From cultural sojourner to guestworker? The historical transformation and contemporary significance of the J-1 visa Summer Work Travel Program

Since the mid-1990s, the J-1 Summer Work Travel (SWT) program has quadrupled in size. While many J-1 visa holders are in the U.S. to study or conduct research, the primary activity of SWT participants is low-wage labor. We analyze the trajectory of the SWT program since its origins in the Fulbright-Hays Act, underscoring both change and continuity in the practical and discursive handling of what are, in effect, guestworkers. Our analysis reveals both longstanding concerns about the SWT program’s risks to foreign and domestic workers, as well as repeated efforts by U.S. government officials and private sector stakeholders to justify its status as cultural exchange rather than temporary work. Yet despite these concerns, over the last two decades, the SWT program has become larger and less regulated. We explore these changes in the context of two contending forces shaping the labor market: on the demand side, a transformation in the organization of work towards ‘fissured’ workplaces and contingent employment, and, on the supply side, limited access to foreign labor due to political gridlock over comprehensive immigration reform. We conclude that the SWT program both reflects broader trends in managed migration and embodies the model of flexible migrant labor many employers now demand.     

英国劳动制度改革及其对劳资争议处理的影响

自1950年代,英国的劳动制度改革经历了从“自愿主义”到“新自由主义”为指导原则的转变.1997年新工党执政以来,劳动制度的改革在“新自由主义”的继续影响下,反映出政府试图能够在经济效率与工人发言权之间找到平衡.然而,严格的法律规制使劳动争议的处理在实际操作中陷入了困局,并导致新的更加灵活的劳资争议处理方式受到广泛认同.这说明英国劳动制度的改善需要兼顾规范性和灵活性两个方面,才能成为真正调节劳动关系,处理劳资争议的有效手段.     

Manning the Fields: Remaking Women's Work in the Tobacco South in the Twentieth Century

Today, men make up the vast majority of the workforce in the tobacco fields of the American South. This was not always the case. For more than two centuries, enslaved women worked alongside men in the tobacco fields. In the late nineteenth century, the unpaid labor of female kin made possible the household's replacement of the plantation as the center of production, and it remained critical for farm families well into the twentieth century. Following World War II, agricultural engineers developed new technologies to eliminate tasks traditionally done by women. In the 1980s, the process of defeminization accelerated as growers began to hire male guestworkers from Mexico as more women moved into the non-farm labor market to supplement their families' farm incomes. The transition from family to wage labor in the tobacco South was far from a ‘natural’ process, but one nurtured by state agricultural, labor, and immigration policy.     

‘We Want Both!’: pressuring Philadelphia unions for inclusion and equity during the long 1970s

ABSTRACT

This article examines local labor insurgency in Philadelphia between the mid-1960s and mid-1980s. Drawing on alternative press sources, it traces the efforts of Black, Puerto Rican, and female workers to reshape their unions as stable employment opportunities declined. Across industries and job sites, workers pressured both their unions and their employers through public criticism, running slates of candidates in union elections, and taking part in picketing and wildcat strikes. Existing scholarship has privileged rank-and-file activism among White men focused on wages and working conditions. Enlarging our view to include a more representative workforce at the local level while following workers’ resistance forward through time recharacterizes the rank-and-file rebellion to include defiant, multiracial coalitions demanding progressive reform. That broader rebellion, in turn, challenges some long-held assumptions about US labor during the 1970s.     

谈劳动合同与劳务合同在劳动争议案件中的调处方法

依据劳动合同和劳务合同,劳动者与所在单位(用人单位)在实现社会劳动过程中形成的权利义务关系存在很大差异。因此,相关的争议解决机制也不相同,再加之实际中存在的大量事实劳动关系,给劳动争议案件的调处造成很大的难度。厘清三者关系,对于保护劳动者和用人单位合法权益,形成和谐的社会劳动关系至关重要。     

The role of collective mobilization in the divergent performance of the rural economies of China and India (1950–2005)

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that the divergent performance of the rural economies of China and India after 1950 was a product of the different capabilities of the Chinese and Indian governments to mobilize the labor force and financial resources of the rural population. By mobilizing unpaid labor and the financial resources of the villagers through mediation by the collectives (before 1984) and local administrations (from 1984 to the abolition of agricultural taxation and compulsory rural labor mobilization in 2006), the Chinese state developed rural infrastructure and the quality of the labor force at a pace and geographical scope that was far beyond its limited fiscal capacity. Efforts by the Indian state to establish rural organizations with similar mobilization capabilities failed due to the effective opposition of well-entrenched political and economic interests in the countryside. Unable to mobilize the labor and financial resources of the villagers, the Indian government relied primarily on its limited fiscal resources, which produced a much slower development of physical infrastructure and labor force quality. These are the primary reasons why China’s rural economy developed much more rapidly than India’s, which contributed significantly to the divergence of their national economies in the post-1950 era.     

