Labor Claims Research Articles

A construção do Estado republicano e a "crise de trabalho" na Assembleia Nacional Constituinte (1911)

A denominada "crise de trabalho", resultante do conjunto complexo de transformações económicas e comerciais em curso nos finais do séc. XIX, constituiu um aspecto estruturante da realidade portuguesa desde os anos 80. Esta circunstância, uma determinante na conjuntura nacional, influenciou largamente a propaganda do Partido Republicano Português. Uma vez implantado o regime republicano, a construção do novo estado, discutido no contexto da Assembleia Nacional Constituinte, confrontava-se com as características de uma realidade social complexa, tanto no espaço urbano como rural, dominada pela "crise de trabalho", pelas reivindicações laborais acompanhadas pelo surto grevista, cujas consequências políticas e económicas conflituavam com a imagem de tranquilidade interna desejada no contexto, difícil, do reconhecimento externo do novo regime.

Emerging threats and opportunities for collective labour rights in the digital age – The Spanish Case

Information and communication technologies (hereinafter, ICTs) open new opportunities for collective labour rights but they also are a source of emerging threats. On the one hand, ICTs can develop a role in the renewal of collective activism exceeding increasingly more flexible and dispersed production structures. Beyond corporations, social networks open new collaborative spaces to trade unions and other organizations as NGOs, consumers’ organizations or neighbourhood associations. These links may enable a coordinated actuation, transmitting information about the conflict, labour claims, and calling for demonstrations, as a complement or instead of going on strike. However, on the other hand, ICTs allow the continuity of production process and, thereby, reduce or void the effectiveness of traditional forms of expression of conflict as the strike. Companies can develop a sort of a virtual strike-break activity as Spanish Courts have recognized. This paper is intended to be an approach, from a legal point of view and considering the Spanish case as a reference, to possibilities and threats that ICTs offer to unions and workers to reinforce social rights in the current recessionary scenario.

Lone Parents and Welfare-to-work Conditionality: Necessary, Just, Effective?

Since the 1990s OECD nations have witnessed a rapid expansion in the use of conditionality within welfare to work programmes in the shift towards ‘activating’ welfare regimes. This trend raises a number of interrelated normative and empirical questions which we crystallise in the dimensions of necessity, justice and effectiveness. Lone parents in the UK make an instructive case study within which to assess these issues given that they have experienced wholesale change in the work expectations and demands placed upon them since the late 1990s. This article traces the evolution and justificatory ‘policy stories’ behind these reforms as well as evidence around their employment, income and well-being outcomes for lone parents. It concludes that it is extremely difficult to reconcile the research evidence with the persistent and strengthening policy claims of both New Labour and Coalition governments that current welfare to work conditionality for lone parents is necessary, just or effective.

The Alien Tort Statute and <em>Flomo v. Firestone Natural Rubber Company</em>: The Key to Change in Global Child Labor Practices?

The case of Flomo v. Firestone Natural Rubber Company involves child laborers’ claims that labor practices on a Liberian rubber plantation violate international norms. Though the case was recently resolved in favor of the defendants at the district court level, the case’s complicated procedural and substantive history offers insight into the viability of future child labor claims. This Note examines the Flomo case and explores how standards from the ATS and the United States Supreme Court case Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain apply to future plaintiffs’ claims. This Note also analyzes the potential repercussions that plaintiffs face in using the ATS as a tool to influence global child labor practices and highlights the realities of ATS child labor litigation.

Rescuing Hong Kong Companies with Provisional Supervision: Proposals that Workers and Management Can Support

