Labor Perspective Research Articles

Pension Systems and Labour Resistance in Post-socialist China and Vietnam: A Welfare Regime Analysis

ABSTRACT Situated within the literature on welfare regimes, this article investigates workers’ contestation of pension arrangements in post-socialist, authoritarian China and Vietnam, and considers the effects of their actions. Scholars have highlighted economic, cultural, political regime type and political institutions as factors crucial to understanding the welfare regimes of China and Vietnam. However, the “labour factor” – that is, how worker resistance and mobilisation shape welfare provisions – has been under-explored. Focusing on pension provisions in China and Vietnam, this article contends that a labour perspective can deepen knowledge of pension systems and welfare regimes in these two countries. Based on case studies of two notable strikes, interviews and documentary research, this article illustrates that, against the background of transitioning from state socialism to market-Leninism, pension provisions and welfare regimes in China and Vietnam have been constantly contested by workers. It also shows that labour resistance has influenced welfare arrangements at various levels in both countries, and that the Vietnamese state was more accommodating to workers’ pension demands than the Chinese state, because of its more strongly redistributive orientation and, relatively, a less controlling political system.

Implementation of PPKM In Social Economic Change Perspectives of Daily Labor And Workers In The New Normal Era

At the beginning of 2020, the world considered that the spread of Covid-19 was endemic. It is so fast that the WHO has determined that Covid-19 is a pandemic that must be watched out for. Although many countries have implemented lockdowns, the spread of Covid-19 is so fast and seems to be out of control, and viral replication is fast. Travel restrictions and patient isolation are the Indonesian government's strategies in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic in the PPKM concept (implementation of restrictions on community activities (PPKM), implemented in every country. Observations show that daily laborers and masons are communities with low access to housing categories. 67% of daily laborers and masons live in uninhabitable houses and slum areas, 20% live for rent, the rest live in their own houses. Daily workers and masons' residence conditions are the houses on stilts, which are made of wood with a zinc roof with "gamacca" walls and unpainted boards. economic level of the families of daily workers and masons has changed compared to the income of daily workers and masons before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Based on the condition of the masonry community who felt a significant impact on the implementation of PPKM, conclude that the community is in a dilemma. The dilemma position referred to here is that when the community adheres to the PPKM policy, the community will experience economic devastation.

Differential effects of rude coworkers and patients on nurses' safety performance: an emotional labor perspective

PurposeThis paper examines how nurses differentially respond, both emotionally and behaviorally, to incivility from coworkers (i.e. other healthcare staff) and from their patients. Specifically, the authors explore how coworker and patient incivility distinctly influence the extent to which nurses engage in emotional labor, which in turn, may impact nurses' safety performance. The authors further examine how nurses' hostile attribution biases exacerbate and mitigate these effects.Design/methodology/approachA three-week longitudinal study was conducted with 187 nurses in which they reported their experiences with incivility, surface and deep acting, hostile attribution biases and safety performance (i.e. safety compliance and participation).FindingsPatient incivility led to more surface acting across all nurses. Further, the effects of coworker incivility on emotional labor strategies were conditional on nurses' hostile attribution biases (HAB). Specifically, coworker incivility led to more surface acting among nurses higher on HAB, and coworker incivility led to less deep acting among those lower on HAB. Finally, surface acting was associated with reduced safety participation, and deep acting was associated with greater safety compliance and safety participation.Originality/valueThe nursing context allowed the current research to extend understanding about how incivility affects an unexplored outcome—safety performance. The current research also offers a rare examination of the effects of incivility from multiple sources (i.e. coworkers and patients) and demonstrates the different processes through which incivility from these different sources impacts nurses' ability to perform safely.

