Sociology: work and labour Books

Book SynopsisWhy do we always assume it was the New Right that was at the centre of constructing neoliberalism? How might corporatism have advanced neoliberalism? And, more controversially, were the trade unions only victims of neoliberal change, or did they play a more contradictory role? In How Labour Built Neoliberalism, Elizabeth Humphrys examines the role of the Labor Party and trade unions in constructing neoliberalism in Australia, and the implications of this for understanding neoliberalism’s global advance. These questions are central to understanding the present condition of the labour movement and its prospects for the future.Trade Review“In pointing out some of the unique characteristics of neoliberalism’s triumph in Australia, Humphrys enriches our understanding of the different pathways and contexts, including the incorporation of the labour movement, that can bring about such dramatic economic and social transformation in the interests of capital without massive social unrest.” – Sarah Gregson, in: Labour History 118 (May 2020) “How Labor Built Neoliberalism is a scholarly, erudite and persuasive account of Labor’s neoliberal turn and of the Accords. It should be widely read by labour historians, political economists, unionists and Labor politicians.” – Tim Lyons, in: Labour History 118 (May 2020) "[Humphrys'] critique offers both useful conceptual tools for understanding neoliberalism and an important caution in rushing towards the state for solutions. That is a challenge, particularly in Australia, where unions have often looked to political means to solve industrial problems. Her call also resonates with a growing number of critical voices within the union movement urging a renewed focus on industrial organising." — Ben Spies-Butcher, Macquarie University, in: The Economic and Labour Relations Review (2020) "How Labour Built Neoliberalism is an important contribution to the critical study of a period of history that has largely escaped honest appraisal. It builds on the work of Tom Bramble, Rick Kuhn and others, joining a small but important offering of literature that frankly explains the genesis of the unions’ current crisis. [...] How Labour Built Neoliberalism is critical reading for anyone who wants to understand the context of today’s trade union crisis." — Steph Price, in: Marxist Left Review, Issue 18, Winter 2019 "[F]ind yourself a copy of How Labour Built Neoliberalism... [Humphrys] makes a serious, well-researched and persuasive case, which challenges a great deal that’s been written about the recent past. If you’re at all concerned about the state of the Australian left, you need to engage with her work." — Jeff Sparrow, in: Sydney Review of Books, 23 September 2019 "The book opens up a discussion about the contemporary ‘profound disorganisation of trade unions’ not with the end of lamenting that which has been lost but as the starting point for how workers can win back control over their lives. [...] How Labour Built Neoliberalism points to the dead-end that is resolving a crisis of capitalism on capitalist terms. This is the strategic value Humphrys’ work brings to the present predicament of the labour movement." — Godfrey Moase, in: Overland, 1 April 2019 "[…] I wish to pay a huge tribute to Liz Humphrys for her book How Labour Built Neoliberalism. This publication is hugely significant. I feel we have waited 30 years for this analysis." – Lee Rhiannon, in: Progress in Political Economy, 24 March 2019 "[...] Elizabeth Humphrys challenges the narrative that neo-liberalism was generally imposed onto labour by right-wing governments such as the Thatcher government in the UK and the Reagan government in the US during the 1980s. Through a detailed analysis of the Australian political economy between 1983 and 1996, she demonstrates how restructuring was also carried out by a Labour Party in close co-operation with trade unions. [...] Written in a beautiful and highly accessible prose, she makes clear that trade unions are not automatically progressive or reactionary. Ultimately, trade unions too are sites of class struggle, which decides on whether a particular trade union is a force for social justice or not. [...] Humphrys’ book is a must-read in guiding our explorations of this question and the search for alternative, progressive strategies." — Andreas Bieler, Professor of Political Economy, University of Nottingham, UK, in: Progress in Political Economy, 14 January 2019 "This book offers a groundbreaking account of the transition to neoliberalism in Australia, focusing on the role of the Labor Party and the trade unions in the economic, social and policy shifts involved in that transition. The book is scholarly and informative, and it sets the standard for studies of neoliberal transitions elsewhere. This is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the emergence of neoliberalism in Australia, or the contradictory role trade unions can play during an economic crisis." — Alfredo Saad Filho, King's College London "Humphry’s brilliant How Labour Built Neoliberalism utterly transforms our understanding of modern Australian politics and compels us to rethink established ideas about the role of the trade union movement in the making of neoliberalism. I consider this to be a landmark work in Australian political sociology and an invaluable contribution to the literature on global neoliberalism." — Melinda Cooper, University of Sydney, Author of Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism (Zone Books, 2017) “Elizabeth Humphrys’s How Labour Built Neoliberalism: Australia’s Accord, the Labour Movement and the Neoliberal Project is a well-organized book that takes up the role of organized labor and the Australian Labour Party (ALP) in the construction of Australian neoliberalism, focusing on a social contract between the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and the ALP called ‘‘the Accord,’’ between 1983 and 1996… [The book] is a valuable, theoretically grounded, well-documented analysis of the role of labor-left in Australia’s neoliberalization.” – Stephanie L. Mudge, University of California-Davis, in: Contemporary Sociology 50/1 (2021) “The great strength of Humphrys’ book is its almost forensic examination of what others have said and why the evidence suggest we need to tell a quite different story. This book is crisply and clearly written.” – Rob Watts, in: Journal of Australian Political Economy 86 (2020/2021)Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Illustrations List of Abbreviations 1 Introduction  1The ALP & ACTU Accord  2The Social Contract’s Gala Dinner  3Neoliberalism’s Corporatist Origins  4A Hegemonic Political Project  5Corporatist ‘involucro’  6A Note on Method  7Structure of the Book 2 Theorising the State–Civil Society Relationship  1Introduction  1.1Some Preliminary Comments  2Marx’s Critique of Hegel  3From Critique of Politics to Critique of Political Economy  4From Marx to Gramsci  4.1Lo stato integrale  5Gramsci contra Marx? The Limits of Integration  6Conclusion 3 Corporatism in Australia  1Introduction  2Understanding Corporatism  3Panitch’s Approach  4Corporatism and the Accord  5The Context of Arbitration  6Conclusion 4 Destabilising the Dominant Narrative  1Introduction  1.1Conceptual Diversity  2The Dominant Narrative  2.1Harvey: A Brief History of Neoliberalism  2.2Klein: The Shock Doctrine  2.3Peck, Theodore, Tickell and Brenner: ‘Neoliberalisation’  2.4Destabilising the Dominant Narrative  3A Class Approach to Neoliberalism  3.1Harvey: ‘The restoration of class power’  3.2Davidson: ‘An entirely new political regime’  3.3A Hegemonic Political Project  4Conclusion 5 Periodising Neoliberalism  1Introduction  2Periodising Neoliberalism in Australia  3Proto-neoliberal stage: 1973–1983  3.1The Economic Crisis  3.2The Whitlam Government  3.3The Fraser Government  4Vanguard Neoliberal Stage: 1983–1993  4.1The Impasse of the 1970s  4.2Developing the Accord  5Piecemeal Neoliberalisation Stage: 1993–2008  5.1Howard’s Piecemeal Neoliberalism  6Crisis stage: 2008 Onwards  7Conclusion 6 The Disorganisation of Labour  1Introduction  2The Accord Agreement  3Wages and the Accord  3.1The First Accord (1983)  3.2Accord Mark II (1985–1987)  3.3Accord Mark III (1986–1987)  3.4Accord Mark IV (1988–1989), V (1989–1990) & VI (1990–1993)  3.5Accord Mark VII (1993) & VIII (Draft Only)  4Wage Suppression  4.1Labour Disorganisation  5Conclusion 7 An Integral State  1Introduction  2Accord Divergences  2.1The National Economic Summit and Communiqué  2.2Prices  2.3‘Big bang’ and Other Neoliberal Reforms  2.4Trade Liberalisation  3Privatisation  4Social Wage and Contested Understandings  4.1Medicare  4.2Superannuation  4.3Worth the Cost?  5The Concord of Neoliberalism and the Accord  5.1A Brace against Neoliberalism?  5.2Theorising the Corporatism–Neoliberalism Connection  5.3An ‘informal Accord’?  5.4The Accord asinvolucro  6Conclusion 8 How Labour Made Neoliberalism  1Introduction  2From Worker Agency to State Agency  2.1The Shift to Support the Accord  2.2Planning as a Solution to Crisis?  2.3Consultation on, and Support for, the Accord  2.4Sticking with the Accord  2.5Industry policy and Australia Reconstructed  3Managing Dissent and Disorganising Labour  3.1Civil Legal Action against Labour Disputes  3.2Deregistration of the Builders Labourers’ Federation  3.3Pilots’ Dispute  4Enterprise Bargaining and the Antinomies of the Accord  4.1Hegemony Unravelling  5Conclusion 9 A Return to the International  1Introduction  2A Brief Detour in the Antipodes  3The British Social Contract (1974–1979)  4The Carter Administration (1977–1981) and Prior  5New York City Council Fiscal Crisis (1975–1981)  6Contemporary Finland  7Conclusion 10 Conclusion: Neoliberalism at Dusk  1Internal Relations  2Antinomies and Residues  3Neoliberalism at Dusk Appendices    Appendix B: Timeline of Predecessors to the AMWU References Index

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Book Synopsis“What might the futures of practice be like?” is far from a straightforward question. Emphasising "the" before the word future, implies one future. But futures thinkers have identified a range of futures that people think about. In this book we reflect on possible, probable, and preferable futures in relation to practice and work. Readers are invited to consider how their own engagement in shaping possible futures will support ways of working that they deem preferable, even those they can hardly imagine. Challenging Future Practice Possibilities also examines influences that are maintaining the status quo and others that are pushing interest-driven change. Authors consider the major challenges that practice and practitioners face today such as wicked problems, fears for the future and complex demands and opportunities posed by the digital revolution. A number of examples of future-oriented work directions such as protean careers and artificial intelligence enhancing or even replacing human workforces, are considered along with concerns like the vulnerability of many work situations and workers. In some cases workers and employers alike are unprepared for these challenges, while others see adapting to these situations as yet another pathway of practice futures evolution.Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgements Part 1: Grappling with Practice Futures 1 Exploring Practice in Context  Joy Higgs 2 Thinking the Unthinkable: Challenges of Imagining and Engaging with Unimaginable Practice Futures  Steven Cork and Debbie Horsfall 3 Plausible Practice Futures  Steven Cork and Kristin Alford 4 The Impact of Practice on Wicked Problems and Unpredictable Futures  Peter Goodyear and Lina Markauskaite 5 The Changing Face of Work: Considering Business Models and the Employment Market  Paul Whybrow and Asheley Jones Part 2: Practice and the Common Good 6 Re-claiming Social Purpose and Adding Values to the World around Us  Debbie Horsfall and Joy Higgs 7 Our Place in Society and the Environment: Opportunities and Responsibilities for Professional Practice Futures  Steven Cork 8 Practice Futures for Indigenous Agency: Our Gaps, Our Leaps  Sandy O’Sullivan 9 Changing Work Realities: Creating Socially and Environmentally Responsible Workplaces  Rosemary Leonard and Margot Cairnes 10 Towards Future Practice in Socio-political Contexts  Megan Conway and Joy Higgs Part 3: Pursuing Practice Futures 11 The Place of Agency and Related Capacities in Future Practices  Franziska Trede and Joy Higgs 12 Employability and Career Development Learning through Social Media: Exploring the Potential of LinkedIn  Ruth Bridgstock 13 Re-imagining Practice Structures and Pathways: Starting to Realise Tomorrow’s Practices Today  Joy Higgs and Daniel Radovich 14 Freelancing, Entrepreneurship and Inherent Career Risk: An Exploration in the Creative Industries  Noel Maloney 15 Young People’s Hopes and Fears for the Future  Steven Cork and Jennifer Malbon 16 Facing Recruitment Challenges: Entering Workplace Practices  James Cloutman and Graham Jenkins 17 PhDs and Future Practice  Bernadine Van Gramberg 18 Educational Innovations: Preparing for Future Work  Asheley Jones 19 Otherness in Practice (in the Health Professions)  Janice Orrell and Julie Ash 20 Workplace Innovations and Practice Futures  Thomas Carey, Farhad Dastur and Iryna Karaush Part 4: Reflections 21 Reflections about Work: What Might Be My Future Practice Roles?  Joy Higgs Notes on Contributors

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Book SynopsisFarewell to Work? presents the large process of capital’s productive restructuring, triggered in the 1970s. A process with tendencies to both intellectualize labour power and increase the levels of working class’ precariousness, on a global scale. Its main hypothesis is that instead of work’s loss of centrality in contemporary capitalism, when the world of production is analysed in its global dimension, including countries in North and South, a substantial process of growing heterogeneity, complexity and fragmentation is observed. This configures a new morphology of the working class. Therefore, at the same time that new mechanisms are created to generate surplus labour, there is, simultaneously, an increment in casualisation and unemployment, pushed by a process of corrosion of labour rights.Trade Review"Ricardo Antunes is a lucid and passionate (these two characteristics can coincide) narrator of the epochal transformations of workers’ labouring, living and organisational conditions […] A narrator that, in profoundly describing the capacity of global capital to materially transform and subjectively manipulate work and workers, never loses sight of society’s social antagonisms and of the possibilities of emancipation from wage labour, inscribed in the capitalist social relations of our time." — Pietro Basso, Un cataclisma, e il suo lucido narratore. Preface to the Italian edition of Farewell to Work? "Ricardo Antunes’s book presents theoretical insights of great interest on the current question of the Marxist distinction between ‘abstract labour’ and ‘concrete labour’, and on the increasing hegemony of the former on the latter, under the capitalist organization of society. Supported by György Lukács’ Ontology of Social Being, this Brazilian sociologist courageously defends the idea of labour’s central role as the ‘proto-form’ of social organization, and clarifies the importance of the transition from the heteronomous condition of workers to that of real autonomy." — Nicolas Tertulian, in: Actuel Marx no. 22, France "I have read Farewell to Work? with all the attention that it deserves. The question of changes in the organic composition of capital – with all its justified controversies – is really a matter of concern to all of us. I dealt with this problem, a long time ago, when I had the energy for such a task. In almost all of the Western languages, there is an extensive bibliography on the subject. Behind it lies the peculiar idea that the category of labour is vanishing. This is similar to that theoretical current that longs for a society in which only the bourgeoisie exists, without the proletariat. I really like this book. It is clear, objective, well-informed and indispensable to those worried by the subject. Congratulations! It is the most important book on Economy and Politics that has emerged here in the last years, very long years." — Nelson Werneck Sodré, in: Brazilian historian "This remarkable and very up-to-date book by Ricardo Antunes demonstrates that capitalism, above all, remains a form of exploiting the workforce. Technical and social forms of organizing the production of commodities – whether material or cultural, prosaic or virtual – are modified. It is not about waving “farewell to work”, but to recognize along with Ricardo Antunes that forms of labour and production’s technical and social organisation change continuously, nationwide and worldwide. In all cases, the expropriation is put in question, always accompanied by the contradictions between labour and capital, i.e., the workers and the owners of the means of production. That is why the class contradictions remain the main driver in the history of capitalism, moving towards socialism." — Octávio Ianni, from the back cover of the Spanish edition of Farewell to Work?Table of ContentsForeword Preface to the English edition Acknowledgements List of Tables Introduction part 1 Heterogeneity and Fragmentation of the Working Class 1 Fordism, Toyotism and Flexible Accumulation 2 Metamorphoses in the World of Work 3 Dimensions of the Trade Unionism’s Contemporary Crisis Dilemmas and Challenges 4 Which Crisis of Labour Society?  1 First Thesis  2 Second Thesis  3 Third Thesis  4 Fourth Thesis  5 Fifth Thesis part 2 Labour’s New Morphology 5 The Explosion of the New Services Proletariat of the Digital Age  1 The End of the Myth  2 Service Work and Marx’s Fundamental Clues  3 Can Immaterial Labour Generate Surplus Value?  4 Middle Class, Precariat or the New Service Proletariat? 6 Freeze-Dried Flexibility A New Morphology of Labour: Casualisation and Value  1 Introduction  2 Brazil in the New International Division of Labour  3 The New Forms of Labour and Value: Tangibility and Intangibility  4 The Design of the New Morphology of Labour 7 The Working Class Today The New Form of Being of the Class-that-lives-from-Labour 8 The Crisis Seen Globally Robert Kurz and the Collapse of Modernization  1 An Explosive Book  2 And Its Main Gaps 9 The International Working Class in 1864 and Today  1 Introduction  2 The New Morphology of Labour: Informality, Casualisation, Infoproletariat, and Value  3 Conclusion Master References Index

