Archiv für Juli 2015

Implementing global framework agreements: the limits of social partnership

Global framework agreements, negotiated between representatives of transnational corporations and trade unions, are a form of private regulation of labour relations on a global scale. Conceived and promoted by the global union federations, their numbers have increased considerably over the past two decades. However, as empirical research has shown, their record of implementation has been poor. We attribute this to them having been negotiated within the limits of a labour-management relationship based on ‘social partnership’. This highly institutionalized setting of dialogue contrasts markedly with the widespread incidence of contested labour relations in subsidiaries of transnational corporations and in particular throughout their global production networks. Yet, workers and their unions at such sites, where global framework agreements are most needed, have mostly not been involved in their negotiation. Instead of relying on ‘social partnership’, we argue for unions to embrace a ‘conflict partnership’ approach, one that recognizes and addresses the tension between dialogue and conflict in labour relations. To highlight our arguments, we present two contrasting case studies from the service sector.

EDF Energy’s green CSR claims examined: the follies of global carbon commodity chains

In this article, we analyse the dynamic connections constituted by the global commodity chains of carbon markets, which offer profit, marketing and legitimacy-providing opportunities for both Northern and Southern corporations. Specifically, we contrast EDF Energy’s green CSR and marketing discourse with the social, economic and environmental realities on the ground near the factory of Gujarat Fluorochemicals Limited (GFL), which operates one of the biggest clean development mechanism (CDM) projects in India. Based on historical documents, secondary datasets, companies’ websites and their financial information, primary ethnographic and interview data, our analysis makes a direct link – enabled by global carbon markets – between the green claims made by EDF Energy, one of the biggest energy companies in the UK, and the dirty reality of GFL’s operations in India. In this historical case, we put into doubt the green CSR claims made by EDF Energy, questioning the discourse of sustainable development and improvement in people’s lives that surround global carbon markets and specifically the CDM.

A social licence to operate: corporate social responsibility, local communities and the constitution of global production networks

This article contributes to the theorization of the role of informal regulation (undertaken by leading firms) in the ongoing organization of global production networks. It does so through a qualitative case study of BHP Billiton’s Ravensthorpe Nickel Operation (RNO) in the rural Shire of Ravensthorpe in Western Australia. This less tangible, and to date under-researched, dimension of global production networks is foregrounded through a focus on the corporate social responsibility strategy implemented by RNO in the service of achieving and/or demonstrating a broader ‘social licence to operate’. This ‘licence’ functions – beyond the corporation – as a legitimated and legitimating multi-scalar mechanism through which to gain and maintain access to mineral resources and thus to establish viable and ongoing global production networks. Further, this informal regulation is shown to shape social relations and qualities of place conducive to competitive global mineral extraction and to facilitate the positioning of local communities and places in mineral global production networks.

Pure Minds, Pure Bodies, Pure Lips: Religious Ideology and the Juvenile Convict Institutions at Carters‘ Barracks and Point Puer

During the transportation period, Britain sent 25,000 convict boys to Australia. While the proportion of juveniles was fairly low for the first thirty years, by the mid-1820s increasing numbers were sent, with the growing argument that transportation …

Lev Gumilev and the European New Right

10.1080/00905992.2015.1057560<br/>Mark Bassin

The EU’s human rights dialogue with China: quiet diplomacy and its limits / China’s human rights lawyers: advocacy and resistance

10.1080/09557571.2015.1058067<br/>Rana Siu Inboden

The evolution of South Africa’s democracy promotion in Africa: from idealism to pragmatism

10.1080/09557571.2015.1058655<br/>Gilbert M Khadiagala

Salafism in Lebanon: from apoliticism to transnational jihadism

10.1080/09557571.2015.1058066<br/>Joseph Alagha

News from Nordic Journals

10.1080/08038740.2015.1062289<br/>

ITI volume 39 issue 1 Cover and Back matter

Miscellaneous Itinerario, Volume 39 Issue 01, pp b1-b6Abstract