Modern Slavery Davidson, Julia O'Connell
2015, 2015-10-01
eBook
Providing a unique critical perspective to debates on slavery, this book brings the literature on transatlantic slavery into dialogue with research on informal sector labour, child labour, migration, ...debt, prisoners, and sex work in the contemporary world in order to challenge popular and policy discourse on modern slavery.
This article explores questions about gender, race, sexuality and political community. It examines one major pattern of sex tourism in relation to contradictions within liberal theory's construction ...of community, Self and Other. Drawing on ethnographic research in the Dominican Republic, it argues that an interrogation of the world view of `hard core' male heterosexual sex tourists reveals something of the whiteness, maleness and heterosexuality of classical liberalism's sovereign self and the tensions generated by its partial and exclusive universalism.
Both academic and political debate about the effects of privatisation upon employees in privatised companies has taken place in something of an empirical vacuum. In particular, there is a lack of ...systematic enquiries into the major privatised utilities. Despite the lack of evidence, a number of claims have been advanced, both about the impact of privatisation upon the political attitudes of employees, and about its effects on working conditions, worker motivation and behaviour. This paper presents the results of a survey of 442 employees in two privatised public utilities. It is divided into two parts, looking first at the more general social and political attitudes of these employees, then presenting their views on the impact of privatisation on the company they work for, and on their working lives. The findings reported here lend little support either to new right claims about privatisation's transformative powers or to the view that ‘for most people … privatisation will make very little difference at all’ (Saunders and Harris, 1990).
Sex tourism in Cuba Davidson, Julia O Connell
Race & class,
07/1996, Letnik:
38, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
In the unofficial economy, Cuban peso income is all but worthless, which is why many people in Cuba are prepared to grant tourists sexual access in exchange for cash or goods. Prostitution in Cuba ...and the inherent racism in the industry of sex tourism are discussed.
This article draws on a survey of over 400 employees in two privatised companies. It examines the relationship between the depth of share ownership and social class and prior political orientations, ...and suggests that employee attitudes are best understood as a function of these standard sociological factors.
The continuity of discontinuity Thompson, Paul; Davidson, Julia O'Connell
Personnel review,
06/1995, Letnik:
24, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The need for a permanent revolution in organizational structures and use of human resources is legitimated by reference to the need to adapt to ever more turbulent times. This gives rise to and is ...sustained by a distinctive anti-bureaucratic rhetoric based largely on over-hyped, unrepresentative examples and misunderstood processes. However, though empirically unsustainable, the rhetoric survives, in part because this kind of managerial discourse is playing by different rules. Explores and challenges the internal dynamics of this discourse to show that the rhetoric of discontinuity has been a continuous feature. Uses case studies of privatized utilities and analysis of the literature to explore both the gap between rhetoric and reality, and how managers operate in that gap.
The continuity of discontinuity Thompson, Paul; O′Connell Davidson, Julia
Personnel review,
06/1995, Letnik:
24, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The need for a permanent revolution in organizational structures
and use of human resources is legitimated by reference to the need to
adapt to ever more turbulent times. This gives rise to and is ...sustained
by a distinctive anti-bureaucratic rhetoric based largely on over-hyped,
unrepresentative examples and misunderstood processes. However, though
empirically unsustainable, the rhetoric survives, in part because this
kind of managerial discourse is playing by different rules. Explores and
challenges the internal dynamics of this discourse to show that the
rhetoric of discontinuity has been a continuous feature. Uses case
studies of privatized utilities and analysis of the literature to
explore both the gap between rhetoric and reality, and how managers
operate in that gap.
UK dairies are increasingly replacing directly employed roundspeople with self-employed workers operating franchises. The financial benefits for the dairies are substantial and managers also see ...franchising as a solution to problems of labour control. For workers in the industry, however, the switch from direct employee to franchisee has been rather less rewarding. Many find that they are now working longer hours, in worse conditions, with no entitlement to sickness, holiday, redundancy or retirement benefits. This paper examines the management rationale behind franchising, the contractual relations it entails and the experience of franchisees. It then goes on to argue that despite labour process theory's traditional emphasis on direct, Taylorist-type employment relations, its concern with the variability of labour power can equally provide a useful starting point for the analysis of shifts away from ‘standard’ direct employment.
This paper is concerned with the changing nature of office work in one region of a privatised public utility, which will be referred to as National Utility (NU). It describes how clerical work at NU, ...traditionally characterised by a detailed division of labour and functional specialism, is being transformed by the introduction of on-line processing and multi-functional team-working. At the same time, NU management is seeking to change the nature and pattern of clerical employment. The intention is to increase the ratio of part time to full time staff, to increase the ‘personal accountability’ of staff, and to move towards a performance-based, rather than a seniority-based, pay and promotion structure.
These changes are of some broader theoretical significance. As Batstone et al. (1987) note, much industrial sociology literature has focused on job content as the primary determinant of a number of features of work and employment, including worker autonomy, supervisory styles, and management control strategies. Indeed, much recent industrial sociology, management and institutional economics literature has tended to link employment patterns and conditions, as a whole, with job content, in a direct and unproblematic fashion. In particular, it is often assumed that in order to secure multiple skills, high quality work and the innovative capacities of labour, employers will have to offer not only better pay, but also a better package of conditions, job security, fringe benefits and training and promotion opportunities. Developments at National Utility suggest that the link between job content and employment relations may be weaker than has sometimes been implied, and cast doubt on the theoretical basis for ‘post-Fordist’ confidence in the emergence of a new deal for labour as a result of flexible methods of work organisation.
Book Reviews CONNELL, JULIA; CASPERSZ, DONELLA; PINI, BARBARA ...
Labour & Industry: a journal of the social and economic relations of work,
12/1/2004, Letnik:
15, Številka:
2
Book Review
