Labour Agency Research Articles

Inter-firm power relations and working conditions under new production models

AbstractIn investigating recent changes to the automotive industry production process, such as modularisation, our work emphasises the process of fragmentation of production as a configuring element of inter-firm power relationships, and as an explanatory element in working conditions. From a theoretical framework focused on power relations, we analyse by way of a selected case study how the capabilities of companies and their network positions, together with the agency of labour, shape the power relations that influence the evolution of working conditions. The study does indeed find relevant changes to inter-firm relationships, for example, within networks of assemblers and suppliers, but without a consequent re-balancing of power. This finding serves to explain differences in the evolution of working conditions between distinct companies, these conditions being fully functional to a strategy for profitability and thus difficult to reverse.

Temporary labour migration in Asia: The transnationality‐precarity nexus

AbstractMuch of intra‐Asian labour migration is regulated on the basis of governing tools that aim at managing cross‐border movement of workers on a strictly temporary, employer‐tied basis. The key elements involved in the operationalization of strictly temporary migration are recruitment, remittances and return; these three ‘Rs’ are also central to global policy discussions around the migration‐development nexus. The core premise of this paper is that this strict framework results in a particular form of migrant precarity which in turn shapes migrant transnationality, leaving migrants with severely circumscribed labour agency. This leads to the argument that temporary migration paradigm as practiced in much of Asia constitutes involuntary transnationalism. The paper ends by arguing that based on proactive migrant rights activism, the involuntary character of transnationalism is being challenged by bringing a different set of ‘Rs’ into the discussion derived from global social policy and global justice perspectives: regulation, redistribution and rights.

‘Not my task’: Role perceptions in a green transition among shop stewards in the Norwegian petroleum industry

In the petroleum-dependent Norwegian economy, climate change politics challenge the powerful petroleum industry, and Norwegian shop stewards in that industry find themselves in cross-pressures of representation and responsibility. In this article, we investigate what role trade unionists in the oil sector play and can play, in a green and just transition. We analyse data from six focus group interviews with shop stewards in the petroleum industry. By engaging with theories of roles and role perceptions in light of labour agency, we fill a theoretical gap in the conceptualization of workers’ collective agency. Respondents describe themselves as active part of a green transition in their capacity as workers, but the role of shop stewards neither seem to offer tools nor a mandate for representing environmental concerns: Climate change is not their task. Shop stewards respond to externally ascribed role expectations by insisting that primary agency resides with politicians, companies and consumers–and union leaders. Their reactive and ambiguous role interpretation can prove risky, as the employment outlook in the industry is changing radically and rapidly. Last, we find that there are both a need and potential for re-scripting shop stewards’ role that is active and relevant in the green transition.

Orientalist discourses that have justified suppression of labor after liberation in India (1947-2010) and South Africa (1993-2010)

ABSTRACT Over the years, the discussion of the impact of colonialism on labor has waned despite its continued profound impacts on the agency of labor to respond to injustices. This research seeks to answer the question: How do postcolonial theories help us understand the nature of labor agency post-liberation in South Africa and India? The purpose of this research is to show the utility of Said’s Orientalism and Bhabha’s mimicry in making sense of the continued subordination of workers and the mimicking responses by South African unions. There is a gap in the scholarship in the study of labor through these theoretical lenses. Through archival analysis and process tracing, this research utilizes legislative proceedings and debates as well as policy documents to provide a narrative of the ways that labor unions are restricted in South Africa and India. The research concludes that although Orientalist discourses are present in policy debates and legislative documents, mimicking responses by South African labor show greater potential to further the cause of labor.

PELATIHAN DISAIN WEB BERBASIS HTML 5 DAN SCRIPTING, SERTA PELATIHAN DIGITAL MARKETING KEPADA MASYARAKAT PRA-KERJA DI KOTA MEDAN

The aims and objectives of this Community Service are to implement the Tridarma of Higher Education and contribute ideas and transfer technology to the pre-employment force in Medan City. As we all know that the application of information technology, especially websites, has touched all aspects of human life such as business, education, government, health, and other fields. Therefore, skilled personnel is needed in the field of web design in order to meet market needs and employment needs. This community service activity was carried out for fifteen days with training materials on web design and digital marketing. This PkM was carried out in collaboration with partners, namely the Labor Agencies Office of Medan City and with PT. Hagatekno Mediata.

