First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Overtime is about the politics of time, and specifically the amount of time that we spend labouring within capitalist society. It argues that reactivating the longstanding demand for shorter working hours should be central to any progressive trajectory in the years ahead. This book explains what a shorter working week means, as well as its history and its political implications. Will Stronge and Kyle Lewis examine the idea of reducing the time we all spend labouring for other on both a theoretical and political level, and offer an analysis rooted in the radical traditions from which the idea first emerged. Throughout, the reader is introduced to key theorists of work and working time alongside the relevant research regarding our contemporary 'crisis of work', to which the authors' proposal of a shorter working week responds.

Vicente Lombardo Toledano was the founder of numerous labour union organisations in Mexico and Latin America between the 1920s and the 1960s. He was not only an organiser but also a broker between the unions, the government, and business leaders—an almost singular figure able to disentangle difficult, seemingly irreconcilable conflicts. He cooperated closely with the governments of Mexico and other Latin American nations and worked with the representatives of the Soviet Union when he considered it useful. This willingness to work across ideological divides meant that he was alternately seen as a government stooge or a communist, even though he was never a member of the Communist Party nor of any Mexican government administration. Daniela Spenser's rousing new biography of Lombardo Toledano is the first to be based on his extensive private papers. In addition to this unprecedented access, Spenser also draws on primary sources from European, Mexican and American archives, and on extensive personal interviews. Her even-keeled portrayal of the man counters both previous hagiographies and vilifications that have come before it.

Modern capitalism and political freedom rest on concepts of conscience and morality, and abhor concentrations of unbridled power. In America, that economic and political system developed mechanisms designed to check and balance such power. Despite those mechanisms, corporate America developed too many imperial chief executives who abused their power by engaging in a fraudulent and self-serving pursuit of wealth and perquisites. This edition deals with how this happened, how the system responded, and actions that could minimize the danger of its recurrence. The text analyzes those who either support or keep quiet for miscreant chief executives, and how these participants became involved in corporate fraud. The investigation is completed by a look at the results of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the law enacted as the corrective response to corporate corruption, and the increasingly intense pressure to ease the expense and other burdens associated with its vigorous enforcement. Hopefully, the insights gained by the analysis will contribute to a revived confidence in the integrity of corporate accounts, and thereby sustain the vitality of America's capital markets, which are essential to our future economic well-being.

This volume seeks to re-energise the paradigm of the New International Labour Studies by detailing how struggles over the construction, reproduction, utilisation and restructuring of labour forces are the contested social foundations upon which the global economy stands. Through a combination of theoretical works and a series of case studies, the volume highlights the cutting edge of international labour studies. Its expands on three pivotal areas of study within the discipline:1) the social construction of new labour forces across an expanding international division of labour; 2) the self-organising potential of workers, particularly within non-traditional sectors; and 3) the possibilities for transborder labour movements to help address the asymmetrical power relationships between globalised capital and localised labour. In addressing these themes, the volume helps explain not only how the contemporary international division of labour is produced and reproduced, but also the strengths and limits to current attempts to overcome its unequal and divisive nature. This book was published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

This volume contains distinctive papers that explore important aspects of contemporary employment relationships, some on micro level in orientation, whereas others are more macro oriented. Some papers contain extensive quantitative analysis, while others feature deep qualitative analysis, all shedding new light on their chosen topics. Contributors provide evidence and examples from the USA, the UK, Canada, and the Netherlands, dealing with topics such as: the dual alignment of industrial relations activity in terms of strategic choice and mutual gains; evidence from Canada about first contract arbitration and its implications for the proposed USA Employee Free Choice Act; the search for an integrated model of worker participation and organizational performance at the level of the firm; the impact of employee well-being policies and sickness absence on workplace performance; the role of participation in decision making in reducing work-life conflict; an institutional analysis of union engagement in Western New York State economic development; and, the International Labor Organization's enforcement of labor standards in the global maritime industry.

