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Refereed/Peer-reviewed This paper explores the possibility of using diachronic case study comparisons to shed light on continuity and change in policy interventions to manage plant closures. It compares the early results of a survey of workers retrenched in the 2017 closure of Australia's passenger vehicle manufacturing industry with the results of a similar survey of workers who lost their jobs in the 2005 closure of Mitsubishi's Adelaide engine-casting and components plant. Despite the 12 years of accumulated expertise in plant closure and structural adjustment management, this comparison shows remarkable similarities in the profile of the cohort of retrenched workers and remarkable similarities in their employment outcomes. The discussion reflects on conditions that produce continuity and change.

Flow-controlled ventilation (FCV) enables precise determination of dynamic compliance due to a continuous flow coupled with direct tracheal pressure measurement. Thus, pressure settings can be adjusted accordingly in an individualised approach.The aim of this study was to compare gas exchange of individualised FCV to pressure-controlled ventilation (PCV) in a porcine model of simulated thoracic surgery requiring one-lung ventilation (OLV).Controlled interventional trial conducted on 16 domestic pigs.Animal operating facility at the Medical University of Innsbruck.Thoracic surgery was simulated with left-sided thoracotomy and subsequent collapse of the lung over a period of three hours. When using FCV, ventilation was performed with compliance-guided pressure settings. When using PCV, end-expiratory pressure was adapted to achieve best compliance with peak pressure adjusted to achieve a tidal volume of 6 ml kg -1 during OLV.Gas exchange was assessed by the Horowitz index (= P aO 2 /FIO 2 ) and CO 2 removal by the P aCO 2 value in relation to required respiratory minute volume.In the FCV group ( n = 8) normocapnia could be maintained throughout the OLV trial despite a significantly lower respiratory minute volume compared to the PCV group ( n = 8) (8.0 vs. 11.6, 95% confidence interval, CI -4.5 to -2.7 l min -1 ; P 0.001), whereas permissive hypercapnia had to be accepted in PCV ( P aCO 2 5.68 vs. 6.89, 95% CI -1.7 to -0.7 kPa; P 0.001). The Horowitz index was comparable in both groups but calculated mechanical power was significantly lower in FCV (7.5 vs. 22.0, 95% CI -17.2 to -11.8 J min -1 ; P 0.001).In this porcine study FCV maintained normocapnia during OLV, whereas permissive hypercapnia had to be accepted in PCV despite a substantially higher minute volume. Reducing exposure of the lungs to mechanical power applied by the ventilator in FCV offers a possible advantage for this mode of ventilation in terms of lung protection.

Background In pressure-controlled ventilation (PCV) a decelerating gas flow pattern occurs during inspiration and expiration. In contrast, flow-controlled ventilation (FCV) guarantees a continuous gas flow throughout the entire ventilation cycle where the inspiration and expiration phases are simply performed by a change of gas flow direction. Aim of this trial was to highlight the effects of different flow patterns on respiratory variables and gas exchange. Methods Anesthetized pigs were ventilated with either FCV or PCV for one hour and thereafter for 30 minutes each in a cross-over comparison. Both ventilation modes were set with a peak pressure of 15 cmH2O, positive end-expiratory pressure of 5 cmH2O, a respiratory rate of 20 /min and a fraction of inspired oxygen at 0.3. All respiratory variables were collected every 15 minutes. Results Tidal volume and respiratory minute volume were significantly lower in FCV (n=5) compared to PCV (n=5) animals (4.6 versus 6.6, MD -2.0 (95% CI -2.6 to -1.4) ml/kg; p2-removal as well as oxygenation was not inferior in FCV compared to PCV. Conclusion Mechanical ventilation with identical ventilator settings resulted in lower tidal volumes and consecutive minute volume in FCV compared to PCV. This finding can be explained physically by the continuous gas flow pattern in FCV which necessitates a lower alveolar pressure amplitude. Interestingly, gas exchange was comparable in both groups, which is suggestive of improved ventilation efficiency at a continuous gas flow pattern.

