Labour Agency Research Articles

PENGARUH LINGKUNGAN KERJA DAN KEPUASAN KERJA TERHADAP KINERJA PEGAWAI

The objective of this research is to identify and analyze the effects of workplace environment and job satisfaction on employee performance at the Cooperative, Micro Business, and Labor Agency of Kediri City. The population of this applied quantitative research is the employees of the Cooperative, Micro Business, and Labor Agency of Kediri City, from which forty people were selected as the respondents using probability sampling method. The results of the inferential statistical analysis and multiple linear regression have led to findings that workplace environment and job satisfaction significantly affect employee performance. The findings are an indication that the performance of employees at the Cooperative, Micro Business, and Labor Agency of Kediri City is determined by their workplace environment and job satisfaction.

The control and agency dialectic of guest worker programmes: evidence from Chinese construction workers in Japan’s Technical Intern Training Program (TITP)

ABSTRACT Guest worker programs entail an intrinsic tension between control over workers’ mobility and workers’ agency. By drawing on the qualitative data from Chinese construction workers in Japan’s Technical Intern Training Program (TITP), I illuminate the dialectical nature of the tension between control and agency. My findings suggest that labor recruiters and employers implement labor control, but their practices have the opposite effect of pressing workers to abscond or to do irregular jobs. Staying in the program is not an outcome of effective control, but a response to circumstances wherein revisions to Japan’s immigration policy bring rewards while China’s surveillance policies incur potential punishments. The control-agency dialectic suggests that the regulative focus should be shifted from workers to employers and recruiters. Incorporating approaches of spatiotemporality and relationality, I analyze how workers sustain relations with various actors through three interconnected temporal stages, and how the relational dynamics shape workers’ varied mobility choices. Two features of the construction industry shape workers’ circumstances and occasionally facilitate their mobility: the stratification of the labor force according to legal status and the subcontract system. The paper thus highlights the need to contextualise labor agency in changing state policies, relations with co-ethnics, and industry-specific features.

Trucking (un)limited – the impact of digital platforms on labour in production networks of logistics

Abstract For many years, struggles over value capture have been taking place between different actors in the logistics sector, creating ever more pressure for workers in traditional activities of logistics. New actors, in the form of digital business-to-business (B2B) platforms, which are proliferating especially in the freight transport sector, are further challenging the already contested field. Based on the Global Production Networks (GPN) approach, this study addresses the question of how B2B platforms affect labour in production networks of logistics, and what labour agency practices are emerging in the face of advancing platformisation. The study draws on interviews with various actors operating in the road freight transport sector in Germany. The results show that digital B2B platforms, due to their intermediary function, have a direct impact on the inclusion and exclusion of actors involved in production networks of logistics, and induce not only a race to the bottom in terms of labour conditions, but also produce increasingly contingent geographies of logistics. This paper contributes to the literature on platforms by examining previously neglected B2B platforms and shedding light on the different ways that labour in global production networks can be affected by new agents, such as digital platforms.

Trajectories of value capture, strategic coupling and labour regime reconfiguration: Coal mining, automotives and business services in post-socialist Romania

Drawing on global production network research and conceptual explanations of the changing spatial divisions of labour, this article investigates the transformative effects of the dynamic interplay between strategic coupling and multiscalar changes across labour regimes in Central and Eastern European post-socialist sectoral trajectories. It interrogates critically whether sectors across peripheral regions have been able to slot themselves into lead firms’ transnational production systems, resulting in processes of value creation, value capture or value destruction. The empirical analysis reveals that the capacity of domestic resources to purposively match and align themselves to global lead firms and their strategic objectives is influenced by local historical legacies, spatiality, elite agency and labour agency, which combined to shape distinct meso-level transformations. The methodology is based on analysing the post-socialist transformation of three sectors in Romania, which have different historical legacies, institutional configurations, and spatial and temporal vectors of development, allowing us to trace interactions between different modes of strategic coupling or decoupling and labour regime reconfiguration. The central thrust of the article highlights how different modes of strategic coupling into global production networks, or decoupling from global production networks, are causally linked to the reconfiguration of labour regimes, leading to long-term regional socio-economic transformations.

