Vassil Kirov and Pernille Hohnen
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how trade unions may address the questions of inclusion of vulnerable employees in low-wage “anchored” sectors in the European Union…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how trade unions may address the questions of inclusion of vulnerable employees in low-wage “anchored” sectors in the European Union.
Design/methodology/approach
The findings presented in the paper are mainly results of the analysis of stakeholder policies and strategies on the national level and on the European level, including both desk research and interviews with social partner representatives and other experts in the sectors as well as company case studies carried out in the examined countries in three selected sectors: cleaning, waste collection and catering.
Findings
The main findings of the paper refer to the indirect way in which trade unions try to promote the inclusion of vulnerable groups in the examined sectors. On this basis are formulated policy recommendations.
Research limitations/implications
The paper is based on case study research that does not cover all possible “anchored” services, vulnerable groups and types of countries, according to their employment and social models.
Practical implications
This paper formulates practical recommendations to European trade unions in the services.
Originality/value
The originality of the paper is related to comparative research focused on services sectors and the consequences of the spatial reorganisation of sectors for the trade union actions.
Details
Keywords
The paper ethnographically explores modes of urban resistance emerging in tandem with climate change mitigation programs in Copenhagen.
Abstract
Purpose
The paper ethnographically explores modes of urban resistance emerging in tandem with climate change mitigation programs in Copenhagen.
Design/methodology/approach
Building on 11 months of fieldwork with a Danish construction enterprise, the paper examines the politics of urban climate change mitigation programs through the lens of a group of builders' struggles to rethink and resolve dilemmas related to environmental concerns in construction and urban development.
Findings
Based on an analysis of a specific construction project connected to a larger urban climate change mitigation program in Copenhagen, the paper shows how the builders deliberately move between different perspectives and positions as they navigate the shifting power relations of urban planning. The paper argues that this form of crafty resistance enables the builders to maneuver the political landscape of urban planning as they seek to appropriate the role of “urban planners” themselves.
Originality/value
Taking up recent discussions of “resistance” in anthropology and cognate disciplines (e.g. Theodossopoulos, 2014; Bhungalia, 2020; Prasse-Freeman, 2020), the paper contributes an ethnographic analysis of struggles between diverging and, at times, competing modes of engagement in urban climate change mitigation programs and thus sheds light on how professional actors negotiate the ambiguity of “sustainability” in urban planning.