A new Fair Trade registration scheme based on the relations of production

Fashion, accessories, and homeware fall outside the regulations of Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO), which certifies mostly food products. A handful of fashion-led Fair Trade enterprises are now providing ranges of high-quality desirable products, made by workers employed in urban enterprises as well as independent producers in cooperatives. Tabeisa, an NGO involved in Fair Trade retailing, has developed a new regulatory framework which uniquely starts by defining the relations of production between all actors in the chain. This ensures that those not previously covered by existing standards are made visible and receive fair pay and conditions.     

A confluence of Fair Trade and organic agriculture in southern India

Although the confluence of Fair Trade and organic agriculture has become a salient phenomenon, they contradict each other at the production level: Fair Trade focuses on specific products, while organic agriculture targets production units. This article explores how Southern small-scale producers cope with this discrepancy, by observing one farmers' group's attempt to obtain the two certifications in India. This case study identifies stakeholders who react to the two certifications differently under different livelihood strategies. Combining the two initiatives may not always be the best practice for realising poverty reduction and environmental conservation –aims which the initiatives have in common.     

What determines poverty transition? An investigation of women livestock farmers in Bangladesh

This article evaluates poverty transition using self-assessment in a quasi-experimental framework. Data are drawn from a survey conducted in 2006 of 400 women who were the beneficiaries of a poverty-alleviation programme which involved longer-term interventions towards building the strength of government departments, participating organisations, and beneficiaries. During the survey, when the project was approaching its conclusion, about 50 per cent of these farmers were still in the programme. The article addresses a number of key questions related to pathways out of poverty through livestock-based activities, heterogeneity in livelihood choice and its impact on household welfare, and wider applications.     

Tradition and Change: Four People A Response to the Politics of Paradox

Helen Goodman, the Member of Parliament for Bishop Auckland has responded to the Blue Labour Publication The Politics of Paradox, with Tradition and Change: Four People. Blue Labour's thesis is that a return to the ideas and practices prevalent at the foundation of the Labour Party—solidarity and reciprocity, can form the basis of significant social change. Helen views the thesis from the perspective of two communities—first the hill farmers of Teesdale, a paradigmatic community whose rights and way of life on the Commons have existed for over 600 years. Then she looks at the Durham Miners’ Gala and the needs of the former coalfields. Helen argues that in both cases, only government can take the national and international action they need. Secondly she looks at the stories of a mother and a priest. The importance of the welfare state in providing security and opportunities becomes clear. Helen confronts Blue Labour's criticism of women's independence and prays in aid the Archbishop of Canterbury on the need for a feminist analysis. She accuses Blue Labour of ‘drum and trumpet jingoism’.     

囚在富士康——富士康准军事化工厂体制调查报告

富士康准军事化的工厂管理体制其本质是劳动的严重异化,本文以马克思主义的劳动价值观为理论视角,根据第一手实证资料调查研究了富士康的生产管理体制,发现它与马克思对早期资本主义原始积累的观察是一致的,其绝对剩余价值的生产同样是通过延长劳动时间、克扣工人工资以及制造各种形态的血汗劳动来实现的。富士康工人感觉工厂像监狱,其原因在于富士康着力打造了一个以绝对服从和惩罚性的制度为特征的法家式兵营社会。     

Deliberative multiculturalism in New Labour's Britain

The aim of this paper is to examine the principles that New Labour has employed in its citizenship and multicultural policies in Britain, and to clarify theoretical locations as well as philosophical rationales of those principles. By deliberative multiculturalism, I mean a set of policies and discourses of New Labour about citizenship and multicultural issues, which emphasizes rational dialogue and mutual respect with firmly guaranteed political rights especially for minorities. New Labour tries to go beyond liberal and republican citizenship practice through enhancing deliberation, the origin of which goes back to the British tradition of parliamentary sovereignty. It also attempts to achieve a one-nation out of cultural cleavages, shifting its focus from redistribution with social rights to multicultural deliberation with political rights. I organize my discussion with a focus on the difference between two theoretical concepts: the relationship between cultural rights and individual equality, and the relationship between national boundaries and global belonging. In the concluding section, I explain three positive developments of New Labour's approach and also four limitations it has faced.     

Party Politics and Governance in Grenada: An Analysis of the New National Party (1984–2012)

Abstract

This article examines party politics and governance in post-revolutionary Grenada, using the case of the New National Party (NNP). The central question is what does the evolution of the NNP suggests about governance and democracy in post-invasion Grenada? The article traces four phases of the NNP since its formation in 1984: (1) externally imposed marriage of convenience; (2) intra-party conflict and splintering; (3) rebranding, consolidation and dominance; and (4) electoral defeat. The article contends that Grenada has transitioned to formal democracy and the NNP is a significant actor. Yet, despite this transition, Grenada has not become the showcase of democracy that the US said it would in 1984.     

Class or Citizenship? Debating Workplace Conflict in China

While a new working class is in the process of remaking itself in China, the latest trend in labour studies has rejected the Marxist tradition which sees the social relations of production as the point of departure for analysing workplace conflict. According to the new current, influenced by post-structuralism, class is only one of the identities articulated by workers, and it can be understood only with reference to their discourses. By critically evaluating an important book by Ching Kwan Lee (Against the Law: Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and Sunbelt), this article suggests that her approach generalising workers' protests with the notion of citizenship cannot satisfactorily explain the changing pattern of labour protests in China since 2004. By using fieldwork data and connecting the analysis of the social relations of production with the changing patterns of workers' struggle, this paper argues that migrant workers protests are a significant part of the emerging class conflict in China.     

International labour standards: Challenging globalization ideology?

The article centres on the role of differential labour standards in the restructuring of the global economy. The denial of labour rights in Asia is a significant factor in the Asian investment boom and in the employment crises in the OECD countries. The first section outlines the Clinton administration's intervention on labour standards in Asia, the strident reaction from Asian governments and from US business interests, and the administration's rapid retreat into ‘constructive engagement’. The second section considers neo‐liberal arguments advanced in favour of nonintervention in the labour sphere since the freeing up of trade and market forces generates economic growth, which in itself improves labour standards. The assumptions underlying this model are critiqued. Finally, alternatives that recognize the significant influence of labour standards on global investment flows are identified. Here it is argued that the emergence of independent unionism in Asia could have a significant effect on the structure of the the global economy in the longer term.     

Focus Group Follies?

Abstract

Media coverage of the contemporary British Labour party routinely suggests party leaders, notably Tony Blair, have been overly reliant on using focus group as a means of obtaining voter feedback. The paper explores this popular understanding by considering how and when qualitative forms of opinion research began to play a significant role in developing campaign strategy. Following their incorporation into party planning during the mid-1980s, focus groups provided an increasingly influential (and at the time more discreet) source of data and support for the leadership's Policy Review later that decade. Following the 1992 election defeat selective findings from the party's qualitative research programme became integral to the public relations' initiatives of Labour's self-styled “modernisers,” particularly in their largely successful attempt to delegitimise and then marginalise the role of the party's once formidable affiliated union supporters in internal affairs. Crucially this contributed to a climate that enabled the key moderniser Tony Blair to emerge and win the leadership.