The case for an environmental labor geography: The role of organized labor in the climate crisis

Geographers have increasingly studied labor and climate change, albeit not in a unitary field. I propose to address this by outlining an environmental labor geography – that draws from labor geography’s tenets. Moreover, I agree with other scholars that organized worker-led mass movements will be key to solving the climate crisis. Thus, I argue that labor agency is a useful tool that centers workers’ actions. However, to derive useful generalizations for struggles on the ground, the concept should be delimited to organized expressions of agency. Finally, I examine past and present conversion debates as cases of interest in ELG.

Memetakan Pola Komunikasi Dinas Tenaga Kerja dalam Memediasi Konflik Industrial di Kabupaten Mandailing Natal

This study aimed to describe the Islamic communication model of the Labour Agency in mediating industrial relation conflicts between employers and labourers in Mandailing Natal District. This study used a qualitative descriptive method. The results of this study indicated that the Labour Agency used Islamic communication model in mediating the Industrial relation conflicts. This study discovered that the role of interpersonal religious communication from the mediators to solve the disputes between the labourers and employers of Mandailing Natal Labor Agency was very crucial. In this case, interpersonal communication through dakwah was highly useful in formulating solutions that could be accepted by both conflicting sides without causing further conflicts. Islamic communication models should be investigated further in order to complement the Western communication theory in solving labour disputes such as in Mandailing Natal.

Theory of labor relations in the context of the transformation of the sphere of work: designation of the problem

The problems of modernization of the subject of Labor Law and the theory of labor relations in the context of the transformation of the labor sphere are considered. Based on the historical analysis of the process of structuring the law on the branches, the direction of development of private-public branches and, above all, Labor Law is predicted. The convergence of the theory of a single indivisible labor legal relationship by N.G. Aleksandrov and the theory of a complex of unified labor relations V.N. Skobelkin in the context of the transition to new technological paradigms and the growth of differentiation in the ways of organizing labor. On the basis of the theory of a complex of unified labor legal relations, ways are proposed to expand the subject of the branch of Labor Law by including in it new relations arising on a contractual and non-contractual basis related to the use of human labor. The necessity of changing the presumption of proving the existence of labor relations, the three-subject composition of the participants in the system of legal relations arising from the use of agency labor (a contract for the provision of an employee), and the joint liability of subjects on the side of the employer (solidary employer) are substantiated.

Law enforcement in context of transformation of the labor sphere and modernization of the theory of labor relations

The subject of research is the problems of modernization of the subject of labor law and the theory of labor relations in the context of the transformation of the labor sphere The purpose of article is to confirm or disprove hypothesis thatThe methodology of research is formal legal and logical interpretation of Russian Constitution and labor legislation, analysis of the academic publications concerning labor law. Based on the historical analysis of the law structuring process, the direction of development of labor law as a private-public branch of law.The main results, scope of application. It is substantiated that the totality of elements of legal relations, characteristic of both private and public law (freely entering into labor relations on the basis of an agreement, but forced to fulfill obligations under the agreement exclusively by personal labor, obeying the employer’s will in the process of labor activity), should be a system (an interconnected integrative set having an anti-entropic character) in order to function effectively. The removal of some elements from this system entails an imbalance in the system of the labor law branch as a whole, with possible subsequent destruction. On the basis of a systematic approach, the formation and development of the theory of labor relations in domestic legal science are studied. The foundations of the convergent "theory of the plurality of unified labor relations", developed for application in the conditions of transition to new technological paradigms and growing differentiation of forms of labor organization, are proposed and substantiated. This theory was developed on the basis of the “theory of a single indivisible labor relationship” by N.G. Aleksandrov and "the theory of the complex of labor relations" V.N. Skobelkin. On the basis of the theory of plurality of unified labor legal relations, the prospects for expanding the subject of the branch of labor law are determined by including in it emerging new relations that are associated with the use of human labor on a contractual and non-contractual basis. A motivated assumption is formulated that such an expansion of the subject of labor law will make it possible to complete the process begun a century and a half ago and finally remove all contracts providing for the employment of labor from the subject of civil law in favor of labor law. A contract of personal employment between individuals, assuming the equality of the parties to the use of independent labor not with a single employer, will remain civil law. Through the institutions of labor protection, social insurance and social partnership, labor law should begin a systematic expansion to any emerging new form of organization of human labor. After that, a new form of labor organization can be subject to various sets of other industry norms and institutions, the use of which ensures the protection of the employee and an increase in production efficiency. The necessity of changing the presumption of proving the existence of labor relations to proving civil relations is substantiated.Conclusions. The article substantiates the three-subject composition of the participants in the system of legal relations arising from the use of agency labor (contract on the provision of an employee) and the need to establish joint liability of subjects on the side of the employer (solidary employer). It proves the need to release the employee from liability for offenses detected by artificial intelligence. It is proposed to continue research on the prospects for the formation of labor procedural law.