When two movements collide: Learning from labour and environmental struggles for future Just Transitions

The term ‘Just Transition’ (JT) emerged from the 1970s North American labour movement to become a campaign for a planned energy transition that includes justice and fairness for workers. There is diversity in the JT narratives and ambitions that different actors put forward regarding its aims and strategies. This article critically reviews academic and grey literature on the JT in the Global North and South Africa to examine how labour, advocacy, private sector, and governmental actors frame and formulate the JT, and how narrative patterns across actors can signal transformative justice. Highlighting the JT’s origins, we fill a gap in transition literature by reintroducing the labour perspective into an analysis of affirmative and transformative justice, and propose an original theoretical framework that unites scholarship in environmental and labour studies. JT proposals are examined through an analysis of the actors, approaches, and tensions across five key themes: depth & urgency, scale & scope, identity & inclusion, material equity, and participation & power. Finally, we synthesise trends in our findings in relation to prominent JT discourses in the literature – Green Growth, Green Keynesianism, Energy Democracy, and Green Revolution – and discuss the transformative potential of JT alliances and coalitions going into the future.

Politics of Life and Labor: French Colonialism in China and Chinese Coolie Labor During the Construction of the Yunnan–Indochina Railway, 1898–1910

AbstractThe Yunnan–Indochina railway, built by France across the China–Vietnam border between 1898–1910, never realized the expansionist dreams of French colonialists in Indochina and therefore has been studied as a failure of French imperialism. Taking a labor perspective, this article examines the labor conflicts along the Yunnan railway against the backdrop of the emergence of a global labor market where different colonial powers competed for cheap Chinese labor after the emancipation of black slaves. At the time of the railway's construction, access to cheap labor was so central to colonial competition that the metropolitan, colonial, and business agents of the French empire found themselves in a dire conflict over labor shortages in Yunnan. To the extent that France failed to restrain the railway company agents from abusing the labor force, other European colonial powers used worker misery to dispute French claims to conducting a “civilizing mission.” At the same time, both Qing imperial officials and Chinese nationalists advanced their arguments for national sovereignty in the name of protecting their national subjects, i.e., the railway workers. As a result, French recruiters had to reconsider the terms of Chinese coolie employment, increase wages, improve worker contracts, and invest in welfare systems. In sum, worker resistance during the construction of the Yunnan railway not only delayed the railway's completion and diminished French colonial prestige in the region but also empowered the workers, giving them leverage to increase the value of their labor in a market extending beyond Chinese national borders.

The way you make me abuse: impression management matters

PurposeDrawing on the perspectives of emotional labor, self-concept and impression management, this study presents two major findings: (1) employees' excessive reliance on impression management can bother supervisors, and (2) the effectiveness of impression management depends on how the management affects targets' attribution of characteristics to actors.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a cross-sectional design and a sample of 259 employees to investigate the antecedents of abusive supervision and, in this regard, the potential mediating effects of impression management. Through Mplus analysis, the authors specifically show that deep acting and surface acting affect impression management and that impression management activates abusive supervision.FindingsEmotional labor is critical in triggering abusive supervision through impression management. The study specifically shows that impression management mediates two types of relationships: (1) the relationship between deep acting and abusive supervision, and (2) the relationship between surface acting and abusive supervision. The findings contribute to the abusive supervision literature by clarifying how impression management functions.Originality/valueThis study, by addressing how emotional labor is a potential antecedent of abusive supervision, reveals that impression management can be a mixed blessing, insofar as emotional labor can contribute to abusive supervision.

Beyond the jobs-versus-environment dilemma? Contested social-ecological transformations in the automotive industry

The transport sector is the major contributor to accelerating CO2 emissions, with the highest proportion stemming from road transport and passenger cars. At the same time, the automotive industry drives economic growth, contributes to state revenues and is an important employer. This article departs from this so-called jobs-versus-environment dilemma to discuss barriers and potentials for transformative change in the Austrian automotive (supplier) industry with a special focus on workers and trade unions. Based on a Cultural Political Economy perspective, we firstly analyze the materiality of the Austrian automotive industry and secondly link these structural features to meaning-making and the articulation of crisis construals and imaginaries by workers and their representatives. This analysis helps to better understand the challenges for more transformative change but thirdly also to examine entry points for such a transformation from a labor perspective. We characterize the materiality of the Austrian automotive industry around six interconnected features and identify an improvement, a diversification and a transformation imaginary. Despite a widespread perception of incremental change among the workforce in the automotive industry, we find that there is strong confidence in their knowledge and expertise that could also support a more systemic mobility transformation. As such, the transformation of the Austrian automotive industry exemplifies both the strategic dilemmas and potentials of social-ecological transformations.

