A preliminary exploration on transformative social work model in China: a case study on social work with migrant construction workers

Migrant workers in the Chinese construction industry have been described as ‘indenture labourers of the twenty-first Century’. Under the guise of flexible work and high salary, there exist serious problems such as lack of an employment contract, poor working conditions, and the delay of payment. The origin of these problems lies in the subcontracting production regime of the construction industry that masks its labour relationships. The system also makes the intervention of industrial social work, labour rights protection and advocacy of corporate social responsibility ineffective. Based on a case of a migrant construction worker service organization, this study provides preliminary explorations on an indigenous model called ‘transformative social work’ in China. This model includes long-term education to raise civil and class consciousness, encouraging workers to fight for their own rights, facilitating the development of workers' union, connecting the support from university student volunteers and university teachers, striving for the empowerment of migrant construction workers, and the transformation of the production regime.     

同乡网络的另一幅脸孔:雇主-工人同乡关系对劳工个体权益的影响

移民研究文献强调同乡网络是移民重要的社会资本，对保护移民权益发挥着积极作用，而劳工研究文献则强调同乡网络对移民权益的剥夺作用。本文基于一个具有代表性的调查数据，采取倾向值匹配方法克服样本的选择性偏误，分析了“雇主-工人同乡”关系对农民工权益的影响。研究发现：（1）这种同乡网络对农民工人身权利等底线权益具有一定的保护作用，（2）但与更多的超时加班以及不符合最低工资标准等状况联系在一起，阻碍了农民工基本权益的实现，（3）与此同时，这种同乡关系对农民工社保福利等发展型权益的实现影响也不显著。最后，本文分析了农民工权益保护中同乡网络等社会资本的作用与限度，提出维护农民工权益的关键是制度建设与工会组织建设，以及农民工个体尽快脱离原始型社会资本，构建跨越型社会资本。     

在资源与制度之间：农民工草根NGO的生存策略——以珠三角农民工维权NGO为例

摘要：观察中国民间社会的发展,对草根组织的研究必不可少。近十年来,珠江三角洲严峻的劳权状况和政府、工会的缺位,催生出一批草根性农民工维权NGO。在中国民间非政府组织整体生存环境不佳的大背景下,由于涉及“劳权”、“人权”等的敏感议题,农民工维权NGO的发展举步维艰。面对制度和资源的双重制约,草根NGO为了生存,采取了一系列策略。它们的生存状况与所持的政治意识形态和维权理念密切相关;为了补充合法性资源,草根组织不得不着眼于制度外的道义正当性,以期获得社会的支持以及政府的默认;草根组织试图通过建立顾问委员会、理事会等方式获得知识精英的背书,有的还诉诸与政府官员的个人联系。新近出现的自体制内组建的NGO为研究珠三角农民工维权NGO提供了新素材。     

世界工厂的“中国特色”：新时期工人状况的社会学鸟瞰

面对新时代的劳工问题,特别是“新生代农民工”问题,经典理论遭遇“中国特色”的诸多挑战。本文从社会结构性视角探讨权力、资本和劳工的关系与互动,讨论在中国特定的制度背景与转型过程中,工人阶级的形成与公民社会的生成有着怎样的关系。研究认为,对工人而言,公民的基本权利就体现为各项劳动权利的实现和保障、劳工的组织化权利的落实;公民权利是工人阶级形成的前提条件,劳工阶级的出路在于形成自主的社会力量。工人的公民化过程,劳工权利亦即公民权利的获得与保护是解决劳资矛盾和转型正义的根本途径。就劳工问题而言,以能动社会的建设为先导,同时推进公民社会的建设,也许更为可行。     

新生代农民工社会保障问题及其出路

新生代农民工是伴随改革开放而出现的一个新群体,其社会保障权利诉求比父辈们更为强烈,但现实情况是：他们的社会保障权益并没有得到多大改善。第一代农民工社会保障问题亟需政府承认并负担起补偿责任,而新生代农民工的社会保障问题需要国家通过相关法律法规为其搭建起社会保障的政策起点,厘清政府、用人单位和劳动者的社会保障权利、义务和责任,赋予新生代农民工平等的社会权利,同时要未雨绸缪地解决好与之相关的社会问题。     