Energy dissipation within the respiratory system is a factor promoting ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI). In this animal study, we modulated the expiratory flow, reducing the energy dissipated in the system. However, this reduction happened mostly across the endotracheal tube, and only partly in the respiratory system. Therefore, in healthy lungs, the advantage in energy dissipation does not reduce VILI, but the advantages might be more relevant in diseased lungs under injurious ventilation.

Background Sigh is a cyclic brief recruitment maneuver: previous physiologic studies showed that its use could be an interesting addition to pressure support ventilation to improve lung elastance, decrease regional heterogeneity, and increase release of surfactant. Research Question Is the clinical application of sigh during pressure support ventilation (PSV) feasible? Study Design and Methods We conducted a multicenter noninferiority randomized clinical trial on adult intubated patients with acute hypoxemic respiratory failure or ARDS undergoing PSV. Patients were randomized to the no-sigh group and treated by PSV alone, or to the sigh group, treated by PSV plus sigh (increase in airway pressure to 30 cm H2O for 3 s once per minute) until day 28 or death or successful spontaneous breathing trial. The primary end point of the study was feasibility, assessed as noninferiority (5% tolerance) in the proportion of patients failing assisted ventilation. Secondary outcomes included safety, physiologic parameters in the first week from randomization, 28-day mortality, and ventilator-free days. Results Two-hundred and fifty-eight patients (31% women; median age, 65 [54-75] years) were enrolled. In the sigh group, 23% of patients failed to remain on assisted ventilation vs 30% in the no-sigh group (absolute difference, –7%; 95% CI, –18% to 4%; P = .015 for noninferiority). Adverse events occurred in 12% vs 13% in the sigh vs no-sigh group (P = .852). Oxygenation was improved whereas tidal volume, respiratory rate, and corrected minute ventilation were lower over the first 7 days from randomization in the sigh vs no-sigh group. There was no significant difference in terms of mortality (16% vs 21%; P = .337) and ventilator-free days (22 [7-26] vs 22 [3-25] days; P = .300) for the sigh vs no-sigh group. Interpretation Among hypoxemic intubated ICU patients, application of sigh was feasible and without increased risk. Trial Registry ClinicalTrials.gov ; No.: NCT03201263 ; URL: www.clinicaltrials.gov

Guy Standing’s precariat thesis, which suggests that precarious workers have distinctive class interests, has resonance in India where the overwhelming majority of workers lack adequate social protection. Among many criticisms, researchers have responded that this thesis ignores the historical experience of workers in poor countries and erroneously frames precarity as the province of a separate social class. As part of this debate, Erik Olin Wright argued that precarious workers were better understood as a potential fraction of the working class whose interests sometimes complemented and sometimes conflicted with the interests of other workers depending upon the regulatory scale and political terrain of struggle. Using an ethnography-based case study of automotive manufacturing in India’s National Capital Region, this article considers which of these frameworks – Standing’s or Wright’s – is better able to address the dynamic of contemporary struggle in a local labour control regime which has displaced an established core of “regular workers” with a surplus population of precarious “contract workers.”

Critical scholarship has characterised the 2013–2014 bankruptcy of Detroit – the largest municipal bankruptcy in history – as a fiscal ‘state of exception’ which undermined the democratic foundations of urban citizenship. From this perspective, the imposition of emergency management and declaration of bankruptcy were acts of raw coercion. Drawing upon Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony and empirical evidence, including interviews with civic leaders shortly after the bankruptcy, a survey of public attitudes towards the bankruptcy and public records from the bankruptcy court, this article charts a different interpretation of evolving public opinion in the five years post bankruptcy. We present evidence of a popular narrative among Detroiters which retroactively depicts the bankruptcy as a necessary evil, akin to a market clearing signal at the bottom of a business cycle. Far from bankruptcy being viewed as purely coercive, we suggest that this narrative has operated as an important mechanism of civic and political consent.

