Introduction to the special theme: theorizing transnational labour markets

In this introduction to the special themed section, ‘Theorizing transnational labour markets: economic‐sociological approaches’, I introduce the reader to the topic and give an overview of the four contributions. The terms ‘global labour market’ and ‘transnational labour market’ are broadly used to account for contemporary social phenomena as diverse as the ever‐closer integration of China or India, with their huge labour forces, into the world economy, the off‐shoring of specific operations of MNCs to countries with cheap labour, or cross‐border labour migration. In most of these cases, the existence of global or transnational labour markets is taken for granted by the media, consulting agencies and other economic actors. However, scholars in labour market research and cross‐border migration alike have largely ignored the categories of global or transnational labour markets. Thus far, it remains unclear what these terms really mean and how we should address them theoretically. The aim of this themed section, therefore, is to view cross‐border labour migration through an economic‐sociological lens and thus bring into dialogue migration and labour market scholarship. By introducing a transnational perspective into labour market research, we hope to make a useful contribution towards theorizing on cross‐border labour markets and thereby overcome the methodological nationalism that seems to have crept into this area of scholarship.     

Books Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Theoretical perspectives on work and the employment relationship . Edited by Bruce E. KAUFMAN. Recent books: Does “trickle down” work? Economic development strategies and job chains in local labour markets . By Joseph PERSKY, Daniel FELSENSTEIN and Virginia CARLSON. La mondialisation: Origines, développements et effets . Third edition. Edited by James D. THWAITES. The economics of sustainable development . Edited by Sisay ASEFA. Work behavior of the world's poor: Theory, evidence and policy . By Mohammed SHARIF. Workers and narratives of survival in Europe: The management of precariousness at the end of the twentieth century . Edited by Angela PROCOLI. New ILO Publications: A global alliance against forced labour . Global Report under the Follow‐up to the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. Report of the Director‐General. International Labour Conference, 93rd Session, 2005, Report I (B). Promotional framework for occupational safety and health . International Labour Conference, 93rd Session, 2005, Report IV (2). Reconciling work and family responsibilities: Practical ideas from global experience . By Catherine HEIN. Work in the fishing sector . International Labour Conference, 93rd Session, 2005, Report V (2A). Youth: Pathways to decent work. Promoting youth employment ‐ Tackling the challenge . International Labour Conference, 93rd Session, 2005, Report VI.     

Rethinking the governance of labour standards in South–South regional value chains

The growth of intra‐regional trade in the Global South begs the question of whether frameworks developed for the study of North–South global value chains can be used to study labour standards in emerging South–South networks. Critical of the structuralist approaches characterizing the literature, in this article I tackle the question of how formal and informal institutions interact to shape labour standards in South–South regional value chains. This is achieved in two stages. In the first part of the article, I build on Habermas's theory of communicative action to frame labour standards as the outcome of agents’ interactions within and across firms, politico‐administrative institutions and workers’ private and public spheres. Drawing on this framework, in the second part of the article I compare labour standards across the Kenya handbag and footwear sectors. While, in the former, interaction across informal institutions favoured an inclusive and consensual debate between workers and employers; in the latter, an overwhelming process of marketization and bureaucratization failed to provide an interactive space for workers’ concerns to be voiced and negotiated.     

In the wake of the wave: globalization,networks, and the experiences of transmigrant seafarers in northern Germany

Abstract In this article we highlight the plight of workers trapped at the interface between the national and the global: able to participate in global labour markets but marginalized within nation‐states and excluded from local communities. We employ ethnographic field work to explore the experiences of transmigrant seafarers who travelled to northern Germany between the 1960s and 1980s in search of work aboard German flagged vessels. We describe how the economic benefits associated with an international labour market for seafarers initially attracted and benefited them but then left them stranded as the labour market changed and became globalized. In the article we draw on Massey's concept of power‐geometry to interpret the dual processes of globalization and exclusion.     

Foreign trade barriers and jobs in global supply chains

This article uses ILO global supply chain job estimates to study the impact on domestic jobs of foreign barriers to trade in goods and services. Empirical analysis largely confirms predictions derived from a theoretical model calibrated to WIOD data for 2000 and 2011. Barriers to trade in manufacturing and services are both found to have a cross‐border impact on jobs in their own sector and spill‐over effects in other sectors, the latter becoming stronger over time. This article shows the labour market consequences of the increased interconnectedness of countries and sectors through global supply chains, which suggests that trade policy can have significant external effects on foreign labour markets.     