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Book SynopsisThis book examines the Brazilian political process in the period of 2003-2020: the governments led by the Workers’ Party and their reformist policies, the deep political crisis that led to the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff and the rise of Bolsonaro neofascism. The author maintains that the Party and ideological conflicts present in the Brazilian politics are linked to the class distributive conflicts present in the Brazilian society. Defeated for the fourth consecutive time in the presidential election, the political parties representing the international capital and segments of the bourgeoisie and of the middle class, abandoned the rules of the democratic game to end the Workers' Party government cycle. They paved the way for the rise of neofascism.Table of ContentsPreface to the English Edition List of Tables and Charts part 1 Reform and Social Classes in the pt Governments 1 State, Bourgeoisie, and Neoliberalism in the Lula Government  1 The Bloc in Power in the Neoliberal Period  2 The Political Ascension of the Industrial Bourgeoisie and Agribusiness under the Lula Government  3 Political Rise, but No Hegemony Established  4 The Political Regime and the Hegemony of Financial Capital  5 Final Considerations 2 The Lula Governments The New “National Bourgeoisie” in Power  1 fhc, Lula, and Disputes within the Bourgeoisie  2 The Political Relations of the Big Internal Bourgeoisie with the Lula Government  3 Contradictions within the Internal Bourgeoisie and the Neodevelopmentalist Front 3 The Political Bases of Neodevelopmentalism  1 The Neodevelopmentalist Political Front  2 The Neodevelopmentalist Program  3 The Classes and Class Fractions Integrating the Neodevelopmentalist Front  4 The Contradictions in the Core of the Front 4 Lulism, Populism, and Bonapartism  1 The Concepts  2 Varguism and Lulism  3 Bonapartism and Lulism 5 Neodevelopmentalism, Social Classes, and Foreign Policy in the pt Governments  1 The Bloc in Power and the Neodevelopmentalist Political Front  2 Foreign Policy and the Neodevelopmentalist Front  3 Conclusion 6 Neodevelopmentalism and the Recovery of the Brazilian Union Movement  1 Neodevelopmentalism and the Union Movement  2 The Union Movement’s Political Moderation  3 The Growth of the Strike Struggle  4 Final Considerations part 2 The Nature and Dynamics of the Crisis that Led to the Impeachment 7 The Political Crisis of Neodevelopmentalism and the Instability of Democracy  1 The Political Crisis  2 The Neoliberal Bourgeois Offensive  3 The Participation of the Upper Middle Class  4 The Presence of the Working Classes  5 The Instability of Democracy  6 The Government’s Reaction and the Popular Movement 8 State, State Institutions, and Political Power in Brazil  1 The Bloc in Power and Class Alliances  2 The Political Regime and the Contradictions within the State Bureaucracy  3 bndes, Petrobras, and the Big Internal Bourgeoisie  4 Judicial Institutions, the Associated Bourgeoisie, and the Upper Middle Class  5 Final Considerations 9 Operation Car Wash, the Middle Class, and State Bureaucracy  1 The State’s Social Function, Social Classes, and Bureaucracy  2 Operation Car Wash and the Middle Class  3 The Middle Class and Corruption 10 The Crisis of Neodevelopmentalism and the Dilma Rousseff Government  1 A Couple of Things to Learn from the Crisis  2 The Bloc in Power and Class Alliances  3 The Political Crisis 11 Why was the Resistance to the 2016 Coup D’état so Weak?  1 The Internal Bourgeoisie was Divided in the Face of the Coup  2 The Marginal Mass of Workers Remained Passive  3 The Unionized Workers were Neutralized  4 After the Coup   Afterword Bolsonaro and the Rise of Neofascism  1 When Can We Speak of Fascism?  2 Bolsonarism is One of the Species of the Fascism Genre  3 The Bolsonaro Government and the Originating Political Crisis  4 Fascism and Bourgeoisie: Unity, Conflicts, and Conciliation  5 Final Considerations Bibliography Index 220

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Book SynopsisIn Co-operative Struggles, Denise Kasparian expands the theoretical horizons regarding labour unrest by proposing new categories to make visible and conceptualize conflicts in the new worker co-operativism of the twenty-first century. After the depletion of neoliberal reforms at the dawn of the twenty-first century in Argentina, co-operativism gained momentum, mainly due to the recuperation of enterprises by their workers and state promotion of co-operatives through social policies. These new co-operatives became actors not just in production but in social struggle. Their peculiarity lies in the fact that they shape a socio-productive form not structured on wage relations: workers are at the same time members of the organisations. Why, how and by what cleavages and groupings do these co-operative workers without bosses come into conflict?Trade Review"Denise Kasparian’s Co-operative Struggles provides an in-depth study of two worker co-operatives in the Buenos Aires area today to