When Emancipation finally came in the 1830s, white Caribbean plantation owners first sought to replace slaves with immigrant labour from India. Most of these efforts were unsuccessful, except in Trinidad and Guyana (formerly British Guiana), where an enduring pattern of immigration built up. This text begins with the 1870s, when immigration laws for both countries were substantially revised in response to the success of the indenture drive in Asia, and explores the history of indentured immigration from that period up until 1917.
This edited collection is a global history of workers’ organisations since 1919, the year when the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Comintern and the International Federation of Trade Unions were formed. This historical moment represents a caesura in labour history as it epitomises the beginning of what the editors and the contributors in this book call the internationalisation of the labour question. The case studies in this centenary volume analyse the relationship between global workers’ organisations and the new ideological confrontation between liberal capitalism, socialism and communism since the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Workers’ organisations, trade unions in particular, grew in importance and managed to organise internationally, forming alliances cemented by ideology and sustained by international institutional bodies or centrals. In the nascent capitalist versus communist struggle, trade unions thrived. Is it mere coincidence that today’s decline of unionism coincides with the end of ideological antagonism? This book emphasises important global labour issues such as gender as well as international workers’ histories from Latin America, Asia and Africa.
This book provides a focus on some of the main markers and challenges that are at the core of the study of structural transformations in contemporary capitalism and their implications for labour in the Global South. It examines the diverse perspectives and regional and social variations that characterise labour relations as a result of the uneven development which is an important facet of the intensification of capitalist accumulation.. The book provides important insights into the impact of the crises of capitalism on the wellbeing of labour at different historical junctures. Some of the issues covered by it include the conditions of work, and the changing composition of laboring classes and/or working people. The chapters also throw light on the multiple trajectories in the development of labour relations and employment in the Global South, especially after the ascendancy and domination of neoliberal finance capitalism. Some of the major aspects considered by the essays include the decentering of production and development of global value systems, crisis of social reproduction, and the rising informalisation of work.
Platform work – the matching of the supply of and demand for paid labour through an online platform – often depends on workers who operate in a “grey area” between the archetype of an employee and a self-employed worker. This important book explores the utility of the International Labour Organization’s existing standards in governing this phenomenon. It indicates that despite their relevance, many standards have little or no impact. The standards apply to the issue but they fail to connect with it. The author shows how three ILO conventions – the Home Work Convention, 1996 (No. 177), the Private Employment Agencies Convention, 1997 (No. 181), and the Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189) – can be revitalised to have an impact on the platform work debate. In the course of the analysis he responds in depth to such questions as the following: What are digital labour platforms? What does decent work mean? Did the ILO centenary fundamentally change anything? What is the link between private employment services and platform work? How do crowdworkers relate to homeworkers and teleworkers? Are platform workers engaged in domestic work? What form could a future ILO standard on platform work take? Given that the ILO plans to start discussions on a potential future standard for platform work in 2022, this book will prove very useful in highlighting the issues and standards that such discussions should consider. Research has shown that the techniques and tools of the platform economy have spread far beyond gig work, resulting in widespread “gigification” and restructuring of workplace behaviours and relationships, jobs, and communities across the world. For this and other reasons, including the book’s detailed analysis of issues not addressed elsewhere, labour lawyers, in-house counsel, researchers, and policymakers will gain valuable insight into what decent work in the platform economy would require, thus greatly broadening the discussion on this difficult-to-regulate phenomenon.