Labour geography I: Labour agency, informal work, global south perspectives and the ontology of futures

This review builds on Strauss’s (2020) discussion of how labour geographers conceptualise worker agency ontologically and epistemologically. Research on labour agency has been dominated by a narrow and limited lens based on a materialist ontology of capitalistic production which tends to depict labour agency as a ‘spatial fix’. Considering this critique, I review three themes of research on labour agency that push the boundaries of such dominant conceptualisations: understanding labour agency in informal work and by workers on the fringes of formalised economic spaces; from perspectives in the Global South; and via an ontology of the future.

Contrasting union orientations and engagement with international private regulation: The agency and role of labour in MNC subsidiaries in Ghana

AbstractThis article focuses on multinational company subsidiaries in Ghana with contrasting approaches to international private regulation. The findings explore the nature and outcomes of international private regulation but also the agency of unions and their orientations in terms of whether they valued and engaged with international private regulation or otherwise. Local union orientations and industrial relations dynamics are key influences on whether international private regulation is meaningfully applied or perceived as useful, and these contrasted notably within the research underpinning this article.

Any Labour Geographies in Urban Theory? Workers Meet Lefebvre and Harvey (Yet Again)

AbstractThis paper examines the urban theory of Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey to construct anurbanperspective on labour geographies. Lefebvre understood work in a work–nonwork continuum beyond binarism, and Lefebvre and Harvey hailed the outpouring of working‐class agency from cities. However, they may have obscured the role of labour movements in urbanisation when identifying the living‐place (such as streets, neighbourhoods, or housing) as the primary seat of urban agency. Learning from labour geographers in the 1990s, I query this ambiguity to enhance the urban theory of Lefebvre and Harvey, conceive of the urban scale as the site ofunfinishedindustrial/urban dialectics, and conceptualise labour agency as a producer of transformative continua in urbanisation. Interpreting Toyota’s factories as rescaled pivots of industrial urbanisation, I explore how Japanese labour movements challenged just‐in‐time production, its union form, and its work/nonwork divides, producing new urbanising continua—even planetary ones—between different transformative agencies.

Workers’ motile subjectivities and the socio-spatial formations of Chinese state-owned enterprises

This paper explores the interplay between labor agency and the socio-spatial structure of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the context of globalization. Drawing on Coe & Jordhus-Lier’s theorization of constrained labor agency with insights from new mobilities paradigm, we develop the concept of motile subjectivity to explain the multiplicity of constrained agency and workers’ different employment practices intervened in SOE socio-spatial formations. Based on field research conducted in SOEs in the Northeastern provinces of China, our analysis unfolds that workers’ motile subjectivities mainly drive three threads of employment practices, namely demission, positional promotion, and part-time work, which involve workers’ variegated mobile and immobile experiences. These (im)mobilities affect workers’ ongoing social and spatial practices and further conjoin with the reproduction of SOE socio-spaces with both manifestations of stable danwei and multi-scalar modern enterprises. Our study contributes to labor geography scholarship by theorizing the actualization of workers’ motile subjectivities in SOE socio-spatial formations. It also provides insights for future SOE studies to seriously consider workers’ motile subjectivities.