reveal how co-operatives emerge, are governed, and disappear. She successfully confronts people’s implicit assumptions about co-operatives with observations from everyday realities of working in Argentinian worker co-operatives in the 2000s and 2010s. Her research thereby puts several dominant myths about the co-operative economy into perspective [...] Sociological research provides a litmus test that checks which myths have become invalid or are not applicable to a particular economic sector. Kasparian has admirably shown how such a test would work in the specific political and economic conjuncture of contemporary Argentina". Tim Christiaens, in Critical Sociology, 8 April 2022. Critical Sociology “El libro amplía los horizontes teóricos sobre el conflict laboral, proponiendo nuevas categorías para visibilizar y conceptualizar las contiendas en el nuevo cooperativismo de trabajo del siglo XXI”. In Centro de Estudios de Sociología del TrabajoUniversidad de Buenos Aires, 21/04/2022. "This book, made up of two unlikely types of cooperatives, one formed voluntarily and the other formed through state-sponsorship, contributes to the literature of self-management and co-operatives and provides a deeper understanding that aspects of the democratization of conflict in co-operatives are context-specific. Future research should deepen and expand the study of self-management and conflict in the broader ecosystem of worker-recuperated, state-sponsored and traditional worker co-operatives, and thus contribute further to generalizable ideas about self-management." Stefan Ivanovski, in ILR Review, ILR ReviewTable of ContentsForeword The Democratisation of Conflict Acknowledgements List of Figures, Tables and Images Introduction  1 The Question of Work Conflicts in New Co-operatives  2 Dimensions of New Social Conflicts in Co-operative Socio-productive Contexts  3 The Challenge of Comparing Paradigmatic but Non-equivalent Experiences: Studying a Whole That Acts as a Whole  4 The Structure of the Book 1 Co-operatives ‘Made in Argentina’ The Process of Enterprise Recuperation by Their Workers  1 The Socio-genesis of the Processes of Enterprise Recuperation  1.1 When Worker Resistance Becomes an Offensive Movement  1.2 The Widespread Crisis of 2001–2002, or Adding Fuel to the Fire  1.3 The Movement of the Flames  2 The Evolution of Enterprise Recuperation Processes  2.1 The Fuel of the Growing Economy Keeps the Flames of Production Moving  2.2 The Moral Economy of Work in the Continued Presence of Enterprise Recuperations  2.3 “Argentina Is One Big, Recuperated Factory”: Public Policies for Recuperated Enterprises  2.4 The Movement’s Fragmentation, Co-operative Convergence and Union Rapprochement 2 Incubated Co-operatives Co-operative Formation under the Argentina Works Programme  1 Social Schemes with Work Requirement: From Workfare to the Argentina Works Programme  2 The Mediation of Unemployed Workers’ Organisations: Civil Associations, Productive Units and Co-operatives  3 The Dual Logic of the Argentina Works Programme’s Socio-genesis: Creating Jobs and Co-ordinating Local Politics  4 Induced Co-operatives? The Struggle of Unemployed Workers’ Organisations  4.1 The Evolution of the Argentina Works Programme  4.2 The Intensity and Dynamics of Contentious Action  4.3 The Demands and Forms of Contentious Action 3 Keeping and Having a Job A Milestone in Constitutive Conflicts  1 ‘Occupy, Resist, Produce’ … and Have!  2 From ‘Induction’ to the ‘Co-operative without Brokers’  3 A Comparative Lens on Constitutive Conflicts 4 The Recuperated Enterprise and Social Power in Production  1 Recuperators, Activists and the ‘Born and Bred’  2 Property Relations: Social Possession and Differential Appropriation of the Fruits of Labour  3 The Logic of Production and the Issue of Sustainability in Recuperated Enterprises  4 The Political Dimension: Between Self-management and Delegation  5 Social Groupings and Potential Antagonisms: Opportunity Hoarding, Enterprise Projects and Work Generations 5 The Argentina Works Co-operative and State Power in Production  1 The Labour and Socio-spatial Precarity of Argentina Works Programme Workers  2 Property Relations: Social Possession and Autonomy  3 The Logic of Production: Between Subsistence and Political Accumulation  4 The Political Dimension: State Power and Co-management  5 Social Groupings and Potential Antagonisms: State Officials, Co-operative Members and Activists 6 The Production of Co-operative Conflict  1 Board Removals: Conflicts over the Running and Expansion of the Productive Process  2 Regulations, Sanctions and Exclusions: From ‘Founder Members’ to ‘Founderer Members’  3 “We Fought over the River Module”: The Conflict over Autonomous Work  4 Between Subsistence Consumption and Political Accumulation in the Social Organisation  5 A Comparative Lens 7 Conclusions  1 The New Twenty-First-Century Co-Operativism and Its Struggles Around Work  2 What Patterns of Conflicts are There without Bosses? Towards a Theory of Unrest in Worker Co-operatives  3 From Prelude to Present: A Toolbox for New Research Questions Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis translated volume is based on the Green Book of Population and Labor (No. 19) originally published in Chinese. The six chapters offer a panoramic view of China’s demographic evolution since reform and opening-up. Chapter one presents an overview of macroscopic trends in the size, structure, health, education level and spatial distribution of the Chinese population. Chapters two and three look closely at changes in employment and income. Chapter four focuses on rural industrialization, urbanization and their demographic implications. In chapter five, the contributor considers what Didi the ride-hailing App says about new employment models. The final chapter examines the development of non-standard employment and its impact on labor relations. Chapters two to six also include policy suggestions.Table of ContentsList of Figures and Tables 1 China’s Population Development in Forty Years (1978–2018)  Li Jianmin 2 Retrospect and Prospect of China’s Employment Development in the 40 Years of Reform and Opening-Up  Cheng Jie 3 Retrospect and Prospect of China’s Reforms on Wages and Income Distribution  Zhang Juwei and Zhao Wen 4 China’s Rural Industrialization and Urbanization: 40 Years of Urban and Rural Labor Transfer  Xiang Jing 5 Research on the Employment Quality of China’s New Employment Model: Taking the Didi Taxi Platform as an Example  Zhang Chenggang 6 The Development of Non-Standard Employment in China and Its Impact on Labor Relations  Wang Yongjie Index