Labour law has traditionally aimed to protect the employee under a hierarchy built on constitutional provisions, statutory law, collective agreements at various levels, and the employment contract, in that order. However, in employment regulation in recent years, ‘flexibility’ has come to dominate the world of work – a set of policies that reshuffle the relationship among the fundamental pillars of labour law and inevitably lead to degrading the protection of employees. This book, the first-ever to consider the sources of labour law from a comparative perspective, details the ways in which the traditional hierarchy of sources has been altered, presenting an international view on major cross-cutting issues followed by fifteen country reports. The authors’ analysis of the changing hierarchy of labour law sources in the light of recent trends includes such elements as the following: the constitutional dimension of labour rights; the normative intervention by the State; the regulatory function of collective bargaining and agreements; the hierarchical organization of labour law sources and the ‘principle of favour’; the role played by case law in both common law and civil law countries; the impact of the European Economic Governance; decentralization of collective bargaining; employment conditions as key components of global competitive strategies; statutory schemes that allow employees to sign away their rights. National reports – Australia, Brazil, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States – describe the structure of labour law regulations in each legal system with emphasis on the current state of affairs. The authors, all distinguished labour law scholars in their countries, thus collectively provide a thorough and comprehensive commentary on labour law regulation and recent tendencies in national labour laws in various corners of the globe. With its definitive analysis of such crucial matters as the decentralization of collective bargaining and how individual employment contracts can deviate from collective agreements and statutory law, and its comparison of representative national labour law systems, this highly informative book will prove of inestimable value to all professionals concerned with employment relations, labour disputes, or labour market policy, especially in the context of multinational workforces.
Does work give our lives purpose, meaning and status? Or is it a tedious necessity that will soon be abolished by automation, leaving humans free to enjoy a life of leisure and basic income? In this erudite and highly readable book, Jon Cruddas MP argues that it is imperative that the Left rejects the siren call of technological determinism and roots it politics firmly in the workplace. Drawing from his experience of his own Dagenham and Rainham constituency, he examines the history of Marxist and social democratic thinking about work in order to critique the fatalism of both Blairism and radical left techno-utopianism, which, he contends, have more in common than either would like to admit. He argues that, especially in the context of COVID-19, socialists must embrace an ethical socialist politics based on the dignity and agency of the labour interest. This timely book is a brilliant intervention in the highly contentious debate on the future of work, as well as an ambitious account of how the left must rediscover its animating purpose or risk irrelevance.
Studies in Employment and Social Policy Volume 56 Digitalization, far from being solely a technological issue, has broad implications in the social, labour, and economic spheres. It leads to dangers as well as to new chances for the workforce, and thus labour law must develop effective ways to both protect workers and allow them to profit from new technological developments. The most thorough book of its kind, this collection of expert essays provides an abundance of well-thought-out material for understanding the consequences of digitalization for the labour market and industrial relations. Recognizing that only an international perspective can make it possible to face the challenges of the present (and the future), renowned authorities from the International Labour Organization and the International Society for Labour and Social Security Law, as well as outstanding labour law professors, examine in depth such salient issues as the following: transformation of production systems; the spread of artificial intelligence; precariousness and exploitation in the gig economy; lessons learned from COVID-19; employment status of platform workers; new cross-border issues; rights to trade union association and collective bargaining; role of the State in the new digital labour market; and blurred lines between work and private life. Thanks to the international team of contributors, the issues are dealt with from a variety of overlapping perspectives and points of view, combining aspects of labour law, commercial law, corporate governance, and international law. Highlighting the need to adapt, especially through the right to training, work, and professionalism with respect to the new technological landscape, the book draws on legislative, judicial, and theoretical initiatives suggesting ways of responding positively to the requests for protection that arise in the new forms of production. A uniquely valuable tool for study and reflection for policymakers and academics, the book is also sure to be valued by entrepreneurs, managers, consultants, corporate lawyers, judges, human rights experts, and trade unionists who are interested in the issues of labour, industrial relations, and social rights in European and international contexts.
Animals do a wide range of work in our society, but they are rarely recognized as workers or accorded any labour rights, and their working conditions are often oppressive and exploitative. Drawing on law, ethics, and labour studies, the essays in this volume explore the potential and dangers of animal labour.
This book is an exploration of arguments about the economic and social effects of the regulation of labour, and whether it is likely to be helpful or harmful to development. Authored by contributors from a variety of fields, primarily legal as well as development studies, economics and regulatory studies, the book presents both empirical and theoretical analyses of the issues. With authors from several continents, this collection is unique in that it focuses on labour regulation in poor and middle-income countries rather than industrialised ones, therefore making it a significant contribution to the field.
The first comprehensive and authoritative history of work and labour in Africa; a key text for all working on African Studies and Labour History worldwide.
