the end of the First World War very little was done to promote their health and welfare. In the absence of welfare legislation and voluntary work, women faced serious hardship and privation especially during the period of their confinement. Not only were they not paid any wages for the period of their absence, in some cases they lost their jobs and incurred heavy debts to defray the expenses of this critical period of their lives. The International Labour Organisation, founded at the end of World War I to secure and maintain fair and humane conditions for labour, in their very first conference held at Washington in 1919 recommended to its member states, including India, the necessity of providing adequate maternity benefit to their female labour employed in the industrial establishments. The main provisions of the draft convention (stipulated in articles 3 and 4) were: (a) rest periods of six weeks before and after confinement; (b) sufficient maintenance for the mother and child including the provision of free attendance by a doctor or a midwife; (c) an allowance of half-an-hour twice daily for nursing the child; and (d) security against dismissal on account of absence due to confinement. Ever since the adoption of this convention at Washington, the question of maternity benefit had become a subject of debate and discussion in India both inside and outside the legislature.

As it is not possible to study in detail all aspects of the issue in such a short paper, we intend to limit ourselves to certain aspects of it. Section I examines the working of voluntary maternity benefit schemes in the British Indian mines. Section II deals with the enactment of the Indian Mines Maternity Benefit Act, 1941, which was put in the statute book 'to regulate the employment of women in mines for a certain period before and after childbirth and to provide for payment of maternity benefit to them'. It also critically examines the main provisions of the Act. Section III is a study of the working of the Act.

This article comments on an article by Steven Horwitz, who argued that most of the gender pay gap can be explained by factors other than discrimination, such as life choices. The author also raises the question of whether there is a moral duty to discriminate on the basis of gender in some cases, and provides an example.

The relationship between work-life balance and job satisfaction was investigated in this study. It was also planned to look into the influence of certain demographic factors in predicting work satisfaction. The WLB scale developed and standardized by Unnimaya P.S. (2018) on the target sample was used in this study and for the job satisfaction, the model developed by Singh (1990) was used. The Sample involved50 Educators from 5 different Higher Education Institutions of Dimapur District. Results showed that all study variables positively and significantly correlated with each other. Results further showed that selected demographic factors were significantly expected the level of WLB. It is assumed that this research would be useful for creating high performance in a higher academic setting.

“Ajústense los cinturones”: un primer abordaje sobre la ofensiva empresaria y las respuestas de las y los trabajadores aeronáuticos en tiempos de pandemia

Resumen
El trabajo estudia el transporte aéreo en el marco de la actual pandemia y se propone analizar dos ejes: a) la ofensiva de las compañías aéreas ante la retracción de la actividad en el plano global y nacional; b) las respuestas sindicales en Argentina y las dinámicas de conflictividad. Se muestran algunas tendencias generales en la reorganización de los procesos de trabajo y se sostiene que, en el caso argentino, la crisis actual amplificó los efectos de la política aerocomercial conocida como “revolución de los aviones”. El artículo presenta una caracterización de las dinámicas de conflictividad laboral en las dos empresas con mayor participación en el mercado local: Aerolíneas Argentinas y LATAM Argentina entre los meses de marzo a noviembre de 2020. Se identifica que los conflictos en ese período profundizan las tensiones preexistentes entre cuerpos de delegados/as y comisiones directivas y reconfiguran el mapa de alianzas. Desde un enfoque metodológico cualitativo se combina el análisis de fuentes secundarias, principalmente documentos sindicales e informes de organismos especializados, con entrevistas en profundidad a delegados y delegadas sindicales. Estas se realizaron de forma virtual y, en algunos casos, se llevaron a cabo durante el trabajo de campo en las movilizaciones.

"Fasten your seat belts": A first approach to the corporate offensive and the responses of the aeronautical workers in pandemic times


Abstract
The paper aims to analyze two aspects of the air transport sector in the current pandemic: a) the airlines' offensive in the retraction of the economic activity, both globally and nationally; b) the trade union responses in Argentina and the dynamics of conflict. It shows some general trends in the reorganisation of work processes and argues that, in the case of Argentina, the current crisis has amplified the effects of the aero-commercial policy known as the “revolución de los aviones” [Aircraft Revolution]. The article presents a characterization of the dynamics of labour conflict in the two companies with the largest share in the local market: Aerolíneas Argentinas and LATAM Argentina between March and November 2020. It identifies that the conflicts in that period deepen the pre-existing tensions between delegate bodies and unions directive commissions and reconfigure the map of alliances. A qualitative methodological approach combines the analysis of secondary sources, mainly trade union documents and reports from specialised agencies, with in-depth interviews to trade union delegates. These were carried out virtually and, in some cases, during the field work in the demonstrations.

*Original link here: https://www.ilo.org/newdelhi/whatwedo/publications/WCMS_800626/lang--en/index.htm

The past two decades have witnessed a significant increase in the number of worker centres as facilities dedicated to workers. The purpose of this literature review is to review the documentation of these trends, understand the causes for the emergence of such centres, the different contexts in which they were created and their functions. Workers’ centres are usually meant for all types of workers, however literature shows that they tend to cater primarily to the needs of informal workers, migrant workers and other workers in precarious jobs. They also tend to exist and be located in areas where fundamental principles and rights at work (FFRPs), such as non-discrimination, freedom of association and collective bargaining as enshrined in International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions No. 111, No. 87 and No. 98, are a distant reality for its users or members. Practices in different parts of the world indicate that workers’ centres can play an important role, albeit non-exclusive, in creating more enabling conditions for the exercise of some fundamental principles such as freedom of association. The paper includes a list of good practices of workers’ centres.