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Book SynopsisIn Lost-Time Injury Rates Rodrigo Finkelstein examines the information-intensive operations of recording and processing work-related accidents, diseases and fatalities carried out by Workers’ Compensation Systems. Situated within the field of political economy of information, this critique contributes to the understanding of how injury rates service a specific sector of the economy by constructing lost labour power for sale. The central argument of this critique can be stated as follows: grounded in the capitalist mode of production, injury rates constitute a historical social relation that, by taking the semblance of inductive indicators, conceal specific capitalist relations that bring about the exchange and distribution of lost labour power among capitalists and wage labourers.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Figures and Tables 1 Overview  1 Introduction  2 My Encounter with Injury Rates  3 Injury Rates as a Collection of Inductive Indicators  4 How to Approach Injury Rates  5 Theoretical Contribution  6 Outline of the Successive Chapters 2 Preconditions  1 Introduction  2 First Precondition: Wage Labour  3 Second Precondition: The Conflict between the Forces of Production and the Relations of Production  4 Third Precondition: A Burgeoning Capitalist Class  5 Fourth Precondition: Statistics and Probability  6 Fifth Precondition: Money  7 Sixth Precondition: A Capitalist State 3 Insurance Boards The Landlords of the Circuit of Metamorphosis of Lost Labour Power  1 Introduction  2 Insurance Boards as Part of the Information Sector  2.1 Risk as Expected Lost Labour Power  2.2 Risk as Information  2.2.1 Risk as Class Information  2.2.2 Risk as Lost-Time Injury Rates  2.2.3 Risk as an Informational Medium of Measurement and Monetization  2.2.4 Risk as an Informational Medium of Exchange  3 The Informational Landlords of the Circuit of Metamorphosis of Lost Labour Power  3.1 Stages of the Circuit of Metamorphosis of Lost Labour Power  3.1.1 The First Stage: C – M  3.1.2 The Second Stage: M – I  3.1.3 The Third Stage: I – MW 4 The Lost-Labour-Power Commodity  1 Introduction  2 The Commodity  3 The Information Commodity  4 The Lost-Labour-Power Commodity  4.1 The Satisfaction of Needs as a Means of Production  4.2 Use Value  4.3 Exchange Value  4.4 Value  4.5 Value and Lost Value: The Transformation of Non-Equivalents  5 The Commodification of Lost Labour Power  5.1 The Working-Day-Lost Moment  5.2 The Reporting Moment  5.3 The Recording Moment  5.4 The Processing Moment  5.5 The Programing Moment 5 The Fetishism of the Lost-Labour-Power Commodity  1 Introduction  2 Fetishism and Lost Labour Power  3 The Fetishism of the Lost-Labour-Power Commodity  4 The Value Fluctuation of the Commodity  4.1 Procedurally Hidden Social Relations  4.1.1 Value Fluctuation due to a Movement of Working Days Lost  4.1.2 Value Fluctuation Due To A Movement Of Reported Injury Claims  4.1.3 Value Fluctuation due to a Movement of Deeming Injury Claims  4.1.4 Value Fluctuation due to a Movement of Rate-Setting Mechanics  4.2 Structurally Hidden Social Relations  4.2.1 Value Fluctuation due to a Movement of the Wage-Labour Market  4.2.2 Value Fluctuation due to a Movement of the Economic Activity  4.2.3 Value Fluctuation due to a Movement of Cost-Shifting  5 The Relative Value and Price Fluctuation of the Commodity  5.1 Class-Hidden Social Relations  5.1.1 Relative Value and Price Fluctuation due to a Movement of Misreporting and Underreporting Injury Claims  5.1.2 Relative Value and Price Fluctuation due to a Movement of Appealing Legitimate Claims  5.1.3 Relative Value and Price Fluctuation due to a Movement of Managed Care  5.1.4 Relative Value and Price Fluctuation due to a Movement of Early-Return-to-Work Practices  5.1.4 Relative Value and Price Fluctuation due to a Movement of Vocational Rehabilitation Interventions 6 Lessons from the Social Totality  1 Introduction  2 Understanding Lost-Time Injury Rates as a Historical Socioeconomic Formation  2.1 Lost-Time Injury Rates as a Class Relation of Exchange and Distribution  2.2 Lost-Time Injury Rates Belong to Capital  2.3 The Value Forms of Lost Labour Power  2.4 The Lost-Labour-Power Commodity Is Not the Bearer of Lost Value  2.5 Lost-Time Injury Rates Do Not Provide Accurate Information  2.6 Lost-Time Injury Rates as a Structural Epistemological Ideology  3 Coda: The Solidification between Oppressor and Oppressed References Index