The Impact of Emotional Labor on User Stickiness in the Context of Livestreaming Service-Evidence From China.

Improving the user stickiness becomes increasingly valued, due to the severe user churn of livestreaming services. Previous studies pay much attention to the influencing factors of technology on user stickiness, ignoring the emotional factors. This study examined the impact of the emotional labor of network anchors (deep acting vs. surface acting) on user stickiness in the context of livestreaming service. We extended prior findings in three ways. The results of Study 1 (i.e., questionnaire method, 305 livestreaming users, and 56.4% females) demonstrated that the emotional labor of network anchor positively influenced user stickiness, and immersion experience plays a mediating role. The results of Study 2 (i.e., situational simulation method, 203 volunteers, and 54.09% females) demonstrated that the deep acting strategies of emotional labor had a stronger effect when compared with surface acting strategies. The results of Study 3 (i.e., situational simulation method, 235 volunteers, and 51.9% females) demonstrated that the effect of emotional labor on user stickiness was stronger for the users with prevention focus compared with promotion focus. Based on the perspective of emotional labor, this study extends the previous research on user stickiness and is valuable for guiding the practice of livestreaming services.

Transformation of phase and heterojunction type by using HAc-adsorbed Bi(NO3)3 as a Bi source

Generally, preparing high-efficiency heterojunction photocatalysts via a facile room-temperature route is attractive from the perspective of energy and labor saving. Herein, by using dried and glacial acetic acid (HAc)-adsorbed bismuth nitrate, instead of Bi(NO3)3·5H2O, as a Bi source, a β-Bi2O3/Bi5O7I heterojunction with well dispersed flowery hierarchical architecture was synthesized, which endows it with high surface area, open channels and good light harvest. More importantly, the change of the precursor achieved a successful transformation for both of phase and heterojunction type, i.e. from type-Ⅰ BiOI/[Bi6O5(OH)3](NO3)5·3H2O (labeled as BiOI/BBN) to Z-scheme β-Bi2O3/Bi5O7I heterojunction. Since both β-Bi2O3 and Bi5O7I are visible light responsive, β-Bi2O3/Bi5O7I exhibited improved visible-light photocatalytic activity for the degradation of tetracycline (TC) and malachite green (MG) with apparent reactant rate (kapp) values about 10 and 11 times higher than those of BiOI/BBN. Besides, the presence of more oxygen vacancies also contributed to the enhancement in photocatalytic performance.

ENGLISH: Child Labour and Education Perspective of International Law, Pakistani Law and Islamic Law (A Comparative Jurisprudential Approach)

Education, of course, is allied with the child labour; where the increase of one is the decrease of other. Both, education and protection from child labour, are the basic rights of all children without any sort of discrimination. Contemporary literature shows drastic increase in child labour all over the world. All this is even in the presence of international conventions regarding child rights, specifically, the UNCRC 1989 – a legal document globally ratified. Owing to this fact, the international law, related to children rights, faces threat in this regard. Islamic Law, on the other hand, too, provides a comprehensive legal mechanism and structure for children rights. Comparatively to other legal spectrum, Islamic law is more effective in term of its jurisprudential approach to children rights. Pakistan, being an Islamic country, remained under the administrative control of the Great Britain and, therefore, follow a plural law – a mixture of Islamic and conventional law. This study, thus, probes the International Law, Islamic Law and Pakistani Law in connection to child education and child labour. Finding shows, with solid evidences, that Islamic law offers a comprehensive mechanism for children rights – protecting these both at strategic and operational levels. Content analysis technique, being an important research tool of qualitative method, has been followed for the investigation of the issue.