PELATIHAN DISAIN WEB BERBASIS CSS DAN DIGITAL MARKETING KEPADA MASYARAKAT PRA-KERJA DI KOTA MEDAN

The aims and objectives of this Community Service are to implement the Tridarma of Higher Education and contribute ideas and transfer technology to the pre-employment force in Medan City. As we all know that the application of information technology, especially websites, has touched all aspects of human life such as business, education, government, health, and other fields. Therefore, skilled personnel is needed in the field of web design in order to meet market needs and employment needs. This PkM activity was carried out for fifteen days with training materials on web design and digital marketing. This PkM was carried out in collaboration with partners, namely the Labor Agencies Office of Medan City and with PT. Hagatekno Mediata

A ‘race to the bottom’ or variegated work regimes? Industrial relocation, the changing migrant labor regime, and worker agency in China’s electronics industry

This article examines how capital/industrial relocation interacts with work regime dynamics through a case study of geographical relocation of four electronics multinationals from China’s coastal regions to its interior. Based on fieldwork conducted in Chongqing and Chengdu between 2012 and 2017, I find that a migrant labor regime in coastal regions has shifted to a local-labor based development strategy in western regions when capital moves inland. This shift, I argue, has increased labor agency and given rise to capital’s labor control problems and work regime dynamics that are unique to the relocation process and western China. Specifically, rather than a race-to-the-bottom in labor conditions, three distinct work regimes have emerged in the new sites of production, depending on firms’ positions in the global production networks (GPNs) and workers’ responses/agency embedded in the GPNs and local labor institutions. They are: (1) advanced quality production and negotiated commitment between workers and management; (2) lean-and-dual and fragmented worker discontent; and (3) flexible Taylorism and high-level worker resistance. The evidence highlights the important role of local state in building location-sensitive labor institutions and workers’ constrained, varied agency in influencing work regime dynamics, which challenge many assumptions of the race-to-the-bottom argument associated with capital relocation.

Contract farming and everyday acts of resistance: Oil palm contract farmers in the Philippines

AbstractContract violations are critical issues determining the success and sustainability of contract farming (CF). This paper challenges the common portrayal of the “powerful” company versus the “powerless” landowners/smallholders by using the literature on labour agency in global value chains to understand minor contract violations of contract farmers such, as side‐selling, refusal to harvest, and burning/felling of oil palm trees. This paper conceptualizes these violations as acts of minor agency or everyday acts of resistance. The analysis highlights how CF has created chains of dependency, in which smallholders are integrated into the modern market economy through new relations of debt and power. In response, contract farmers attempt to influence and shape the CF relation by using these different acts of minor agency. This paper finds that acts of minor agency, in the aggregate, can have important effects on contract relations, governance, and organizational structure of the chain and has the potential to lead to broader changes in the underlying social relations of contract. It highlights howindividualacts of minor agency may contribute to the development of a consciousness ofcollectiveopposition to the contract relation.

Contextualizing precarious work: labor dispatch, boundary-drawing, and the politics of labor regulation in post-socialist China

ABSTRACT This article examines the rise of labor dispatch – a fast-growing form of precarious work – and its regulation politics in post-socialist China. Drawing on qualitative research, the author argues that rather than generalized deregulation and state retrenchment, the development of labor dispatch in China is shaped by the intertwined dynamics of precarization and dualization, with the state playing a predominant role in uneven regulation and institutionalized dualism. Through a case study of the automobile industry, the article investigates agency workers’ social composition, subjective workplace experiences, and struggles. It highlights the boundary-drawing strategy pursued by the state and employers to strike a balance between increasing labor flexibility and profitability and maintaining certain stability and legitimacy with a core workforce. However, this strategy has also generated new terrains of contradiction and resistance by agency workers. The state re-regulation to limit labor dispatch in the face of rising labor disputes and agency workers’ discontents channeled by the official trade union, suggests that labor politics in post-socialist China is a contested process. These findings advance a contextualized, dynamic approach to the study of precarious work that emphasizes the contradictions of capitalism, the historical and national contexts, boundary-drawing dynamics, and key actors in shaping the contours of precarious work.

