Flexible Employment Conditions Research Articles

ГИБКАЯ ЗАНЯТОСТЬ: ГЛОБАЛЬНЫЙ, РОССИЙСКИЙ И РЕГИОНАЛЬНЫЙ АСПЕКТЫ

The current trend in the world social development is characterized by crossing state borders, formation of universal cultural, scientific, economic, and labor space. That is why scientists all over the world pay much attention to various researches of the global labor market. One of the key tendencies in the global labor market development is formation of wide spread of flexible employment modes. This phenomenon requires absolutely new approaches to its theoretical and methodical understanding, selection of governmental employment policy completely different from the existing ones. The authors make a comparative analysis of the scope of flexible employment in global economy, and define the tendencies of its further development. The investigation allows to find out, that the global market is described by the growth of flexibility, which is ultimately reasoned by innovative nature of the modern society and economy. An important feature of contemporary trends in Russian labor market development is appearance and spread of flexible employment as well. A number of researches performed for one of typical Russian labor markets have defined specificities of flexible employment form perception by employers and employees. The authors have ascertained the reasons impeding the advancement of such forms and their advantages. This study allows to determine the peculiarities of the employees’ motivation under the flexible employment conditions. It is also found out that development of unusual employment forms brings about both positive and negative results. One of important problems in Russia preventing further development of flexible employment forms is “legal helplessness” of both employees and employers, which can only be overcome by combined efforts of the authorities, employee representatives, and employers. Commitment to conceptual international provisions for employment transformation under current conditions, aimed at the innovative social and economic development, may help here, insofar as presently, the Russian Federation is an integral part of the global economy.&nbsp

A re-examination of flexible employment practices in Japan

This article re-examines commonly held perspectives on flexible employment practices used in Japanese organisations. Recent research has concluded that market conditions have caused a shift away from lifetime employment and towards flexible employment. To examine this position, the literature is compared with statistics available from Japan's Nippon Keidanren, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Public Management Ministry, Ministry of Health Labour and Welfare, the United Nations and OECD. A synthesis of these sources demonstrates that flexible employment practices are part of a historic, not recent, model of employment. Concluding with an integrated table of key labour market statistics, the article highlights a Western academic tendency to rely on the macro-level three pillars model and not use meso-level labour statistics as a reference point to define flexible employment conditions in Japanese organisations.

Results of surveys among drivers and customers of for-hire three-wheelers in five small towns in Sri Lanka

Ownership of three-wheelers, a mode of paratransit, is rapidly increasing in Sri Lanka. Results of a survey among drivers and customers of for-hire three-wheelers are analysed in the present paper, which has direct policy relevance for policymakers and urban planners in Asian developing countries. Two sets of questionnaires were employed to examine the characteristics and perceptions of for-hire three-wheeler drivers and customers. Ability to own (affordability) and flexible employment conditions emerged as the top reasons for the rapid increase. The emergence of three-wheeler services is largely attributable to inadequate public transport services in small towns. Users report that a three-wheeler reduces travel time, increases comfort, makes it easy to reach the destination, facilitates day-to-day activities, and serves well in an emergency situation. However, the results reveal, among other things, that about 35.8 per cent of the drivers had had an accident in the 12-month period prior to the survey, 56 per cent had less than two years of driving experience, and 92.8 per cent had driven under the influence of alcohol. During the day, the most serious problems are the non-allocation of a stand or a lack of parking in crowded areas, and frequent attacks by gangsters. At night, problems include inadequate street lights and being called on for use in unlawful activities. Nevertheless, considering the employment it generates and the valuable services it provides, this industry continues to grow and operate in Sri Lanka, especially in small towns.

