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Domestic work, as one of the most feminised occupations in existence, is also one of those least likely to offer a prospect of equal treatment with workers in other sectors. Notably, live-in domestic workers are regularly excluded from even the most fundamental entitlements such as that to an hourly minimum wage. The rise of an international industry organising live-in care work for the frail and disabled brings the questions of how to regulate this sector back to the table also and especially in the most affluent countries. Departing from a prominent recent court decision in Germany, the contribution explores how jurisdictions around the globe approach the key legal questions determining the labour rights of live-ins. On this basis, it offers a discussion of the way forward in a policy area which urgently requires an honest discussion of how to balance conflicting vital interest of different disadvantaged groups in a fair and realistic way.

This article explores tensions in the ways in which non-governmental activism, as represented by trade unions and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), frames the concerns of migrant domestic workers (MDWs) living in South Africa. It analyses how seemingly polarised trade unions and NGOs involved in struggles on behalf of MDWs adopt singular discourses about labour rights at varying political moments to achieve their own goals. These singular frames conflate the issues around MDWs and their rights, reducing them to rigid categories of either 'international migrants' or 'domestic workers'. The framing of MDWs' concerns as international migrants' rights issues reflects a transnational political approach that migrant-aligned trade unions and NGOs use in order to connect with pre-existing labour movement narratives and debates. This framing must contend with locally aligned trade unions and NGOs who frame international MDWs' concerns essentially as equal to those of internal MDWs through the mantra 'a worker is a worker'. This homogenising framing of worker struggles generates deep-seated xenophobic discourses about migrants in South Africa's labour market which are compatible with a citizenship-based workers' rights movement and 'national chauvinism'. Although the mantra ought to allow every worker to stand up for their rights without risking immigration detention or deportation, locally aligned trade unions and NGOs use it to de-exceptionalise international migrants in order to appeal to a local constituency concerned about the economy being 'overrun' by international migrants. The article concludes that there is need for internal and international MDWs to organise themselves in ways that recognise their similarities and accommodate their differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the repertoire of individual strategies utilised by domestic workers to resist routinised workplace violence in the cities of São Paulo and Ilhéus, Brazil. Findings suggest that domestic workers favour two strategies of resistance: exit (quitting work without prior notice) and voice (negotiating workplace conditions). The latter strategy is divided into two subtypes: voice‐pleading (appealing to decency) and voice‐confrontation (warning and rights‐claiming). Voice strategies appear more effective than exit in ameliorating patterns of chronic workplace violence, particularly when they incorporate labour rights claims and when emotional ties exist between workers and employers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The aim of this study was to analyze the perception of Argentine executives who work in Brazil and of Brazilian executives who work in Argentina on the labor rights provided for in the labor relations systems of Latin American countries. Methodology: A qualitative case study was developed involving interviews with twenty executives who participate in the Brazilian and Argentine labor relations systems. Results: The results show that the SRTs of Brazil and Argentina are similar in several aspects related to the legal dimension of the systems, although they also have particularities. Both have very high rates of informality, that is, workers who are not subject to any regulation. Argentina and Brazil are countries that have been moving towards a more flexible working relationship and, in this sense, Brazil is more advanced. Academic contributions: although the theme "labor relations" is widely researched in national and international studies, little research has compared the systems of labor relations between countries, especially in Latin America. And, generally, such studies investigate the phenomenon from the point of view of the State and the Worker, being rare the researches that include the perspective of the third actor: the employer. Practical contributions: This study provides a comparative view on the legal dimension of the labor relations systems in Argentina and Brazil, a relevant perspective for the various actors impacted by the work systems, be they employers, employees, unions and the State. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Internacional y Comparada de Relaciones Laborales y Derecho del Empleo is the property of ADAPT University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of IUG Journal of Sharia & Law Studies is the property of Islamic University of Gaza and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Collected Papers of the Law Faculty of the University of Rijeka / Zbornik Pravnog Fakulteta Sveučilišta u Rijeci is the property of Pravni fakultet Sveucilista u Rijeci and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Articulating the dimensions of race, gender and social class, this article analyses the collective struggle of paid domestic workers for rights in Brazil, based on discussions at meetings of the category, with focus on the 11th National Congress of Domestic Workers organized by FENATRAD in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.