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Book SynopsisOne of the main challenges in labour relations in Europe is the ongoing decentralisation of collective bargaining from national and sectoral levels to company levels. Decentralisation might be an answer to business needs in competitiveness and organisational flexibility. However, it risks erosion of collective bargaining structures, more inequality in employment conditions and fragmentation in trade unions’ powers. Based on recent qualitative research, this book shows high varieties across European countries and economic sectors in degrees, forms and impacts of decentralisation. The authors explore, in interdisciplinary and multi-level perspectives, continuity and change in regulating and practicing collective bargaining in France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden. In cross-country comparisons, company case studies in manufacturing and retail show the divergent effects of national regimes and social partners’ power resources on trade unions’ strategies and influence in company bargaining.Table of Contents1. Decentralisation of collective bargaining: comparing institutional change and company practices in Europe (Frank Tros) 2. Decentralised bargaining and the role of law (Niels Jansen) 3. Decentralisation of collective bargaining in the manufacturing sector (Thomas Haipeter, Ilaria Armaroli, Andrea Iossa, Mia Rönnmar) 4. Decentralisation of collective bargaining in the retail sector (Valentina Paolucci, Jan Czarzasty, Ana Belen Muñoz Ruiz, Nuria Ramos Martín) 5. Interplay between state and collective bargaining, comparing France and Spain (Ana Belén Muñoz Ruiz, Nuria Ramos Martín, Catherine Vincent) 6. Does decentralisation leads to new relationships between trade unions and works councils ? Germany and the Netherlands compared (Sophie Rosenbohm, Frank Tros ) 7. Trade union participation and influence in decentralised collective bargaining (Mia Rönnmar, Marcus Kahmann, Andrea Iossa, Jan Czarzasty, Valentina Paolucci) Authors Index

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisThe currently emerging model of economic production is characterized by a process of constant change and instability. A new political culture and regulatory concept a concept of self-regulation and greater market flexibility has emerged. Political intervention has become problematic: the need for intervention in the labour market is more important than ever but there is increasing pressure to reduce the control of the welfare state. In order to examine what kind of policies can produce a positive relationship between social justice and economic efficiency, this book emphasises the need for a holistic approach, which includes not only labour recognised by the market but also informal labour; not only structural factors which shape behaviour but also individual strategies to negotiate positions in society. The book argues that the concept of employment needs to be reinvented. The different contributions to the book develop this theoretical approach and analyse new ideological maxims, the emergence of multiple institutions with regulatory authority over employment and the role played by individual strategies and institutional factors in determining choices and behaviour.

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Book SynopsisThis collective volume on quality of work in the European Union offers a comprehensive analysis on the current situation of the tensions between work and welfare in Europe, with a special emphasis on employment-related issues. The volume tackles a crucial aspect of employment policies, namely the strengthening of the quality dimension in the decisions taken by policy-makers to foster the performance of the labour market and to combine this orientation with the demands of workers for welfare, protection and a better reconciliation of work and family life. Quality of work has been on the agenda of policy-makers, practitioners and academics for the last few years, promoting a wide debate. The book provides a contribution to this debate and takes into consideration a range of issues associated with the analysis of work quality from an innovative perspective. Relevant subtopics including a conceptual and political analysis of work quality, wage differentials and in-work poverty, gender issues or workers' direct and indirect representation in the firm and its relation with work quality are addressed.

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Book SynopsisThe future of work is at the centre of debates related to the emerging digital society. Concerns range from the inclusion, equity, and dignity of those at the far end of the value chain, who participate on and off platforms, often in the shadows, invisible to policymakers, designers, and consumers. Precarity and informality characterize this largely female workforce, across sectors ranging from artisanal work to salon services to ride hailing and construction. A feminist reimagining of the futures of work—what we term as “FemWork” —is the need of the day and should manifest in multiple and various forms, placing the worker at the core and drawing on her experiences, aspirations, and realities. This volume offers grounded insights from academic, activist, legal, development and design perspectives that can help us think through these inclusive futures and possibly create digital, social, and governance infrastructures of work that are fairer and more meaningful.Trade Review "To bring a world of just and equitable work into being, we need truly inclusive visions and strategies. This powerful book deploys a feminist lens to do just that from a diverse range of perspectives." Prof. Mark Graham, Professor at Oxford Internet Institute and Founder of Fairwork foundation "For over a century, feminism has fought for women’s rightful, equal place in economies and societies. This thoughtfully conceived, keenly perceptive, and accessibly written book continues the quest, capturing the modern-day struggle of women’s working lives in a digital world. A must-read for anyone interested in promoting more equitable and inclusive labour markets -- today and in the future." Sabina Dewan, President & Executive Director, JustJobs Network.