Maciej Bancarzewski and Jane Hardy
This article compares workers' resistance in foreign direct investments (FDIs) in the automotive and electronics sectors in two special economic zones (SEZs) in the north-east and…
Abstract
Purpose
This article compares workers' resistance in foreign direct investments (FDIs) in the automotive and electronics sectors in two special economic zones (SEZs) in the north-east and south-west of Poland. It aims to investigate why, despite the shared characteristics of the SEZs, that there are different outcomes in terms of the balance of formal resistance through trade unions and informal resistance through sabotage.
Design/methodology/approach
A spatial framework of analysis is posited to examine how global capital, national employment frameworks and regional institutions play out in local labour markets and shape workers' sense of place and their capacity for workplace resistance. The research study is based on interviews with trade union officials and non-union employees in four foreign investment firms in Poland.
Findings
The findings point to the importance of the type of production in influencing the structural power of organised labour and the social agency workers influenced by their understanding of place.
Originality/value
Analysing workplace resistance and industrial relations from a spatial perspective.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the notion of precarious work and addresses the temporal, historical and analytical weaknesses manifest in many accounts by proposing a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the notion of precarious work and addresses the temporal, historical and analytical weaknesses manifest in many accounts by proposing a political economy synthesis.
Design/methodology/approach
The discussion takes place through a political economy theoretical lens that takes seriously the structures and institutions of capitalism and the agency of workers individually and collectively.
Findings
The paper concludes that precarious work is intrinsic to capitalism and therefore the precariat cannot be understood as a class-in-itself. The implications of this for activists are that solidarity needs to be forged between all groups of workers in order to organise for decent and stable employment.
Originality/value
First, it is argued that two key structural influences on precarity are the spatiality of capitalism and its endemic tendency to crisis. Second, temporal and institutional “shapers” of precarity are discussed in historical and comparative context. Third, the agential influence on precarity is examined with regard to the possibility of the self-organisation precarious workers and their potential for forging solidarity with other groups.
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This article argues that the transformation of the economies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has to be understood in the context of the dynamics and development of the global…
Abstract
This article argues that the transformation of the economies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has to be understood in the context of the dynamics and development of the global economy. The analysis draws on the notion of combined and uneven development in which there has recently been renewed interest. Too often this notion has been a slogan that lacks substance, but the article elaborates how change is a dynamic process of interaction between economic change and political and social forces. The neoliberal analysis, as well as some Marxist accounts, are criticised for being deterministic, linear and prescriptive. This account emphasises the institutional dimension and role of the state as being critical to understanding the varied outcomes between and within economies in CEE in terms of the way that it has mediated the reinsertion of these countries into the global economy. The story focuses on agency, a neglected aspect of analysis, in emphasising the ideological and discursive aspects of transformation, which attempt to justify and reinforce economic and material changes and to close down debate about alternatives. Crucially, the form and content of development, in its widest sense, cannot be known or predicted because the process of transformation has been contested by different factions of the ruling class and by workers. Despite the marginalisation of organised labour in mainstream and many radical accounts, it is argued that trade unions and workers have been central to the process and outcomes of transformation.