The article is focused on the dynamics of national procedures for accession to the International Labour Organization (ILO) 2006 Maritime Labour Convention. It is noted that modern legal regulations for maritime labour possess a considerable level of unification, universalization and standardization, which has been achieved through the efforts of leading international organizations – the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the ILO, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Achieving the highest level of support and ensuring the best possible protection during stable work and in crisis situations are main principles for development the international maritime framework standards in the field. Besides the Convention sets up demands for state authorities to respond in a timely manner to changing international standards, to monitor them and to properly implement them into national law and relevant enforcement practices. The ratification by Ukraine of the Maritime Labour Convention will promote the implementation and enforcement the mechanisms of protection Ukrainian seafarers’ labour rights, the provision of decent working conditions, and the compliance of national legislation with current international standards. Accession to this Convention is a long-awaited step both for Ukrainian seafarers and for marine business. Different steps taken by Ukrainian authorities seeking the ratification of Maritime Labour Convention show the leak of systematic approach. The proper objective was included into few governmental programs both for development of maritime industry and for European integration but the terms for ratification have been delayed for several times. The main obstacles for Ukraine’s ratification the Convention are identified. Besides the article describes the author own efforts, as a member of Parliament, to promote the ratification process through communications with respective state authorities, as well as authorities’ reactions and responses.

While some US cities and states have taken the lead in protecting labour rights, a counter-trend is found in state pre-emptions – state laws that prohibit cities from making any ordinances or laws related to certain policy areas. What drives these state-level actions that undermine progressive city leadership in the USA? We examine recent state legislations that pre-empt city authority to regulate labour conditions and protect labour rights in the private and public sectors (i.e. minimum wage, paid leave, fair scheduling, right to work, prevailing wage). We use a 50-state regression model to explore what differentiates states with more pre-emption of labour rights and potential sources of pushback. States with low minimum wages, which have never had strong labour protections, pre-empt more. Unions can be sources of pushback – greater unionisation is linked to fewer pre-emptions. However, in Republican-controlled states, more unionisation is linked to more pre-emptions. We use Wisconsin as an example of a state that adopted anti-union policies – despite strong pushback from the public – to explore how strong labour protections can act as a 'trigger' for states to undermine labour rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article engages with feminist debates on the possibilities and limitations of a politics of rights through a study of domestic workers' mobilisations in Brazil. Although rights are always ambivalent or limited, they are nonetheless necessary to subaltern groups and represent one of their main repertoires of contention. More specifically, I propose to look empirically at what rights do once they are won, and how a legislative victory affects the movement that was demanding those rights. I show that the law 150/2015 that extends basic labour rights to domestic workers in Brazil has had ambivalent effects: while it maintains a differentiated legal status for domestic workers and was adopted amidst a hostile political context that prevents its good implementation, the law has enabled, nonetheless, the strengthening of a rights-based idea of citizenship and opened new mobilisational opportunities for domestic workers. I argue that rights contribute to the formation of active political subjects, and can be analysed as a powerful resource for subaltern mobilisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revija za Sociologiju is the property of Revija za Sociologiju and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

To increase understanding about the weak implementation of labour rights in global value chains, this paper examines processes of in-fact informalization that in Cambodia's garment industry exclude workers from legal protection in a hidden yet effective manner. Informalization in contemporary global capitalism is often examined as driven by capital. This article broadens the analysis to how states and workers contribute to top-down and bottom-up processes of in-fact informalization, and emphasizes the role of workers' collective organization. In Cambodia, subcontracting and temporary contracts prevent workers from collectively claiming their legal entitlements. In-fact informalization is promoted by the government as a strategy of indirect rule aimed at ensuring political power, and strengthened by the workers' gendered needs and strategies of intergenerational wellbeing. Together, informal work and insecure lives discourage unionization, which further increases top-down and bottom-up informalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the impact of de jure protection of labour rights on the de facto security of human rights in an unbalanced panel of 60 developing economies considered over the period 1981–2011. With the exception of the right to industrial action and the regulation of dismissal procedures which exhibit negative impacts, we find that all other aspects of labour rights significantly improve state protection of human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals engaged in street prostitution constitute one of the most precarious sectors of modern societies (Mac and Smith, 2018), where migrant women face increased difficulties related to their vulnerable position, resulting from the overlay of multiple categories of oppression to which they are subjected (Oliveira, 2011). In countries where sex work either lacks regulation or is not completely decriminalised - as is the case of Portugal -, these women must face obstacles to their admittance to full citizenship (Alvim, 2013). The purpose of this research was to examine a better understanding of the social reality of Lisbon's street prostitutes, through an ethnographic field work project where individual perceptions about their living and working standards where questioned, taking into account the diversity and complexity of their life paths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Internacional y Comparada de Relaciones Laborales y Derecho del Empleo is the property of ADAPT University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Paid domestic workers (PDWs) in Peru, who are predominantly women, are one of the most vulnerable labour sectors in the country. We argue that an important factor explaining this is linked to national legislation that grants only partial rights to the sector, thus maintaining inferior labour conditions for such workers. Here we share our analysis of a survey of 314 PDWs, conducted between April and May 2020, confirming that PDWs in Peru are highly unprotected, particularly during the COVID pandemic, in which there has been a lack of comprehensive social protection schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article was to assess to what extent self-regulation within the CSR framework contributes to improving workers’ rights worldwide. Transnational company agreements, corporate codes of conduct, NGOs’ social accountability standards, ISO standards, the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and the Global Reporting Initiative were critically analysed us- ing logical-linguistic, historical and comparative legal methods. The research showed some evidence of a limited impact of CSR instruments on labour rights and proved that CSR tools can be perceived only as additional value to law.

The Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 provides that Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) is predicated on providing less complex statutory processes within which labour disputes may be expeditiously and cost effectively resolved. Has or is this fundamental objective being realised? This article proffers a critical disposition of the realities besieging South Africa’s prime institution of labour dispute resolution, the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), whose establishment brought about high expectations in terms of normalising systems of labour dispute resolution, and ushering in employee-friendly employment relations. It has been observed that although the CCMA provides simplified labour dispute processes, majority of workers still struggle to achieve a practical realisation of the intended ADR benefits, largely owing to low literacy levels and the skewed bargaining power which is still slanted towards employers. Employers still wields the determining power at both conciliation and arbitration stages, and are better placed to manipulate a conciliation outcome due to technical knowledge of labour laws and the power of record keeping, against employees, who often are the disadvantaged proletariat with limited or no skills or training in labour relations. Further, the arbitration process still manifests some elements of adversarialism, which favours the resources-rich employers.

Platform business models emerged with the growth of the Internet in the 1990s and are conceptualized as two- or multi-sided markets, as they facilitate exchange between service providers, clients (business) and workers. This article focuses on the impact of COVID-19 on digital labour platforms, such as freelance online web-based platforms and location-based platforms (transportation and delivery platforms), which have grown exponentially over the past decade. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed immediately some of the vulnerabilities that the workers in the platform economy were facing as they were declared as part of the 'emergency services', and this note explores their conditions during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The right to freedom of association is fundamental for the establishment of labour unionism as an institution. While the Government of Bangladesh requires enabling legal provisions for unionization in its garment industry, regulation to ensure the right to freedom of association has proved ineffective in upholding labour unionism. This article highlights the need for legislation capable of drawing on the complementary skills and resources of the Government, factory owners, labour unions and global brands to secure a sustained commitment and contribution towards the socio‐economic and political dimensions of labour relations in Bangladesh's ready‐made garment industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The objective of the article is to determine links of gender discrimination with compensation and benefits practices, the main features of assurance of equal rights and their impact on employees' motives that can shift economic results of the enterprises. Research Design & Methods: For macro level analysis, we use graph and mapping method. Features of gender discrimination and its links with compensation and benefits are revealed in sociological review. Findings: Ensuring gender equality is a difficult task for even the most developed countries of the world, as none of them has achieved full equality of sex, including in respect of labour rights. As our study shows, significant progress has been made in this area in Ukraine, as in general, gender gap and the economic equality of women keep within the EU-specific range of values. Gender discrimination is accompanied by age: 57.1% out of the 71.4% of discriminated women are aged under 35; the higher the age and gender discrimination, the smaller the wage gap. In enterprises with gender discrimination, the potential level of turnover is 71%, which is significantly higher comparing to enterprises with equal rights. Implications & Recommendations: The obtained results should be used by trade unions and public policy makers in socio-labour agreements to reduce inequality in compensation and benefits practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an analysis of regulatory approaches to sex work, the status of sex workers' labour rights, and the conflation of sex work and human trafficking, with reference to the example of Germany. It assesses the strengths and weaknesses of Germany's approach to the regulation of prostitution and the ways it has been influenced by international debates challenging the status of sex work as work, as well as concerns about human trafficking. It analyses the Prostitution Act 2002 (ProstG), and the Prostitute Protection Act 2017 (ProstSchG), and their effects on the rights and working conditions of sex workers, as well as their aim of improving the safety of vulnerable sex workers and reducing the level of human trafficking and exploitation in the German sex industry. In particular, the article considers the impact of this legislation on those working in the sex industry, especially migrant women and those at