Precarious work research has increasingly understood that precarity is not limited to poor job quality. However, this idea has received insufficient attention among older workers whose careers have been erased by retrenchment. The sense in which retrenched workers’ lives are co-determined by the residual effects of previous long-term careers has been under-studied. Through a study of the closure of Australia’s automotive manufacturing industry, this article shows how workers’ life trajectories were differentiated by benefits accrued through their long careers, including union-negotiated redundancy pay and wealth accumulated in home ownership. Retrenched workers adopted different positions on a continuum of wage dependency and household-scale financial security which insulated some from the negative effects of precarious work and relegated others to a pathway of rising precarity. This latter pathway is likely to become more important among older workers due to the disappearance of large-scale manual employment in secure, well-paying jobs.

The introduction to this special issue of Critical Sociology offers an interpretation of recent debates in the precarity literature and the role precarity plays in a wide range of disciplines’ scholarship. It makes the case for a broad conceptualization of precarity, one that recognises many dimensions and sites of precariousness in contemporary life. In addition to providing grounded examples of precarity experienced in this broad sense, this collection of articles focuses on responses to precarity and strategies that individuals, collectives and institutions are taking to address an increasingly precarious life. The collection focuses on Australia, where the authors are based. This affords readers an opportunity to observe the particularities of precarity in Australia, where some elements of the neoliberal welfare state have cushioned, and others have sharpened, people’s experience of volatility and uncertainty.

Inflammatory bowel diseases, comprising Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), are chronic, relapsing and remitting immune-mediated inflammatory diseases affecting the gastrointestinal tract. Vedolizumab is the first licensed drug in a group of ‘gut-selective’ biological agents used to treat inflammatory bowel diseases. The GEMINI registrational trials established the efficacy of vedolizumab for the induction and maintenance of remission in both CD and UC, with the most favourable results in tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-antagonist-naive patients. In recent years, a wealth of ‘real-world’ data has emerged supporting positive clinical, endoscopic and histological outcomes in patients treated with vedolizumab (VDZ) as well as reassuring safety data. More recently, the results of the first head-to-head trials of VDZ and TNF antagonists have been reported, as well as the results of a number of studies exploring the role of therapeutic drug monitoring with VDZ. This review brings together data reported on VDZ to date, including from the GEMINI trials, real-world data and emerging studies regarding therapeutic drug monitoring and immunogenicity. The safety profile of VDZ is also reviewed. Evolving treatment paradigms are explored, including data regarding the role of VDZ in perianal CD, post-operative complications and recurrence, extraintestinal manifestations and pregnancy.

As critical nodes for global commodity flows, warehouses are an important example of segmented labour regimes which partition workers into groups with different conditions of security or its opposite, precarity. An emerging literature on warehouse work has tended to place segmentation in the context of managerial despotism based upon low wages, high labour turnover and job insecurity. However, the literature has, thus far, tended to pay comparatively less attention to workers’ collective resistance and its relationship to intra-labour divisions reproduced through segmentation. In refocusing attention to this problem, this article addresses the theoretical status of intra-labour groups, the nature of horizontal worker-to-worker relations, and their interaction with workers’ social identities and vertical capital–labour relations. It argues that the Gramscian concept of articulation provides the most promising frame for understanding these networked relations and for addressing how the politics of segmentation can be challenged by building common cause among divided workers.

The relationship between job loss and workfare has been well documented. Workers who lose jobs, including long-term careers in previously secure employment, enter systems of workfare that churn them through precarious jobs in return for meagre income support. But the relationship between workfare and alternative systems of labour market assistance rolled out before job loss is less understood. To shed new light on this issue, this article critically analyses an attempt to synthesise two labour market policies implemented in response to the closure of Australia's automotive manufacturing industry in 2017. The first policy was an altruistic, spatially Keynesian response to deindustrialisation; the second policy was based on Australia's notoriously punitive system of workfare. The article asks: how was it possible to synthesise systems framed in mutually incompatible terms? This question can be addressed, it argues, by deploying an Agency-Structure-Institutions-Discourse (ASID) approach to understand how and why these labour market policies were hybridised. The article's results are instructive in a ‘post-pandemic’ environment in which opportunities to rollout alternatives to workfare will be forced to contend with resurgent workfare states.

