Pablo Pérez Ahumada (2022) Class politics (European Journal of Industrial Relations)

Pérez Ahumada, Pablo. 2022. “Class Politics, Collective Labor Rights, and Worker-Management Conflict in Comparative Perspective.” European Journal of Industrial Relations, Ahead-of-print version, 5 Nov, pp. 1-23. DOI: 10.1177/09596801221133453  

Abstract

This article studies how perceptions of worker-management conflict are shaped by individual-level and macro-level variables. Drawing upon data from 33 countries from the 2015 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), it uses multilevel models to examine how individual perceptions of worker-management conflict are affected by social class, union membership status, and the country-level protection of collective labor rights. The evidence supports the hypothesis that workers and union members perceive more conflict than employers and non-union members. The results also show that, as hypothesized, perceived workplace conflict is lower in countries with stronger protection of workers’ collective rights. Finally, contrary to an initial hypothesis, cross-level interactions suggest that in countries where collective rights are more strongly protected, union members perceive more worker-management conflict than non-union members. Contributions to the literature on class and power resources as well as to the recent debate on the “neoliberal convergence” of industrial relations (IR) systems are discussed.

Biographies

Pablo Pérez Ahumada is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Chile and Adjunct Researcher at the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (COES, Chile) He is also Director of the Observatory of Labor Strikes (OHL – COES/UAH). His research focuses on social class, industrial relations, labor movements, and politics in Latin America.

Josep Maria Antentas (2022), guest editor, "a special issue on global internationalism"

Special Issue

A Special Issue on Global Internationalism, Labor History

Guest editor, Josep Maria Antentas

 

Antentas, Josep Maria. 2022. “Global Internationalism: An Introduction.” Labor History 63(4): 425-40.

Nastovski, Katherine. 2022. “Transnational Labour Solidarity and the Question of Agency: A Social Dialectical Approach to the Field.” Labor History 63(4): 441-58.

Fox-Hodess, Katy. 2022. “The ‘Iron Law of Oligarchy’ and North-South Relations in Global Union Organisations: A Case Study of the International Dockworkers Council’s Expansion in the Global South.” Labor History 63(4): 459-78.

Musto, Marcello. 2022. “History and Political Legacy of the International Working Men’s Association.” Labor History 63(4): 479-91.

Prezioso, Stefanie. 2022. “Globalisation, Internationalism and the Great War.” Labor History 63(4): 492-502.

Walsh, Owen. 2022. “The Human Ocean of the Colored Races”: Interwar Black Internationalism, Marxism, and Permanent Revolution.” Labor History 63(4): 503-17.

Ritchie, Genevieve. 2022. “Migration as Class Struggle: Refugee Youth, Work Rights, and Solidarity.” Labor History 63(4): 518-30.

Michele Ford and Michael Gillan (2022) "Understanding global union repertoires of action"

Ford, Michele and Michael Gillan. 2022. “Understanding Global Union Repertoires of Action.” Industrial Relations Journal 53: 559-77.

Abstract

Unlike national trade unions, which operate within country-specific industrial relations systems, Global Unions have an international mandate and multi-scalar positionality. As a consequence, their repertoires of action and the opportunity structures available to them differ from those of national unions. Drawing on qualitative interview data and fieldwork observations, we propose a typology of different strategic domains used by the Global Union Federations (GUFs), which identifies their characteristics, scale and constraints. We then discuss two cases that illustrate how complementary strategies of (a) engaging in incremental innovation and (b) combining repertoires from different strategic domains have supported the GUFs' desire to play a stronger role as global labour governance intermediaries.

Lefeng LIN (2022) "Power resources and workplace collective bargaining"

Lin, Lefeng. 2022. “Power Resources and Workplace Collective Bargaining: Evidence from China.” The Journal of Chinese Sociology 9: 1-27.

