贯彻劳动合同法需要诚信作支撑

<劳动合同法>确立的诚信原则不仅订立劳动合同时必须坚持,而且在该法贯彻实施的全过程中必须坚持.坚持诚信原则,法律有明文规定的,劳动关系当事人应当遵守;没有明文规定的,解决劳动关系运行中出现的新问题,也要以构建和发展和谐稳定劳动关系的立法精神为指导,坚持该原则.坚持诚信原则不仅是保护劳动者利益的需要,也是企业发展的需要,是实现劳动关系当事人双方利益的需要.     

公平:在倾斜中实现平衡——《劳动合同法》应当向劳动者倾斜

向劳动者倾斜不仅是《劳动合同法》的立法需要,也是追求法律公正与公平的现实需要。《劳动合同法》向劳动者倾斜的力度是适度的,并不存在倾斜过度问题。《劳动合同法》只有向劳动者倾斜,侧重保护处于弱势劳动者的合法权益,在倾斜中调整和平衡雇佣双方的关系,才能建立起平衡、和谐的劳动关系。     

工友视线

《劳动合同法》"保护伞"之外的四类劳动者2008年1月1日实行的《劳动合同法》是一部充分保障劳动者权益的法律,解除了广大劳动者在签订合同时的很多后顾之忧,劳动者权益从此增添了一道保障。然而,有一部分劳动者却游离于《劳动合同法》的"保护伞"之外,无法享受到应有的法律保护。有关专家指出,由于受保护范围的限制,非法用工的员工、家庭雇佣的保姆、保险推销员和自由职业人等四类人员不受《劳动合同法》的保护。     

劳动保障部新闻发言人详解《劳动合同法》三大热点

2008年1月1日实行的《劳动合同法》是一部充分保障劳动者权益的法律，解除了广大劳动者在签订合同时的很多后顾之忧，劳动者权益从此增添了一道保障。然而，有一部分劳动者却游离于《劳动合同法》的“保护伞”之外，无法享受到应有的法律保护。有关专家指出，由于受保护范围的限制，非法用工的员工、家庭雇佣的保姆、保险推销员和自由职业人等四类人员不受《劳动合同法》的保护。     

劳动合同法之是是非非

《劳动合同法》已正式实施了两个多月,立法程序中激烈利益博弈的硝烟尚未散去,过渡期里又经历了华为万人"辞职"、沃尔玛突击裁员、泸州老窖劳务派遣纠纷等一系列事件。前不久,苏州工业园区人力资源中介协会又因劳务派遣被限期六个月紧急上书全国人大,而近期珠三角许多鞋厂倒闭,万余港企面临关闭潮,更多数量的中小企业计划迁离,《劳动合同法》更是被指责阻碍了中国经济的发展。有关争论一波未平一波又起。对于员工自己不愿意与用人单位签订劳动合同、员工自己不愿意办理社会保险等问题,用人单位该如何处理等一系列新情况的出现,人们一时也找不出一个准确的答案。有人据此认为,《劳动合同法》是一部过于"超前"的法律,脱离了现实国情和经济形势,过多地倾向于保护劳动者,而忽视了资方的利益,没有实现用人单位和劳动者的合作双赢,反而导致了用人单位和劳动者的对抗甚至恶化了劳动者的就业环境。法律对劳动力市场的过度管制将导致经济失去活力,其结果是不仅企业倒霉、劳动者倒霉,整个经济也跟着倒霉。似乎,《劳动合同法》惹了大祸。因此,在《劳动合同法实施细则》尚未出台之前,其争论便显得很正常,也很有必要。     

论劳动合同主体的立法完善

我国《劳动法》对用人单位的认定和责任承担的规定是模糊的,对劳动者的范围规定是限制性的,这不利于劳动权的保护,不利于劳资矛盾的解决,也不利于我国劳动关系的法治化。在《劳动合同法》的立法中,在对用人单位的认定和责任承担方面应当确立有利于劳动者的原则,而对劳动权主体的立法则应当确立普遍性原则。     

劳动合同法对现行劳动法的修改及对我国劳动关系的影响

<中华人民共和国劳动合同法>已于2007年6月29日颁布,并将于2008年1月1日正式实施.该法是<劳动法>颁布以来我国最重要的劳动法律,涉及亿万劳动者的切身利益,对用人单位用工有直接的影响.<劳动合同法>对现行劳动法作了较大地修改和调整,使这部法律更符合市场经济发展的规律,更有利于劳动者合法权益的保障,从而促进劳动关系的和谐稳定.<劳动合同法>的颁布实施必将对我国劳动关系产生重大影响.     