Antagonistic governance in South African fruit global production networks: a neo‐Gramscian perspective

Governance is a core focus of the global value chain (GVC) and global production network (GPN) literatures. Recent research claims ‘complementary’ or ‘synergistic’ governance, achieved through the confluence of private, public and civil society actors, is required for sustainable social gains. While moving beyond a narrow focus on economic coordination, such analysis lacks a sufficiently nuanced examination of power relations. In this article, I draw on neo‐Gramscian perspectives to account for ongoing contestation, positing that governance needs to be understood in the context of a broader hegemonic project. ‘Antagonistic governance’ is proposed to conceptualize contestation within and across diverse initiatives, which forge, challenge and transform hegemonic stability in GVC/GPNs. I explore this through the South African fruit sector, in particular, a labour crisis in 2012/13. I argue that we need to move beyond apolitical readings of governance to account for the material and discursive practices through which contestation gets played out, compromises are forged, and hegemonic order is maintained.     

The tasks ahead of the ILO at its centenary

The principles that define the normative missions of the ILO – as set out in its Constitution and in the Declaration of Philadelphia – have lost none of their value or relevance. The circumstances in which those missions are carried out have, however, changed profoundly. The global organization of labour is currently witnessing major technical, environmental and institutional upheavals which, in turn, pose legal challenges for the ILO in each of these areas. The ILO's answer to these challenges should be based on three principles whose implementation is encompassed by its constitutional mandate: the principles of solidarity, economic democracy and social and environmental responsibility.     

Books Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Gender, growth and trade: The miracle economies of the postwar years Le travail dans l'histoire de la pensée occidentale New frontiers of democratic participation at work Recent books: Des bancs de l'école aux postes de travail … Chronique d'une ségrégation annoncée Flexibilité et performances. Stratégies d'entreprises, régulations, transformations du travail L'organisation de la production et du travail: vers un nouveau modèle Santé mentale et travail. L'urgence de penser autrement l'organisation New ILO publications: A fair globalization: Creating opportunities for all A fair globalization: The role of the ILO Application of international labour standards, 2004: Report of the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations Promoting employment: Policies, skills, enterprises Application of international labour standards, 2004: Information document on ratifications and standards-related activities Best practices in work-flexibility schemes and their impact on the quality of working life in the chemical industries Conditions of work in the fishing sector: A comprehensive standard (a Convention supplemented by a Recommendation) on work in the fishing sector Economic security for a better world Jobs after war: A critical challenge in the peace and reconstruction puzzle Key Indicators of the Labour Market Key Indicators of the Labour Market Organizing for social justice Philosophical and spiritual perspectives on decent work Policies for small enterprises: Creating the right environment for good jobs Preventing and responding to violence at work Record of proceedings Security in ports: ILO and IMO code of practice Social funds: Lessons for a new future Sources and methods: Labour statistics—Companion to the Yearbook of Labour Statistics. Volume 3: Economically active population, employment, unemployment and hours of work (household surveys) Volume 4: Employment, unemployment, wages and hours of work (administrative records and related sources) The global seafarer: Living and working conditions in a globalized industry Towards a fair deal for migrant workers in the global economy Women seafarers: Global employment policies and practices Workplace violence in services sectors and measures to combat this phenomenon: ILO code of practice     

Global value chains for medical gloves during the COVID-19 pandemic: Confronting forced labour through public procurement and crisis

This paper evaluates ways in which labour issues in global value chains for medical gloves have been affected by, and addressed through, the COVID-19 pandemic. It focuses on production in Malaysia and supply to the United Kingdom's National Health Service and draws on a large-scale survey with workers and interviews with UK government officials, suppliers and buyers. Adopting a Global Value Chain (GVC) framework, the paper shows how forced labour endemic in the sector was exacerbated during the pandemic in the context of increased demand for gloves. Attempts at remediation are shown to operate through both a reconfigured value chain in which power shifted dramatically to the manufacturers and a context where public procurement became higher in profile than ever before. It is argued that the purchasing power of governments must be leveraged in ways that more meaningfully address labour issues, and that this must be part of value chain resilience.     

