Asymmetric bargaining between Myanmar and China in the Myitsone Dam controversy: social opposition akin to David's stone against Goliath

The Myitsone Dam suspension is an asymmetric negotiation between Naypyitaw and Beijing. The bilateral agreement of the hydropower project was concluded in 2009. However, Myanmar's civil society started to oppose the dam when political opportunities expanded in 2011. The quasi-civilian government in Myanmar was caught in an ‘audience cost dilemma': either to disappoint domestic constituents by fulfilling international obligations, or to compensate the Chinese dam developer for breaching the contract. In September 2011, Myanmar President Thein Sein declared the suspension of the dam throughout his tenure. Unexpectedly, China's state-owned dam company did not sue Naypyidaw. Moreover, Beijing even engaged with societal actors in Myanmar to seek their support for the project. How could Naypyitaw defy Beijing in this Myitsone Dam case? Drawing from 35 interviews with anti-dam campaigners and other stakeholders, as well as secondary data, this article argues that the rise of civil society successfully conditioned Naypyitaw's diplomatic options in the controversy. The change of Beijing's diplomatic strategy confirms that domestic constraint in Myanmar is not rhetorical. The Myitsone Dam case is an example that shows bilateral agreement without domestic endorsement can become China's business risk. Presumably, the dispute has wider implications for other Chinese overseas projects outside Myanmar.     

低水平工资下的长时间劳动 —— 基于富士康的考察

本文利用富士康公司及政府部门公开数据,对富士康员工工资水平进行了分析,认为富士康员工"自愿"进行的过度劳动,是在低工资支付方式与半军事化管理模式的双重作用下劳动者的一种必然的行为选择,并对这种长时间劳动供给行为的影响进行了考察。本文亦指出,在经济增长的不同阶段,地方政府的目标指向和公共政策的理念也在发生变化,因而"富士康"式的企业发展模式从被接受到被质疑的转变是不可避免的。     

Explaining postwar wage compression

One of the main problems confronting labor unions during wage bargaining is how to deal with the conflicting demands of different groups of workers over the division of labor market earnings. This article explains how their internal organizational blueprint determines how they deal with this and criticizes the scholarly preoccupation with union density and wage bargaining centralization as explanatory variables for cross-national and temporal variation in wage inequality. It does so based on a critical analysis of collective bargaining in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom during the first four decades of the postwar period.     

Wage labour and capitalism: a comparative and historical analysis of Eritrea and Kenya

Abstract

This paper seeks to explain the development of capitalism in Eritrea and Kenya from a labour history perspective. Indeed, the assumption in this research is that capitalism can only be explained by taking into consideration free wage labour as one of the sine qua non conditions for the existence of the capitalist mode of production. Therefore, the article looks at the paradigmatic socio-economic shifts: from unfree to free labour, from free to precarious labour and from unfree to precarious labour. These are the result of the complicated relationship that exists between capital and labour. The point of departure of the analysis is the Nieboer-Domar hypothesis on the structural origins of slavery, which despite severe criticism, it has been largely remained unchallenged until the present. In Eritrea, colonised by Italy, and Kenya, colonised by England, free wage labour fully developed between the nineteenth and twentieth century. This could be considered the era of the advent of capitalism, with the advent, for a fraction of the working population, of labour relations based on wages. The precarisation of life of free wage workers is also partially analysed in this article.     

“We feel that our strength is on the factory floor”: Dualism,shop-floor power,and labor law reform in late apartheid South Africa

ABSTRACT

This article explores the transformation of South African labor relations during the 1980s. In 1979, prompted by new shop-floor militancy, the Wiehahn Commission recommended that black workers, previously excluded from state labor machinery, be permitted to join recognized trade unions. Most discussions of this shift in apartheid labor relations focus on the ensuing debate within the black unions, torn between preserving their independence or securing state legitimation. This article looks instead at the related debate about ‘levels of bargaining’: should emergent black unions demand to negotiate at the factory level, where they had secured shop-floor strength through organizing and democratic practice, or pursue the benefits of the corporatist bargaining structures that had long excluded them and had privileged white workers? The eventual drift towards corporatism, I argue, imprinted the character of the South African labor movement into the post-apartheid era. An understandable desire to wield influence at the level of the national political economy eroded the tradition of workers’ control, shop floor democracy, and struggle unionism that black unions had forged during the 1970s and 1980s.     

推行工资集体协商的实践与思考

在中国特色社会主义的现实环境和“党政主导、工会运作”的维权机制下,国有及其控股企业要带头开展工资集体协商,这是有所争论的理论与现实问题。面对国有企业在建立职工工资正常增长机制和权益维护方面存在的问题,企业利益与职工利益之间存在的矛盾,国有企业要发挥较好的民主传统和健全的政工体制优势,率先搞好工资集体协商,进一步健全企业民主管理机制,为实现科学化、规范化管理打下更坚实基础。     

劳动争议影响因素的经济学分析

工资作为劳动关系运行的重要内在变量,直接影响着劳动争议的发生,而劳动争议作为劳动关系运行的一种冲突形式,必然与劳动关系法制有着密切联系。由此可见,工资和劳动法制是影响劳动争议的两个重要因素。因此,为减少劳动争议,构建和谐劳动关系,工会应从党政主导转向积极维护劳动者权益,实现其角色的本位回归,从而有效地预防和妥善处理企业所发生的劳动争议;政府则应当完善劳动争议处理机制,建立选择性劳动争议解决方式,让实体权利能够通过程序予以落实。     

认罪认罚案件量刑建议问题研究

在认罪认罚案件中,检察机关提出的幅度型或精准型量刑建议都是控辩双方合意的产物,也是审判人员最终作出量刑判决的重要依据,审判人员“一般应当采纳”。但对于检察机关提出精准的量刑建议是否存在理论上的正当性以及实务上的可操作性,理论界和实务界仍存在不同意见,实践中也存在部分审判人员“不愿接受”或“勉强接受”精准量刑建议的情况,影响着认罪认罚从宽制度总体功能的发挥。为解决此问题,有必要从理论上明确检察机关量刑建议权以及法院审判权的性质及关系,使审判人员内心“愿意”采纳精准的量刑建议;在实际操作层面需要加强精准量刑建议本身的合理性和合意性,使审判人员经过审理后,“能够”采纳精准的量刑建议。此外,根据具体情况,还需要明确精准量刑建议的变更和补救问题,促进量刑公正。     

加拿大刑事司法相关制度对我国的启示

加拿大刑事司法相关制度颇具特色,对我国具有重要的借鉴意义。我们要逐步完善未成年犯罪人权利的特殊保护制度;完善警检协作关系;合理引入辩诉交易制度;建立健全证据开示制度。     

Negotiating the Marcellus: The Role of Information in Building Trust in Extractive Deals

New technology has expanded the opportunities for energy companies within the United States, often bringing them into populated communities and requiring them to negotiate deals with landowners. This case study focuses on how one group of landowners in northeastern Pennsylvania creatively reimagined the process of negotiating in a natural gas deal. They used collective bargaining for leverage, and the Internet and social media to level the informational playing field. These techniques allowed them to develop trust within the group and ultimately with one company, as they sought to protect their environment and enhance their financial gain.