This book gives a comprehensive survey of the field of Industrial Relations, focusing on general principles and problems. Illustrations are drawn from the practices adopted in many parts of the world such as Australia, France, Germany and the USA. Contents include chapters on the following: * Personnel Management * Training * Methods of Wage Payment * Job Evaluation * Profit-Sharing and Co-partnership * Trade Unionism * Employers' Organizations * Collective Bargaining * Wage Bases * Equal Opportunities * Conciliation and Arbitration

Globalisation is shaping a new system of international economic relations - be it in the fields of investment, production, trade, finance or technology. This book deals with the currently relevant subject of globalisation and its impact on labour market institutions, process, workers. This study is a survey of realising the aspirations of ordinary working people entrepreneurs, both the organised and the unorganised, the protected and unprotected, through joint action to ensure a better future for all.

Japan's national identity associates the 'Japanese people' with the Japanese land, making the farmer the backbone of the nation. Others in Japanese Agriculture challenges this mythology, revealing the changing faces of Japanese farmers during the colonial and post-war eras. First, it traces the tangled trail of Koreans brought into farming villages as a result of war mobilization and capitalist development. Second, it discusses the plight of those who evacuated from cities as they attempted to eke out a living on marginal land. Third, it points out that settlers repatriated from the colonies were met with hostility from villagers and indifference from authorities. Finally, it explores how those who were encouraged to emigrate for 'the good of the nation' in post-war Japan, found themselves victims of agrarian reforms, which severed their ties. In sum, despite being lauded as the 'backbone of the nation' Japanese farmers have been repeatedly marginalized and othered.

Drawing from experience internationally, on recent and important developments in regulatory theory, and upon models and approaches constructed during the author's empirical research, this book addresses the question: how can law influence the internal self-regulation of organisations in order to make them more responsive to occupational health and safety concerns? In this context, it is argued that Occupational Health and Safety management systems have the potential to stimulate models of self-organisation within firms in such a way as to make them self-reflective and to encourage informal self-critical reflection about their occupational health and safety performance. This book argues for a two track system of regulation under which enterprises are offered a choice between a continuation of traditional forms of regulation and the adoption of a safety management system-based approach on the other. The book concludes with a discussion of the use of criminal and administrative sanctions to provide organisations with incentives to adopt effective Occupational Health and Safety management systems. The book proposes a wider range of criminal sanctions and sentencing guidelines to ensure employers receive sentencing discounts where they have introduced effective management systems.

Since its inception, Development Studies has tended to restrict its critical enquiries to nations in the 'Third World.' The field's important studies of labour markets, who circulates within them, and the controversies such issues generate, have hitherto been confined 'lesser developed' societies. In this important collection, drawing from key texts over the course Tom Brass's career, these concerns are deftly deployed to examine how these same phenomena affect metropolitan capitalist countries.

A recurring theme in the history of modern Britain in the twentieth-century has been the failure of its manufacturing industry and the record of disorder and conflict in the industrial workplace. This image was reinforced by the evidence of national strikes from the 1960s until 1984. This emphasis on decline and disorder in British manufacturing has distorted our understanding of workplace relationships and cultures in the post-war years. This volume provides a fresh assessment of the diverse and complex world of the workplace and Britain's production cultures during the long boom. Essays investigate the public and private sectors, and both manufacturing and service industries. The volume begins with a comparison of labour management in the post-war automobile industry, exploring the role of the foreman in the management of shop floor labour in Britain and the USA. The following two essays are concerned with relations between management and workers in the publicly-owned corporations. The first examines negotiations over pay and effort at the Swindon locomotive works, including the cultural values which informed the behaviour of the bargainers. The second investigates managerial responses to technical change in the British gas industry. We then move into the service sector, with an essay on the management of clerical staff in banks, including a discussion of the different roles available to male and female workers, and the incorporation of automated technologies. The final essay looks at the involvement of the unions in workplace productivity and the extent to which Labour politics informed union behaviour. The essays in this volume shed new light on the reasons for Britain's economic performance and opens up earlier interpretations of national decline and adversarial workplace cultures for further debate.