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Preface (Gillian Dowie) Introduction - The Tangled Web of Women in Work: A Feminist Account (Usha Raman, Payal Arora, and René König) Design 1. AI Design of Ride-hailing Platforms: A Feminist Analysis (Pallavi Bansal) 2. Making Opportunities Inclusive for First-time Digital Users (Shrinath V) 3. Globalized Creative Economies: Rethinking Local Craft, Provenance, and Platform Design (Laura Herman ) 4. Leveraging Platforms to Bridge the Gender Divide and Drive Inclusive Growth: Perspectives and Recommendations from India (Aishwarya Raman and Chhavi Banswal) 5. Women Resellers in India’s Gig Economy: From Access to Confidence (Achyutha Sharma) 6. Whisper Networks and Workarounds: Negotiating Urban Company’s Interface ( Sai Amulya Komarraju) Governance 1. Entrepreneurship in Collective Craft Economies in Bangladesh (Upasana Bhattacharjee) 2. Enabling Women’s Digital Participation: The Case for Meaningful Connectivity (Radhika Radhakrishnan, Ana María Rodríguez Pulgarín, and Teddy Woodhouse) 3. Not Quite the Death of Distance in Chennai: Challenging the Resettlement Utopia of Perumbakkam (Sunitha Don Bosco and Maartje van Eerd) 4. Superbrands—Too Big to Be Fair? (René König and Paula Wittenburg) 5. Teachers in India and EdTech: A New Part of the Gig Economy? (Krishna Akhil Kumar Adavi and Aditi Surie) 6. Migrant Workers and Digital Inclusion in the Construction Sector in India (Shweta Mahendra Chandrashekhar) Networks 1. What Lies in the Shadows of a Stakeholder Analysis? A Methodological Analysis to Contextualize the Lives of Women Workers in the Global South (Chinar Mehta) 2. Why Stories Matter for Representation, Action, and Collectivization (Siddharth de Souza and Siddhi Gupta) 3. Ethical Consumerism: Gig economy’s Road Ahead (Brinda Gupta) 4. Climate Change and the Future of Work in Developing Countries (Jamil Wyne) 5. Challenging Capitalist Patriarchy and Negotiating for Women Worker Rights: Exploring the ‘Right to Sit’ Movement in Kerala (Anila Backer) 6. Digital Leisure and Aspirational Work among Venezuelan Refugee and Migrant Women in Brazil (Daniela Jaramillo-Dent, Julia Camargo, Payal Arora, Amanda Alencar, John Warnes, and Erika Pérez) Vision 1. Beyond Underpaid Women and Robots: Towards a Better Future of Care Work (Sharmi Surianarain and Kathryn (Kate) Boydell) 2. Work and Place: The Non-Boundaries of Women’s Work (Usha Raman) 3. The Future of Dishonourable Work (Payal Arora) 4. The Future of Development Innovation and Finance is Feminist (Ramona Liberoff) 5. Rethinking a Crippled Society (Soumita Basu) Conclusion Defining FemWork for Labour Futures (Payal Arora, Usha Raman, and René König) Index List of Tables, Graphs, and Images

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Book SynopsisThis book examines the precision farming revolution in Somerset, England. It reveals the reasons why local farmers invested in autonomous systems and traces the outcomes of adoption. It describes the local and global drivers of the fourth industrial revolution, from world population growth, climatic and ecological crises, profit driven farming and government agri-tech grants, to the Space Race era. A new cultural method of intelligence, ideas and thinking, new organisational and control powers, was precisely what precision farming offered farmers and off-farm firms, who were able to remotely monitor and control natural environments and aspects of on-farm activities. As a result of local farmers opting into precision farming systems the power dynamics of industrial agriculture were reorganised and this book will offer readers an understanding of how and why.Table of Contents1. The Precision Farming Revolution.- 2. Global Drivers.- 3. Economic Drivers.- 4. Cultural Methods.- 5. Society & Nature.- 6. Farming Futures.

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Book SynopsisThis book examines the precision farming revolution in Somerset, England. It reveals the reasons why local farmers invested in autonomous systems and traces the outcomes of adoption. It describes the local and global drivers of the fourth industrial revolution, from world population growth, climatic and ecological crises, profit driven farming and government agri-tech grants, to the Space Race era. A new cultural method of intelligence, ideas and thinking, new organisational and control powers, was precisely what precision farming offered farmers and off-farm firms, who were able to remotely monitor and control natural environments and aspects of on-farm activities. As a result of local farmers opting into precision farming systems the power dynamics of industrial agriculture were reorganised and this book will offer readers an understanding of how and why.Table of Contents1. The Precision Farming Revolution.- 2. Global Drivers.- 3. Economic Drivers.- 4. Cultural Methods.- 5. Society & Nature.- 6. Farming Futures.

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Book SynopsisThe book investigates the impact of the market-oriented economic reform in China on a unique aspect of the labor market outcomes — individuals' access to different employment sectors, that is, the state and collective sector, the private sector, and the sector of family contract farming in the 1990s. Using the longitudinal data of China Health and Nutrition Survey, the author finds that the access to different employment sectors is not equally distributed among Chinese workers during the market transition. And the hierarchy of employment sectors is reproduced through the procedure that assorts individual workers to different employment sectors. In addition to achieved characteristics such as human capital, ascribed characteristics such as family background and gender are important factors in understanding the procedure of social stratification in the reform era. The book will be of value to social scientists interested in the market transition of socialist societies in general and the social transformation of contemporary China in particular.Table of ContentsIntroduction; The Structure of Employment Sectors in China; Literature Review and Research Hypotheses; Data and Methods; Where to Start? Job Placement Across Employment Sectors Among Young Workers; To Change or Not to Change? Job Shifts Across Employment Sectors Among Older Workers; Conclusion and Discussion.

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