Deployment Of Labour Research Articles

Naming and dividing: the production of residual labour in the region of Doñana

AbstractThrough a case study of the production of agricultural wage labour in southwestern Spain, in the region of Doñana, this articles analyses the process of constructing agricultural wage labour as a residual social relation. Through analysis of the deployment of labour in agro-industrial berry production, I trace the ways in which the notions of “temporariness” and “slave work” obscure the centrality of labour in the agricultural production process and conceal the reconfiguration of relations of exploitation.

The end of migration (studies): Contemplating labour deployment in Indonesia’s development planning, and getting on with migration research

In this article, I combine my observation of Indonesia’s desire to end labour outmigration with scholarly reflections on the end of migration studies. Challenging the orthodoxy that takes for granted sending countries’ support of migration as presumed in current optimism of the migration-development paradigm, I trace Indonesia’s successive development plans to demonstrate the treatment of migration as a less-preferred option for job creation, exploring how postcolonial trajectories entail the desire to keep development in situ and lead to persisting view of migration as deeply undesirable. The recent shift to governance works as a way to both discipline workers through required documentation and to allow the government to eschew accountability by advancing a discourse on protection. As the state sets out a future anticipation where those defined as unskilled no longer migrate, a question arises as to how we build a meaningful scholarship around migration as a non-priority and the process towards making a certain migrant category disappear? My critique of development planning turns the analytical lens back to the state, which I see as a way to go on with the study of migration in a more ethical, pro-migrant manner. Rejecting the trap of methodological nationalism, I offer an approach that seizes of the ‘postcolonial moment’ of migration.

Empire-builders: Interactions between Convicts and Enslaved, Free, and Military Workers in Bermuda’s Dockyards, 1824–1838

ABSTRACT Convict labourers in Bermuda formed part of a uniquely mixed workforce that challenged racial and class-based divisions of labour in the British Empire. Following the War of 1812, investment poured into Bermuda's royal naval dockyard to secure its strategic position; convicts arrived in 1824, working alongside enslaved people, free black workers, and colonial soldiers. This article reveals the nature of interactions between different types of free and unfree labourers in Bermuda between 1824 – when convicts arrived – and 1838, when a change in governance took place. It examines racial diversity in the dockyards and the arrival of convict labourers, before considering perceived threats of racial intermixing and opposition to convict labour deployment in Caribbean colonies. The final section examines perceptions of convicts – moments where they equated their experiences to slavery, and administrative unease over interactions with white military workers. What the article shows is that although there were concerns over racial intermixing, officials objected most strongly to interactions between white workers of different classes, fearing their alliances would alter the island's power balance. In detailing the coexistence and interactions between contrasting labour types, this article provides a greater sense of the nuances of labour deployment and administrative anxiety in colonial locales.

Technological transformation and changing social relations in the ring seine fishery of Kerala, India.

Across the Global South, commercial development and technological innovations are transforming fish food systems in ways that significantly impact the livelihoods of small-scale producers and the food security of the poor. A crucial but understudied aspect of such transformations is the social relations in which fish food systems are embedded. Food system transformations change power relations and rework gendered economic roles and divisions of labour in ways that often marginalise women and other vulnerable groups. In this paper, we draw on feminist studies of gender and technology and feminist commodity chain analysis to investigate the impact of technological transformation on social relations in the ring seine fishery of Kerala, India. Kerala's ring seine fishery specifically targets small pelagics like sardine, mackerel, and anchovies, which have been identified as important to the food security and nutrition of the poor. Since the mid-1980s, when the ring seine was first introduced to enable small-scale fishers to compete with mechanised trawlers, these fishing units have expanded both in terms of numbers and in size, largely as a result of locally-driven technological innovation and adaptation. Though traditional arrangements of labour deployment and wage sharing have remained, rising competition and differentiation between fishermen have ensued. At the same time, changes in processing, distribution, and trade have reworked women's economic roles and position in the fishery, and questions about long-term profitability and sustainability have necessitated interventions in governance at various levels. Tracing the trajectory of technological innovation and changing social relations through the value chain, we assessed the gendered implications of fish food system transformations for livelihoods. We found that the increase in dimensions of the new gear increased both investments and operational costs of the fishing units rendering several of them uneconomical. Time-tested social norms have also changed as competition increased, which is much more pronounced between the smaller and larger fishing vessels. The traditional wage sharing pattern still remains ensuring income security for fishermen who cannot find work as crew on these fishing vessels. Women, however, have been most affected by the changes as they no longer are able to access the fish resource as earlier for engaging in post-harvest activities, such as marketing and fish drying.

