Calling Local/Talking Global: the cosmo-politics of the call-center industry

In 2015, pioneering Saudi vlogger Juju Sajer revealed her face on YouTube after three years of performing in relative invisibility. She used her beauty vlog for small family dramas as well as beauty advice, translating the global genre to stage Saudi womanhood in modest and modern ways. This article analyses Juju’s use of digital frames as material for building a representational apparatus for young Saudi women. It takes a posthumanist approach to media roles as materially entangled with apparatuses of production, attending to the performer’s construction of networks and her onscreen performances. Juju’s evolving role from beauty vlogger to proto-talk show host, accompanied her increasing control over means of digital production after she gained corporate sponsorship and put her face on her brand. In contrast to theorists of communicative capitalism, I examine Juju’s self-branding as a networked performance of self, which enlivened and extended representational repertoires for young Saudi women. As a niche YouTube channel, it shows the potential of digital performance repertoires to develop within a framework of gendered modesty.     

Differences in the executive council of the American federation of Labor

The 1936–1937 General Motors sit-down strike may be the most famous work stoppage in American history. The victory in Flint so heartened workers that a veritable “sit-down fever” wave spread across America. But are labor scholars guilty of unintentionally spreading a Whiggish view of history? Just 7 weeks after the victory in Flint, Hershey Chocolate workers sat down. Within 7 days they were forcibly ejected from the factory and beaten by a mob. This article takes a look at the events in Hershey with an eye toward raising questions about the overall efficacy of sit-down strikes. Although it by no means wishes to diminish the heroism or the usefulness of the Flint sit-down, it argues that a balanced look at the past requires a deeper look into the strikes that failed. The question is of the utmost importance for the contemporary labor movement, as some activists have called for a revival of sit-down militancy as a tactic for organized labor to reverse decades of decline. This may not be wise strategy, as past sit-down strikes are too narrowly filtered through the triumphant lens of Flint.     

Transnational labor action in Latin America: from the struggle against the Free Trade Area of the Americas to the return of labor relations

Neoliberalism was the hegemonic political and economic model in Latin America during the 1990s. The promotion of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) was a fundamental policy to extend neoliberal policies and foreign influence throughout the region. In a momentum built throughout that decade and into the 2000s, the trade union movement joined forces with social movements to create a counterhegemonic force using traditional and novel power resources. This alliance managed to defeat the FTAA and was a central force in supporting new center-left administrations throughout the region. The developments since that historic event have shown the relevance of political contexts and strategic outlooks for the long-term success in maintaining, or failing to maintain, such kinds of alliances.     

The Seattle Teamsters and the procedural state, 1935–1942

The Teamsters Union often clashed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Seattle between 1935 and 1942. At times the Seattle Teamsters resisted the NLRB, yet in other cases the union worked within the agency's procedures to expand. In the years after the Wagner Act, the Teamsters exploited the NLRB to block employees from choosing their own union. This article uses archival records to explore cases where the Seattle Teamsters successfully adapted to federal regulation of collective bargaining between 1935 and 1942. Seattle workers opposed to the Teamsters bravely fought to protect their right to organize, yet these employees faced a union skilled at working with the procedural state. These cases show the increasing ability of the Seattle Teamsters to enroll workers wary of the union by complying with NLRB rules.     

Employee benefits,migration and social struggles: an Indian coalfield, 1895–1970

ABSTRACT

During 1895–1970, in the Indian coalfield of Jharia, circular migration of the mineworker coexisted along with the fact that workers became regular over time. This article suggests that the development of employee benefits influenced the patterns of migration and settlement of workers. Employers, guided by a new industrial sensibility, came up with specific employee benefits, with an objective of continuous production from a group of settled workers. The workers’ approach to social security and the pressure exerted by them shaped the expansion of employee benefits. My finding takes an issue with the thesis of cheap migrant labour. The latter argument has insufficiently revealed the actual preferences of employees. My work critiques another thesis which suggests that workers maintained a preference for investment in rural homesteads; therefore choosing to remain oscillating migrants. My study suggests that workers developed a notion of the civilised and human form of life from the 1920s onwards. The self-respect campaign amongst the unprivileged caste groups, the movement for industrial democracy and national reconstruction and the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO’s) advocacy of civilised and human life for workers, gave a spur to new reproduction preferences. Now, they sought employee benefits regarded as necessary for a dignified living.     