Emotional labour in the parenthood

This study introduces the concept of emotional labour, the theoretical underpinnings of its delineation and connections to emotion regulation and brings it into the context of parenthood. Emotional labour was originally described by sociologists in the context of a work environment which requires one to consciously influence one’s emotions when interacting with a customer or a client. The connection of emotional labour with psychological theories of emotion regulation allowed for a better understanding and grasp the mechanisms through which emotional labour can lead to “burning out” or stress. Currently, parents are exposed to a great amount of information about how to “correctly” parent their children, which together with their own idea of a good parent, the influence of their family and close friends as well as other people, creates high demands precisely in the area of experiencing and expressing emotions in their interactions with their children. Today, the parent role approaches that of the job in several aspects. Its demands for emotional labour can be linked to negative impacts on mental health. The concept of emotional labour can be considered to be appropriate for a better understanding of what a parent experiences with the child in mundane situations and how parents handle the emotions. The perspective of emotional labour can therefore bring important information about emotions in parenthood and about the influence of intentionally working with these emotions on the mental functioning of parents even beyond the explanatory confines of emotion regulation. This study also introduces measurement instruments used to capture emotional labour and its dimensions. For future research of emotional labour in parenthood, creating a valid and reliable instrument, which has so far been lacking both in the Czech and international contexts, is a necessity.

Emotional labour in the parenthood

This study introduces the concept of emotional labour, the theoretical underpinnings of its delineation and connections to emotion regulation and brings it into the context of parenthood. Emotional labour was originally described by sociologists in the context of a work environment which requires one to consciously influence one’s emotions when interacting with a customer or a client. The connection of emotional labour with psychological theories of emotion regulation allowed for a better understanding and grasp the mechanisms through which emotional labour can lead to “burning out” or stress. Currently, parents are exposed to a great amount of information about how to “correctly” parent their children, which together with their own idea of a good parent, the influence of their family and close friends as well as other people, creates high demands precisely in the area of experiencing and expressing emotions in their interactions with their children. Today, the parent role approaches that of the job in several aspects. Its demands for emotional labour can be linked to negative impacts on mental health. The concept of emotional labour can be considered to be appropriate for a better understanding of what a parent experiences with the child in mundane situations and how parents handle the emotions. The perspective of emotional labour can therefore bring important information about emotions in parenthood and about the influence of intentionally working with these emotions on the mental functioning of parents even beyond the explanatory confines of emotion regulation. This study also introduces measurement instruments used to capture emotional labour and its dimensions. For future research of emotional labour in parenthood, creating a valid and reliable instrument, which has so far been lacking both in the Czech and international contexts, is a necessity.

ASSESSMENT OF THE ATTITUDE TOWARDS PAINLESS DELIVERY AMONG ANTENATAL MOTHERS AT SELECTED HOSPITALS OF DISTRICT PATIALA, PUNJAB

The true perspectives of painless labour came into existence with advancements over the last three decades as the birth of obstetric anaesthesia as a sub-speciality has cemented a permanent place in the field of obstetrics and anaesthesia. Advancements in obstetrical anaesthesia have shifted the previous focus from simply abolishing the labour pain to providing a quality labour analgesia with a minimal of side effects.

Married to rubber? Evidence from the expansion of natural rubber in Southwest China

The environmental and economic effects of rubber expansion in southeast Asia have been widely explored, while the possible social influence on local community is rarely investigated. This paper investigates the impacts of rubber cultivation by women's natal households on women's decisions about matrilocal residence after marriage in an ethnic-minority region of Southwest China from the perspectives of family labor and resource endowment. The results suggest that economic factors extend beyond Dai women's traditional customs to determine a woman's decision to live in a matrilocal residence. When labor constraints and resource heterogeneity are present, higher household labor demand and the possession of more location-specific resources such as rubber plantations may increase the likelihood of female family members living in a matrilocal residence after marriage. The findings complement the literature on both the social impacts of agroforestry expansion and the marriage migration in a community with unequally distributed, location-specific resources.

Service robots for affective labor: a sociology of labor perspective

Profit-oriented service sectors such as tourism, hospitality, and entertainment are increasingly looking at how professional service robots can be integrated into the workplace to perform socio-cognitive tasks that were previously reserved for humans. This is a work in which social and labor sciences recognize the principle role of emotions. However, the models and narratives of emotions that drive research, design, and deployment of service robots in human–robot interaction differ considerably from how emotions are framed in the sociology of labor and feminist studies of service work. In this paper, we explore these tensions through the concepts of affective and emotional labor, and outline key insights these concepts offer for the design and evaluation of professional service robots. Taken together, an emphasis on interactionist approaches to emotions and on the demands of affective labor, leads us to argue that service employees are under-represented in existing studies in human–robot interaction. To address this, we outline how participatory design and value-sensitive design approaches can be applied as complimentary methodological frameworks that include service employees as vital stakeholders.