社会工作视角下农民工权益保护机制的模式构建

农民工权益保护问题关系着城市中数量庞大的农民工群体的利益,也关系着我国和谐社会的构建。农民工的权益受到多方面的侵害,也有多方面的力量在努力改善农民工的权益状况,但是目前农民工权益保护在机制上还存在着一系列的问题限制着其功能的发挥,这就需要创新一种机制。社会工作重视人的不同需要,重视系统地整合资源,在这一视角下,保护农民工权益,首先应建立起一种整合的机制以解决农民工群体的现实性问题,有针对性地满足农民工的需求。     

Seeking salvation: moral economies and management at the Morozov mills, 1885–1905*

Moscow’s most famous textile dynasty, the Old Believer Morozovs, pioneered not only new technology, but also ways of managing their peasant-workers. This article focuses on the distinctive approaches of the two rival families who owned neighbouring factories: the Savva Morozov Company and the Vikula Morozov Company. In these factories the Morozov families desired to create a ‘moral community’ using the spiritual discipline of the Old Believer faith to bond workers and management to productive goals. But their peasant-workers also brought to the factories their own ‘moral economy’ assumptions about the duties and obligations of worker and master. The article visits three sites where the developing management practices of these two competing factories are expressed: clan rivalry and mentalities; labour–management conflict; and the battle between bureaucracy and factory over contested taxes. The identities of the rival families – one pious and private, the other publicly political – symbolize their different approaches. Nevertheless, it is their conflicts with labour and the tsarist bureaucracy which most vividly illustrate the significant role of moral economies in management practice. Moral economies and the Old Believer experience of the Morozovs provide keys to understanding the ‘special worlds’ of their factories and the relationships between management, labour and bureaucracy.Our salvation is in work.     

劳工输出、跨国生产政治与剥削关系的形成——中国赴日劳工的案例研究

在全球化背景下，发展中国家向发达国家的劳工输出形塑了一种资方与劳方之间的剥削关系。基于中国赴日劳工的案例，本研究借助“跨国生产政治”的分析框架探讨这种剥削关系的形成机制。雇主和移工围绕加班工资展开博弈，而外劳制度对移工权利的限制及其赋予雇主的权力、不同国族移工的竞争以及跨国劳务中介的选择性庇护，使移工无论反抗还是消极服从，都可能面临加班福利缩减、加班机会丧失甚至工作丢失的困境。这种跨国生产体制具有“市场专制”性质，而外劳制度限制、资方对外劳制度缝隙的利用、全球过剩的劳动力市场、拆分型劳动力再生产体制共同体现了国际合同劳工面临的跨国生产政治，成为发达资本主义国家资本强制剥削再度出现的重要机制。     

Local worker discretion within non-governmental organisations: social integration,social control,or innovation?

Abstract

This paper focuses on the dynamics of frontline organisational practice and examines how non-governmental organisations (NGOs) act as an intermediary between people and the state. It explores how workers in NGOs in the Pearl River Delta are responding to the needs of local migrant populations including rural-to-urban migrants and foreigners within mainland China, cross-border ‘new arrival’ Chinese and ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. We examine how government policy imperatives that relate to (im)migrants within the wider region are operationalised in strategic and direct practice, drawing on the theory of street-level bureaucracy to guide the analysis of primary data collected in two cities (Hong Kong and Guangzhou) during 2014. Key findings provide evidence of discretionary agency in both locations although the broader scope for an agency is evident in Hong Kong than Guangzhou. Implications for future practice are discussed within the context of increasingly restrictive political and social environment within the region.     

Improving the protection of migrant workers with work histories in the European Union and Ibero-America: Enhancing the coordination of international social security instruments

Migration affects almost every nation, emphasizing the need to guarantee social security rights for all migrants and their families. This article focuses on the rights of workers who migrate between the countries of the European Union (EU) and the Ibero-American community. In the EU, social security systems are increasingly coordinated through Regulation No. 883/2004 and its Implementing Regulation No. 987/2009. In the Ibero-American community, coordination is sought through the Ibero-American Social Security Convention. Despite convergence between these two international instruments, coordination is still lacking between them. This article presents a comparative analysis to articulate the necessary mechanisms to guarantee coordination, to respect the social security rights of migrant workers. We focus on the cooperation and coordination between regional as well as national systems, specifically looking at the need for and aims of a rapprochement between these two major international coordination instruments to provide greater EU-Ibero-American cooperation. Finally, the importance of promoting greater international cooperation in social security policy and administration is highlighted, to engender the adequate protection of the rights as well as the free movement of migrant workers.     