Flow-controlled ventilation (FCV) is a new mechanical ventilation mode that maintains constant flow during inspiration and expiration with standard tidal volumes via cuffed narrow-bore endotracheal tubes. Originating in manually operated 'expiratory ventilation assistance', FCV extends this technique by automatic control of airway flow, monitoring of intratracheal pressure and control of peak inspiratory pressure and end-expiratory pressure. FCV has not yet been described in a clinical study.The aim of this study was to provide an initial assessment of FCV in mechanically ventilated patients undergoing ear, nose and throat surgery and evaluate its potential for future use.An observational study.Two German academic medical centres from 24 November 2017 to 09 January 2018.Consecutive patients (≥ 18 years) scheduled for elective ear, nose and throat surgery. Exclusion criteria were planned laser surgery, intended fibreoptic awake intubation, emergency procedures, increased risk of aspiration, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) physical status more than III and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease classified as GOLD stage more than II.Peri-operative use of FCV provided by a new type of ventilator (Evone) via a narrow-bore endotracheal tube (Tritube).Minute volume, respiratory rate, intratidal tracheal pressure amplitude (Δp) and end-tidal CO2 (PetCO2) were recorded every 5 min. All adverse events were noted. Data are presented as median [IQR].Sixteen patients provided 15 evaluable data sets. A minute volume of 5.0 [4.4 to 6.4] l min and a respiratory rate of 9 [8 to 11] min generated a PetCO2 of 4.9 [4.8 to 5.0] kPa. Δp was 10 [9 to 12] cmH2O. Five adverse events were recorded: a tube obstruction due to airway secretions and four tube dislocations (two attributed to coughing, two not study-related).FCV achieves adequate PetCO2 levels with minute volume and Δp in the normal range. Tritube's high flow resistance may increase the likelihood of tube dislocations if the patient coughs. Although further evaluation is necessary, FCV provides a new option for short-term mechanical ventilation. The successful operation of FCV with narrow-bore tubes contributes to the armamentarium for airway management.DRKS00013312.

Mechanical or thermal stresses, which cause injury, do so essentially by dissipating energy in the tissue at a rate above some threshold at which damage occurs. This principle may also be applied to a ventilated lung. Minimizing dissipated energy is therefore a promising strategy to prevent ventilator induced lung injury (VILI) [1]. In this special interest paper, we present a qualitative argument to show that dissipated energy as determined from the area enclosed by the pressure-volume (PV) loop may be minimised during ventilation by controlling the flow to be constant during both inspiration and expiration. We then demonstrate the characteristics of the PV loop and concomitant low energy dissipation that occur with this mode of ventilation in a clinical case report. In this case, we ventilated a healthy, male, 51 year old patient undergoing elective, minor laryngeal surgery with a new, specialized ventilator, which achieves accurate control of flow during both inspiration and expiration (Evone; Ventinova Medical, Eindhoven, The Netherlands) through a small-bore (4.4 mm outer diameter), cuffed tracheal tube (Tritube; Ventinova Medical, Eindhoven, The Netherlands). This mode of ventilation is called flow-controlled ventilation (FCV). During ventilation, both inspiratory and expiratory flows were kept nearly constant at 12 ± 0.98 l/min and the I:E ratio was 1:1 with a minute volume of 6.23 ± 0.15 l/min. We recorded pressure-volume loops using pressure measured directly within the patient's trachea and calculated the energy dissipated in the patient from the hysteresis area of the PV loops. Energy dissipation was 0.17 ± 0.02 J/l, which is close to the minimum energy dissipation achievable for this minute volume. It is lower than values quoted in the literature for spontaneous breathing (0.2–0.7 J/l) and indicative values obtained with other methods of flow control (0.32 J/l). This ventilation strategy may have implications for lung-protective ventilation.