ISBN: 9789220349205 (Print)
ISBN: 9789220349212 (Web PDF)

On 19th April 2021, the Western Balkan Network Tackling Undeclared Work held an online seminar that brought together representatives from enforcement authorities and social partners. The intention was to discuss and share understanding of the major challenges they face in pursuing greater cooperation and provide tips for other Western Balkan economies on how these challenges might be addressed. It was also an opportunity to explore the scope for greater cooperation and to share learning on the type of initiatives that social partners can pursue to protect legitimate businesses and workers by transforming undeclared work into declared work.
Around 40 participants from the Ministries of Labour, Labour Inspectorates, Tax Authorities and social partners (representatives of trade unions and employers’ associations) across the Western Balkans exchanged views and contributed to peer learning by answering the key discussion topics: identifying major challenges in developing greater cooperation; ways to improve the cooperation between social partners and authorities; and naming practical steps that could be undertaken to improve cooperation.
The aim of this learning resource is to summarise the discussion at the seminar. To do so, section 2 reports the discussion on the scope for greater cooperation between enforcement authorities and social partners, section 3 reports the discussion on the types of initiatives in which social partners could become more involved and section 4 the next steps that can be taken.

This toolkit firstly evaluates the current involvement of Western Balkan social partners in tackling undeclared work and secondly, provides inspiration for social partners by reporting numerous policy initiatives being used by social partners to tackle undeclared work across the Western Balkans, European Union and beyond.

A Commission for the Suppression of the Grey Economy has been established to develop and implement an action plan to move beyond a fragmented approach where the organisations involved in tackling undeclared work operate in “silos” with separate strategies and targets.

In der wissenschaftlichen Diskussion wird Automatisierung üblicherweise als Oberbegriff verwendet, um verschiedene fortschrittliche Technologien wie Computer, fortschrittliche Robotik und künstliche Intelligenz einzuschließen. Forschungsergebnisse aus der Arbeitsmarktökonomie deuten darauf hin, dass einerseits die Zahl der Arbeitsplätze mit mittlerem Qualifikationsniveau aufgrund der Automatisierung von Aufgaben abnimmt, andererseits neue Arbeitsplätze für nicht-routinemäßige Aufgaben sowohl für hoch- als auch für niedrigqualifizierte Arbeitskräfte geschaffen werden.

Dieser Beitrag analysiert den aktuellen Wissensstand und identifiziert drei Lücken in der Literatur mit einem besonderen Fokus auf Deutschland. Weiterer Forschungsbedarf besteht (1) hinsichtlich der Instrumente, die den Übergang von Arbeitnehmern in neue Berufe unterstützen, (2) bezüglich der Auswirkungen von Automatisierung auf gefährdete Arbeitnehmerinnen, (3) der Rolle und der Auswirkungen von Automatisierung auf die berufliche Bildung und (4) der Rolle von Mitbestimmung.

The article analyses the relationship between the MAS-IPSP’s party organization, the main Bolivian social movements, the economic model and the State-society relations during the masista-era. The research relies on over thirty interviews to social and political actors, and on secondary literature. The research recuperates classic analytical tools to explore the different levels of influence reached by the main social organizations surrounding (or composing) the MAS-IPSP and to highlight the role of two relevant conflictual dimensions within the former masista-coalition (salaried versus self-employed workers, indigenism versus developmentalism, among others) which in the middle term jeopardised the hegemony of the MAS-IPSP in Bolivia.

It is a fact that the role played by trade unions has evolved remarkably during the past 20 years. Deregulation, competition in a global arena, wide use of outsourcing, employee participation to profit have
determined a fall in the union membership, thus affecting collective bargaining. Trade unions have to turn threats into opportunities if they still want to impact on work.

Trade unions organisations are called upon to play an important part in promoting the understanding of the risks that banks run when faced with technological progress without the suitable intervention of the human factor. In this respect, unions must check that banks are investing adequate resources in terms of money and time in the reshape of skills.
More than before, there is a need to foster a dialogue between social partners to handle the accelerating aging of the workforce. The concertation must be focused on sharing information, consulting and discussing effective approaches for the management of age differences and the exchange of knowledge between generations. In this way, it is possible to bridge the distance between the different age groups of workers and to achieve intergenerational solidarity, also in the direction of sustainable development in the financial sector.

Este artículo es una aproximación a las relaciones entre empleadores y trabajadores que se dan en las plataformas electrónicas de trabajo de la denominada "economía colaborativa" a partir de la filosofía de Gerald A. Cohen y su definición de la reciprocidad del mercado. De entre todas las implicaciones de la economía colaborativa, mi propósito es analizar el tipo de motivaciones que están presentes en una parte importante de sus intercambios económicos. El objetivo principal del artículo es explicar por qué, cuando los comparamos con otro modelo de relaciones entre empleadores y trabajadores como el propio de la relación laboral en la producción verticalmente integrada, los intercambios económicos de las plataformas electrónicas de trabajo reflejan un mayor protagonismo de las motivaciones mercantilizadoras.

This article is an approach to relations between employers and workers in economic work platforms from the so-called "sharing economy" based on Gerald A. Cohen's philosophy and his definition of market reciprocity. Among all the implications of the sharing economy, my purpose is to analyse the kind of motivations that appear in an important part of its economic exchanges. The main goal of the article is to explain why, when compared with another model of relations between employers and workers such as the one belonging to labour relations in vertically integrated production , economic exchanges in electronic work platforms reflect an increased significance of commodifying motivations.