‘We’re messing up capitalism through collaboration’: transformative labour agency in German worker-led companies

From a labour geography perspective, workers are capable of (re)shaping economic spaces, commonly understood as ‘labour agency’. This article conceptualises and discusses German worker-led companies (WLCs) as sites of ‘transformative labour agency’. It demonstrate how workers consciously alter work and production structures through collective ownership and decision-making. In concert with post-growth research, empirical findings show how workers in German WLCs intentionally align their work structures with socioeconomic transformations beyond economic growth. Examples for transformative labour agency are reductions in working time, definitions of work that include unpaid labour and social reproduction as well as limitations on private profit generation. The article explores how far collectively managing decision-making and ownership can be understood as a way of ‘commoning labour’. It further analyses how German WLCs prefigure post-capitalist work practices in a capitalist present despite institutional constraints.

How COVID-19 Has Redistributed Human Mobility

The pandemic has ushered in drastic new restrictions on the right to move, as governments have imposed lockdowns in more or less organized ways. In pursuit of its zero-COVID policy, China has gone farther than most in the extent and rigor of its mobility restrictions. Responsibility for enforcement has been redistributed to lower-level officials, landlords, and migrant labor agencies, while food delivery companies and others in the mobility business have thrived. These redistributions of mobility are likely to remain in place beyond the pandemic, changing relations between government and citizens.

IMPLEMENTASI SURAT EDARAN MENTERI KETENAGAKERJAAN NO.M/3/HK.04/III/2020 DALAM MELINDUNGI KELANGSUNGAN HIDUP BURUH DAN PELAKU USAHA PADA MASA PANDEMI COVID-19

The economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has an impact on the employment situation in Indonesia. Seeing this situation, the Central Government through its policies made several efforts to deal with this problem. One form of government policy through the Minister of Manpower issued a Circular Letter of the Minister of Manpower No.M/3/HK.04/III/2020 concerning Protection of Workers/Labourers and Business Continuity in the Context of Prevention and Control of Covid-19, but almost all business actors or companies in responding to the government's policy by limiting social activities, including many companies that have taken the policy to lay off and cut wages for their workers/employees. The research method used is a research specification that is descriptive analytical using a Sociological Juridical Research approach. The research stage is through research that uses primary data and secondary data. Data collection techniques are document studies and interviews. The data collection tool uses library data and field data. In accordance with the approach method applied, the data obtained for this study were analyzed in a qualitative juridical manner. deductions from the wages of workers/laborers by employers and finally wage cuts can be made through the agreement of both parties due to the spread of the covid-19 virus as regulated based on the Circular Letter of the Minister of Manpower of the Republic of Indonesia Number M/3/Hk.04/III/2020. In resolving the issue of unilaterally cutting wages, it can be done by means of Bipartite and Tripartite. However, the recommendations issued by the labor agency mediator in this case do not have coercive power for the parties to carry out.

Labour agency in the future of work: Shenzhen’s maker community

AbstractSince emerging around 2010, maker culture and the maker movement have drawn little attention from digital labour research. This article fills the gap by exploring sociocultural dynamics that have emerged in maker culture, such as how makers in China mobilise their agency to struggle for a path forward to achieve decent work and a better society. The article first reviews research on the Chinese maker community as well as digital labour, in particular the dualism of exploitation and workplace resistance in current digital labour research. It argues that makers, in the case studied, mobilise certain agency initiating from sociocultural dynamics beyond the framework of exploitation. The article then explicates the argument with cases collected from our fieldwork in Shenzhen’s maker community in July–August 2017. It shows makers’ practices originating from the open-source ethos, such as an awareness of sharing and mutual support in moulding a ‘micro-innovation’ model, and in creating products that aim to benefit vulnerable communities and build up a sustainable ecosystem. The article thus turns the current economic discussion on maker culture in a new direction: the sociocultural impact of the maker movement. Furthermore, it suggests that this research on the sociocultural impact fills the gap between existing digital labour research and maker studies.