Introduction Radiation proctopathy (RP) is a common diagnosis following pelvic radiotherapy and can lead to debilitating symptoms of rectal bleeding, bowel urgency, tenesmus and passage of rectal mucus. Current data suggest 6% of patients have severe rectal bleeding that can negatively impact on quality of life. There are limited data on the prevalence of RP in patients following pelvic radiotherapy, its symptom profile and its management. Here we report a large case series from a tertiary pelvic radiation disease clinic. Methods We performed a retrospective case notes review of patients referred to pelvic radiation disease clinic over a 16 month period (Sept 2018-Jan 2020) to identify those with endoscopic evidence of RP, determine the frequency of reported symptoms, primary cancer type and treatments used for RP following referral. Results 102 patients were seen in pelvic radiation disease clinic during the 16 month period. 54 (53%) of these patients had endoscopic evidence of RP. Of these 54 patients, 34 (63%) were male. The median age was 70 years (31–86). RP was most common in patients following prostate radiotherapy (30, 56%), followed by radiotherapy for anorectal (8, 15%), cervical (5, 9%), endometrial (4, 7%), vaginal (3, 6%), bladder (1, 2%) and urothelial (1, 2%) cancers, along with pseudomyxoma (1, 2%) and Kaposi’s sarcoma (1, 2%). 23 (43%) patients with RP didn’t require any treatment. Of those requiring treatment, 19 (61%) had sucralfate enemas, 18 (58%) received endoscopically-delivered PuraStat, 1 (3%) had hyperbaric oxygen therapy and 2 (6%) were referred for radiofrequency ablation. 7 patients (23%) needed therapy with >1 modality after referral. The most commonly reported symptom of RP was rectal bleeding (45, 83%). 8 (15%) had severe bleeding with anaemia, 28 (52%) had bleeding into the toilet bowl and/or incontinence of blood and 9 (17%) had bleeding on wiping. Most of the patients who developed anaemia (7, 88%) had prostate radiotherapy, 4 of whom underwent therapy with >1 treatment modality since re0ferral. Other commonly reported symptoms of RP included bowel urgency (17, 31%), faecal incontinence (18, 33%) and passage of rectal mucus (7, 13%). Conclusions This case series suggests debilitating haemorrhagic RP is more common than previously reported. Over half of patients referred to tertiary clinic had endoscopic evidence of RP, with over half of them requiring treatment. Significant rectal haemorrhage was present in two thirds of patients and was more common following prostate radiotherapy. Those with severe rectal haemorrhage were also more likely to require >1 treatment modality to control their symptoms, suggesting further clinical trials are required to improve the management options for patients with haemorrhagic RP.

Agency-based approaches represent a fundamental advance in how researchers and policymakers can address questions of place-based industrial strategy, including issues of governance, leadership, new technology and regional assets. However, these approaches can be advanced further by recognizing the centrality of discourse in regional change. This paper does this by synthesizing two conceptual frameworks: Grillitsch and Sotarauta’s trinity of change agency and Moulaert et al.’s framework of Agency Structure Institutions Discourse (ASID). Deploying two Australian case studies to shed light on drivers of change at the local scale, this paper demonstrates that discourse is a necessary component of transformative regional processes. Furthermore, it contends that successful transformation is presupposed by the extent to which local discourse overlaps with local opportunity spaces and forms of agency. Successful place-based industrial strategies need to mobilize these multiple elements of regional change in order to maximize their potential for success Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This chapter examines the extraordinary regeneration of the regional city of Geelong in Victoria, Australia, a deindustrialising city that had languished in the 1990s as manufacturing industries closed down. In response to this crisis, local regional development agencies worked closely with the federal and state governments to craft and implement a series of redevelopment plans that injected millions of dollars into the area and reversed the trajectory of change. The new economic direction of the city relies on government services, construction, and population growth, which together are transforming Geelong into a satellite dormitory suburb of the adjacent 'global city' of Melbourne.