劳动关系研究的当代理论争论及对创新中国特色劳动关系协调机制的启示

不同国家之间的劳动关系协调模式存在着系统性差异,这种差异会逐渐走向趋同还是继续保持多样性是当代劳动关系研究的核心理论争论之一。按照这一主题,相关理论在当代的演进大体上可以划分为三个阶段,包括20世纪50-80年代的趋同理论、80年代中后期到2000年左右的资本主义多样性理论、2000年以后的制度逐渐变迁理论。上述理论的争论及其历史演进对创新中国特色劳动关系协调机制具有重要的启发意义,特别是相关理论中对主要发达经济体劳动关系协调模式的分类和走向的预测,以及对劳动关系制度和其他经济政治制度之间互补性的强调,为我国劳动关系协调机制的构建提供了重要的概念工具。     

Building shared power: the Trans-Arabian Pipeline and the technopolitics of anti-sectarian labor mobilization in Lebanon, 1950–1964

ABSTRACT

This article examines anti-sectarianism and the technopolitics of labor mobilization at the facilities of the Trans-Arabian Pipeline (Tapline) company in Lebanon between 1950 and 1964. It argues that although Tapline helped sustain a Lebanese elite strategy of cross-sectarian power-sharing, it also unintentionally fostered specifically anti-sectarian labor mobilization. Pursuing a line of inquiry into the technopolitics of worker mobilization around oil infrastructure opened by Timothy Mitchell’s Carbon Democracy, this article specifically examines how Lebanese Tapline workers construed their actions, and did so in anti-sectarian terms. It also proposes that similar studies of labor and the technopolitics of infrastructure could offer productive avenues for inquiry into the origins of anti-sectarian politics in Lebanon.     

劳动教育的本体地位、本体价值及实践创新

劳动是人之所以成为人的根本,亦是劳动教育之所以成为教育的前提.从马克思恩格斯将生产劳动上升到"人类社会存在的第一个前提",到毛泽东主张"教育必须同生产劳动相结合",再到习近平以高远的历史唯物主义视野对劳动本质进行深入探索,以坚定的信念树立劳动精神,以发展的眼光审视劳动教育,都充分展现了马克思主义劳动观的深刻内涵和马克思...     

劳动争议调解机制的构造分析与改进构想

我国劳动争议调解机制的结构性缺陷为忽视了调解组织中立性、行动能力、行为动因、工会角色安排和交易费用承担等前提条件问题,其基本假设不可靠。参考国际社会的成功做法,结合我国实际,可建立健全企业内部劳资沟通渠道,配置给雇主以释明、沟通义务和相应的举证责任;可改造和充实三方机制,以建立区域性、行业性乃至国家层面的调解和指导调解机构;在诸多重要条件不具备的过渡时期,可选择政府主导的调解机制,同时培育和激励民间调解机构和人员的广泛参与;运用惩罚性赔偿的私法责任和行政处罚等公法责任,强化对劳资纠纷中侵权者特别是资方的法律约束,以确立劳资争议调解中促进妥协、和解的压力与诱导机制。     

开发老年劳动力市场的必要性与路径研究

在平均预期寿命增加和低生育率的双重作用下,中国快速进入老龄化社会,给劳动力市场和经济持续发展带来了诸多挑战。中国老年劳动力市场具有巨大的潜力,充分利用51-64岁年龄人口将会有效增加我国劳动力供给,实现二次人口红利。在分析当前中国老年劳动力市场潜力及充分借鉴国外经验的基础上,提出了推行延迟退休政策、鼓励老年人灵活就业、加强老年劳动力培训和完善社会服务体系等开发老年劳动力市场的路径。     

European capitalism and the effects of agricultural commercialization on slave labor in Tunisia, 1780s–1880s