Hong Kong lacks a statutory corporate rescue regime, despite repeated attempts at legislative reform beginning with the the Law Reform Commission’s 1996 recommendations. But each attempt to pass a version of so-called “provisional supervision” failed, mainly due to irreconcilable views of diverse stakeholders on the treatment of labour claims, and in particular on the feasibility of full satisfaction of labour claims as a precondition to entering provisional supervision. In October 2009 the government of Hong Kong tried once again to bridge the differences with proposals set forth in a consultative paper entitled, Review of Corporate Rescue Procedure Legislative Proposals, issued by the Financial Services and Treasury Bureau (FSTB). On 22 January 2010 at the University of Hong Kong, the authors convened a symposium of stakeholders to discuss and comment on the consultative paper. Underscoring the importance of corporate rescue legislation, stakeholders responded enthusiastically. and endeavored to overcome historical impasses with fresh ideas on the treatment of labour claims. The attendees also welcomed a proposal by the authors, that Hong Kong consider adopting a “hybrid” debtor-in-possession (“DIP”) approach to corporate reorganization that would allow management in certain cases and with creditor approval to continue administering the debtor during the statutory rescue process. Following the symposium, the FSTB invited the authors to draft a paper discussing the various proposals on the treatment of labour claims that emerged at the symposium, and to provide a more detailed discussion of the hybrid DIP approach. In this article, submitted to the Hong Kong Law Journal, the authors seek to relay to a broader audience the comments and proposals they initially expressed in their submission to the FSTB. This paper reviews the history of corporate rescue legislation reform attempts in Hong Kong, then discusses the merits and demerits of various proposals for dealing with labour claims, and finally presents and discusses the merits of a hybrid debtor-in-possession approach to corporate rescue. The authors argue that without a DIP option, many companies in distress will not avail themselves of provisional supervision, and that, in many if not most cases, a punitive approach to management is not merited and thwarts the intended goal of a corporate rescue regime.

BOOK REVIEW

Paul Reuwer, Hein Bruinseand, Arie Franx. Proactive Support of Labor. The Challenge of Normal Childbirth. 276 pages. Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom, 2009. ISBN 978-0-521-73576-6. Price GBP 38.00. This book launches a new concept of obstetrics and how it is applied in practice. The book is divided into three parts. The first section is called ‘A Wake-up Call’ and deals with the fact that the cesarean birth rate is increasing without any improvement in neither maternal nor fetal outcome regarding morbidity and mortality. The authors confront both obstetricians and midwives and call for a change in childbirth practices, which requires more cooperation among the professionals on the maternity ward. The second section is called ‘Back to Basics’ and explores the basic biology and physics of labor. One of the main theses of the book is that many dogmas in obstetrics are neither verified nor based on evidence. The last section of the book explains in detail the ‘Method and Strategy’ of proactive support of labor. Proactive Support of Labor claims to provide a balance between natural birth and intervention, thus, enhancing women's satisfaction with their childbirth experience. The method aims at preventing poor fetal outcome and malpractice, and above all a decrease in cesarean and instrumental deliveries. This implies pre-labor education, personal psychological support during labor (such as the presence of a doula) and a well-defined birth plan, which includes a strict diagnosis of the onset of labor and proper and timely intervention to prevent protraction. The authors stand on the shoulders of Active Management of Labor, the philosophy of obstetrics coined by Kieran O'Driscoll in 1969. This philosophy was introduced to avoid cesarean deliveries performed because of prolonged labor, and has been published in four editions, most recently in 2005 (1). In Proactive Support of Labor the emphasis on the importance of the diagnosis of the onset of labor and prevention of protraction are also key points. The only new aspect of the diagnosis is that full effacement rather than 3 cm dilatation of the cervix is considered clinical evidence of the onset of labor. As for prevention of protracted labor, there is no news in making sure the progression of dilatation is 1 cm/hour, with the use of amniotomy and oxytocin if dilatation slows down. The book covers every aspect of delivery and advocates the practicing of timely care in the labor room. It is hard to disagree with any of the described practices, which are already the intention on most labor wards. As for the provision of a so-called birth plan, it is refreshing to be reminded of the importance of the presence of a professional once labor is diagnosed, and also of the value of an agreement or contract with the mother, so that she knows what to expect and for how long the labor will last. It is also good to be reminded of the sometimes futile discussions between the midwife and the obstetrician where cooperation is to be preferred. Whether obstetric practice should aim at a section rate of around 10%, as recommended by the authors is indeed worth a discussion as well. But the question is whether Proactive Support of Labor really offers new perspectives on obstetrics in practice. However, the book is very well written, and offers an easy and enjoyable introduction to the field of obstetrics. Whether read in parts or sections, it can be very stimulating, but if you read it all through you might get tired of repetitive statements and a feeling of being in a crusade. It is quite clear that the authors are very dedicated and enthusiastic and that the balanced conclusions are based on their clinical experience.