BackgroundFlow-controlled ventilation is a novel ventilation method which allows to individualize ventilation according to dynamic lung mechanic limits based on direct tracheal pressure measurement at a stable constant gas flow during inspiration and expiration. The aim of this porcine study was to compare individualized flow-controlled ventilation (FCV) and current guideline-conform pressure-controlled ventilation (PCV) in long-term ventilation.MethodsAnesthetized pigs were ventilated with either FCV or PCV over a period of 10 h with a fixed FiO2of 0.3. FCV settings were individualized by compliance-guided positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) and peak pressure (Ppeak) titration. Flow was adjusted to maintain normocapnia and the inspiration to expiration ratio (I:E ratio) was set at 1:1. PCV was performed with a PEEP of 5 cm H2O andPpeakwas set to achieve a tidal volume (VT) of 7 ml/kg. The respiratory rate was adjusted to maintain normocapnia and the I:E ratio was set at 1:1.5. Repeated measurements during observation period were assessed by linear mixed-effects model.ResultsIn FCV (n = 6), respiratory minute volume was significantly reduced (6.0 vs 12.7, MD − 6.8 (− 8.2 to − 5.4) l/min;p n = 6). Oxygenation was improved in the FCV group (paO2119.8 vs 96.6, MD 23.2 (9.0 to 37.5) Torr; 15.97 vs 12.87, MD 3.10 (1.19 to 5.00) kPa;p = 0.010) and CO2removal was more efficient (paCO240.1 vs 44.9, MD − 4.7 (− 7.4 to − 2.0) Torr; 5.35 vs 5.98, MD − 0.63 (− 0.99 to − 0.27) kPa;p = 0.006).Ppeakand driving pressure were comparable in both groups, whereas PEEP was significantly lower in FCV (p = 0.002). Computed tomography revealed a significant reduction in non-aerated lung tissue in individualized FCV (p = 0.026) and no significant difference in overdistended lung tissue, although a significantly higherVTwas applied (8.2 vs 7.6, MD 0.7 (0.2 to 1.2) ml/kg;p = 0.025).ConclusionOur long-term ventilation study demonstrates the applicability of a compliance-guided individualization of FCV settings, which resulted in significantly improved gas exchange and lung tissue aeration without signs of overinflation as compared to best clinical practice PCV.

Much of the large literature on precarious work has largely tended to assume that precarity is shaped by job quality: that precarious work leads to precarious lives. This paper adds to the literature by questioning this line of causality and highlighting the broader range of influences shaping the lives of older workers who enter precarious work after retrenchment from secure, long-term careers. Drawing on a study of Australia’s automotive manufacturing industry, which closed in 2017, this article finds that for older retrenched workers, exposure to precarious employment sharpened life precarity for some but did not lead to precarious lives for others. Instead of a uniform transition from security to precarity, these workers’ life trajectories diverged depending on their household-scale financial security. Key issues influencing the likelihood of older workers’ lives becoming precarious were enterprise benefits and asset wealth accumulated through their previous careers. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

It has been suggested that energy dissipation in the airways during mechanical ventilation is associated with an increased probability of ventilator induced lung injury (VILI). We hypothesise that energy dissipation in the airways may be minimised by ventilating with constant flow during both the inspiration and expiration phases of the respiratory cycle. We present a simple analysis and numerical calculations that support our hypothesis and show that for ventilation with minimum dissipated energy not only should the flows during inspiration and expiration be controlled to be constant and continuous, but the ventilation should also be undertaken with an I:E ratio that is close to 1:1.

The experience of industry policy in the wider Asian region contrasts significantly with many of the neoliberal policy prescriptions prevalent in Australia today. Using the automotive industry as a comparative case study, this article compares industry policy in three demographic and geographic giants of the region: China, India and Indonesia. China’s dominant position has benefited from a highly ‘interventionist’ industry policy which places strict conditions on foreign carmakers in joint ventures. This policy has also influenced the emergence of a thriving domestic industry, with state-owned enterprises leading the way. While India has also emerged as a major auto producer, its industry policy has moved away from the joint venture model since the 1990s, with fully foreign-owned operations now playing a much bigger role. In contrast, Indonesia retains a version of the joint venture model while local industry is dominated by Japanese capital. The record of industry policy in these countries challenges the idea that more ‘liberal’ economic systems lead to stronger domestic industries or firms.