This edited collection provides an understanding of the range of learning that is enabled by trade unions, and the agendas around that learning. It comes at an important time as, in the UK, recent years have seen significant new opportunities for unions' involvement in the government's learning and skills policy. At the same time, trade unions have had to cope with declining membership and changing employment patterns, and thus have a keen interest in defining their role in contemporary employment relations and in pursuing strategies for union renewal. Therefore, in order to explore these dynamics, a strong feature of the book is its drawing together of informed, research-based contributions from the fields of training, skills and education, and of industrial relations. International and historical perspectives are included in order to better understand the contemporary issues. There are important conclusions for policy-makers, practitioners and researchers.

Exploring Employee Relations is a straightforward and accessible text that is aimed at students who are taking the subject for the first time. The structure is clear and logical, leading the newcomer through the topics in a way to maximise comprehension. Key issues are highlighted and supported by a small case or example from business. Chapters are structured to enable progressive learning with a logical development of the content. Each chapter ends with a summary of the key points met in the text and these are further reinforced by review and discussion questions, with answers and feedback on the activities included at the end of the book. The chapters are grouped thematically into parts and longer case studies are included that are suitable for assignment and seminar work. The text has also been written to cover the new CIPD employee relations syllabus.Its features include: a clear introductory text covering the CIPD Employee Relations syllabus; revised and updated throughout with new material on the European Union, the role and impact of government and demography, bargaining power and ways of securing employee commitment; and a student friendly resource providing self check activities, mini case studies and Question and Answer sections.

Management & Workplace Culture Book of the Year, 2020 Porchlight Business Book Awards A Publishers Weekly Fall 2020 Big Indie Book The dark side of the gig economy (Uber, Airbnb, etc.) and how to make it equitable for the users and workers most exploited. When the "sharing economy" launched a decade ago, proponents claimed that it would transform the experience of work-giving earners flexibility, autonomy, and a decent income. It was touted as a cure for social isolation and rampant ecological degradation. But this novel form of work soon sprouted a dark side: exploited Uber drivers, neighborhoods ruined by Airbnb, racial discrimination, and rising carbon emissions. Several of the most prominent platforms are now faced with existential crises as they prioritize growth over fairness and long-term viability. Nevertheless, the basic model-a peer-to-peer structure augmented by digital tech-holds the potential to meet its original promises. Based on nearly a decade of pioneering research, After the Gig dives into what went wrong with this contemporary reimagining of labor. The book examines multiple types of data from thirteen cases to identify the unique features and potential of sharing platforms that prior research has failed to pinpoint. Juliet B. Schor presents a compelling argument that we can engineer a reboot: through regulatory reforms and cooperative platforms owned and controlled by users, an equitable and truly shared economy is still possible.

Temporary employment contracts are now commonplace in business. However the move towards such employment structures has a significant, and hitherto little understood impact on 'the psychological contract' between employee and organizations. This book is amongst the first to tackle this problem. With detailed research findings from seven countries: Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the UK and (for a non-European perspective) Israel, it presents an integrated model of the effects of temporary work. The model incorporates key recent trends, including the expansion of non-permanent employment as a persistent form of employment flexibility, the increasing importance of the psychological contract, and the diversity of the European labour market as a result of state legislation. By presenting the results of an overview of the research literature on this contemporary labour market trend this book is of real value to researchers, practitioners and policy makers.

Much of the debate on the future of work has focused on responses to technological trends in the Global North, with little evidence on how these trends are impacting work and workers in the Global South. Drawing on a rich selection of ethnographic studies of precarious work in Africa, this innovative book discusses how globalisation and digitalisation are drivers for structural change and examines their implications for labour. Bringing together global labour studies and inequality studies, it explores the role of digital technology in new business models, and ways in which digitalisation can be harnessed for counter mobilisation by the new worker.