The use of angiotensin receptor blockers is associated with greater recovery of cardiac function than angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitors among patients with dilated cardiomyopathy

Abstract Background We previously showed that angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitors (ACEi) or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARB) were associated with heart failure with recovered ejection fraction (HFrecEF) in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). However, the different effects of these drugs on cardiac reverse remodeling have not been fully elucidated. The aim of this study was to assess comparative effectiveness of ACEi versus ARB on recovery of left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) among patients with DCM. Methods We analyzed the clinical personal records of DCM, a national database of Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, from 2003 to 2014. Patients with LVEF <40% and on either ACEi or ARB were included. Eligible patients were divided into two groups according to the use of ACEi or ARB. A one-to-one propensity case-matched analysis was used. A propensity score was estimated by fitting a logistic-regression model which adjusted for age, sex, duration of HF, NYHA functional class (I-II vs. III-IV), systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, atrial fibrillation, pacing, left bundle branch block, LVEF, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, hyperuricemia, chronic kidney disease, B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP), beta-blockers, mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists, loop diuretics, thiazides, digitalis, amiodarone, and oral inotropes. The primary outcome was defined as LVEF ≥40% at 3 years of follow-up. Results Out of 4,618 eligible patients, 2,238 patients received ACEi and 2,380 patients received ARB. Propensity score matching yielded 1,341 pairs. Mean age was 56.0 years and 2,041 (76.1%) was male. Mean LVEF was 27.6%, and median duration of HF was 1 year. The primary outcome was observed more frequently in ARB group than in ACEi group (59.8% vs. 54.1%; odds ratio [OR] 1.26; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.08–1.47; P=0.003). The change in LVEF from baseline to 3 years of follow-up was greater in ARB group than in ACEi group (15.8±0.4 vs. 14.0±0.4%, P=0.002). In the ACEi group, 946 patients (70.6%) continued to receive ACEi at 3 years of follow-up, while 1,088 patients (81.3%) continued to receive ARB in the ARB group. Per-protocol analysis consistently showed that ARB increased the prevalence of HFrecEF (62.0% vs. 54.0%; OR 1.39; 95% CI 1.17–1.66; P<0.001). Subgroup analysis showed that ARB increased frequency of HFrecEF regardless systolic blood pressure, heart rate, LVEF, chronic kidney disease, and concomitant use of beta-blockers and mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists. Conclusions The use of ARB was associated with HFrecEF more frequently than ACEi among patients with DCM and reduced LVEF. Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding sources: Public grant(s) – National budget only. Main funding source(s): Health Sciences Research Grants from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (Comprehensive Research on Cardiovascular Diseases)Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) grant

The politics of labour relations in global production networks: Collective action, industrial parks, and local conflict in the Ethiopian apparel sector

In this paper we examine the emerging politics of labour agency as new manufacturing locations are incorporated into existing global production networks, using the example of the Ethiopian apparel industry. The Ethiopian state has employed an active space-based industrial policy to attract leading apparel manufacturers into a series of new industrial parks in the country. Both investors and the Ethiopian government expected to find a large and pliant labour force willing to work for low wages. However, the new sector has already seen a wave of collective and individual resistance from workers. We ask which factors contribute to drive and constrain labour agency and shape the specific forms it takes in firms tied into leading global production networks. Drawing on a large-N quantitative survey of factory workers and in-depth qualitative interviews with managers, workers, trade union representatives and government officials, we show how the quality of industrial relations depends not just on state action and the business strategies of lead firms in production networks, but also on variegated forms of labour agency used both by organised and unorganised Ethiopian workers. We find that many industrial conflicts result from the collision of the productivity imperatives of manufacturing firms tied into demanding, but low value-added, segments of global production networks with the expectations of workers with limited prior experience in industrial jobs, but are compounded by the contradictory actions of different state agencies, a lack of formal unionisation, and the contingent interactions of factory based grievances with local political conflicts. Industrial parks emerge as spaces of particular contestation. Our findings highlight the need to adopt an understanding of labour regimes grounded in local political realities. These findings have implications for the design of industrial policies and labour market institutions aiming to support firms and workers in emerging manufacturing clusters.