The 2013 and 2014 announcements by major car manufacturers that they would wind down all their remaining Australian automotive operations by 2016/2017 pre-empted the March 2014 release of the Productivity Commission’s final report into motor vehicle manufacturing. The Commission suggested that government subsidies had only delayed car plant closures and reiterated its longstanding opposition to industry policy and redistributive regional adjustment programmes by government. Industrialists, employer associations, state governments and trade unions have, however, questioned the Commission’s forecasts for both economic spillover effects and social impacts in regions affected by automotive plant closures. In addition to challenging several underlying assumptions used to calculate the Productivity Commission’s forecasts, this article argues that insufficient attention has been paid to the quality of future work. It extends insights from previous studies of industrial decline by proposing a new research agenda based on the idea of ‘social spillovers’.

Motor vehicle manufacturing is a highly complex industry that encompasses the production and distribution of passenger cars, motorcycles and scooters, three-wheeler vehicles, tractors and other agricultural vehicles and equipment, as well as vehicles used in the construction and mining sectors. The branded manufacturers that assemble finished vehicles tend to represent firms at the head of vast global production networks, with varying levels of global sourcing of raw materials, components and industry services. These are the auto industry's global lead firms, known as Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) in industry parlance. This book focuses on those firms engaged in the production of passenger cars and two-wheelers as well as some commercial vehicles and three-wheeler models. The global production networks of these OEMs have largely been imposed and entrenched in key Indian manufacturing regions since the early 1980s, transforming commercial relations between foreign and local producers and work organisation within firms. The intersection between these global production networks and regional social structures of accumulation predicated upon low-wage, precarious and informal work helps to explain why Indian auto firms have not reproduced ‘high road’ labour standards and employment relations (Chapter 1). This chapter sets the scene for this discussion by outlining the key OEMs and key regions of Indian auto manufacturing, including the configuration of key OEMs’ global production networks. This chapter represents the ‘who, what and where’ of the book by providing context for the discussion of industrial, social and political conflict in the ensuing chapters. In doing so, it shows how the domestic industry has been transformed by global production networks in an era of economic openness and liberalisation. The rapid growth of the auto industry is one of several indicators of India's social and economic transformation over the past three decades. In 2014–15, the auto industry had a gross turnover of US$58.9 billion (SIAM, 2016). Although this was below its peak of US$67.6 billion in 2012–13, India is currently the world's sixth largest producer of passenger cars and commercial vehicles (Table 2.1). Although well behind China's production volumes, it compares favourably with other major passenger car producers like Germany, the United States and South Korea. After China, India also had the second-fastest growing automotive output of the top 10 producers from 2000 to 2014, although its growth recently fell behind the major North American producing regions (Table 2.2).

Leading industrialists in auto manufacturing have made recent, widely-publicised efforts to support Narendra Modi's ‘Make in India’ initiative, which aims to attract new Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Indian manufacturing as the basis for income growth, employment creation and rising prosperity (GoI, 2016; 2016a). For example, India's second Automotive Mission Plan ( AMP-2 ), co-produced by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), aims ‘to propel the Indian automotive industry to be the engine of the “Make in India” program’ (SIAM/GoI, 2015: 3). CEOs of several global auto manufacturers have visited India during Modi's premiership to reiterate their commitment to Indian manufacturing. High profile examples include Suzuki, Toyota, Hyundai, Renault-Nissan and Ford. Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) chairman, R.C. Bhargava, has argued that ‘nobody wants to miss the opportunity and the size. They don't see the kind of potential growth in any other market like in India’ (cited in Thakkar, 2017a). The scale and intensity of conflict in India's automotive industry presents a radically different side to this elite-driven narrative. Conflict in Indian auto manufacturing has taken many forms, manifesting at a workplace or enterprise-level, at an industry level through solidarity strike action and street protests, and at the level of social and political conflict. Various forms of industrial conflict, including strikes, employer lockouts, factory occupations and hunger strikes, have increased in frequency since the 1990s. During this period, a gradual process of economic liberalisation has culminated in the opening up of all domestic auto manufacturing to FDI, and the removal of residual restrictions on the investment activities of industrialists – domestic and foreign. Since the mid-1990s, most of the world's leading global automotive lead firms – known as Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) – and their strategic partners and key components suppliers have established operations in different regions of India. This process of liberalisation, investment, relocation and industrialisation has profoundly shaped the development of Indian regions. It has given rise to new industrial zones and reshaped established ones. Auto manufacturing transplants have resulted in a rise in infrastructure development through road and rail-building, commercial and residential construction and construction of shopping malls to cater for a growing minority of middle-to-high income residents