risk of exploitation. Through its analysis of the existing approach to sex work in Germany, the direction of reform and the absence of a labour-rights approach to the regulation of sex work and the prevention of trafficking, the article highlights the fact that even a country that is -in principle - willing to accept sex work as work, has failed to grant labour rights to sex workers. The article argues that the Prostitute Protection Act has in some ways increased the vulnerability of sex workers rather than promoting their safety. In addition, it is argued that legislators should consider labour protection and labour rights as an alternative means of protecting sex workers, rather than (re)criminalizing aspects of sex work in the name of 'protecting' women by means of prohibition or control. Adopting a labour-rights approach rather than paternalistic approach would have the potential to bring about far-reaching reform of the relevant legislation both in Germany and internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do some national governments in Asia and the Pacific protect labour rights better in practice than others? This article argues that labour rights are better protected in Asia-Pacific countries where civil society organizations participate more intensively in the government's policy-making process. It goes beyond treating regime type in the aggregate and demonstrates that the associational dimension of regime type plays a critical role in shaping government protection of labour rights in Asia and the Pacific. Multivariate longitudinal analyses of all 30 Asia-Pacific countries from 1981 to 2011 find robust support for the theory, using new data on civil society participation, and controlling for electoral democracy, trade openness, economic development, unobserved country-level heterogeneity, and other factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historic immigrant mobilisations of 2006 have reinvigorated public debates about immigration in the United States and the role of the labour movement in advancing immigrant rights. Prior research has highlighted why the U.S. labour movement officially declared solidarity with immigrant workers in 2000, but how has this new commitment played out on the ground? Drawing on rich qualitative data on immigrant-focused coalition building in San Francisco, Chicago, and Houston since the early 2000s, we show that local labour unions in all three cities have collaborated with a range of organisations to improve immigrant and worker rights. Rather than one coherent strategy, however, we find variation in the form, depth, and function of these partnerships across cities. This suggests that differences in local context pose distinct opportunities and challenges for immigrant-focused labour-community immigrant rights coalitions, and our analysis focuses on differences in demographic, political, and civic context across place. We argue that beyond an analysis of the U.S. labour movement, a multi-sectoral and comparative local approach is important to gain a fuller understanding of unions' engagement with immigrant rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Internal Security is the property of Police Academy in Szczytno and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

If the Class conflict was key for the understanding of the welfare state in the last century, the so-called Gender conflict has become fundamental for a similar understanding of the 21st century Global Crisis and its challenging consequences. This article supports the gender methodology and addresses ¿inthe context of the evolution of national and European legislations on the basis of the women status in the labour market¿, the Spanish response to the crisis of the welfare state and the lack of protection of women as citizens. In addition, insofar Spain must respond to the commitments made to Europe regarding the public agenda, some conclusive legal and political proposals and improvements will be made in this paper, based on the current imbalances of the welfare state, without neglecting some of the dangers in the short-medium term of the citizenship. These lege ferenda proposals ¿not comprehensive but rather approximate¿ are aimed at resolving the vital dualism and the citizenship gap. They will focus, to a great extent, on recovering the right of conciliation as what it should be: an area that requires special protection and promotion and which is not susceptible to cuts or any further delays.

Labour norms are increasingly considered in trade relations, but is the protection of labour standards a necessary condition for export to the EU? A Qualitative Comparative Analysis, based on countries that export pineapples to the EU, shows that labour standards protection matters in combination with distance, zero tariffs and institutional quality in a number of cases. However, for none of the cases was it a sufficient condition on its own for determining exports to the European market. Rather, we show that (1) having a zero tariff is necessary for a relatively large share of export to the EU, and (2) labour standards protection can make a difference when the institutional quality is weak in some African cases, in contrast to Latin American exporters.