Early retirement for mothers in Greece

PurposeGreek social security system has a provision, under which women who have children are entitled to exit the labour force and claim pension benefits after completing 20 years of work and at a fully productive age. The critical issue arising from this regime is that it seems that mothers are rewarded for their nature of being able to give birth to children, which is unfair for the rest of working people. This paper aims to address these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe reward of maternity should be given at the proper time, i.e. by subsidizing mothers to stay at home and breeding their children. For this purpose we set up a cost‐benefit analysis in an overlapping generation model in order to compare the present provision with an alternative, under which mothers are subsidized and abstain from the labour market for 15 years. However, this policy could be applied to either gender.FindingsIn the model we develop (as alternative) we show that this kind of provision, under certain parameters' values could be to the benefit of the social security system in pure financial terms, beyond the other positive qualitative externalities for the society.Practical/implicationsThis alternative policy could be proved more efficient in financial and economic terms for the social security system, but it could also influence family programming and increase birth rate.Originality/valueThe most valuable result is that children breeding and the occupation of one parent with this task are not deterministically inefficient, or waste of resources, for the economy and the social security system, as many economists (and other social scientists) insist. And on the other hand, breeding of children by their parents is precious for the society since it strengthens family and, through that, social bonds.

The Struggle Over the Real Wage in the Monetary Production Economy

Keynes contents in General Theory that the monetary market logic of the aggregate real wage in the monetary production economy conveys: (i) the determination of the average real wage rate, the level of employment, and the possibility of involuntary unemployment through the interaction of the monetary markets and the goods markets; and (ii) the determination of the money wage rate through the bargains of the firms and the workers as a market-theoretical stability condition of the economic system. Accordingly, (iii) the money wage claims of labour (in conformity with changes of the average labour productivity) do not alter the distribution of income between capital and labour; and (iv) the struggle about the money wages by different groups of workers is actually a zerosum game over the distribution of the aggregate real wage between the different fractions of the working class. The paper discusses Keynes´s contention in the context of the monetary-keynesian theory of the endogenous-money monetary production economy.

Bringing social relations back in: (re) conceptualising the 'Bullwhip Effect' in global commodity chains

Contemporary economic globalisation is characterised by the global dispersal of production and sourcing, the spread of new 'lean' management techniques and the speeding up and expanding scale of international forms of interaction. These processes are regularly described and analysed in techno-managerial terms, especially within much global supply chain and global commodity chain literature. As a consequence, there is often an (implicit or explicit) assumption of a zero-sum relationship between capital mobility and labour's bargaining power. Within supply chain literature, the concept of the 'Bullwhip Effect' (BWE) refers to a situation where a small disruption in one part of the chain is magnified elsewhere in the chain. This article argues that the concept of the BWE can be re-conceptualised as a valuable took with which to investigate claims of labour's weakness, and that it can also help 'bring social relations back in' to much globalisation analysis.

The Polycentric State: New Spaces of Empowerment and Engagement?

