Suchergebnisse

Democratization beyond the nation-state level has been on the scholarly agenda of international political economists since the early 1990s. Academic debates have generated a mushrooming literature on the 'democratic deficit' of global governance. In the field of industrial relations, scholarly interest on the relevance of democracy has translated into a rich body of literature on workplace democracy. Yet, research has been concerned with the national and local levels largely neglecting the transnational dimension. This article discusses the potential of International Framework Agreements (IFAs) to address the democratic deficit of the global governance of labour. In doing so, it borrows notions largely established in the field of international political economy and applies them to an industrial relations problem (i.e. impact of IFAs on the ground) drawing on case-study evidence from three IFAs in the telecoms, energy and apparel sectors. The article examines what accounts for IFAs' capacity for representation, legitimacy, accountability and transparency.

The conclusion of the inter-sectoral Framework Agreement on Telework is a significant innovation in European policy-making reflecting a shift towards greater autonomy of organised management and labour; both sides of industry are invited to proactively engage in the implementation as well as follow-up of European framework agreements at different levels of bargaining. Building on workplace level telework arrangements, the paper discusses the role of trade unions in implementing the Telework Agreement in Spain and the UK and provides a preliminary evaluation of the effectiveness of its autonomous character. Analysis is structured around two sets of factors; institutional (impact of industrial relations traditions) and societal influences (how the topic of the European agreement is situated within different societal contexts). It is argued that differences in the significance attributed to teleworking have shaped unions' perceptions and policies on both the form of implementation and practical application at lower levels, while the impact of institutions seems to be greater on substantive issues. Overall, despite their soft character, autonomous agreements represent agreements with potential. Although not enforceable in court, they can operate as good practice guides while their European origin may act as an informal element of legality when they reach a Tribunal. However, without active local union involvement the protections they offer can be largely symbolic.

In this article, we examine the potential of global union pedagogy to address the structural and political challenges of cross‐border trade‐union action. We do so by proposing an analytical framework that draws on labour relations, political sociology and education to explain educational processes and outcomes as responses to the pitfalls of global labour campaigns and the inadequacy of global and local labour institutions. We proceed to assess the value of our framework by elaborating on its different dimensions – framing, synthesizing, connecting and regenerating – in relation to the educational work of a global union federation, namely the International Transport Workers' Federation. We find that an actor‐centred approach that combines top–down, bottom–up as and horizontal processes of collecting knowledge from different contexts and making links between different countries, industries and parts of supply chains can help actors realize that their seemingly diverse concerns are essentially different manifestations of the same problem.

Greece's economy and society have undergone important structural changes in recent years as a result of the financial crisis and consequent austerity policies that have been implemented. The Greek labour market and employment relations system have been subject to immense pressures, leading to fundamental changes both in the structure of institutions and in the behaviour of the main employment relations actors. The present volume constitutes a first attempt to appreciate the consequences of a decade of austerity politics on the Greek labour market. Offering a multidisciplinary perspective and building on original research by leading Greek scholars in the fields of labour economics, employment relations and the sociology of work, it will discuss the impact of the crisis and the resulting policies on the Greek labour market and employment relations. This volume will be of interest to policy makers, researchers and students interested in the past, present and future of Greek employment relations and the impact of austerity on Greece.