QWL and Related Factors for Migrant Workers Survey in Guangdong Province,China

Abstract

The quality of work and life (abbreviated as QWL) of migrant workers in China is related to urbanization and social development and reflects subjective well-being. This study examined migrant workers’ quality of work and life and constructed an index system to evaluate overall quality. Survey data from 3,375 participants in Guangdong, China, were analyzed using ordinary least square regression. The results showed that migrant workers’ quality of work and life is low. Quality of life is lower than quality of work, indicating that social services provision was rated lower than employment situation. Quality of work and life is influenced both by objective institutional factors and subjective human capital factors, particularly training, social security, public services, and social institutional factors. Subjective quality of work and life is based on evaluation of objective situations. This study proposes several reforms in training, employment, the household registration system, enterprise management, rights protection, social inclusion, and the rural land transfer system. Future research should address the relationship between quality of work and life and related factors using longitudinal survey data, interaction of indexes and individual factors, and differences in quality of work and life of migrant workers under different institutional systems. International comparative research should also be conducted.     

Strategic contextualisation: free movement,labour migration policies and the governance of foreign workers in Europe

Heightened levels of internal labour mobility since the European Union (EU)'s Eastern enlargements in 2004 and 2007 have shifted the context for member state policies geared towards the admission of non-EU workers. This article contends that the strategic use of the internal mobility regime by member states, as a justification for selective recruitment of labour from outside the EU, deserves more analytical attention. This contribution examines how labour migration policies (LMP) in the United Kingdom, France and Germany make use of the EU free-movement framework in current legislation, and how associated policy rationales are justified. In an interpretive policy analysis of legislative documents and decision-makers' meaning-making, as related in semi-structured interviews, the article identifies the logics, tools and rationales which link LMP to EU free movement. These links are shown to be highly selective and they serve common as well as nationally distinct governance goals. Across all three cases LMPs ascribe various degrees of relevance to EU internal labour supply, depending on the different skill levels of migrants targeted in respective policies. This shared pattern of economic coordination of LMP by skill level – in which the EU common labour market plays the role of delimiting additional migration in the skilled and especially low-skilled segments – is conflated with national migration control agendas. Member states draw on EU free movement to justify migration restrictions targeted at specific sending countries. As a result, the governance of the foreign workforce produces skills- and origin-based privileges rather than granting rights to mobile migrant workers in Europe.     

When corporate social responsibility meets the challenges of rising globalisation risks

Global firms are facing great difficulties in containing new risks along their supply chains: reputation risks, contestation risks, safety risks and markets risks, as well as the risk of having to deal with new laws and more binding norms. The lack of internal control on these Global Value Chains is revealed through different social or environmental crises. Mass media are mobilised by NGOs and citizens as a means of pressure, which undermines the reputation of firms and therefore their immaterial assets. These crises show that the codes of conduct and the so-called soft law instruments fail to control the supply chain, but at the same time, these instruments begin to set new standards to face these new risks. This paper discusses this evolutionary institutional process, and stresses how CSR is not only a fiction but starts having real effects by creating new institutions to respond to risks. We will focus on reputation risks and markets risks to show that, even though CSR might not have led to a completely new system of rules, the institutional process under study has a meaningful impact on the regulatory framework.     

Fraternally yours: the union architecture of Oskar Stonorov and Walter Reuther

For architect Oskar G. Stonorov (1905–70) and labour leader Walter P. Reuther (1907–70) unions were not simply instruments for collective bargaining. They were also agents for transforming established social practices that denied the working class access to decent housing, parks and art; discriminated against African Americans; and destroyed the natural environment. Architecture and site planning were key to this transformation as they addressed concerns of social justice and environmental quality. Stonorov and Reuther shared an aesthetic agenda as well – to expose workers to the emancipating beauty of modern design – as they believed well-designed housing contributed to both their personal lives and productivity at work. From 1941 until their deaths in 1970 they devised plans for workers' housing and town planning, sculpture, urban renewal and environmentally sensitive site planning. They sought to involve workers in the design process, mark union territory on former elite-owned properties, give control of housing production to organized labour and advance workers' educational opportunities. This article examines their architectural endeavours as part of a labour narrative and as an index of the turbulent social and political changes taking place from the inter-war years to 1970.     