Morgan K. (2007) The polycentric state: new spaces of empowerment and engagement?, Regional Studies 41, 1237–1251. New Labour claims to have radically reformed territorial governance structures in the UK by devolving political power to the Celtic nations and London, begetting the most enduring legacy of the first Tony Blair government. More recently it has sought to extend its devolution agenda by embracing city-regionalism and the new localism, ostensibly to create new spaces of empowerment and engagement. But devolution is not the whole story of New Labour's attitude to power. On the contrary, this article argues that New Labour is a modern Janus because its commitment to devolving power, so clear in principle, is more equivocal in practice. Drawing on these three devolution narratives, it concludes by assessing the implications for the current debate about relational versus territorial readings of place politics. Morgan K. (2007) L'Etat multipolaire: de nouvelles espaces où se donner du pouvoir et s'engager?, Regional Studies 41, 1237–1251. Le New Labour prétend avoir radicalement réformé la gouvernance territoriale au R-U par la décentralisation du pouvoir politique aux nations celtes et à Londres, ainsi engendrant le legs le plus durable du premier gouvernement Tony Blair. Plus récemment, il a cherché à élargir son programme de décentralisation en adoptant les notions de cités-régions et de gouvernance locale, apparemment pour créer de nouvelles espaces où se donner du pouvoir et s'engager. Toujours est-il que la décentralisation n'est pas toute l'histoire quant à l'attitude du New Labour à l'égard du pouvoir. Au contraire, cet article affirme que le New Labour est un Janus moderne, dans la mesure où son engagement dans la décentralisation du pouvoir, si transparent soit-il en principe, s'avère plus ambigu en pratique. Puisant dans ces trois histoires de décentralisation, l'article conclut par une évaluation des implications pour le débat en cours sur les interprétations relationnelles et territoriales de la politique de l'endroit. Politique territoriale Décentralisation Cités-régions Nouvelle gouvernance locale Morgan K. (2007) Der polzentrische Staat: neue Räume für Ermächtigung und Engagement?, Regional Studies 41, 1237–1251. Die New-Labour-Regierung behauptet, die territorialen Regierungsstrukturen Großbritanniens durch eine Dezentralisierung der Regierungsgewalt in den keltischen Nationen und in London radikal reformiert und damit das dauerhafteste Vermächtnis der ersten Tony Blair-Regierung geschaffen zu haben. In jüngster Zeit hat sie versucht, diese Dezentralisierung durch eine Übernahme des Stadtregionalismus und neuen Lokalismus auszuweiten, vorgeblich zur Schaffung von neuen Plätzen für Ermächtigung und Engagement. Doch mit der Dezentralisierung ist die Einstellung von New Labour zur Macht nicht vollständig beschrieben. Vielmehr wird in diesem Artikel die These aufgestellt, dass es sich bei New Labour um einen modernen Janus handelt, denn das im Prinzip so klare Engagement der Partei für eine Dezentralisierung der Regierungsgewalt ist in der Praxis weniger eindeutig. Anhand der Beispiele dieser drei Dezentralisierungen werden im Artikel schließlich die Auswirkungen auf die derzeitige Debatte über eine relationale oder territoriale Interpretation der Raumpolitik untersucht. Raumpolitik Dezentralisierung Stadtregionen Neuer Lokalismus Morgan K. (2007) El estado policéntrico: ¿Nuevos espacios de integración y participación?, Regional Studies 41, 1237–1251. El Gobierno del Nuevo Laborismo afirma haber reformado radicalmente las estructuras de gobernanza territoriales en el Reino Unido al transferir competencias a las naciones celtas y a Londres, generando el legado más permanente del primer gobierno de Tony Blair. Hace poco ha intentado ampliar su agenda de transferencia de competencias al adoptar el regionalismo de las ciudades y el nuevo localismo, aparentemente para crear nuevos espacios de capacidad de poder y participación. Pero la transferencia no es la historia completa de la actitud de poder del Nuevo Laborismo. En este artículo sostenemos más bien que el Partido Laborista es un moderno Jano, puesto que su compromiso de transferir competencias, tan claro en principio, es más equívoco en la práctica. Sacando conclusiones de estos tres relatos sobre transferencia de competencias, en este artículo terminamos evaluando las repercusiones en el debate actual sobre la interpretación relacional o territorial de la política de lugar. Política territorial Transferencia de competencias Ciudades-regiones Nuevo localismo

Administering economic reform: New Labour and the governance of social security

English This article argues that the introduction of new governance and performance frameworks for social security administration stems from Labour's adoption of an endogenous growth economic model. The institutional structure for administering employment and social security that Labour inherited in 1997 was not suitable to support its socioeconomic objectives. The creation of Jobcentre Plus and the Department for Work and Pensions and the reorientation of their performance objectives were the response. These were informed by the endogenous growth-inspired policies that (implicitly and explicitly) underpin Labour's claim to be pursuing a Third Way.

Labour claims the glory as we threaten to strike

I wrote to my local Labour MP John Denham recently to protest against the staged pay award for nurses. Eventually I received a reply saying that while nurses might be disappointed at the staging, by the end of next year average earnings are to rise by 4.9 per cent.

An Essay on Banalization of Slavery, Devaluation of Sex-Workers' Labor and Deprivation of Victims of Trafficking