Abstract

The paper argues that while the significance of Tunisian state economic and political reforms during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries has reflected the changing patterns of the caravan slave trade in previous research, much of this research has not considered the role of slaves in the emergent Tunisian economy. Nowhere is this negligence more apparent than in the agricultural sector, which was predominantly responsible for strengthening economic growth from the late eighteenth century until its weakening as a result of encroaching European capitalism by the mid-nineteenth century. Drawing on Tunisian state population data known as the Majba Census and the extant economic literature, the paper addresses this gap by exploring the implications of the Tunisian state economic reforms on enslaved labor in the agricultural sector. Exploring this research gap will enable us to ascertain the extent to which enslaved labor contributed to Tunisia’s burgeoning agricultural sector in a manner that has dodged academics’ attention. After providing a historical context of European capital penetration and its implications on political and economic reforms from the Ottoman conquest through the Husaynid periods, the paper looks at how European capital infusion after the first quarter of the nineteenth century transformed the agricultural sector and examines the role of slave labor prior to the European capital infusion and commercialization of the agricultural sector. Using the Majba Census records’ regional distribution of blacks in the Regency the paper sheds light on the implications of the precarious economy engendered by agricultural commercialization under the aegis of European capitalism on the structure of enslaved labor.     

被派遣劳动者适用无固定期限劳动合同的法律问题探讨 —— 以机关事业单位使用编制外人员为视角

我国机关事业单位以劳务派遣方式使用编制外人员有其特殊的历史背景。劳动合同用工中，劳 动者“非因本人原因从原用人单位被安排到新用人单位工作”引发的法律后果的逻辑解读应为：如果劳动者的 连续工作年限满十年的，则新用人单位负有与其签订无固定期限劳动合同的义务；如果劳动者的连续工作年限 不满十年，其意义仅在于新用人单位在解除、终止劳动合同支付经济补偿时，是否应当合并计算劳动者在原用 人单位的工作年限。劳务派遣用工中，用工单位的性质不应视为是属于被派遣劳动者的“新用人单位”，而通 过界定“逆向劳务派遣”或适用实质雇主判断规则，寻求用工单位承担实际用人单位的法定义务的裁判思路， 应当审慎。劳务派遣用工中，劳动者是否享有要求劳务派遣单位签订无固定期限劳动合同的权利，亟待立法明确。     

The defiant still worker: Ramiro Gomez and the expressionism of abstract labor

This essay looks at a selection of paintings by Los Angeles-based visual artist Ramiro Gomez. Departing from the traditions of ethnic studies and Marxist criticism that focus on workers’ resistance as action, I turn to the domestic worker, who remains still and perpetually at work, in his paintings. I propose that stillness is both an abstract aesthetic form and a racialized and feminized mode of being abstract and not fully knowable to both spectators and employers. Stillness, I argue, is the limit to following the worker’s subsequent actions, movements, thoughts, and expressions. While, for Marx, abstraction is the very effect and violence of the capitalist production, I ask what possibilities emerge from a mode of stillness that further abstracts, displaces, and obscures the worker within the scene of domestic labor. Bringing together Marx’s analysis of abstract labor, the tradition of abstract expressionism, and Chicana/o aesthetic practices in Gomez’s paintings, I offer a theory of stillness, and by extension abstraction, as a subtle yet defiant refusal to be concrete and graspable.     

商业秘密的劳动法保护研究

在劳动法视域下,保密义务和竞业禁止是现代企业保护其商业秘密的两种重要手段,但由劳动者引发的商业秘密纠纷仍就给企业正常竞争造成巨大的冲击。因此,如何平衡劳动关系中劳动者的合法权益和用人单位的商业秘密保护,是当前值得探讨的重要课题。本文试图结合当前的劳动法规制现状,剖析我国商业秘密劳动法保护现存问题,进而提出我国商业秘密劳动法保护的相关建议,以促进商业秘密保护制度的完善。     

中国劳动关系研究70年回顾与展望

中国劳动关系研究植根于本国历史经验、道路实践和国情社情,经过70年来五个阶段的发展,已经形成了中国特色的劳动关系理论体系,即借鉴西方的劳动关系制度,但摈弃了把劳动关系看成是纯粹的经济关系、单纯用产权规则解决纠纷的思维。该理论体系认为,劳动关系中包含了政治关系,劳动关系双方在根本利益上是一致的。因此,劳动关系领域的矛盾,是根本利益一致基础上的具体利益差别的矛盾,属于人民内部矛盾。由此形成了国家主导的中国劳动关系治理体系的"四梁八柱"。当前,劳动力市场结构发生了基础性转变,经济发展已经由高速增长阶段转向高质量发展阶段,互联网平台经济的快速发展促进了各种新就业形态不断涌现,这些变化必然会带来劳动关系的变化和劳动关系研究的新议题。     