Overview and commentary of the California Workplace Technology Accountability Act

ABSTRACT Technological innovation and the resulting automation are increasingly being applied in the workplace, which is a high-risk context where decisions can majorly impact a worker’s life. Consequently, a number of ethical concerns with automated employment decision systems have been raised, with California proposing the Workplace Technology Accountability Act to limit the use of electronic monitoring systems and automated decision systems to specific times of day, activities and locations that must be proven as essential job functions. Workers would also be given the right to know, review and correct data held about them by their employer. In this article, we summarise and discuss the key points of the legislation before providing a commentary, where we identify four key themes: (i) how boundaries can contribute to a healthy work-life balance and protect the privacy of workers; (ii) how the requirement for impact assessments reflects the wider movement towards algorithmic assurance; (iii) the necessary and potentially problematic requirement to share notices and impact assessment reports with the Labor Agency; and (iv) how the Act might conflict with existing laws. Our intended readership is those interested in the regulation of automated employment decision tools, algorithmic assurance, and the potential impact of the proposed legislation.

Can certification increase trade fairness and worker empowerment? Lessons from Fairtrade International-certified plantations in Ecuador

This article analyzes the strategic potential and empirical challenges of private governance in promoting decent work in global agriculture by curtailing buyer power and fostering labor agency, drawing lessons from Fairtrade International-certified flower plantations in Ecuador. The study explains (1) Fairtrade’s logic in promoting ‘trade fairness’ and ‘worker empowerment’ and operationalization of these values via its certification standards, (2) the power relations shaping certification practices in global flower markets and Ecuadorian plantations, and (3) the grounded implications of participation for firms and workers. Important lessons emerge. First, while Fairtrade pursues a promising avenue for challenging the buyer control that erodes supplier and worker power, it has only marginally reduced floral buyer power due to retailer resistance, low-bar certification competition, and programmatic regulatory gaps. Second, although Fairtrade’s empowerment approach has strengthened labor agency within and beyond the workplace, bolstering individual empowerment has proved easier than fostering associational power. As I show, certification practices and outcomes are mediated by commodity-specific global market politics and localized enterprise, labor force, and legal contestations which explain why program aspirations are often not realized. Standard systems can reshape internal trade relations and organizations but cannot alone ensure global trade equity or robust labor representation.

Wellbeing and Labour Conditions in Modern Construction Industry

In this paper, we empirically examine the conditions of labour and workers’ wellbeing in contemporary world of construction work in respect to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. During the last three decades of neoliberal reforms, construction industry has completely reshaped and emerged as the second most priority destination of FDI equity inflow as well as 2nd largest employer of non-formal workforce in India. Thus, using descriptive analytics, the analysis is based on primary data collected by interviewing 400 construction workers at the sampled large construction worksites spread across Delhi National Capital Region of both public and private MNCs. The findings describes that more flexible hiring process has weakened the compliance on conditions of work, safety, and other welfare measures. Further, de-facto reinforcing the traditional non-standard norms of labour mobilization has not only trapped the workers in neo-bondage kind of labour relations, but growth without decent wellbeing of stakeholders is in complete contradiction to what neoliberal claims of ‘free the agency of labour’ and what most of the government committed to SDGs goals.

Migrants and Undeclared Employment within the European Construction Sector: Challenging Dichotomous Approaches to Workers’ Agency

Drawing upon qualitative data on Albanians residing in Italy and Greece, this article furnishes new insights into the topic of undeclared migrant construction workers’ agency. It analyses different types of undeclared work through Katz’s theoretical framework that suggests a disaggregated conceptualisation of agency. In so doing, it adds to thinking on the factors shaping fluidity between types of agency and challenges dichotomous views on passive or voluntary participation. The article also highlights that mutual interests between workers and employers enable migrant builders to defy and resist state regulations, despite the impacts of undeclared work on workers and the fact that power dynamics are unequal. Thus, the main contribution the article makes is to suggest a more nuanced understanding of labour agency that may go beyond the conflict between employers and workers. Overall, the article highlights the relevance of this study for different economic sectors, geographical areas and migrant groups.