Using the Law as a ‘Harmonious Weapon’: The Ambiguities of Legal Activism in Favour of Migrant Workers in China

Abstract

Legal mobilization has spread in China over the past 20 years and is generally considered by both activists and scholars as a way to advance democracy and rule of law. Focusing on the mobilization in favour of migrant workers and on politically moderate practices, which are both more frequent and widely held as more successful, I argue to the contrary that resistance and reproduction of political domination are mutually constitutive. Public interest litigation and administrative litigation appear as new forms of political participation that constitute an internal regulation to the authoritarian regime, thus contributing to explain the regime's capacity to adapt and its durability. This article also accounts for new strategies developed by some lawyers that shun the courts and use law to ‘empower civil society’ and that thus do not contribute to structural reproduction. Though activists are struggling to turn their strategies into more institutionalized practices, they remain an ad hoc mechanism of internal control.     

Culture or taxes? The conceptions of citizenship of migrants and local factory workers in Italy

A number of studies of everyday citizenship have shown that the way in which the ordinary population of a state thinks of citizenship is not unilaterally determined by the conceptions present in state's citizenship law. This work looks at what migrants and local factory workers in Ferrara (Northern Italy) think of citizenship, and what conceptions can be found behind their opinions. The research is based on 60 in-depth interviews with migrants of different origins and professions and local factory workers. While scholars consider the Italian citizenship law to be closed towards both the immigrants and those born in Italy from non-citizens, most of the interviewees have expressed the preference for the ius soli and shorter residence requirements. Almost all the interviewees believed that people with a penal record should not be naturalised, and some of the interviewees have expressed cultural conceptions of citizenship that could be demanding of the candidates. However, the stronger consensus was for a lighter, economic conception of the citizen as anyone who works and pays taxes.     

Migrant workers and migrant entrepreneurs: changing established/outsider relations across society and space?

Drawing on Elias and Scotson's theory of established/outsider relations, in this paper we argue that migrants can be outsiders in one spatial context and established in another simultaneously. Our empirical focus is the situations and experiences of migrant workers from Central and Eastern Europe in four towns across Wales. While their position as outsiders is reinforced in the occupational spaces of meat-processing factories, outside the workplace a small but growing number of migrants are engaging in entrepreneurial activities that create new spaces of cultural diversity. We argue that this is having a wider affective impact on established/outsider relations.     

浅谈基层医疗机构职代会职权行使保障机制建设

在实践中,基层医疗机构职代会职权行使往往流于形式,职代会组织不能有效发挥其应有作用。分析原因,由于基层医疗机构具有明显区别于其他事业单位的行业特殊性,单位领导尤其是一把手对职代会作用的认识程度、重视程度、支持力度,对职代会职权行使产生重要影响,因而应建立包括学习培训制度、目标考核制度、督导调研制度、集体研究会议决定制度、权力监督约束制度在内的职代会职权行使保障机制,确保职代会作用的有效发挥。     

论我国NGO发展对工会困难职工帮扶工作的影响

近年来我国NGO(尤其是慈善公益类NGO)的蓬勃发展,为社会慈善公益事业的繁荣搭建起有利的平台。而我国工会工作在经济体制转型和国企改革进一步深化的环境下遇到了新的挑战———如何加强困难职工群体的帮扶工作这一现实问题。在现阶段,要解决这一问题,工会在依靠政府支持和自身发展的同时,应该从更加广阔的社会领域中去寻求资源和帮助。而其中的关键就在于要加强工会与NGO(尤其是慈善公益类NGO)的良性互动和合作。     

工会学理论的最新发展——全国工会学研究会、中国工人历史与现状研究会2006年年会综述

从法律实施的角度来看,劳动合同法需要基层工会的配合与支持。和谐社会的建设离不开和谐劳动关系的建立,和谐劳动关系的建立同样也需要基层工会的大力支持。工会工作者要坚持以理论创新推动工会工作创新,要坚持走有中国特色的社会主义工会道路。     

Like a Deer in the Headlights: The Paralysis of Stuckness

When describing how they experience moments of not-knowing, youth workers often talk about a sense of paralysis, as though their uncertainty becomes physically constraining. This chapter describes the first of five themes associated with youth workers' experiences of not knowing what to do: the paralysis of stuckness. In addition to describing and investigating the dominant theme of paralysis, this chapter discusses its three variations, as described by youth worker participants: (a) It's just me, and that's not enough, (b) It's like a mental freefall, and (c) That crushing becomes your world.     

论工会在推进新生代农民工城市融入中的作用

与老一代农民工相比,新生代农民工城市融入愿望更为强烈。然而,受到城乡二元结构的限制与自身文化、技能的制约,新生代农民工城市融入水平较低。工会作为党联系职工群众的纽带和桥梁,作为职工利益的代表者和维护者,理应发挥组织优势,加快推进新生代农民工城市融入。     

社会工作者提升青少年自尊的策略——基于生态系统理论的分析

个体在青春期的发展任务是建立良好的自我同一性,而自尊的高低对于青少年自我概念和自我认同的形成起着关键作用。因此,社会工作者开展青少年服务的重点是帮助青少年提升自尊感。生态系统理论作为社工介入的理论依据,强调社工要以整体的视角分析问题,从个体与周围环境的互动入手,使服务对象与其所处的系统之间达到平衡协调。在实务工作中,社工可以从微观系统、中间系统、外部系统和宏观系统等多个层面进行干预,协助青少年提升个体自尊,强化其社会适应能力。     

关于制造业工会工作的调研与思考

朝阳区制造业工会2013年成立后,为夯实工作基础,全面了解基层企业工会组织工作现状,探索促进制造业工会工作健康发展的新路子,对行业所辖44家基层企业工会进行逐一实地走访,围绕企业状况、工会组织建设、民主管理、职工权益维护和技术创新、文体活动及职工需求等工会重点工作内容进行了专题调研,获得了大量一手信息与数据,发现了制造企业工会存在的普遍问题,并对破解问题进行了思考.