Wage labor in historical perspective: a study of the de-proletarianization of the African working class in Zimbabwe, 1960–2010

Abstract

This paper traces the rise and fall of wage labor in Zimbabwe between c.1960 and 2010. Building on Giovanni Arrighi’s seminal study, ‘Labour supplies in historical perspective: a study of the proletarianization of the African peasantry in Rhodesia’, we argue that the 1950s were the highpoint of African wage labor participation in the Southern Rhodesian/Zimbabwean economy. From that point, the percentage of wage labor as part of the economically active population fell consistently until the collapse of the Zimbabwean economy from the late 1990s onward, when it shrunk emphatically. This process is observable elsewhere in southern Africa over the second half of the twentieth century. Writing in the 1960s when the Southern Rhodesian economy was diversifying and absorbing large numbers of African workers from within and beyond the country’s borders, Arrighi overstated the stability and longevity of the proletariat. From that point, though, combined internal and external forces resulted initially in the stagnation of secondary and primary industry and commerce, and latterly in their contraction. The ensuing processes of de-proletarianization, falling wages, and heightened livelihood precarity have been the norm for an ever-increasing proportion of the African working class up to the present.     

我国无效劳动合同制度的立法原则

无效劳动合同的立法严谨而又切合实际,不但能够保护劳动关系双方当事人的利益,也能够促进我国劳动关系的稳定、和谐、健康发展。如果无效劳动合同的法律规范滞后于社会现实或法律调整过于超前,其产生的结果可能与立法宗旨背道而驰,不仅劳动关系双方当事人的利益会遭受损害,也会影响我国劳动力市场的健康有序运行以及和谐社会的建设。确立无效劳动合同立法的基本原则,是无效劳动合同立法基本前提。     

The involvement of the men and religion forward movement in the cause of labor justice,Atlanta, Georgia, 1912–1916∗

The radical ideologies and socialist overtones of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) made them an easy target for industrialists as nationalistic and patriotic propaganda flooded the pages of American newspapers during World War I. The war in Europe marked the beginning of the end for the rapid growth and labor organizing power of the IWW, especially in the northwestern United States where WWI was used as a means for state governments and regional industrialists to devise methods meant to damage the union beyond repair. After America’s declaration of war, the Washington State Council of Defense was formed in response to the nation’s demand for mobilization of its citizens for increased production of war materiel and to operate the state’s wartime propaganda machine. With an abundance of natural resources, Washington had a profound impact on national war production output. Although it possessed several important extractive industries, it was Washington’s quality grain, especially in the southeast portion of the state known as the Palouse, which made it a boon for agricultural industrialists. With wheat prices fixed at the highest in the nation’s history, Palouse farmers became wealthy as a result of WWI, while the area’s thousands of migrant laborers suffered from low wages and pitiful job conditions. A general strike issued during the 1917 harvest by the IWW’s most influential branch – the Agricultural Workers Industrial Union (AWIU) frightened area farmers, prompting the Defense Council to begin a systematic replacement of AWIU harvest hands via the organization of thousands of women, children, and retirees. Through appeals to patriotism and anti-labor rhetoric, the Defense Council and local reactionaries effectively circumvented union labor with its labor replacement campaign throughout the remainder of WWI, and without the use of violence so common to labor conflicts in Washington State. The IWW/AWIU in the Palouse never fully recovered from the onslaught, thus adding to the union’s near collapse in the aftermath of WWI.     

和谐劳动关系与民营企业发展——加强劳动者权益保护、构建和谐劳动关系

劳动争议是劳资关系矛盾的集中表现。本文首先分析了民营企业劳动争议案件的数量变化、产生的原因及争议解决方式等方面的特征,指出了民营企业成为当前劳资关系矛盾的重点;其次,本文分析了民营企业中劳动者权益保护中存在的一系列问题,最后本文从劳动者权益维护的角度提出了构建民营企业和谐劳动关系的思路。