Conflict and repression in an Argentinean car factory: a cycle of resistance from a worker’s perspective

This article presents a worker’s account of two factory occupations in Argentina. This reconstruction, rather than focusing on the role of specific agents, allows an unveiling of the dynamics through which the clash between the employer’s drive for profitability and workers’ interests in defence of their salaries developed. A cycle of conflict, resistance, repression and finally workers’ subordination and acceptance of flexible employment conditions can be identified. Despite the tendency of the capitalist mode of production to produce divisions among workers in the workplace and society, the article highlights the importance of direct action, solidarity and democratic organising as workers’ tools to react to and transform the system.

Flexible employment, economic insecurity and social policy preferences in Europe

This paper examines how flexible employment, particularly temporary and part-time employment, affect political support for social policy protection. Although their implications are a priori uncertain, the paper lays out how flexible employment conditions can be expected to generate various kinds of economic insecurity for workers that ought in turn to spur support for social-welfare policies. The paper finds broad support for such expectations in individual-level survey data from 15 EU member states. In particular, part-time employment, temporary employment and their combination tend to increase several measures of an individual’s subjective economic insecurity. Further, partly due to such increases, the same measures of flexible employment tend to spur support for social policy assistance targeted at the unemployed.

Flexicurity And Its Effects On Legal Regulations Throughout Europe

Globalization, acceleration of economic integration, technological advancement which enables SMEs to compete with big companies, ageing population, low rate of birth and segmentation of labour force during 1980’s and 1990’s are foundation of European Employment Strategy which was created in 1997. The strategy is followed by most important objective put forward in Lisbon Strategy of 2000 that shaped Europe’s first decade of 21st century : making EU the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion. The Lisbon Strategy constitutes a dilemma, however, for European companies, institutions, governments, labour force and EU itself. The companies need to work in a flexible labour markets, flexible work organizations and flexible employment conditions to compete and survive in a global economy. The labour force, on other hand, needs strengthened social security, especially increased social programs for vulnerable groups alongside flexibility options for increased quality of life. The remedy of this dilemma is one of most important current socio-political subjects of Europe : Flexicurity. This article investigates born and meaning of term flexicurity, its principles and elements and its effects on labour regulations throughout Europe. The legal changes in different countries from different social model within Europe are presented. The flexicurity programs in Turkish labour legislation are also taken into account to make a comparison as country wants to join EU in near future.

Entrepreneurial Labor among Cultural Producers: “Cool” Jobs in “Hot” Industries

This article compares the work of fashion models and “new media workers” (those who work in the relatively new medium of the Internet as dot-com workers) in order to highlight the processes of entrepreneurial labor in culture industries. Based on interviews and participant-observation in New York City, we trace how entrepreneurial labor becomes intertwined with work identities in cultural industries both on and off the job. While workers are drawn to the autonomy, creativity and excitement that jobs in these media industries can provide, they have also come to accept as normal the high risks associated with this work. Diffused through media images, this normalization of risk serves as a model for how workers in other industries should behave under flexible employment conditions. Using interview data from within the fashion media and the dot-com world, we discuss eight forces that give rise to the phenomenon of entrepreneurial labor: the cultural quality of cool, creativity, autonomy, self-investment, compulsory networking, portfolio evaluations, international competition, and foreshortened careers. We also provide a model of what constitutes the hierarchy of “good work” in cultural industries, and we conclude with implications of what entrepreneurial labor means for theories of work.

Women Workers in Male Dominated Industrial Manufacturing Organisations: Contrasting Workplace Case Studies from Australia

mrev management revue , Seite 458 - 474

Sources of Racial Wage Inequality in Metropolitan Labor Markets: Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Differences

Research on racial inequality has become increasingly specialized, often focusing on a single explanation and subgroup of the population. In a diverse society, a broader comparative framework for interpreting the causes of wage inequality for different racial, ethnic, and gender groups is called for. The effects of a range of different factors on the wages of Latinos, Asians, and blacks, relative to whites and separately for women and men, are examined. New sources of racial wage inequality are also considered. Significant differences are found in the sources of wage inequality across race, ethnicity, and gender. Differences are generally greater between racial and ethnic groups than between men and women. Key findings include a large negative effect of immigration on the relative wages of Latinos and Asians and only a small effect on the relative wages of black women (and no effect on black men). In contrast, the relative wages of blacks remain most affected positively by the presence of manufacturing employment and unions. New economy indicators of high-skill services and flexible employment conditions play only a secondary role in explaining metropolitan racial wage inequality.