Migration Infrastructure and Brokerage in Victorian Female Emigration Societies

Abstract In the nineteenth century, female mobility was eased by a variety of intermediary structures, which interacted to direct the migration of British women to the Empire. Among these migration infrastructures were female emigration societies such as the Female Middle Class Emigration Society (1861–1886). This organisation was the first to assist gentlewomen in emigrating. It adopted a holistic approach to British female emigration by promoting women’s departure, selecting candidates, arranging their protection on the voyage, as well as their reception in the colonies. Grounded in a multifactorial perspective, this article offers an insight into how female migration brokerage came into being in the Victorian context. It intersects migration with gender and labour perspectives in a trans-sectorial approach of the history of female migration infrastructures in the British Empire, and reveals the diversity of transnational migration intermediaries interacting at meso level between female emigrants, non-state actors, and state institutions.

요역徭(役)의 관점에서 본 조선 초 승역(僧役)의 이해: 도첩제도의 정비와 관련하여

조선 개국 직후 한양 신도시의 역사(役事)에는 일반인 뿐 아니라 승려들[僧徒]도 동원되었다. 조선 초 승려들에게는 국가에서 도첩(度牒)을 발급하도록 되어 있었고, 도첩을 발급받기 위하여 승려는 자신의 평생 신역(身役) 즉 군역(軍役) 값에 해당하는 정전(丁錢)을 납부해야만 했다. 그리고 이런 과정을 통해 도첩을 발급받은 승려들은 공도승(公度僧)으로 인정되어 그 신분이 국가로부터 불교 교단으로 이양된 것으로 간주되었다. 따라서 원칙적으로 국가로부터 ‘승려’라고 불리는 이들은 국가가 요구하는 부역(負役)으로부터 자유로운 존재였고, 정전의 납부를 대신하는 등의 명목으로 입역(入役)할 때에도 그의 승역(僧役)은 신역/군역에 해당하는 것으로 생각하기 쉽다. 하지만 한양 신도시의 역사에 동원된 일반인의 사례를 볼 때, 여기에서 승려들에게 부과되었던 승역은 신역/군역과 다르게 일반 정부(丁夫)에게 부과되는 또 다른 역(役)의 형태인 요역(徭役)과 같은 종류의 것으로 보인다. 당시의 승려들이 한양의 토목공사 외에도 중앙과 지방에서의 각종 공공건물의 영선수즙(營繕修葺), 사신(使臣)에 대한 지대(支待) 등에 동원된 사례 또한 이들이 요역과 같은 역역에 종사하였음을 확인할 수 있다. 승역(僧役)의 차출 담당자와 차정 방식에 대해서는 정확한 사료가 남아 있지 않으나, 일반인 요역의 사례에 비추어 볼 때 승역의 인원은 지방관청의 행정 체계를 통하여 징발되었으며, 그 차정의 기준 또한 일반인의 요역 제도와 마찬가지로 사찰의 규모 즉 재산 정도 및 소속 승려의 수에 따라 차등 징발되었던 것으로 보인다. 그리고 그것은 도첩제도로 대표되는 교단 소속 인원의 군역 면제 원칙과 배치되지 않는 것이었다. 도첩을 지니지 않은 승려를 추쇄할 경우 즉시 환속시키고 군역을 차정한다는 《실록》의 여러 기사는 도첩 발급 시에 지불하는 정전이 승려 지원자의 평생 신역 값에 해당하는 것임을 확인한다. 이에 따라 승역은, 특히 토목공사 같은 데에 동원된 것일 경우, 군역 즉 신역의 측면에서 바라보는 것이 타당하게 여겨지는 측면이 있다. 세종 때부터 시행되기 시작한 승역급첩(僧役給牒)의 예는 승역을 군역의 차원에서 바라보는 그러한 시각을 더욱 강화한다. 하지만 도첩 발급과 정전 납부의 원칙이 세워져 있던 조선 초의 상황에서, 명백히 승려라고 지칭되는 이들이 각종 승역에 그것도 대부분 요역의 종목임이 분명한 노동에 동원되었다는 사실은 분명 재고할만한 지점이다. 기존에 승역을 요역의 관점에서 파악한 연구는 거의 없었으며, 그런 점에서 본 연구의 문제의식은 다소 도발적으로 여겨질 수도 있으리라 생각된다. 다만 조선시대 승역의 이해에 하나의 디딤돌이 되기를 기대해 본다.