Service outsourcing and labour mobility in a digital age: transnational linkages between Japan and Dalian,China

In this article, I examine the transnational mobility of digital workers and the control of their labour across multiple production sites. The digitalization of work has progressively allowed businesses to outsource IT‐enabled service jobs to cheaper production sites offshore. The growth of the ‘offshore outsourcing' of white‐collar service jobs in East Asia has produced the mobility of cheap digital labour from Japan to Dalian in northeast China. They work at call centres and other Japanese‐speaking workplaces in the lower echelons of the city's IT sector, typically earning salaries in Chinese yuan at, or even below, the average Japanese minimum wage. Based on ethnographic findings, I argue that in the global digital economy, digital services are rendered exploitable through their transnational mobility and that this form of labour migration has developed because of the partial, fluid and contingent nature of the transnational links between the two locations. I analyse how the neoliberal logic of exception underpins the creation of IT parks in China and the casualization of labour in Japan to enable new forms of transnational labour control and capital accumulation.     

The Governance of Forced Labour in the Global Economy

Abstract

The problem of forced labour in the contemporary global economy is attracting increasing attention in global governance debates and policy circles. The effectiveness of governance initiatives depends on underlying understandings of the root causes of the problem. We explore how the root causes of forced labour in global production networks (GPNs) are framed in global governance debates. Focusing on the dominant frameworks mobilized by international institutions, with some attention to cognate national-level and corporate governance strategies, we identify certain limitations to dominant interpretations, which derive from their ‘residual’ character and their associated neglect of the manner in which the roots of forced labour reach deeply into the organization of GPNs, the forms of exploitation which are integral to them, and the connections between exploitation and poverty. We set out an alternative, ‘relational’ perspective on the roots of forced labour in GPNs, based on the concept of ‘adverse incorporation’, and consider the implications of the insights generated by this perspective for contemporary governance frameworks.     

Unpaid labour and territorial extraction in digital value networks

Production in knowledge and data-intensive industries is powered by work that can, in theory, be done from anywhere, via cloudwork platforms. Cloudwork platforms govern data value chains in distinct ways to concentrate power and extract value at the global scale. We argue that unpaid labour is a systemic mechanism of accumulation in these digital value networks. In this paper we demonstrate how it is tied to platform business models and facilitated by elements of platform governance including monopsony power, a high degree of spatial flexibility in sourcing labour, regulatory unaccountability and digital enclosure. We draw on a survey of 699 workers on 14 platforms in 74 countries to show that unpaid labour is an engine of South–North value extraction, and workers in the global South perform more unpaid labour than counterparts in the global North. Our findings have important ramifications our understanding of the changing international division of labour and platform capitalism.     

Competition in online job marketplaces: towards a global labour market for outsourcing services?

A new form of service outsourcing has emerged, namely the global online job marketplace for freelance contractors. Such platforms are currently the closest proxy to the idea of a global labour market where everyone competes for jobs regardless of location. In this article, we examine how competition manifests itself on one such global online platform, namely oDesk. We present a comparative analysis of the relative wages and the rewarding of skills and expertise of contractors from selected countries and investigate whether, via labour arbitrage, wage convergence takes place between Western and developing countries. We find that wage convergence is noticeable but experience and skills hardly translate into better remuneration. While service outsourcing (or microwork) via global online marketplaces provides new employment opportunities for freelancers around the world, the intense competition and the inherent restrictions of this type of marketplace limit the financial gains for most contractors.     

New labour rights indicators: Method and trends for 2000–15

This article describes a new method for constructing indicators of freedom of association and collective bargaining (FACB) rights based on the coding of violations in nine textual sources, including six from the ILO, and texts from national legislation. The indicators were constructed for 185 ILO member States for five years between 2000 and 2015 and launched in 2015 by the Center for Global Workers’ Rights at Penn State University, together with the Global Labour University. Following a Resolution by the International Conference of Labour Statisticians in October 2018, the method provides the basis for Sustainable Development Goal indicator 8.8.2 on labour rights.     

The globalization of production,national labour regulations and income inequality in the global North and South, 1980–2013

A central concern over global value chains (GVCs) is whether the integration of national firms into GVCs exacerbates income inequality within countries. However, despite decades of research, the distributional consequences of GVCs remain unclear in the empirical literature. Drawing on panel data from 96 countries between 1980 and 2013, we examine the effects of GVC integration on market income inequality and whether national labour regulations moderate these effects. We find integration increases inequality in the global North and South. More importantly, we find labour regulations amplify the inequality effects of integration in Southern countries by expanding the size of the informal sector while suppressing these effects in Northern countries by promoting unionization. This suggests institutional power from national labour regulations may enhance the bargaining power of labour in the North through increasing collective resources while disempowering labour in the South through reinforcing labour market segmentation between formal and informal sectors.     