Global–regional interaction to extend access to social protection for migrant workers: Insights from ASEAN and MERCOSUR

Universal access to social protection for migrant workers is emerging as a problematic issue in the implementation of free movement regimes at a regional level. This article focuses on the concept of regional governance as a possible mechanism to address the unsolved challenges of social security regimes to extend coverage. To this end, the article looks at current legal developments in two regional projects (ASEAN and MERCOSUR) to identify a creative approach to strengthen the development of national floors of social protection. The interest of using these case studies lies in exploring whether the regional integration process can play a major role in the progressive extension of social protection rights to migrant workers by facilitating the adoption of social security agreements.     

Environmental justice at the heart of social work practice: Greening the profession

Social workers face many contemporary challenges. Alongside the difficulties of upholding human rights, social justice and active citizenship, are those of affirming environmental justice and care for planet earth in and through social work practice and addressing climate change and other disasters. I call for social workers to take action that addresses these issues as a strong, united profession that works alongside dispossessed and marginalised people who do not get their share of global resources, despite their limited ecological footprint. I suggest a new paradigm for practice rooted in environmental justice that enhances the well‐being of people, the flora, fauna and the ecosystem that sustains and supports us all – green social work, for practitioners supporting life in one interdependent world.     

The power to change: Muslim women’s rights movement and the resistance towards gender-based violence

Abstract

Under transnational migration, migrant women are not confined by the new host society; the unbreakable attachments to the home society constantly affect and shape these women’s perceptions of their gender and position in the host society. As a result of the growing number of Muslim migrant women, both Muslim and non-Muslim communities have begun to be aware of and recognise the rights of Muslim women and the violence that occurs. Yet, unlike international experiences of Islamic feminist groups being established to promote Muslim women’s rights, an increasing number of local women’s rights groups have started to work with Islamic faith-based organisations to disseminate the idea of women’s rights in Muslim communities. With a lack of studies regarding Muslim migrant women in Hong Kong, this article draws on the significance of international studies on culture, religion and migration to understand the situation in Hong Kong. By analysing the social and political influences on minority integration, this article seeks to uncover the capacity of the Muslim women’s rights movement in guarding against gender-based violence in Hong Kong.     

企业社会工作介入农民工服务：内容和推进模式

企业社会工作是专业社会工作的重要的实务领域,是专业社会工作服务于农民工的重要路径。企业社会工作介入农民工服务,将有助于农民工问题的解决。企业社会工作可以在维权和协调劳资关系、协助解决各种实际困难和问题、教育与培训、营造有利于农民工的企业文化等诸多方面为农民工提供服务。企业社会工作介入农民工服务主要有＂企业主动引入＂和＂政府购买服务＂两种基本的推进模式,以及作为重要补充的＂校企合作＂、＂社会捐助＂等其他推进模式。     

Social participation and transnational engagement among Korean residents in New Zealand: issues and implications for social work practice

Social work practice involving migration issues requires a good understanding of migrants' social engagement within their embedded context. The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of social participation and transnational engagement among Korean migrants in New Zealand. The findings from the study show that ethnic-based groups provide Korean residents with the opportunity to actively engage in social and civic practices. Korean migrants are also involved in transnational activities, promoting networks and interactions between the host society and the homeland. This paper suggests that social work with migrants should take into account migrant social capital in the present-day migration context.     

中国农民工社会融入的代际比较

本文依据2011年中国社会科学院社会学研究所中国社会状况综合调查数据,描述了老一代农民工和新生代农民工在经济、社会、心理和身份四个层面的社会融入状况,分析了人力资本、社会资本和政策制度等因素对社会融入的影响。研究发现,新生代农民工社会融入状况与老一代农民工相比并没有根本差异;影响社会融入的人力资本因素更显著地体现在农民工的工作技能上;政策制度对农民工社会融入具有重要影响;农民工社会融入的经济-社会-心理-身份四个层次不存在递进关系,经济层次的融入并不必然带来其他层次的融入。