《劳动合同法》若干条款实施中存在的问题

<劳动合同法>保护劳动者的模式是,政府社会保障职能不健全的同时,强制企业保障就业稳定,这一模式是不成功的.<劳动合同法>直接规范、调整劳动关系不同群体的权利利益,触动了最敏感的关系,它的实施本身就直接取决于经济发展状况、劳动关系状况、不同群体对比关系,是比较难实施的法律,而现在,<劳动合同法>部分条款出现的不严谨、歧义等各种问题,又为实施<劳动合同法>带来更多不应该有的困难.     

论劳务派遣用工方式的适用范围——基于用工单位的考察

从《劳动合同法》中涉及用工单位的条文内容分析,用工单位首先应当是合格的用人单位,只是其在使用劳务派遣用工方式时才被称为用工单位。《劳务派遣暂行规定》中所确定的用工单位范围小于劳动法中用人单位的范围。在实践中,使用劳务派遣用工方式的单位不仅有我国的企业,还包括外国机构、国家机关和事业单位。无论是境内外派就业还是对外劳务输出,都涉及到国外法律的适用,显然我国《劳动合同法》中对劳务派遣的法律规定适用上存在着困难,但是这并不意味着我国法律中对劳务派遣的规定完全不适用。国家机关和事业单位在大量使用派遣劳动者,现阶段,法律应当明确国家机关和事业单位可以使用劳务派遣用工方式,同时明确限制用工岗位,保护被派遣劳动者的合法权益。家政服务人员适用劳动法需要考虑家政劳动本身的特殊性,当家政服务公司招用的家政服务人员被派遣到用户家中从事家政服务时,劳务派遣的一些法律规定可以适用。重新审视劳务派遣用工方式,进行专门立法应当是未来的方向。     

被派遣劳动者的劳动报酬权——兼评我国《劳动合同法》的相关规定

劳动者取得劳动报酬,是劳动者的一项权利,即"劳动报酬权"。保护被派遣劳动者的劳动报酬权是保护被派遣劳动者权利的重要方面。无论用工单位是否向派遣单位支付被派遣劳动者的劳动报酬,派遣单位都负有向被派遣劳动者支付劳动报酬的义务。被派遣劳动者不能按时足额领取劳动报酬,有权向派遣单位主张劳动报酬权。被派遣劳动者的同工同酬权利是劳动者平等权利具体体现的一种形式。应当如何向没有提供正常劳动的被派遣劳动者支付劳动报酬,需要法律给予明确。     

Introduction to queer circuits: Critical performance and digital praxis

This introduction situates the articles making up this special issue within four thematic clouds, positing queer theorization as broadly relevant for critically engaging with computational technologies and culture. These sub-themes offer suggestions for future queer inquiry and praxis and reflect key terms in performance studies and queer theory that have undergone transformation with the ubiquity of digital technology.     

Women,Science and Culture: Science in the Nineteenth-century Periodical

The Victorian periodical press offers unique insights into many diverse areas of nineteenth-century experience, and the complex relations between gender, science and culture in particular, yet it has been consistently marginalized as a primary resource in academic study. The Science in the Nineteenth-century Periodical (SciPer) project at the universities of Sheffield and Leeds is creating a new point of access to a wide range of non-specialist periodicals across the century by means of a fully searchable electronic index. By detailing the entire contents of each journal, and not just those articles that have a clear scientific relevance, it becomes clear that science formed a fundamental and integral part of nineteenth-century culture. The electronic index, moreover, will include hypertext cross-reference links that will allow the user to identify a dialogic pattern of encounters between ostensibly diverse articles, rather than only to browse in a simple chronological mode. By adopting this innovative approach, the SciPer database will reveal the manifold intertextual relations between the fictional works of women writers like Elizabeth Gaskell and the scientific articles that often appeared in the pages of the same magazines, and will show that writers of both sexes and across several different genres actively engaged in vibrant interdisciplinary debates concerning scientific issues in a forum provided by the periodical. Although the SciPer database itself is not specifically focused on issues of gender, the index will include several periodicals aimed explicitly at a female readership and, by providing access to titles still rarely utilized in modern scholarship, it will offer further insights into the important contemporary debates about women and science, as well as the more subtle ways, in which gendered imagery was employed within scientific discourse. This article details some critical findings from Punch , The English Womans Domestic Magazine , Cornhill Magazine and the Review of Reviews .     