Governments are mega-consumers of many manufactured products and services. As such they should in principle be able to influence workers’ rights abroad via the terms of purchase contracts. Yet to date little attention has been paid to the potential of public procurement to promote respect for labour rights globally besides the international trade law framework. Building on a limited emerging scholarship and policy developments, this article addresses this gap. Section 2 considers legal definitions of public procurement and distinguishes primary and secondary aims of procurement under key international and regional procurement regimes. This highlights that, although historically used to advance labour rights domestically, these regimes have restricted public buyers’ scope to advance labour rights beyond national borders. Section 3 explores new international policy frameworks on responsible global value chains and supply chains which by contrast appear to augur the greater use of public procurement to promote labour rights globally in future. Section 4 argues, supported by analysis of the limited examples available, that public buying has the potential to positively influence enjoyment of labour rights in practice. Concluding, Section 5 reflects on what the more specific impacts of public procurement in this context may be, and how public buying should complement other mechanisms for improving labour conditions across supply chains, such as social clauses in trade agreements. Finally, we outline issues for further research and the future policy agenda.

The impetus for the Bangladesh Sustainability Compact was the Rana Plaza industrial disaster, which took the lives of roughly 1,200 garment workers and injured twice. The Compact required the fulfilment of several time-bound commitments by the Bangladesh government in two key areas—labour law reform and protection of the right to freedom of association and ensuring fire and building safety. The EU heralded the Compact as an innovative, multilateral approach to encourage its trade partners to comply with ILO core labour rights. The editors of this issue of Politics and Governance asked the contributing authors to examine effectiveness of trade and labour standards and to consider alternative mechanisms to advance workers’ rights. Specifically, they queried whether the Compact could be considered a new and effective alternative model. This hope appears misplaced.

While labour provisions have been inserted in a number of EU free trade agreements (FTAs), extant clauses are widely perceived as ineffective. This article argues that there is a need to rethink the dispute settlement mechanisms related to labour provisions if their effectiveness is to be increased. It proceeds in three steps. First, we look at the current state of the art of labour provisions in EU FTAs in terms of legal design and practice and argue that the current arrangements are ill-equipped to foster compliance with labour standards. Second, we explore avenues to enhance the design of FTA labour provisions by reconsidering basic elements of the dispute settlement structure. Examining US FTA labour provisions, we highlight the importance of a formal complaint mechanism, on the one hand, and the availability of economic sanctions, on the other. Based on a review of existing practice, we contend, however, that these elements alone are not sufficient to effectively enforce FTA labour provisions. We argue that for FTA labour provisions to be effective, the current state-to-state model of dispute settlement needs to be complemented by a third-party-state dimension and that, additionally, there are good reasons to consider a third party–third party dispute settlement component. We ground these reflections in experiences with already existing instruments in other areas, namely investor-state dispute settlement and voluntary sustainability standards. Thirdly, we discuss options to better connect the dispute settlement mechanisms of FTA labour provisions to other international instruments for labour standards protection with a view to creating synergies and avoiding fragmentation between the different regimes. The focus here is on the International Labour Organization’s supervisory mechanism and the framework of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.

Las trabajadoras domésticas extranjeras constituyen uno de los grupos de trabajadores más vulnerables en el mercado laboral internacional, ya que con frecuencia se encuentran trabajando y viviendo en condiciones que ponen en juego sus derechos humanos. Éstas pueden ser objeto de discriminaciones múltiples e interrelacionadas derivadas de su sexo, su condición de migrantes y su ocupación. El objetivo de este artículo es examinar el tema de las trabajadoras domésticas migrantes desde la dimensión de los derechos humanos. En primer lugar, se centra en abordar aspectos tales como el género, la etnia y la migración. En segundo lugar, da cuenta del marco internacional y europeo para la protección de los derechos humanos de este grupo de mujeres migrantes. A continuación, se abordan algunas de las cuestiones más importantes sobre derechos humanos en lo relativo a las trabajadoras domésticas migrantes como son la explotación laboral, unas condiciones de vida difíciles y la vida privada. Por último, el artículo examina algunas sugerencias que podrían mejorar las condiciones de vida y de trabajo así como el estado general de las trabajadoras domésticas migrantes. Las estrategias de futuro presentadas se agrupan en tres categorías principales: la forma de preparar a las trabajadoras domésticas migrantes para su entrada en el país de destino, la manera de protegerlas a través de políticas migratorias y de la normativa laboral y, por último, el modo de potenciar el desarrollo de sus habilidades y capacidades para una mejor participación ciudadana.Publicación en línea: 11 diciembre 2017