Abstract

During the strike wave of 2010, S provincial authority began to support trade unions in experimenting with workplace union elections and collective bargaining. Drawing data from union documents and ethnographic research, the variability in workplace collective bargaining in the context of official union reform in Y City in S Province is explained in this article. By comparing multiple enterprise union collective bargaining cases, four models of workplace collective bargaining in practice are identified in the research: moderated mobilization, technical negotiation, collective consultation, and managerial domination. Using the power resources approach to analyze collective bargaining, the author argues that the various practices result from the dynamic interactions between workers’ power configuration and employers’ perception of disruption. Furthermore, the author argues that the variability in workplace collective bargaining is not a transient phenomenon but a semi-institutionalized middle ground.

Jörg Nowak (2022) "Data Labour as Alienated or Liberated Labour?"

Nowak, Jörg. 2022. “Data Labour as Alienated or Liberated Labour? Proposals for Radical Economic Change from the Silicon Valley in the Light of Technological Reification.” Global Political Economy 1(2): 293-307. 

Abstract

This article delivers a critical analysis of the proposal to pay wages or royalties to data providers for any form of provision of digital data. It has been developed primarily by researchers of the Microsoft research department. The proposal to create mediators of individual data as trade unions of data providers aims at economic inclusion of everyday users of computers and smartphones. The article analyses the shortcomings of the proposal which does not consider the issue that many workers are obliged to provide data at their workplaces, and the problem of increasing digital tracking of workers’ productive activities. Furthermore, the proposal to pay wages for everyday activities lacks any strategy or vision to create more meaningful and satisfying work relations. 

Darragh Golden and Roland Erne (2022, European Journal of Industrial Relations)

Golden, Darragh and Roland Erne. 2022. “Ryanair Pilots: Unlikely Pioneers of Transnational Collective Action.” European Journal of Industrial Relations. First published online 6 May.

Abstract

In aviation, EU single market rules empowered Ryanair over three decades to defeat all pilot unions across Europe, regardless of the notionally strong power resources on which they were relying in their countries. Nonetheless, in December 2017, a transnational group of union-related pilots, the European Employee Representative Committee was critical in forcing Ryanair to finally recognize trade unions. This study shows that multinationals’ ability to circumvent national union power resources does not necessarily undermine transnational collective action. Hence, transnational union strength does not primarily depend on an aggregation of national power resources, but on union activists’ ability to exploit union-friendly peculiarities that the EU governance regime is also providing. We show that the apparently weaker institutional power resources at EU level provides more effective leverage for transnational collective action than apparently stronger power resources embedded within French, Danish, or Norwegian labour law. This requires an understanding of scale.

O

Szabó, Imre G., Darragh Golden and Roland Erne (2022 JCMS)

Why Do some Labour Alliances Succeed in Politicizing Europe across Borders? 

A Comparison of the Right2Water and Fair Transport European Citizens’ Initiatives

Journal of Common Market Studies 60(3): 634-652. 

by IMRE  G.  SZABÓ, DARRAGH  GOLDEN and  ROLAND  ERNE

University College  Dublin,  Dublin

Abstract

Under what conditions can organized labour successfully politicize the European integration process across borders? To answer this question, we compare the European Citizens’ Initiatives (ECIs)of two European trade union federations: EPSU’s successful Right2Water ECI and ETF’s unsuccessful Fair Transport ECI. Our comparison reveals that actor-centred factors matter–namely, unions’ ability to create broad coalitions. Successful transnational labour campaigns, however, also depend on structural conditions, namely, the prevailing mode of EU integration pressures faced by unions at a given time. Whereas the Right2Water ECI pre-emptively countered commodification attempts by the European Commission in water services, the Fair Transport ECI attempted to ensure fair working conditions aftermost of the transport sector had been liberalized. Vertical EU integration attempts that commodify public services are thus more likely to generate successful transnational counter-movements than the horizontal integration pressures on wages and working conditions that followed earlier successful EU liberalization drives.

Keywords: European integration; governance; public services; trade unions; social movements; direct democracy