Fragmented Control of Platform Game Work in China

AbstractThis article adopts a labour process theory approach to analysing distinct circuits of labour control in platform video game work in China, a novel manifestation of the platform economy rooted in the special formation of Chinese gaming infrastructure as well as in precarious labour regimes. Platform game work encompasses a broad range of online video game services such as live game streaming, paid boosting, and game companion, matching customers’ demands to workers who provide entertainment or assist play. Platform game work has drawn an estimated seven million young workers into precarious employment during the past decade. The article outlines three interwoven features defining the fragmented control of platform game work: the crucial function of extra-platform intermediaries in regulating labour processes; the deployment of relationship labour in order matching and community management; and the mutual reinforcement of platform diversity and fast-moving platform architecture. These three features co-create a decentralised yet resilient structure organised by a network of platform and non-platform, human and machine agencies. Positioning platform game work in the broad spectrum of gig work, the article illuminates new modes of labour control and workers’ embedded agency, adding to the nascent literature on diverse labour regimes and subjectivities in the platform economy.

The Lloyd's Register archive: An appraisal

This research note presents the findings of an appraisal of the archives of Lloyd's Register recently undertaken by researchers from Blaydes Maritime Centre at the University of Hull. Funded by the Lloyd's Register Foundation, the aim of this project was to assess the character, extent and evidential quality of a rich yet underutilized assemblage of records relating to shipping and vessel safety from the late eighteenth century. After discussing material generated by the organization's management committees, ship classification process and labour deployment, the research note concludes with a discussion of current and future reader access to this large, historically significant and dynamically evolving collection of primary source materials.

Control and consent regime dynamics within labour platforms

Much is known about how labour platforms use ‘algorithmic management’ to implement rules which govern labour by matching workers (or service providers) with clients (or users). But little is known about whether and how platform workers engage with these rules by manipulating them to their own advantage, and how this accounts for wider ‘regime dynamics’ across (and within) different types of platforms (for example, on-location and online). Based on a comparative analysis of two food delivery (Deliveroo and Takeaway) and two freelancing (Upwork and Jellow) platforms in Belgium, we discuss the rules platforms use to govern labour and examine what role workers have in shaping a ‘space’ of control over the conduct of their work. Drawing on labour process theory, we argue that this space is shaped by the way in which platforms shift risks onto workers by rules governing access to work through rewards, penalties as well as labour deployment reflecting various contractual statuses. Hence, we explain how workers also shape such spaces by organising consent around these rules, pointing to a ‘social space’ for food delivery workers and a ‘market space’ for self-employed freelancers. These spaces refer to different regime types, that is, ‘pay-based control’ and ‘time-based control’ for food delivery, and ‘customer-based control’ and ‘task-based control’ for online freelancers. These types are shaped by the control and consent dynamics within labour platforms, reflecting the platforms’ labour governance strategies and workers’ attempts to ensure control over these strategies within the distinctive political institutional realm.

Revisiting China’s Market Economy Status: State Capitalism within the Liberal Trading System

This paper examines the question of China’s compliance with market economy principles. China has reformed away from central planning in the past four decades, but has it achieved a fully-fledged market economy? The paper sheds new light on the contested nature of China’s market economy status from a political economy perspective. It draws on the Varieties of Capitalism analytical framework. The paper explains China’s status as a market economy as the product of a national model of state-dominated institutional complementarities between high levels of trade openness and domestic regulation, including nonmarket principles for the deployment of financial resources and labour.