Mapping the discursive in labour geographies

AbstractGeographical debates surrounding labour have hitherto tended to sideline its discursivity – that is its ongoing construction as a category of the economy – and the politics of the discourses of labour involved in this process. To address this lacuna, this paper engages with three bodies of scholarship in the social sciences which explicitly foreground the discursive construction of labour: work on subjectivity and power in the labour process; feminist investigations into gendered globalization processes; and studies on the discursive power of labour. These reveal labour discourses as multiscalar phenomena that operate at workplaces, as mechanisms of work organization and control within transnational capital circuits, as knowledge networks that underpin how labour is valued, and as resources for labour agency. The paper closes by proposing a distinctively geographical research agenda which involves mapping the discursive geographies of labour, examining how labour discourses are ‘placed’ and encountered, and exploring their role in building geographies of labour agency.

Rethinking digital labour: A renewed critique moving beyond the exploitation paradigm

AbstractA number of important topics, themes and concepts frequently recur in studies of digital labour over the past decade, such as exploitation, precarity, unpaid labour, gig economy and platform labour. The first generation of the critique has drawn on a variety of Marxist, post-structuralist and Weberian sources to question prevailing neo-liberal and centrist models centred on values of efficiency and the supposed empowerment of workers and users. While these topics, themes and concepts have been beneficial in establishing a basis for critique, there is a danger that they may become rather familiar and potentially even a little stale. Therefore, this article suggests a need to renew the critique of digital labour, as the digital realm stabilises around a set of key global players and platforms and as labour activists continue to face serious obstacles to success in an era of authoritarian populism. Here, I concentrate on introducing our themed collection surrounding a renewed critique moving beyond a dichotomy of exploitation and labour agency. I also encourage different disciplines to enrich and renew studies of digital labour.

Upgrading in Automotive Global Production Networks: Workers’ Power in South Africa

Abstract The introduction of the concept of social upgrading was a welcome development in the study of Global Production Networks (gpns). We argue that although social upgrading is primarily a result of labour agency rather than automatically trickling down from economic upgrading, without economic upgrading social upgrading will not be sustainable. We show how it was through the use of their structural power, the development of associational power through building a national industrial union, the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa, and institutional and societal power, that workers realised social upgrading improvements in the automobile industry in South Africa. The rights consolidated in legislation and the institutions established were the result of workers using their power in strategic ways. We argue for an alternative approach to social upgrading that foregrounds workers power as a crucial determinant of social upgrading. This, we conclude, will require a labour-led development path.

Digital transformation of the subject of labour: social interactions, concepts, research perspectives

This theoretical article represents a psychological analysis of the factors of the digital information environment that transform the labour behaviour of the subject (agency), discusses the possibility of asking the question about join subject (agency) of labour ‟individual-digital information environment”. It is shown that as a result of the digitalisation of society, the following changes have occurred in the field of labour – the autonomy of labour, de-standardisation, virtualisation of labour relations, a decrease in the share of physical labour, the convergence of play and labour. A set of contradictions that are brewing in the classical models of professional development is also highlighted. As conclusions, the conditions that are the mediators of the desired single subject of labour and the research ‟gaps” that indicate the horizons of further research in this area are presented.