The Liquefaction of Desire: Music,Water and Femininity in Victorian Aestheticism

This article reconsiders Victorian images of mermaids and sirens through a detailed examination of two images: Frederic Leighton's Lieder ohne Worte (1861, oil on canvas, Tate Britain) and Edward Burne-Jones's The Depths of the Sea (1886, oil on canvas, private collection). It demonstrates that the themes of water, music and femininity were entwined in the Victorian imagination, by setting these two paintings within the context of Victorian artistic, literary and cultural production. It shows that musical images were prevalent in the emerging Aesthetic movement. Musical subjects freed artists and audiences from the conventions of narrative interpretation, and allowed them instead to concentrate on exploring mood and colour.

Pictures of mermaids add a further twist to the Aesthetic preoccupation with music. This article reveals that mermaids made explicit the underlying connection between musical performance and sensuality. It also suggests that the idiosyncratic depiction of the mermaid by Burne-Jones and the ambiguous sexuality of Leighton's figures could be read as symptomatic of changing conceptions of desire. It argues that these images embodied the shift from ardour to libido. In other words, love was no longer described as burning and fixed, but as fluid and shifting. This transformation in the way desire was theorised was most urgently presented in Freud's Three Essays on Sexuality (1905). However, this article suggests that the same ideas were being made visible in Aesthetic art and writing from the mid-nineteenth century.     

Carnal teachings: raunch aesthetics as queer feminist pedagogies in Yo! Majesty's hip hop practice

This essay puts forward a notion of “raunch aesthetics,” theorizing raunch as an aesthetic, performative, and vernacular practice: an explicit mode of sexual expression that transgresses norms of privacy and respectability. Raunch aesthetics describe creative practices that often blend humor and sexual explicitness to launch cultural critiques, generate pleasure for minority audiences, and affirm queer lives. The author activates her formulation of raunch in analyzing Yo! Majesty, a hip hop group comprised of black female emcees who openly describe their sexual desire for women, and explores how the queer youth of color she works with have responded to their music. Working beyond the unexamined moralisms that give critiques of raunch culture their legitimacy, the author argues that Yo! Majesty's raunch aesthetics transmit queer and feminist teachings. While celebrating carnal pleasures, these artists critique heterosexism, subvert narratives about the incompatibility of belief in Christ and queer sexualities, and trouble notions concerning the emancipation of coming out of the closet and declaring a stable homosexual identity. In demonstrating how raunch aesthetics generate consciousness raising, the author discusses how her youth participants critically read and consume hip hop while negotiating unwieldy meanings of sexuality and gender presentation.     

Feminism, Aestheticism and the Limits of Law

This article seeks to identify and address the normative void that resides at the heart of postmodernist-feminist theory, and to propose a philosophical framework – beyond postmodernism, but incorporating its central insights – for thinking through the normative questions with which feminists are inevitably confronted in their engagements with positive law. Two varieties of postmodernist-feminism are identified and critically analysed: the ‘corporeal feminism’ of Elizabeth Grosz and Judith Butler, which seeks to ground feminist critical practice in the irruptive capacities of the material body considered as an arte fact of social construction; and the deconstructionist feminism of Drucilla Cornell, for whom ‘the feminine’ is an indeterminate but disruptive force beyond its construction in law and in other social sites. The first component of the argument elaborated here is that each of these approaches ultimately reduces to a form of aestheticism which is incapable of generating a worthwhile and workable feminist approach to the restructuring of politics and law. The second component of the argument involves a return to aesthetics, in particular to the philosophical aesthetics of Kant’s Critique of Judgement. Kant’s aesthetic philosophy, it will be suggested, yields a framework of concepts which, duly re-manipulated, could speak to the very concerns that have inspired postmodernist-feminism: how to attend to (bodily) particularity while avoiding the dangers associated with ‘essentialism’; and how to theorise the propensity of the unrepresentable power of the feminine to exceed both embodied human capacities and the confining rein of socially privileged rationalities. Crucially, however it also responds to a set of preoccupations – those of the feminist lawyer – that cannot be accommodated by postmodernism: how to translate embodied experience into (legal) norms; generalise from the particular; seek consensus; and codify an endless potentiality in the form of law. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Unexpected: Bionic Woman at the Millennium

