Suchergebnisse

The emergence of a fundamentally reshaped global labour market regime during the last three decades has been marked by increasing informalisation of employment and followed by precarious working conditions, most seriously affecting irregular migrants. A range of social and political movements on transnational, regional and national level have generated strategies and discourses of contestation that emphasize the prominence of universal and collective rights. In connection with these initiatives the paper addresses the issue of accountability and contingencies for the implementation of labour, migrants' and human rights and the ILO's decent work agenda within the existing global governance architecture. It is argued that setting up a workable model for codification and institutionalisation of labour standards, human rights and migrants' rights cannot be left to the currently asymmetric global governance regime. The essential role of global and regional trade union confederations and other civil society organizations (CSOs) in repositioning the issue of a rights-based approach to migration, labour standards and development onto the terrain of a fair globalisation is emphasized.

Purpose– Against a theoretical discussion of informalisation, the purpose of this paper is to trace wider commonalities and migratory interconnections that are leading to informalised or deteriorated employment conditions both East and West in the enlarged Europe.Design/methodology/approach– The paper examines the ways in which informalisation has come increasingly to typify employment relations both East and West via contrastive case studies from Sweden and Latvia.Findings– The paper illustrates how a growing tendency towards informalisation of work and economy comes about as a consequence of dual tendencies towards informalisation both "from above" and "from below". Migrant labour has a part in this process, especially in the post-EU enlargement period, increasingly enabling free movement of labour from the former socialist countries to the West.Research limitations/implications– The implications of the paper are that the harmonisation of labour standards in the enlarged EU is not necessarily in an upward direction and that wider EU labour markets may be increasingly segmented as processes of informalisation grow in scope.Practical implications– Policy-makers concerned with preserving labour standards and norms of decent work may consider the implications of the interconnected processes of informalisation and migration, in particular, with regard to "undeclared work".Social implications– The paper raises issues concerning the European social model and its viability.Originality/value– The paper bridges research on informalisation of the economy and labour migration in the context of EU enlargement.

This article attempts to provide a critical understanding of the dual signification of "precarity". It explores what "precarity" as a concept may potentially offer to studies of the changing contemporary political economy of migration. It discusses shifting trends in global migration and point to tendencies for a possible convergence between "South" and "North", "East" and "West". Based on a review of current advances in research, it discusses, with reference to the classical work of Karl Polanyi, the potential for a contemporary "countermovement" which would challenge the precarity of migrants. Bringing forward the issue of the "space for civil society" the article addresses a still lingering democratic deficit in the global governance of migration. ; Policy Implications The article is relevant to policymakers, trade unions and civil society organizations. It contributes to the understanding of policy making processes in emerging multilevel global governance and focuses on issues of precarization, migration, and the implementation and accountability of human, migrant and labour rights.

This chapter discusses dilemmas of global civic activism from a neo-Gramscianperspective as both subordinated and a potential challenge to hegemonicneoliberal order. With the investigational focus on the People's Global Actionon Migration, Development and Human Rights (PGA) event, the space forcivic activism relating to the intergovernmental Global Forum on Migrationand Development (GFMD) and its associated Civil Society Days and CommonSpace is analysed. The article asks how the future of PGA activism may beinfluenced by its formalized representation within the GFMD. It posits thatthe PGA has landed at a crossroad between becoming a global activistcounterhegemonic movement to a dominant neoliberal migration policy andbeing captured in a tokenist subordinated inclusion within a truncated'invited space' for interchange. This ambiguous position jeopardizes itsimpact on global migration governance, discussed with reference to theoriesof transversal politics and issues of counterhegemonic alliance-building.

The current special issue examines the development of an emerging globalgovernance on migration and the spaces, roles, strategies and alliancemakingof a composite transnational civil society engaged in issues of rightsand the protection of migrants and their families. This question is connectedwith how different actors – the United Nations, international organizations,governments and a wide variety of civil society organizations and regionaland global trade unions – perceive the root causes of migration, globalinequality and options for sustainable development. The contributionsincluded in the special issue interrogate from different perspectives thepositionality and capacity of civil society to influence the Global Forum forMigration and Development. They examine the opportunities and challengesfaced by civil society in its endeavor to promote a rights-based approachwithin international and intergovernmental fora engaged in setting up aglobal compact for the management of migration and in other global policyspaces. ; Funding agencies: Migration, civil society and global governance: an introduction to the special issue

El establecimiento de un modelo viable para la codificación e institucionalización de normas laborales, derechos humanos y derechos de los migrantes no puede dejarse en manos del actual régimen de gobernanza global asimétrica. A nivel mundial y regional, las confederaciones sindicales y otras organizaciones de la sociedad civil (OSC) tienen un papel central para reposicionar la temática de los derechos y el desarrollo en el terreno de una globalización justa. Este artículo aborda la rendición de cuentas y las contingencias para aplicar los derechos humanos, laborales y de los migrantes y la Agenda de Trabajo Decente de la Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT) dentro de la arquitectura de la gobernanza global.