Book review: Collective Bargaining and Collective Action: Labour Agency and Governance in the 21st Century

Book review: Collective Bargaining and Collective Action: Labour Agency and Governance in the 21st Century

Transformative perspectives on labour geographies – The role of labour agency in processes of socioecological transformations

AbstractBoth geographical research on socioecological transformations and labour geography see decisive deficiencies in current capitalist structures centred around growth. To highlight possibilities of economic pluralism, both fields analyse diverse economic spaces within, next to and beyond capitalist structures. A basic assumption in transformation perspectives is that economic structures are not fixed, but can be transformed by people as economic actors. This corresponds to the concept of ‘labour agency’ from labour geography, i.e. that workers as active agents are able to (re)shape the structures they are embedded in. Despite those common perspectives, these threads of research coexist without having been intertwined. With a focus on wage labour, this paper addresses the potential for an integrative perspective illustrated by the example of companies owned/managed by workers. In charge of their own skills, time and resources, workers can actively break with prevalent market logics, which incentivise trading (human) resources at the lowest price possible. By rejecting core dynamics of capitalist structures, these companies illustrate the workers' potential key role in processes of socioecological transformations. Thus, the derived objectives of this paper are (1) to analyse and accentuate existing parallels between labour geography and research on socioecological transformations, (2) to illustrate the potential transformative impact of labour agency exemplified by companies in worker's hands and (3) to enrich the field of labour geography by an understanding of labour geographies as transformative spaces. This paper serves as a cornerstone and invitation for further research at this interface.

Informal and Precarious Work: Insights from the Global South

Abstract Informal and precarious work remains an enduring reality across the Global South and is growing fast in the North. A recognition that this form of work is the norm globally rather than the exception has ignited debates around analytical frames, activist strategies and development interventions. Engaging with Southern realities, as this special issue aims to do, helps contribute to a better understanding of this rising form of work globally while also providing insights into workers’ resistance and development policy limitations. Through detailed case studies from across the Global South, this special issue argues that informal and precarious work needs to be studied as embedded in concrete, historical, political and social contexts. It highlights the heterogeneity and complexity of intersecting social and material relations that underpin informal and precarious work which has crucial implications for class dynamics and political agency of labour.

Regulatory Approval process for marketing drug in Japan

For the development of new drug, it requires a greater amount of research work in chemistry, Manufacturing, control, Preclinical and clinical trials. The drug approval process in all regulatory market carrying responsibilities on multiple factors such as data, safety, efficacy to public health in a country. Current constrain of affairs reveals diverse countries need to follow different regulatory requirements for Regulatory approval process for marketing drug in the different regulatory market of the country to ensure safety and efficacy of the product. In order to conduct a regulatory process for approval of a drug, every country has their unique regulation, guidelines, legislation and respective regulatory authority. Japan has its own regulatory authority for drug and medical device called the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare (MHLW), Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA), respectively. In the Japan Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare are overseeing the approval procedure of New drug, Generic Drug and Orphan Drug also. In that regard, the Drug Approval process followed in Japan ensures that every company has adhered to specific guideline available in their respective website. The drug comes to market with safety, efficacy to enhance the health of people in Japan by scrutinised process. It results into the longevity of human, which is so apparent in their demographic chart of Japan's Population.

Inscrutable Processes: Algorithms, Agency, and Divisions of Deliberative Labour

AbstractAs the use of algorithmic decision‐making becomes more commonplace, so too does the worry that these algorithms are often inscrutable and our use of them is a threat to our agency. Since we do not understand why an inscrutable process recommends one option over another, we lose our ability to judge whether the guidance is appropriate and are vulnerable to being led astray. In response, I claim that guidance being inscrutable does not automatically make its guidance inappropriate. This phenomenon is not restricted to algorithms, and there are many social processes which we should conform to but are similarly unable to judge for ourselves. I provide a framework for how we can depend on inscrutable processes by introducing a distinction between knowing conformity (where I understand what justifies the guidance) from mere conformity (where I merely do what I am told) and showing how mere conformity is often positively valuable because it allows for extended processes that in turn allow us to accomplish more than we could on our own. This is in effect a division of deliberative labour, which I argue is something commonplace but not often recognised, of which algorithmic guidance can be an example.