The problem of sex trafficking, while stirring much academic interest, has not triggered almost any analysis from a private law perspective. This essay begins to fill-in this gap, by paying attention to victims' claims against traffickers in unjust enrichment. First I present an analytical framework to the litigation of private-law responses against traffickers while distinguishing between loss- and gain-based claims. Second, I argue that gain-based claims should take the form of unjust enrichment cause of action, rather than claims in labor (or contract) law. Channeling victims' claims to labor courts is undesirable for conceptual, expressive and practical reasons. A labor response overlooks lack of consent, banalizes trafficking as a labor dispute (rather than viewing it as slavery), short-changes victims with respect to the size of the awards, and burdens them with the need to file multiple law-suits. It is lacking in terms of deterrence, and in terms of corrective, distributive and retributive justice. I explain how labor law's practical deficiency derives from its conceptual inadequacy to deal with trafficking, and that applying protective labor law to victims' claims does not solve the conceptual problem, and might worsen the practical problem. Therefore I criticize the tendency of Israeli lower courts to channel gain-based claims to labor courts and to view such claims as claims for wages. Alongside this I argue, that even within a labor framework the labor court awarded victims much less than it should have. Third, I examine the possibility to ground the gain-based claims (enslaving the victim and selling her) in conversion. After explaining the practical limitation of such a claim, I present a counter-intuitive claim (which will be developed further in future work) that the conceptualization of the victim as property might be desirable. The relationship between the practical and symbolic effects of labor, conversion and unjust enrichment claims is discussed. Fourth, I conceptualize the victim's unjust enrichment claim. I distinguish between the wrong involved in forcing the victim to provide sex services and that involved in taking the fruits of the enslavement. Accordingly I distinguish between two subtraction claims (duress and appropriation) and the principle of no profiting from one's serious wrongdoing. I flash out the major doctrinal ramifications from an unjust enrichment claim: that inalienability and illegality claims should not bar victim's recovery, that victims have a right to all proceeds made from their enslavement--so no deduction should be allowed to reflect traffickers' expenses--and that the burden should shift to defendants to disprove their enrichment. Fifth, I defend the view that traffickers' liability should be joint and several with respect to both loss- and gain-based claims. At the very least, traffickers who sold the victim should be liable with the buyers to compensation and restitution. Sixth, I argue that the victim's loss- and gain-based remedies should be cumulative and not alternative, based on both corrective justice and numerous policy considerations. Such novel claim has potential ramifications to other instances in which a breach of duty caused both loss to the plaintiff and gain to the defendant. Seventh, I sketch required reforms with respect to awarding damages, and improving victims' access to justice and recoverability of awards. Finally, I note on the question whether the analysis is applicable to other victims of trafficking and to non-forced sex workers.

Learning for Labour: specialist diplomas and 14-19 education

The 2006 Education Act provided an entitlement for all 14 year-olds to take a specialist diploma from 2013. Despite concerns of many educationalists and politicians, the first diplomas will begin in September 2008. New Labour claims that the diplomas are innovative and challenging; however, this article argues that they exhibit many of the weaknesses and contradictions of existing vocational qualifications, will accentuate divisions and represent a further move away from a comprehensive curriculum. The article also argues, however, that in addition to opposing the introduction of the diplomas, reformers must rethink approaches towards vocational learning in schools. Despite reports of ministers wanting to delay implementation, the Government has given the go-ahead for five new specialist diplomas to begin from September 2008 in a limited number of schools and colleges. The 2006 Education Act gave young people a ‘national entitlement’ to study one of 14 vocational areas outlined in the 2005 14-19 White Paper (Department for Education and Skills [DfES], 2005). According to the White Paper, up to 40% of Key Stage 4 students will be taking one by 2013. A level 2 diploma will equate to General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) grade C, occupying about half of the total timetable space. Level 1 can be used in conjunction with the White Paper’s proposals for a new workplace-based learning route for more ‘disaffected’ students, while post-16 students can follow a two-year level 3 qualification which, like current vocational qualifications, would constitute the majority of their study time. Education and the Economy: a new correspondence? The White Paper emphasises the importance of responding to globalisation and increased international competition by improved educational provision, particularly vocational education. The Government wants the diplomas to ‘put

Why Do I Have to Write Like That?

WE'VE ALWAYS KNOWN, as Dionne Brand says, that no language is neutral. Studies came into being--in Bengal in the 1830s (Viswanathan)--precisely because of this power of language to act as discursive technology for the construction of subject minds: a class of interpreters, in Macaulay's chilling phrasing, between us and the millions whom we govern; Indian in blood and colour, but in taste, in opinion, in morals, and in intellect. It's the reason this new technology, our discipline, having proven its effectiveness in the colonial laboratory, then found itself shipped Home to the working-men's colleges in the 1840s (Doyle) as way of redirecting Labour's claim for participatory role in social decision-making into something less troubling. It's the reason this extraordinary experiment in packaging and displacing potential for social unrest again found itself decade late redeployed into the education of women --English Studies as surrogate for access to the Classics. It's part of the reason we still get to bring pedagogy and research into reading and writing. Inalienably, and from the beginning, English as formal process of study has contributed to the manufacture of curiosity-driven obedience. The present-day salient of that obedience is the literary critical essay. I proposed member-organized panel at the 2007 ACCUTE gathering in Saskatoon on the question of this Readers' Forum and was overwhelmed by the number of submissions. Literary criticism, I wrote in the polemical Call for Papers, is baleful genre, overrun with disinclination and overwhelmed by the dispirited. And what is more, it is institutionally fraudulent. We entice students into our discipline through the lure of pleasurable reading. We then proceed to train them in the manufacture of tortured analytical documents--a perfect example of marketing logic at the level of bait and switch. For those of us who are employed in the Studies industry, this fraudulence comprises necessary self-deception: our careers depend on our ability to write the kinds of books and articles that we would never willingly read. For those of us who are just entering the profession, however--graduate students especially--a hope prevails for the possibility of real professional change. This panel will examine that hope, preferably in the context of actual global practice in the general field of academic in Studies. Can one write differently in English? Who has tried to do so, and under what conditions? What is ventured in the attempt to revolutionize critical commentary in the discipline? What is not ventured? Were we to succeed in writing professional documents differently, who might we seek to address as we proceed? I wondered if this Call would collapse into two predictable answers: screed against theory or defense of the merely difficult. For those of us who teach it know only too well that critical theory's various modalities of stylistic continuance, whatever else they are doing, comprise kind of disciplinary intelligence test that most of us, and especially students, are always already failing. …