The third and final volume of Kevin Morgan's widely acclaimed series Bolshevism and the British Left centres around the figure of Alf Purcell (1872-1935), who between the wars was one of the leading personalities in the British and international labour movement. A long-term member of the TUC General Council, Purcell became chairman of the general strike committee in 1926 - and this could have been his hour of glory. But when it was called off ignominiously he experienced the obloquy of defeat. Purcell was most famous as one of TUC 'lefts' of the 1920s. But he was also Labour MP for both the Forest of Dean and Coventry, as well as being the founder of a working guild in the spirit of guild socialism, the controversial president of the International Federation of Trade Unions and the man who moved the formation of the British communist party. A sometime syndicalist and associate of Tom Mann, his experiences in the militant Furnishing Trades gave rise to the uncompromising trade-union internationalism which features so centrally in these chapters. But with the squeezing of his syndicalist approach, as the labour movement polarised into Labour and communist currents, Purcell died a politically broken figure. Morgan also deploys the life of Purcell as a biographical lens, a way of exploring wider controversies - among them the rival modernities of Bolshevism and Americanism; the reactions to Bolshevism of anarchists like Emma Goldman (who called Purcell 'that damn fake'); and the roots of political tourism to the USSR in the British labour delegations in which Purcell featured so prominently. The volume also includes a major challenge to existing interpretations of the general strike, which it compellingly presents, not as the last fling of the syndicalists, but as a first and disastrously ill-conceived imposition of social-democratic centralism by Ernest Bevin.

Focusing on the work and labor history of shipyard workers in the Royal Dockyards, this text examines the question of state employment and the specific characteristics of that pattern of industrial relations. It encompasses discussions of the nature of work and resistance to forms of authority. Particular forms of control are available to the employer which are absent from the experience of the private sector. In addition, the state is often under pressure to act as a model employer, and this can lead to tensions between this objective and the need for financial constraint and public surveillance of the uses of taxation.

Analyses the impact of 'Japanese-style' management techniques such as lean production, teamworking, kaizen ('continuous improvement') and business unionism on factory workers. Investigates different facets of the organization of the labour process and employment relations within fifteen Japanese transplants in South Wales, and systematically analyses the political process of emulation in a British brownfield plant. Emphasises in particular the impact of the restructuring of workplace relations on both individual groups of workers and Collective labour organization. Provides a penetrating insight into the reality of factory life in the 1990s, by incorporating descriptions of shop-floor observations, comprehensive quantitive data and revealing comments from different grades of shop-floor workers, office workers and management.

In the 1960s historians on both sides of the Atlantic began to challenge the assumptions of their colleagues and push for an understanding of history "from below." In this collection, Staughton Lynd, himself one of the pioneers of this approach, laments the passing of fellow luminaries David Montgomery, E.P. Thompson, Alfred Young, and Howard Zinn, and makes the case that contemporary academics and activists alike should take more seriously the stories and perspectives of Native Americans, slaves, rank-and-file workers, and other still-too-frequently marginalized voices.

Staughton Lynd is an American conscientious objector, Quaker, peace activist and civil rights activist, tax resister, historian, professor, author, and lawyer.

Over the last decade, author and activist Astra Taylor has helped shift the national conversation on topics including technology, inequality, indebtedness, and democracy. The essays collected here reveal the range and depth of her thinking, with Taylor tackling the rising popularity of socialism, the problem of automation, the politics of listening, the possibility of rights for the natural and non-human world, the future of the university, the temporal challenge of climate catastrophe, and more. Addressing some of the most pressing social problems of our day, Taylor invites us to imagine how things could be different while never losing sight of the strategic question of how change actually happens. Curious and searching, these historically informed and hopeful essays are as engaging as they are challenging and as urgent as they are timeless. Taylor 's unique philosophical style has a political edge that speaks directly to the growing conviction that a radical transformation of our economy and society is required.

Since the Late 1980s incomes have fallen sharply in most countries of Central and Eastern Europe, with unemployment and poverty rates rising dramatically. The ILO's Central and Eastern European Team has conducted a series of studies concerning the role of minimum wages in the countries of this rapidly transforming region, in particular looking at ways in which this role should be revised. Based on this research, Minimum Wages in Central and Eastern Europe examines the most crucial issues in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldavia, Poland, Romania and Russia, and compares their systems with those of western industrialized economies. Bringing together primary data so far unknown beyond a small circle of policymakers and officials, the contributors consider the evidence and the implications of new developments and recommend a series of reforms.