Global value chains in international knowledge work: networks,stratifications and labour markets

In this article, I aim to cast light on the arguably indeterminate phenomenon of the global labour market (GLM) by placing the focus on an industry that has sometimes been perceived as epitomizing homogeneity and ‘world flatness’ in its deployment of geographically dispersed knowledge workers, that of international software development. Engaging in a sanguine analysis of this industry with reference to an empirical study of outsourcing to Ukraine it is revealed that labour markets servicing ICT (Information and communication technology) are subject to deep, if fluctuating, social stratifications. With reference to the notion of the global value chain (GVC), 1 1 ¹GVC analysis focuses on the governance patterns and relational dynamics between lead and supplier firms at the sectoral level. The GVC and its predecessor, the global commodity chain (GCC) focus on the inter‐firm linkages and especially power relations between different actors (Feuerstein 2013). The similar concept of global production network (GPN) concerns the broader set of relations of power, positionality and value capture between all relevant firm and extra firm actors within a network (Thompson 2013). For this study on sourcing in the global software industry, the term GVC will be utilized throughout.
the significance of factors such as knowledge, language, citizenship and age as labour market differentiators for knowledge work is brought to the fore.     

Willingness for mobility amongst European fishermen

The global trend of fisheries overexploitation and collapse has resulted in the need to reduce fishing effort, and providing alternative employment for fishermen is a frequently mentioned policy option in order to achieve this goal. Reducing fishing effort is central to the European Commission Common Fisheries Policy and over the years, the Commission has developed a number of socio-economic measures to encourage labour mobility among fishermen, and as such mitigate the impact caused by the structural adjustment. Considering this aim, this paper seeks to identify European fishermen's willingness for occupational and geographical mobility and the characteristics that influence this willingness. A survey was conducted with the participants in the inshore commercial fisheries of the Highlands of Scotland (UK), the Algarve (Portugal) and the South Evoikos Gulf (Greece), and logit models fitted to identify the characteristics that influence willingness for labour mobility. The paper argues that there are differences in attitudes towards labour mobility among fishermen from the different countries and that personal preferences, demographic characteristics, job-related and financial reasons influence the willingness for both occupational and geographical mobility. The paper concludes by pointing out the importance of taking local conditions and the heterogeneity that characterizes fishermen's behaviour into account, in order to achieve successful policy measures aimed at providing alternative occupations for fishermen.     

Labour and international accounting standards: A question of social justice

As the international guardian of social justice, the ILO is witnessing a global revolution in accounting, which has culminated in international accounting standards (IAS-IFRS). Previously, accounting measured the economy in relation to the capacities and responsibilities of workers and their employers. Today, the exact opposite is the case: the IAS-IFRS no longer measure work and enterprises, referring instead to the abstract concept of a cybernetic entity capable of constant restructuring, at the cost of unprecedented inequality. The author points to the incoherence of this system and to the need to restore the full carrying value of labour.     

Labour in global production networks: workers in the qualifying industrial zones (QIZs) of Egypt and Jordan

The role of labour in global production networks (GPNs) requires further theoretical and empirical research. Through the case of the qualifying industrial zones (QIZs) in Egypt and Jordan, I look at how different production and labour control regimes have emerged in the two countries to exploit preferential access to the US market. I analyse how the requirements of US buyers necessitate the building of a flexible, low‐cost, geographically mobile production and labour‐control regime that can meet the needs of buyers in terms of cost, time to market, fluctuations in demand and shifts in sourcing policy. Migrant labour from Asia and the formation of an associated dormitory labour regime facilitated the establishment of such a regime in Jordan. The social embeddedness of workers in Egypt, by contrast, hindered this process.     

Theorizing transnational labour markets: a research heuristic based on the new economic sociology

In this article, I suggest that transnational labour markets are characterized by their multi‐layered embeddedness, not only in national but also in transnational institutional settings. Hence, the national institutional factors formerly at the centre of sociological labour market theories insufficiently explain the newly emerging transnational labour markets. To account for the full complexity and institutional context of the latter, I propose an inductive theoretical approach to transnational labour markets and develop a research heuristic to instruct empirical studies about particular transnational labour markets and inductive theory building. This heuristic draws on analytical categories as developed by the new economic sociology of markets. The empirical example of the transnational labour market that matches eastern European workers to jobs in the German meat industry serves to illustrate how one can use this heuristic, which reveals some preliminary features of transnational labour markets compared with national ones, as well as some research gaps to be addressed by future studies.