Corporate Governance and the Distribution of Wealth: A Political-Economy Perspective

We present a theory in which the corporate governance structure in a country is determined by a political majority and show how this decision is related to the distribution of financial wealth. The main argument is that labor claims are exposed to undiversifiable risk, so voters with small financial stakes may prefer a corporate governance structure that reduces corporate risktaking. We discuss the inflationary experiences of different countries in the first part of the twentieth century and argue that the model may explain the great reversal phenomenon identified by Rajan and Zingales [2003].

Making sense of social citizenship: some user views on welfare rights and responsibilities

Against the backdrop of New Labour's claim to be constructing a new welfare state for the 21st century, this article explores how a diversity of welfare service users make sense of the principles and values central to the ongoing reform of public welfare. Drawing on a series of focus groups with welfare service users, the article adds an important empirical dimension to current debates about the contentious issue of welfare `resettlement' and notions of social citizenship.

Tough on Debt, Tough on the Causes of Debt? New Labour's Third Way Foreign Policy

This article critically evaluates New Labour's claim that it is pursuing a ‘Third Way’ foreign policy with specific reference to the issue of Third World debt relief. We discuss New Labour's efforts to pursue a Third Way foreign policy and describe the extent to which neoliberalism has become embedded in the global economy and in the strategies New Labour has adopted to alleviate the burden of debt. We analyse New Labour's efforts to reform the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Debt Initiative and conclude that although New Labour has played an important role in establishing the eradication of poverty as a legitimate goal of foreign policy and secured the issue of debt relief on the G-8 agenda, their efforts remain embedded within a neoliberal approach. In practice, this is jeopardising the potential for genuine success.

Ethics and Foreign Policy: The Antinomies of New Labour's ‘Third Way’ in Sub-Saharan Africa

This article explores how New Labour has attempted to implement its ideas about a ‘third way’ foreign policy in sub-Saharan Africa. Through an examination of British foreign policy practices, we explore whether New Labour has succeeded in finding a ‘third way’ between traditional views of socialism and capitalism in Africa. In particular, the article focuses on New Labour's attempts to build peace, prosperity and democracy on the African continent. We conclude that although New Labour's claims to add an ‘ethical dimension’ to foreign policy have succeeded in giving Britain a higher profile in the international arena, the implementation of such a policy is intrinsically difficult. These difficulties in turn arise from the antinomies embodied in New Labour's policy, or more specifically from the tension between the liberal internationalism of the third way and traditional concerns for the national interest, as well as the contradictions inherent in a commitment to both political and economic liberalism.

New Deal for Young People: Towards an Ethical Employment Policy?

With the current focus on judging policy by its economic efficiency, the ethical basis of employment policy is suffering neglect. The article attempts to redress the balance by analysing the ethical claims of Labour's most important innovation in employment policy, New Deal for Young People. Three criteria for an ethical policy are proposed: that it is rights based; that it prioritizes increased well-being for disadvantaged individuals or groups; and that some cost trade-off is accepted as part of the policy. These criteria distinguish an ethically-based policy from a wholly instrumental efficiency-based policy. Analysis of its elements indicates that New Deal for Young People could be developed as a model for ethically-based employment policy. The implications of further developing such a model in the long term are considered. It is concluded that a crucial task for ethical employment policy will be to develop an institutionalized 'intermediate employment' sector without creating unsupportable economic costs.