Job Attributes and Mental Health: A Comparative Study of Sex Work and Hairstyling

A growing literature advocates for using a labor perspective to study sex work. According to this approach, sex work involves many of the costs, benefits, and possibilities for exploitation that are common to many jobs. We add to the field with an examination of job attributes and mental health. Our analysis is comparative and uses data from a panel study of people in sex work and hairstyling. We examined job attributes that may differ across these occupations, such as stigma and customer hostility, as well as those that may be more comparable, such as job insecurity, income, and self-employment. Our analysis used mixed-effects regression and included an array of time-varying and time-invariant variables. Our results showed negative associations between mental health and job insecurity and stigma, for both hairstyling and sex work. We also found two occupation-specific relationships: for sex work, limited discretion to make decisions while at work was negatively related to mental health, whereas for hairstyling, mental health was positively associated with self-employment. Our results highlight the usefulness of an inter-occupational labor perspective for understanding the mental health consequences of being in sex work compared to hairstyling.

Job Attributes and Mental Health: A Comparative Study of Sex Work and Hairstyling

A growing literature advocates for using a labor perspective to study sex work. According to this approach, sex work involves many of the costs, benefits, and possibilities for exploitation that are common to many jobs. We add to the field with an examination of job attributes and mental health. Our analysis is comparative and uses data from a panel study of people in sex work and hairstyling. We examined job attributes that may differ across these occupations, such as stigma and customer hostility, as well as those that may be more comparable, such as job insecurity, income, and self-employment. Our analysis used mixed-effects regression and included an array of time-varying and time-invariant variables. Our results showed negative associations between mental health and job insecurity and stigma, for both hairstyling and sex work. We also found two occupation-specific relationships: for sex work, limited discretion to make decisions while at work was negatively related to mental health, whereas for hairstyling, mental health was positively associated with self-employment. Our results highlight the usefulness of an inter-occupational labor perspective for understanding the mental health consequences of being in sex work compared to hairstyling.

The choice of Medicine as a profession and the students’ labor perspective

Abstract: Introduction: Medicine is a prestigious profession, therefore, although competition for admission is fierce and studies require dedication and sacrifices, thousands of young people face the challenge of becoming doctors every year. Objective: Describe the reasons why medical school students chose Medicine as a profession and their concerns about the job perspective. Method: Quantitative descriptive and documentary research, through the application of a questionnaire with sociodemographic and specific questions. Result: A high percentage of the female gender stood out, with 63.31% of the participants. The main reasons for choosing Medicine as a profession were altruism (71.75%), financial stability (59.42%) and personal accomplishment (58.77%). However, there was a decrease in the preference for altruism during internship (p<0.01). The biggest concern after training was “Doing a good job / Being a good professional” (79.87%) and, in relation to the “job market” and “devaluation of the profession”, there was an increase in the concern during internship (p <0.001). The majority (91.92%) expressed the intention to become a specialist physician, with the specialty of Gynecology and Obstetrics being the most sought after. Regarding the way of working, 51.3% expressed the desire to be a self-employed professional, 55.52% a public or private employee and 7.92% a liberal professional. The greatest difficulty expected in the profession was competition (57.70%) and the most important requirement for professional practice was “Medicine as a means to be useful or help people” (98.38%). Regarding the feelings experienced as a student, the levels of anxiety, stress and feeling of overload were high, respectively 80.52%, 79.55% and 73.38%. Conclusion: At the beginning of the course, there is a more idealized view of Medicine and throughout the development of phases, as contact with medical practice occurs, the students better understand their difficulties and increase their concerns, especially with the job market and the devaluation of the profession, causing, in some, the reduction of the humanistic ideals that motivated the choice of the profession, an aspect to be valued by medical schools during professional training.