State institutions have played a critical role in the modernisation of automotive manufacturing in India and the emergence of new regional industrial zones. They have also played an important role in the evolution of conflict in the auto industry. The previous chapter showed how Indian auto manufacturing has been transformed by global production networks since the 1980s. This chapter turns to the role of the state in this process and its gradual impact on work organisation, labour standards, and employment relations. At a regional level, key State governments in India have played a strong and consistent role in attracting, encouraging and shaping automotive-based investment from foreign and domestic lead firms known as Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). This chapter shows how successive governments in the State of Haryana – a 45,000 square km territory overlapping with the National Capital Region (NCR) – played a leading role in this process, working with national governments to facilitate the rise of global production networks orchestrated by Japanese OEMs. This chapter shows how, at a national level, this process of regional development was shaped through two phases: first, a period of ‘restricted openness’ from 1982 until 1991 and second, a longer period of ‘emergent neo-liberalism’ after 1991. The first period represents a bridgehead between India's postcolonial planning tradition, based on Import Substitution Industrialisation (ISI), to an era of neo-liberal policy-making after 1991. In this first period, industrial policy was based upon gradual measures to extract the benefits from foreign investment, technology and ‘lean manufacturing’ while maintaining a series of restrictions on foreign capital via auto market segmentation, industrial licensing, joint ventures with Public Sector Units (PSUs) and private domestic, industrial conglomerates and targets for locally-manufactured components in global production networks. Despite these restrictions, the sheltering of domestic auto markets enabled pioneering foreign OEMs to impose much of their preferred models of work organisation, labour standards and employment relations via lean manufacturing. In the second phase, the gradual liberalisation of financial markets, trade rules and restrictions on domestic and foreign investment from 1991 until the 2000s dramatically re-shaped auto market segmentation and competition. This had major implications for labour standards and employment relations in the operations of OEMs, their strategic partner firms, and key independent suppliers.

© 2018, © The Author(s) 2018. Despite the impact of global economic crises and, more recently, the international shockwave of populism, neoliberalism persists as a framework for policies, policymakers and social orders. In Australia, debate about neoliberalism was largely initiated by the publication of Economic Rationalism in Canberra in 1991. This special section of the Journal of Sociology has been compiled to mark the impact of this seminal text over the past quarter of a century. The contributions to this section outline the evolution and transformative impact of neoliberalism locally and globally, and especially highlight current work by early-career researchers in Australia. As well as acknowledging competing interpretations of neoliberalism, this introduction summarises emerging scholarship in economic sociology by focusing on: the rhetoric of policymaking; the rollout of neoliberal policies in Australia and comparisons with international experiences; the impact of neoliberalism on social movements and social activism; and its ongoing role as a frame of reference for everyday work and life.

Auto manufacturing holds the promise of employing many young Indians in relatively well-paid, high-skill employment, but this promise is threatened by the industry's role as a site of immense conflict in recent years. This book asks: how do we explain this conflict? What are the implications of conflict for the ambitious economic development agendas of Indian governments? Based upon extensive field research in India's National Capital Region, this book is the first to focus on labour relations in the Indian auto industry. It proposes the theory that conflict in the auto industry has been driven by twin forces: first, the intersection of global networks of auto manufacturing with regional social structures which have always relied on informal and precariously-employed workers; and, second, the systematic displacement of securely-employed 'regular workers' by waves of precariously-employed 'de facto informal workers'.