Documents Rayp, Glenn 6 results

"In their introduction to this Special Issue, the authors situate the architecture of global labour governance against the background of the challenges posed by globalization. Noting the limitations of a conventional governmental approach to labour governance, they suggest considering new “hybrid” regulatory modes and mechanisms, which involve a combination of public and private actors and initiatives alongside or instead of traditional international labour law. The authors conclude by examining possible explanations for the emergence of gaps in the enforcement of labour rights, looking in particular at the issues of labour-standard “selectivity” and the stringency with which standards are enforced."

"The intensified international migration pressures of the recent decades prompted many developed countries to revise their immigration regulations and increase border controls. However, the development of these reforms as well as their effectiveness in actually managing new immigration flows remains poorly understood. The main reason is that migration regulations are hard to quantify, which has prevented the construction of a universal measure of migration policy. To fill this gap in the literature, we construct an indicator of the restrictiveness of immigration entry policy across countries as well as a more comprehensive indicator of migration policy that also accounts for staying requirements and regulations to foster integration. These indexes are then used to disentangle the factors determining the toughness of migration regulations. Our empirical framework combines elements from the median voter and interest group approach and accounts for cross-country correlation in migration policies. We find strong evidence of spatial correlation in particular in entry restrictiveness, while the impact of economic determinants of migration policy remains much more modest."

"In this important volume, nine studies identify the complexities of protecting labour rights in a mobile global economy by assessing the role of ILO standards, as well as public, private, and public-private initiatives, in countering the potentially negative impact of international trade and investment flows on labour rights. The editor's powerfully summative introduction and conclusion pinpoint the crucial issues confronting labour law in this context, highlighting the need for policy coordination and coherence. Among the topics and issues raised in the book are the following:

empirical studies of migrant workers employed in global supply chains;

international recruitment intermediaries;

governance through hierarchy versus governance through networks;

trade sustainable impact assessments (SIAs);

the so-called governance triangle – the state, companies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs);

corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives; and

the OECD's national contact points (NCPs).

Various authors focus on such features as the difficulties of monitoring labour conditions in a supply-chain system, the multiple forms of disadvantage often faced by supply-chain workers, enforcement and jurisdictional roadblocks, and pitfalls caused by prioritizing quantitative modelling at the expense of qualitative analysis. Authors and editors both offer recommendations on ways to not only hold multinationals responsible for the negative externalities of their actions but also provide building blocks for"

"This paper points out that there may be a logical consistency issue in choosing the reference wage in efficiency wage models. We have shown that defining the outside option in the efficiency wage logic as the market-clearing wage solves this difficulty, and is justifiable in terms of the assumed behaviour of workers and employers. The model that we examine confirms earlier findings of reinforcing effects between union-firm bargaining and efficiency wages. However, if union preferences vary between wages and employment, Summers' reinforcing effect is no longer present for each value of the parameter describing these preferences. Above a certain threshold value of union preferences for employment, the two mechanisms do not reinforce each other anymore."

"This paper extends the assessment of the impact of globalisation and technological change on the bargaining power and preferences of employees, by taking worker heterogeneity into account. In contrast with previous studies, two separate unions – representing low-skilled and high-skilled workers respectively – are considered. Using Belgian firm-level data, labour bargaining power and relative wage preference have been estimated by skill level. When these estimates are subsequently regressed on a set of potential determinants, the bargaining power of low-skilled workers appears to fall with imports and offshoring, whereas the bargaining power of high-skilled workers is only positively affected by R&D activities. In addition, a significant effect of globalisation is found on the relative preference of unions for wages over employment, indicating that the effect of globalisation on the behaviour of labour unions is more encompassing than frequently assumed."