British Journal of Industrial Relations

Publisher:: Wiley
Publication date:: 2021-02-01

ISBN:: 0007-1080

Issue Number

Latest documents

Developing Positive Employment Relations: International Experiences of Labour Management Partnership, edited by Stewart Johnstone and Adrian Wilkinson. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2016, 334 pp., ISBN: 978‐1‐137‐42770‐0, £67.99, hardback.
Virtue at Work: Ethics for Individuals, Managers, and Organizations, by Geoff Moore. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017, 240 pp., ISBN: 9780198793441, Price £30, paperback.
European Social Models From Crisis to Crisis: Employment and Inequality in the Era of Monetary Integration, edited by Jon Erik Dølvik and Andrew Martin. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017, 464 pp., ISBN: 9780198798866, £25, paperback.
Leveraging the Vertical: The Contested Dynamics of Sustainability Standards and Labour in Global Production Networks
Sustainability standards for tropical agriculture promise better trade and fairer labour conditions for smallholders. Recent research on labour suggests that, besides such standards, configurations of buyer–supplier relationships crucially shape economic and labour conditions. However, a static configurational approach overlooks the role of supplier and labour agency over time. Using a matched case comparison of two certified rural enterprises in Ecuador, this article shows that suppliers can leverage standards to create value from vertical relationships with buyers. However, standards do not, by themselves, directly contribute to better conditions. They do so indirectly only if suppliers manage to become competitive in an elite market, augmenting rather than dampening unequal trade conditions. This study contributes to recent theory seeking to explain uneven labour outcomes with sustainability standards in global production networks.
No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age, by Jane F. McAlevey. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2016, 272 pp., ISBN: 9780190624712, £22.99, hardback.
Corporate Social Responsibility and Labour Standards: Bridging Business Management and Employment Relations Perspectives
CSR Participation Committees, Wildcat Strikes and the Sourcing Squeeze in Global Supply Chains
Lead firms in apparel global supply chains are increasingly using social compliance programmes that require worker‐management participation committees in their supplier factories. These committees are designed to ensure respect for internationally recognized labour standards, to empower workers, and to reduce labour unrest. However, these committees have remained weak, and in countries such as Vietnam worker unrest remains common. This article argues that this is because lead firms in these CSR programmes are imposing a ‘sourcing squeeze’ on supplier factors by reducing the prices and production times they allot to their suppliers, which undermines efforts by committees to address cost‐sensitive issues and overtime violations. At the same time, the sourcing squeeze increases strike leverage, providing workers with a much more effective source of worker voice.
Globalization and Labour in the Twenty‐First Century, by Verity Burgmann. Routledge, Oxford, 2016, 262 pp., ISBN: 9780415528535, Price £100, hardback.
Might Corporate Social Responsibility Hollow Out Support for Public Assistance in Europe?
This article explores whether private regulatory activity to promote labour and social standards might hollow out traditional public regulations to provide welfare and labour protection at home and abroad. Such exploration has hitherto been frustrated by empirical limitations of measures of private regulatory activity and its implications for public regulation. The present article extends those limits by focusing on how new measures of labour‐related private regulation affect attitudes in 27 European polities towards welfare redistribution and for foreign assistance. Our analysis suggests that private‐regulatory CSR promoting labour and social standards may directly and indirectly diminish public support for domestic welfare redistribution, but appears to have little effect on support for foreign aid. We see, hence, possible crowding‐out only with respect to domestic, not international, assistance.
Sex Worker Unionization: Global Developments, Challenges and Possibilities, edited by Gregor Gall. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2016, 226 pp., ISBN: 978‐1‐137‐32013‐1, $120.00, hardback.