The cloud factory: Making things and making a living with desktop 3D printing

This paper presents a case study of an open-source 3D printer called ‘Rep-rap’. 3D printing derives from computer numerical control machinery, a technology first introduced against a background of industrial conflict. This historical fact reactualises labour process theory as a theoretical resource. However, the hobbyists in the Rep-rap project are located ‘outside’ the typical setting studied in labour process theory, that is, the workplace. The case study is, therefore, suitable for examining the limits of labour process theory. Its key tenet regarding structured antagonism between labour and capital is put to the test when the ‘point of production’ is located in a community and ‘labour’ consists in non-remunerated contributions by hobbyists (i.e. non-employees). Drawing on theories of the social factory and free labour in the cultural sector, the article argues that this is changing as hobbyists, fans, makers, etc., are put to work by start-up firms and venture capital in the so-called “sharing economy.”     

Social protection systems and the future of work: Ensuring social security for digital platform workers

Digitalization is transforming societies and economies worldwide at an unprecedented scale and pace. In the wake of automation and digitalization, new forms of employment have been emerging in various occupations and sectors, such as the digital platform economy. The emergence of new forms of employment, such as work on digital platforms, requires that existing social protection systems adapt to the specific situation and needs of such workers, as to realize the human right to social security for all. Current social protection coverage for workers on digital crowdwork platforms reveals significant gaps in social security coverage. Where such coverage exists, it is often provided through the workers’ previous or additional jobs, or indirectly through their spouses or other family members. This raises questions about digital platforms free riding on the traditional economy with regard to the financing of social security. How can social protection systems adapt to changing forms of work to ensure full and effective coverage for workers in all forms of employment, including those in “new” forms of employment? How can workers in all types of employment, including those on digital platforms, be protected in an adequate and comprehensive way, combining contributory and non‐contributory mechanisms and based on equitable and sustainable financing mechanisms, so as to ensure adequate social protection to all?     

Training and job search assistance programmes in Spain: The case of long-term unemployed

Exploiting administrative records of the Spanish Public Employment Services for the period 2010–2012, we analyse the influence of participation in training and job search assistance programmes on the employment probability of the long-term unemployed. Using the coarsened exact matching method, we find that participation in both programmes exerts a positive influence on the employability of jobseekers, but participation in training seems to be more effective, especially as regards the likelihood of getting jobs of a certain quality. The treatment effect is higher for the long-term unemployed, thus suggesting the convenience of their participation in these active measures.     

Young precariat and a new work order? A case for historical sociology

This article assesses Guy Standing's (2011) account of ‘the precariat’ as a ‘new class' to the many exercises undertaken in youth studies since the 1980s to make sense of the changing patterns of youth employment. While Standing's focus on the experience of fragmented and casualized work in many economies which now implicates young people has value, there are significant problems with his account that highlights the some difficulties in thinking in somewhat abstracted ways about ‘structural’ change processes that do not sufficiently consider the question of time. The case of Australia's of labour market regulation since the 1890s is used to test the validity of Standing's focus on the novelty of neoliberalism after the early 1980 to explain the emergence of precarious employment. Standing's claim that insecurity is central to the ‘new precariat’ because they lack the different kinds of security enjoyed by the ‘working-class’ after 1945, highlights the need for an interpretative framework attentive to the longer term role of state policy and the interplay of historical and local processes. The case is then made for developing a historical sociology that engages with what is now happening in respect to young people and their employment security.     

Working at the edge: Emotional labour in the spectre of violence

Drawing on semi‐structured interviews with police officers, door(wo)men and prison officers we present intimate, emotional and sometimes harrowing accounts of both the physical and emotional pain routinely endured by those employed as agents of social control. This article positions labour undertaken in such contexts as ‘edgework'; exploring how the boundary, or ‘edge', between safety and danger is negotiated and managed ‘in the moment' through embodied performances of empathetic and antipathetic emotional labour and emotional neutrality. Placing the concepts of edgework and emotional labour in dialogue, we open up a space in which to explore gendered conceptualizations of emotional labour and offer a more feminist appreciation of edgework that moves us beyond narrow concerns with pleasure, to account for embodied experience and emotional performance. In so doing, this article offers a unique insight into the emotional labour repertoires of both men and women who work in the spectre of violence.     

Holding on to both ends of a pole: Empowering feminine sexuality and reclaiming feminist emancipation

In this article, we study pole dancing as a potential site of feminist theorization. Finding that instructors at pole dancing studios figure themselves in and through tensions between empowering feminine sexuality and the taint of sexualized labour, we discuss the productive potential of these tensions in terms of postfeminist discourse, on the one hand, and the feminist critique of this discourse, on the other. Holding on to both ends of this pole, the pole dance instructors twist and turn their words and bodies so as to produce emotionally attractive and socially recognizable subject positions for themselves and their female customers. We do not seek to dissolve the inherent tensions of these moves, but discuss how they can become productive: for the pole dance instructors, as they find opportunity to discursively resist sexualization whilst materially performing sexuality; and for us as feminist scholars as we become able to celebrate and criticize the idea(l) of empowering feminine sexuality.     

Do labour market policies reduce the informal economy more effectively than enforcement and deterrence?

In 2006, Turkish policymakers introduced new measures to reduce informality and encourage formality, in which the primary means of combatting informality were stricter enforcement of existing labor market laws and deterrence through fines, without any appropriate adjustments in formal labour costs. In this paper we show that even without any change in enforcement and deterrence, in an economy growing with capital accumulation like in Turkey, informality gradually and naturally declines. Furthermore, we propose alternative labour market policy changes like reductions in minimum wage and payroll taxes to reduce informal employment share, and assess the relative effectiveness of these policy changes.     

农民工劳动权益的法律保护

近年来,农民工劳动权益被侵害的现象引起社会的广泛关注,如工资被拖欠、劳动条件恶劣等.而在其权利被侵害之后,维权道路的艰辛又使他们望而却步.这些问题产生的原因是多方面的,但从根本上讲是由于我国法治的不健全所导致.这提醒我们应从农民工劳动权益保护问题的现状入手,通过分析其法律上的原因提出相应的对策和建议,以期切实保障农民工合法权益,改善农民工的就业环境,促进城乡协调发展,建设社会主义和谐社会.     

负债经营中的临界关系分析

作为普遍的经营现象,负债经营的动因源于企业资本短缺,为保证企业持续经营,其目标取向应定位于利润最大化。因此,在进行负债筹资决策时,不应单方面地从负债比率或负债资本比率分析问题,而必须综合考虑企业的资本实力、预期利润率和增加的负债风险,权衡三者的利害得失,从而作出正确的决策。本文针对负债经营经常遇到的四种情况,假定负债经营比率、企业资本利润率和负债资本成本率三个比率其中一个指数固定,分析其他两个指数的相互关系,以期为负债筹资决策提供可资参考的分析依据。     

也谈人的本质问题

正确理解马克思主义关于人的本质的科学理论 ,必须把握三点 :一要正确认识自然属性虽是人性的重要内容 ,而人的本质特指人的社会属性。二是正确认识社会属性的内容 ,把思维、语言或理性、自觉能动性等一一列举作为人的本质属性缺少概括性、逻辑性 ,人的本质属性可概括为生产劳动与人类思维两个方面。三要正确认识马克思关于人的本质是一切社会关系总和的著名论断 ,是针对并批判费尔巴哈脱离社会关系的抽象人性论 ,旨在强调人的本质是由现实、具体的社会关系决定并由一定的社会关系体现的 ,而并非说人的本质属性即指社会关系本身