Suchergebnisse

AbstractWorkers in the garment manufacturing industry are often subjected to violations of their rights and are exposed to low wages and difficult working conditions. In response to the exposure of these violations in the media, major fashion brands and retailers subject their suppliers to labour codes of conduct. Despite these codes of conduct being largely ineffective, this comparative case study of garment manufacturers operating from Lesotho and Eswatini illustrates that such codes provide workers and trade unions with access to bargaining leverage that they would otherwise not have. A framework with a synthesis of potential sources of workers' power is developed and related to global production networks, collective mobilisation, the nature of the state, as well as national and transnational scales of organising. Based on historical case studies of the two countries, this paper illustrates how unions in the two countries followed different approaches to using this source of power in relation to other sources of power. These approaches were shaped by their contexts and strategic choices. Theoretically, it is argued that sources of workers' power are analytically distinct, but are relational and operate best when seen as mutually reinforcing. The term 'power resource nexus' is used to frame this potential mutual reinforcement of sources of power.

Labour Disrupted exposes the precariousness of union organisation and how labour movements have had to respond to the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic. It addresses issues related to the fourth industrial revolution on the working class, and the challenges of skills development and inclusiveness.

ABSTRACT
Mine and worker Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) remains crucial given the historically dismal record of fatalities and accidents in mining in South Africa. OHS also played a central role in the resurgence of trade unionism of black South African mineworkers in the 1980s. While the OHS literature has the workplace as its predominant focus, this article explores three factors relating to conditions external to and beyond mining production: subcontracting, illegal mining and inter-union rivalry. By drawing on empirical studies conducted over two decades, employing a range of research methodologies, the article shows how these factors impact negatively on the mechanisms regulating safety and occupational health. The article concludes that understanding the OHS environment cannot remain restricted to the underground mining workplace. Instead, it points to a broader conceptualisation of OHS and notes the implications for worker politics and progressive research practice.

"Widespread claims have been made on the emergence of a new labor internationalism in response to the growing insecurity created by globalization. This book grounds globalization in the everyday lives of workers, their households, and their communities. It compares three towns - Orange in Australia, Changwon in South Korea, and Ezakheni in South Africa - and shows how the global restructuring of white goods corporations is creating a profound experience of insecurity within workers, their families, and their communities." "Grounding Globalization contains a warning: at times, workers do turn inward and become fatalistic, even xenophobic. But there are signs of hope. The book explores the possibilities of re-empowering labor through engaging space and scale in new ways. Workers are rising to the challenge of neoliberal globalization by attempting to globalize their own struggles."--Jacket

AbstractThis paper addresses an important but often neglected theme in debates on globalisation—the consequences for workers of engagement in global markets, particularly for those workers who are retrenched in the process. Using the South African textiles industry as a case study, the paper investigates the impact on workers' household livelihoods of industrial restructuring following trade liberalisation in the 1990s. Interviews with textile workers and retrenched textile workers were conducted in five locations in three provinces—the Western Cape, the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu‐Natal—in order to capture different local dynamics. Workers employed in textiles generally enjoy a relatively stable formal sector wage, which, though less than the manufacturing average, is well above the national poverty line. However, the benefits were not evenly spread between the regions and job insecurity has been increasing. Workers retrenched from textile employment have faced extreme difficulties in a country with exceptionally high levels of open unemployment, and many families have fallen into deep poverty, which may now be transmitted intergenerationally. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Involving four generations of Global South researchers, this book provides a theoretical and empirical critique of Burawoy's model of public sociology. It offers a bridge between debates on public sociology and decolonial frameworks.