Sources of Racial Wage Inequality in metropolitan labor markets: Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Differences

Research on racial inequality has become increasingly specialized, often focusing on a single explanation and subgroup of the population. In a diverse society, a broader comparative framework for interpreting the causes of wage inequality for different racial, ethnic, and gender groups is called for. The effects of a range of different factors on the wages of Latinos, Asians, and blacks, relative to whites and separately for women and men, are examined. New sources of racial wage inequality are also considered. Significant differences are found in the sources of wage inequality across race, ethnicity, and gender. Differences are generally greater between racial and ethnic groups than between men and women. Key findings include a large negative effect of immigration on the relative wages of Latinos and Asians and only a small effect on the relative wages of black women (and no effect on black men). In contrast, the relative wages of blacks remain most affected positively by the presence of manufacturing employment and unions. New economy indicators of high-skill services and flexible employment conditions play only a secondary role in explaining metropolitan racial wage inequality.

High-Performance Organizations and Employment Flexibility: a Case Study of in situ Change at the Powell River Paper Mill, 1980–1994

Throughout virtually all mass production industries in North America, including the Canadian newsprint industry, a significant theme of restructuring involves a transition from ‘Fordist’ to more ‘flexible’ methods of production and employment. In this paper, shifts towards smaller, more flexible employment conditions are assessed from the perspective of a model of ‘high-performance organizations’. In this model, employment flexibility is defined in terms of the blurring of the boundaries between management and workers and by continual investment in skill promotion in the pursuit of a polyvalent workforce. In practice, such issues are subject to labour-management bargaining, the outcomes of which are uncertain. Empirically, this paper provides a case study of bargaining over employment flexibility, specifically at the Powell River paper mill, to assess the extent to which the standards of the high-performance model are being achieved.

Flexible employment practices and working time patterns: the potential for and limits of ecological impact

The discussion about the relationship between employment policy and environment policy has been predominantly about the extent to which environmental issues can be brought into industrial relations policy. Environmental problems are perceived as additional factors of influence, which have an impact on job security and working conditions, and which have so far not been adequately taken into account in standards and rules. From the current viewpoint of union representatives, conservation of the environment is being brought into discussion in the form of an "employment policy extended to include the environment". Progress made in this field in recent years is increasingly undermined by radical changes in the labour market. The current phase is being determined by high and rising rates of unemployment, growing numbers of casual and temporary jobs and stagnating pay levels. The strategies of management focus on increasing the flexibility of the workforce, in the form of flexible employment conditions, and more flexible use of laboúr. These changes in the crucial framework conditions for paid employment are bound to have a significant influence on the attitudes and behaviour of employees with regard to conservation of the environment. In the following article, we shall be looking at two aspects: Garcia and La Roca (1) deal with the increase in casual and temporary jobs, and Hildebrandt and Kühleis (2) deal with new patterns of working hours. This different emphasis relates to different aspects of "increased flexibility" . On the one hand, flexibility can be seen as a sign of increasing job insecurity, with the consequence that the scope for sustainable attitudes and behaviour is less than before. If, on the other hand, increased flexibility is seen as an opportunity for negotiating more leisure time and power for workers to allocate their time as they want - as in the German case - the room for manoeuvre is greater and it opens up possibilities for a sustainable way of life. The remarks in the first section deal with a representative survey of current attitudes in Spain, and lead to predominantly ' negative results. The second section deals with new models of working hours, and in this context, it examines the conditions and opportunities for positive changes in the lifestyle of employees. The approaches in the first and second section are not directly comparable, but they do provide insight into possible consequences of new management strategies for ecological commitment among employees in their working and leisure time.