Supply of labour during early industrialisation: Agricultural systems, textile factory work and gender in Japan and India, ca. 1880–1940

This article explores the reasons behind the marked differences in the gender division of labour in the emerging textile factories in Japan and India in the first half of the twentieth century. In Japan, the overwhelming majority of the workers in spinning mills were young, unmarried women, while in India men—married as well as unmarried—formed the bulk of the factory textile workforce. We argue that variations in agrarian systems and labour regimes constitute an important set of factors explaining some of these differences in gender patterns. The structural differences in the productivity, intensity and the social organisation of labour in agricultural economies in both countries led to notable variances in the gender composition of the supply of (rural) labour for the factories. Differential deployment of rural farm and non-farm labour, in combination with distinct labour recruitment practices in the countryside, caused rural households to adopt radically different income-generating strategies.

TECHNICAL EFFICIENCIES OF POULTRY TOLL FEED MILLS IN KADUNA AND PLATEAU STATES, NIGERIA

This study investigated the technical efficiencies of poultry feed firms in Kaduna and Plateau States, Nigeria. Primary data were collected using a structured questionnaire from a sample of 51 poultry feed firms, analyzed using descriptive statistics and stochastic frontier technical efficiency function. The findings indicate that poultry feed firms have an average production capacity of 4.2 tonnes per day, operating on an average of 5 days per week using not more than 1 shift per day. The feed mills were found to be technically inefficient with mean technical efficiency of 0.67. The determinants of technical efficiency were found to be operating capacity, distance to major market, number of employees, and availability of ingredients in required quantity as well as ownership type. The high cost and adulteration of ingredients, low patronage, and high competition from larger firms amongst others were factors identified as constraints to efficient poultry feed production. The study recommends that the firms should improve on the deployment of labour as well as improved wages, outsource for cheaper inputs or buy input in group to derive economies of scale and also increase their production in other to potentially maximize output.

Potential of System of Rice Intensification (SRI) to Contribute to the Policy Objectives: Paradigm of Three-Tier Approach in Southern Telangana—A Case Study of Narayanpet

A programme effort for SRI impact assessment has been undertaken in 20 project villages in the Narayanpet block. The villages have been pooled under four clusters, for which quantitative and qualitative analyses have been carried out on water usage, input cost, plant growth, farmer group collectivization, gross and net returns of SRI, and conventional paddy cultivation. The result shows that significant water saving was achieved for SRI, i.e., 8586 m3∙ha−1 under tubewell irrigation over conventional. This approximation has served as an auxiliary to the number of pumping hours and number of irrigation days that have been reduced for SRI. Less utilisation of water and distance maintained in SRI has benefited in reducing the biotic and abiotic stress caused by snails and nutrient deprivation, respectively. The total yield for a sampled number of SRI farmers has been found to have a 22% increase for the total expenditure difference of Rs. 6153, i.e., 13% less than conventional paddy farmers, which highly impacts the SRI farmers’ net income, i.e., 69% more than the conventional returns. The SRI method has a lower labour deployment of 8 people/ha than the conventional method, which requires 16 people/ha with a constant price of Rs 250/person. Input cost saving in these two categories has ranked top and has fetched maximum production efficiency among the others. The seed cost at a fixed price of 32 Rs/kg was significantly (87%) reduced for SRI as 8 kg per ha was required rather than the conventional that required 62 kg/ha. Social benefits were listed based on the qualitative analysis and were transformed using the theory of planned behaviour.

Engaging Contract Labour: Learnings from Landmark Judgements

Despite debates on its hiring, contract labour is a growing form of employment in India. Establishments usually maintain a workforce composition of both regular workers and contract labour for optimizing their available resources and ensuring financial prudence. However, in the process, they often get embroiled in compliance issues related to regularization and ‘equal pay for equal work’ in the context of contract labour. In this article, we have explored the different judicial interpretations of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, on contract labour. For this, we have referred to the landmark judgements passed by the Supreme Court of India on the deployment and regularization of contract labour, and also their entitlement to equal pay for equal work. A scrutiny of these judgements directs us to advise establishments to avoid engaging contract labour in their core and perennial activities. Considering the statutory provisions and the possible legal complications, we have recommended some measures to establishments to mitigate the underlying risks in deploying contract labour alongside regular workforce in similar kinds of jobs or activities. We propose that the legislative framework grants flexibility to industries to generate employment to contract labour, without compromising on the rights of these workers.