Bangladesh's garments workers have served as both an emblem of that country's rapid social and economic progress, and of the precarities of labour in global value chains. Based on an understanding of how disaster politics have played out in Bangladesh's history, this article explores whether and how the Rana Plaza disaster has been a critical juncture in the politics of the sector, resulting in a shift in power relations that empowers workers to demand and secure their rights. Drawing on a framework developed by Mark Pelling and Kathleen Dill for the analysis of the politics of natural disasters, the article explores the aftermath of the 2013 factory collapse in which 1,134 factory workers were killed. The article examines changes in workers' own agency and resources, and in their relationships to the state and transnational actors. The article concludes that while the disaster was a turning point in key respects, it has not – unlike previous major disasters in Bangladesh – generated an elite consensus over the priority of workers' rights and in particular of trade unions. Workers are more empowered than in the past but have yet to fully reverse their historical associational and structural disempowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have long debated whether trade leads to a 'race to the bottom' or to a 'race to the top' in the labour standards of developing countries. Recent literature has offered encouraging findings consistent with the latter theory: stringent labour laws diffuse from importing countries to their export partners in the developing world. This finding has advanced our understanding of trade and labour rights, but more fine-grained analysis can further clarify what sorts of bilateral trade partnerships generate diffusion. In particular, South–South trade appears not to be characterised by the competitive pressures and foreign policy norms that produce labour rights diffusion. As such, this study compares the diffusion effects of South–South trade to those of other types of trade, using data covering 104 developing countries from 1986 to 2011. Results demonstrate that South–South trade is not accompanied by diffusion of labour laws, in contrast to other types of trade. This finding has important implications: whereas empirical results in earlier work suggest that developing countries will experience labour rights betterment if they export intensively to partners with stringent labour standards, my findings clarify that this will not occur if those partners are countries of the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the implications of the proliferation of labour provisions in free trade agreements (FTAs) in recent years. It reviews a relatively new form of empirical scholarship on the effectiveness of US and EU labour provisions. In doing so, it helps to identify a large gap between, on the one hand, the rhetoric of policymakers on the importance of such provisions and, on the other, the reality of what they achieve in practice. Reform efforts on both sides of the Atlantic are then examined to find that these also contain major deficiencies. The article therefore asks whether the ineffectiveness of the labour rights agenda in FTAs should be seen as part of a burgeoning class critique of trade policy. In the current political climate, it also suggests that the deficiencies identified, and how they should be resolved, require far greater engagement from both mainstream academia and trade policy communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Informacion Comercial Espanola Revista de Economia is the property of S.G.E.E.I.P.C., Secretaria de Estado de Comercio, Ministerio de Industria, Comercio y Turismo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The examination of indentured labour in the Western Pacific has been reported as pure historiography, without the guidance of an explicit theoretical framework. It has concluded that indenture in this case does not meet its own definition of slavery. However, this analysis is highly dated in as much as it is narrowly institutionalist in perspective, relying on legalistic points of distinction, such as the existence of a labour contract. To challenge this established wisdom a new-institutionalist history is conjured from existing social an economic theory. This enables the topic to be brought into the business and organisation disciplines. The examination demonstrates the promotion of a dual identity, which cast native labourers as free labourers, while instantiating norms readily identifiable with slavery. These norms served to encourage low-status natives into acceptance of the disciplines of the plantation and other businesses as part of the natural order, but proved unsustainable over the longer term as a broader range of life choices emerged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feminist scholarship and movements worldwide have extensively engaged in theorising reproductive labour as an undervalued element of local and global political economies and have been pushing for its recognition «as work». At the same time, since the late 2000s the conditions of paid domestic workers have become an object of a new wave of mobilisation. Demands for equal labour rights and decent work for this category of workers have been put forward at the national and international level, while new international legislation has been adopted, such as ILO Convention 189. Despite these potentially convergent elements, it is not clear to what extent feminist theories on the valorisation of care and reproductive labour can be extended to, or can include, the case of paid domestic workers. In order to address this issue, in this article we present a comparative analysis of the relationships between feminist actors and domestic workers' groups in Ecuador and Colombia from the late 2000s to 2018. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU Court of Justice adopted a specific kind of proportionality analysis as a fixed interpretative frame to balance labour rights and economic freedoms in the common market. This article summarises four cases in which such a frame ended up in unprecedented limitations of labour rights. It therefore builds on the history of European judicial integration and on the systemic reasons for such case law to prevail. The author maintains that this form of labour rights erosion is consistent with the strategic positioning of the Court in the current European neoliberal institutional framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]