Promising more to give less: international disputes between core and periphery around European posted labor, 1955–2018

ABSTRACT

The posting of workers from the European periphery has generated the longest and most tumultuous series of labor disputes in the history of European Integration. On the basis of relevant archives, this article conducts the first historical review of posting rules in the European Union, from the first negotiation in 1955 until the latest directive in 2018. This historical review enables to discard the idea of a neoliberal turn in posting rules from the 1980s onward. It also leads to reject the explanation of disputes by the movement out of the European periphery under posting rules of a Lumpenproletariat insensitive to class struggle. Instead, the article identifies the increasing regulation of the labor market at the expense of posting opportunities since thirty years. It reveals the dominant role played by governments and their invariable support for their workers. It highlights the constant asymmetry of power between core richer countries and the Southern and Eastern periphery of the European Union. Eventually, this article locates the long-term problem in the contradictions between the interests of workers and firms in richer destination countries and the enlargements of the Single Market to poorer countries.     

The Alien Child’s Best Interest Ignored: When Notions of Gendered Parenthood Meet Tightening Immigration Policies

ABSTRACT

This article investigates how arguments about the “child’s best interest” are constructed in court decisions on asylum and family reunification in Finland. The article brings together two strands of scholarship that have so far been rather separate from each other, namely that of the literature on family reunification and feminist family studies. Analysis shows that the best interest of the child is insufficiently addressed and other arguments sideline the evaluation of child’s best interest. Gender has an impact as the best interest of the child seems to play a more significant role in relation to motherhood than it does in relation to fatherhood. In general, the court did not deem motherhood or fatherhood central to the child’s development as such, but rather as something that became central if it could not be performed properly due to other reasons than separation. Considerations such as ties to either Finland or the country of origin, as well as the income requirement, can become factors that override the potential separation from a parent. Finally, the results are also compared to the child’s best interest evaluation in out-of-home placement cases from the same courts. Our analysis shows a stark contrast between these two types of cases. We show that whenever a child’s case falls under immigration law, even when simultaneously being handled within the framework of child protection, the main deciding factor is not the best interest of the child. Alien affairs are decided based on—almost solely—factors other than the child’s best interest, while the same Supreme Administrative Court rules on child welfare cases based on a very different interpretation of child’s best interest.     

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。     

我国企业劳动关系和谐指数评价指标之研究

从理论上讲,政府、企业和员工处于互信互利、相互配合、相互包容、共同发展的一种状态是劳动关系追求的和谐状态,这种和谐状态不是一种表面的感知,而是可以通过劳动关系和谐指数的主客观指标值来把它显现出来。劳动关系和谐指数评价体系从员工、企业、政府三个角度入手,对员工满意程度、企业法律法规的执行情况、政府目标任务的完成情况进行综合评价。构建理性的、科学的劳动关系和谐指数评价体系,对于我国构建和谐劳动关系、缓解劳资纠纷和用工紧张具有重要意义。     

滥用劳务派遣之反思与规制

《劳动合同法》实施以来,劳务派遣用工量呈井喷之势。劳务派遣迅猛发展的主要表现为劳务派遣的滥用,劳动立法的缺漏、利益的驱动、企业的经济人本性、政府职能的缺位是滥用劳务派遣现象发生的主要原因。滥用劳务派遣极大损害了劳务派遣劳动者利益,破坏了劳务派遣市场秩序,是本次《劳动合同法修正案》处理的主要问题。通过劳务派遣行业准入制度的完善、劳务派遣适用范围的限制、同工同酬权的保障、劳动监察力量加强等多个层面的治理,将劳务派遣控制在合理的适用范围,引导劳务派遣规范化发展,落实劳动关系的和谐稳定。