‘Mopping up tears in the academy’ – working-class academics, belonging, and the necessity for emotional labour in UK academia

ABSTRACT Previous research exploring how working-class women experience UK Higher Education (HE) work has made evident recurring themes around social segregation and corresponding difficulties with feeling they belong. This paper develops this work by exploring the ways in which UK, HE based working-class women lecturers talk about their sense of belonging. It was found that, in contemporary UK HE, lecturing work is located within a marketised space where caring for students is central and the deployment of emotional labour to seen to be a necessary requirement to meet those demands. In addition, this labour is understood to be work that working-class women can readily take up, and as one of the few vehicles to enable feelings of value and belonging. However, this work is also devalued, unaccounted for and potentially harmful to those who do engage in it, therefore shoring up/ reinforcing a class and gender stratified UK academy.

‘ … One of the Most Severe Duties … ’: Landscapes of Timber-getting at a Former Tasmanian Convict Station

ABSTRACT The British colonisation of Australia was made possible by its co-option of unfree labour. Unwillingly placed at the leading edge of the colonising wave, the convict provided the labour power and skill through which land was alienated from its original inhabitants, infrastructure created and services rendered. A key feature of this process was the clearance, ‘improvement’ and targeted harvesting of the thickly timbered parts of the colonies. Combining heavy manual labour and skilled craft, timber-getting quickly became a staple task of convicts both in private and public service. This paper examines the deployment of convict labour by the government, focussing predominantly on the former convict probation station of Cascades, on the Tasman Peninsula, Tasmania (1842–55). The way in which the administrators achieved punitive and economic aims is examined using the archaeological, historical and architectural record. Documentary and archaeological evidence is used to understand the timber-getting processes, and how penological requirements were incorporated. The paper also examines the timber resources that the convicts were required to extract and convert, shedding more light on the motives and processes of attainment.

Flexibility of Work in Employment Relations and Labour Deployment in the Nigeria Labour Market

The paradigm shift in the world of work has created a new dimension in the labour market vis a vis employment relation; a point of reference is the flexibility of work and labour deployment in the Nigeria labour market. The study examines flexibility of work in employment relations and deployment of labour in the Nigeria labour market within the purview of relationship and the benefits to the employers and employees. Hence, the study takes an exploratory approach by reviewing extant literatures to understand the dynamics of work flexibility in employment relations and its influence on different patterns of labour deployment. The findings from the review of extant literatures revealed that there are various dimensions to flexibility of work in employment relations(workplace flexibility, workforce flexibility, low flexibility and mutual flexibility) and labor deployment(temporary worker, part time workers triangular employees etc.) in the Nigeria labour market and it often benefit the employer more because of the objective of maximizing return on investment by creating financial rigidity on the employee through cutting or reduction in the personnel cost or overhead cost. This study therefore recommends that a win-win flexible work dimension for deploying of workers for flexible work arrangement should be adopted to achieve a healthy employment relations practice in the Nigeria labour market.

Learning to Labour: “Native” Orphans in Colonial India, 1840s–1920s

AbstractTo this day, the history of indigenous orphans in colonial India remains surprisingly understudied. Unlike the orphans of Britain or European and Eurasian orphans in the colony, who have been widely documented, Indian orphans are largely absent in the existing historiography. This article argues that a study of “native” orphans in India helps us transcend the binary of state power and poor children that has hitherto structured the limited extant research on child “rescue” in colonial India. The essay further argues that by shifting the gaze away from the state, we can vividly see how non-state actors juxtaposed labour and education. I assert that the deployment of child labour by these actors, in their endeavour to educate and make orphans self-sufficient, did not always follow the profitable trajectory of the state-led formal labour regime (seen in the Indian indenture system or early nineteenth-century prison labour). It was often couched in terms of charity and philanthropy and exhibited a convergence of moral and economic concerns.