Wilfred Bion's A Memoir of the Future provides a point of departure for feminist thinking about the millennium. Bion problematizes hopes for the future and associates thought with catastrophic change. Women play an unexpected role in Bion's experimental autobiography, posing provocative questions and unsettling the status quo . Since Bion has little to say about women in his clinical writings, A Memoir sheds light on his thinking and on the post-Kleinian culture of the 1970s. Book I of A Memoir depicts a class- and sex-nightmare played out between men and women, and women and women, in an age of anxiety whose setting appears to be the fascist 'pacification' of Middle England during an unspecified period. In this hallucinatory drama, all encounters are reduced to a brutal fiction of dominance and submission. The violence of the action suggests the primitive mental world of psychosis. Book II of A Memoir satirizes 'the brilliance of masculine thought' through the voices and criticisms of women. But this is the purgatorial movement of Bion's autobiography, inhabited by 'idées mères' (untransformed beta-elements) and haunted by the ghosts of Bion's traumatic war-time experience. A monstrous plot is hatched to kill primitive, fascistic Man, who retaliates and takes the female spoils. Is this the prelude to catastrophic change? Book III stages a country-house debate between different characters who represent aspects of Bion's personality, recapitulating the concerns of his later writing. The debate includes a meditation on childbirth as compared to war trauma, but Bion takes his distance from feminine intuition or common sense. Women fight on both sides of the barriers in the Bionic revolution - becoming, however, figures for the 'unexpected' and precursors of emotional upheaval. The gendering of millennial thought in Bion's Memoir provides an opportunity to scrutinize our own unthought fantasies of change.     

Guessing in the Gaps

The genesis of this conversation was the forthcoming new Penguin edition - under the general editorship of Adam Phillips - of the works of Freud. Mark and Phillips consider the concept of a 'literary' Freud alongside the 'scientific'or 'clinical' Freud, and discuss the related issues of translation, representation and interpretation, particularly as they bear on psychoanalytic writing. Adam Phillips's relationship to the institutions of psychoanalysis is considered, and the perpetuation of these institutions through the training of psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. Also discussed is the project of psychoanalysis: the nature of psychoanalysis as a therapy as well as a body of ideas. Mark and Phillips make reference to the work of Freud, Lacan, Klein, Winnicott and Laplanche, and to concepts such as the 'enigmatic signifier' and 'transgenerational haunting'.     

The Between

Thinking with this special issue's group of feminist thinkers – some artists and others scholars – this introduction makes a strong case for co-authorship and a more collaborative humanities, while also insisting that the couple form – that stalwart object of queer and feminist theory – is neither a known quantity nor an exhausted entity, but rather, a field ripe for analysis. Situated squarely within performance studies, this introduction pivots away from questions of ontology and toward method and performativity, in order to ask: what modes of intellectual practice, erotic exchange, political work, and aesthetic experimentation happen uniquely within couple forms, in their most capacious and non-self-same iterations? What queer and feminist work can they do? What, in other words, is possible in the infinity, if indeed it is an infinity, between one and two?     

Beyond the scarcity scare: reframing the discourse of hunger with an eco-mind

Solutions to world hunger continue to be impeded by a frame – a set of assumptions – that keeps much of humanity focusing narrowly on quantitative growth. The result is greater food production and greater hunger. Yet, across the world another way of seeing, one grounded in the relational insights of ecology, is transforming food systems in ways that both enhance flora and fauna and strengthen human relationships, enabling farmers to gain a greater voice in food production and fairer access to the food produced.