Study on Resource Management for Prefabricated Concrete Building Based on BIM Technology

A comparative analysis of resource management elements between PC (Prefabricated Concrete) structure and traditional cast-in-place structure was carried out firstly. Based on BIM (Building Information Modeling) technology, the resource management elements such as labour, materials and machinery for PC building were analyzed detailedly. It was shown that the dynamic and rational allocation of labour in the narrow work plan for PC building can be realized by the labour deployment method proposed in this paper; the adjustment time of the inclined bracing system for PC building can be reduced to a large extent by the this turnover method proposed in this paper; and the problem of arrangement and selection of tower crane for PC building can be solved by the analysis method of tower crane proposed in this paper.

Mapping the typology of transition systems in a liberal market economy: the case of Canada

This research explores links between tertiary education institutions and between tertiary education and the labour market as determinants of provincial and national transition patterns in Canada. The study consists of a provincial analysis that maps the typology of transition systems across Canada’s devolved federated tertiary education structure. The results show that, nationally: the links between education and work are relatively loose aside from regulated occupations; there is an emphasis on general education; and qualifications are used as a screen for entry to the labour market. However, while Canada can be broadly understood as a liberal market economy, there is provincial diversity within the nation; and there are varying logics for the development of skill, deployment of labour, and relations between institutions. The institutional and policy frameworks, structure of jobs, and formation of skill in Canada’s largest provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec reveal diverse characteristics of transition systems. However, despite internal differentiation in the value of vocational education, variations at the provincial level have not been enough to shift the federal pattern as a whole. Instead, in Canada vocational education is generally stigmatised and viewed as signalling low ability and motivation.

“The Whip Is a Very Contagious Kind of Thing”: Flogging and humanitarian reform in penal Australia

This paper traces humanitarian debates over corporal punishment and the use of the lash in the Australian colonies in the nineteenth century, with particular attention to Quakers James Backhouse and George Washington Walker’s interventions in penal discipline in colonial Van Diemen’s Land. It examine the ways that corporal punishment of convicts and Aboriginal peoples was framed through abolitionist eyes and explores in detail specific objections to the lash, including ideas around suffering, abstract vengeance and pain. The paper considers the move to other punishment strategies such as silent and solitary confinement, promoted in place of the lash. As we show, the evidence provided by the travelling investigative Quakers did much to inform the 1837 Select Committee on Transportation chaired by William Molesworth. The same report is also credited with reducing the rate of flogging in the penal colonies. However, while the Molesworth Committee is regarded as a decisive turning point in the history of Britain’s deployment of convict labour, we argue that a shift in punishment strategies was already well underway before the late 1830s. Using new data on punishments awarded, we demonstrate that in Van Diemen’s Land the demise of the lash had begun well before the Molesworth Committee met. We conclude by arguing that the association between the great humanitarian moment and the demise of flagellation so often associated Molesworth, was more complex and less direct than is often supposed.

Is Sustainable Sugarcane Initiative (SSI) Technology More Profitable than Conventional Method for Sugarcane Production? — An Economic Analysis§

The study has examined profitability, sources of productivity improvement and determinants of a new technology-Sustainable Sugarcane Initiative (SSI) —adoption in sugarcane cultivation in Tamil Nadu by collecting primary data from 120 sugarcane farms during 2014–15. Although the cost of cultivation has been found higher in SSI method vis-a-vis conventional method, the cost of production is lower due to 26 per cent more cane yield. The cost and return analysis has indicated that sugarcane cultivation is more profitable under SSI method than under the conventional method. The decomposition analysis has shown that the inputs, viz. fertilizers, micro-nutrients and deployment of labour are the major sources of productivity enhancement in the SSI method. The estimates of logit model have indicated that farmers’ educational level and experience are the major determinants for adoption of SSI method in sugarcane cultivation. The major policy options suggested to improve production and profitability of sugarcane include provision of drip irrigation with subsidy, ensuring timely availability of critical inputs and imparting periodical trainings to farmers on SSI method such as fertigation, wide row spacing, etc.