From Core to Periphery? Recent Developments in Employment Relations in the Philippines

We seek to describe recent developments in employment relations in the Philippines, placing these developments in the contexts of the distinctive elements of the Philippine social/political/industrial relations systems as well as the ongoing trade-based and functional integration of international markets and the recent regional economic crisis. We find that while some firms are pursuing functional flexibility and more cooperative employment relations, the logic of competition primarily has induced firms to adopt practices that promote numerical flexibility such that a core-periphery workforce is created. We argue that the labor movement in the Philippines has been hampered in its efforts to effectively counter employer strategies by its low density and fragmentation and an unfavorable public-policy environment; Philippine labor unions have, however, made some recent gains in organizing and interunion coordination. We also argue that the government has not done enough to counteract the negative effects of market integration on workers nor to evolve th e Philippines into a higher-value-added exporter.     

Macroeconomic Constraints, Social Learning and Pay Bargaining in Europe

This paper argues that European integration has constrained the discretion of industrial relations actors. The result has been not the widely predicted institutional fragmentation of collective bargaining, but a change in the functioning of these systems. At the same time, widespread 'social dumping' on the part of firms and member states has not materialized. The paper argues that the 'race to the bottom' thesis gives insufficient weight to the socialization mechanisms attached to the European integration process. Thus macroeconomic constraints and social learning processes are co-mingling with one another in European industrial relations.     

The Impact of European Integration and German Unification on Industrial Relations in Germany

Can the present turmoil in German industrial relations be attributed to the effects of the Single Market, or to unification, or to other factors? European regulation or legislation may intervene in the German industrial relations system, may remove responsibilities from national actors, or may, by deregulation, induce stronger interdependence between national regimes. Various instances are considered to evaluate the actual and potential EU impact on German industrial relations. The evidence suggests that fears of ‘social dumping’ in the richer member-states are largely unfounded, and that the effects of unification and the recession on German industrial relations are currently more significant than the impact of European integration.     

Changing Regimes of Workplace Governance,Shifting Axes of Social Mobilization,and the Challenge to Industrial Relations Theory

This article challenges prevailing views about the collapse of the New Deal industrial relations system and the role of the market. It argues that the old system has been replaced not by the market but by an employment rights regime, in which the rules of the workplace are imposed by law, judicial opinions, and administrative rulings, supplemented by mechanisms at the enterprise level that are responsive to the law but also are susceptible to employee pressures, both individual and collective. The emergence of this regime is the product of a shift in the axes of social and political mobilization from mobilization around economic identities rooted in class, industry, occupation, and enterprise to identities rooted in the society outside the workplace: sex, race, ethnicity, age, disability, and sexual orientation. The shift in the axes of mobilization in turn reflects the collapse of the underlying model of social and economic organization upon which the collective bargaining regime was built and more fundamentally a shift in our understanding of the nature of industrial society and its direction of evolution in history. This interpretation poses a challenge to the conceptual tools used in industrial relations to understand the issues of work and to frame the public policy debate. We conclude with some suggestions as to the direction in which we might move to provide an alternative conceptual framework.     

The Citizen‐Consumer as Industrial Relations Actor: New Ways of Working and the End‐user in Social Care

This article explores the role of the citizen‐consumer as an actor in public service industrial relations. Based on research into the New Types of Worker programme in social care, the article considers how new work roles engage end‐users as citizen‐consumers in work relations and their consequences for stakeholders. It highlights the forms assumed by these roles and the factors influencing their development and impact, concluding that if the citizen‐consumer is to be treated as an actor in industrial relations, researchers must show greater sensitivity to the categories of end‐users and to the service context.     

东亚货币一体化可行性研究：基于层次设权方法的分析

由次贷危机引发的全球性金融危机再次引发了人们时区域经济协调和货币一体化的讨论,文章应用层次设权方法（AHP）计算了东亚十个国家和地区的经济特征指数和区域经济一体化指数,并与20世纪60年代欧共体成立时的情形进行了比较。结论表明,尽管亚洲最优货币区的建立尚存在大量障碍需要克服,但东亚地区已经初步具备经济一体化的基础。     

The Role of Digital Communities in Organizing Gig Workers

Using survey data from 450 ridehail drivers, this article examines how social networking sites (SNS) influence workers’ views on union instrumentality and unionization. This article finds that more frequent interaction with other workers in online communities is associated with improved views of union instrumentality and interest in joining a ridehail drivers' association. These findings link together the fields of information sciences and industrial relations and suggest a new institutional actor in modern industrial systems, the online worker network.     

产业转型与产业发展研究的新进展——中国工业经济学会2009年年会学术观点综述

本文对中国工业经济学会2009年学术年会暨产业转型与产业发展研讨会的主要学术观点进行了综述,研讨会的主题涉及现代产业体系与产业升级、产业转移与区域产业发展、产业发展与企业战略等内容,反映了当前产业经济学研究中,有关产业转型与产业发展研究的新进展。     

产业政策研究的新进展——中国工业经济学会2007年年会学术观点综述

本文对中国工业经济学会2007年年会暨“产业政策：反思与评价”研讨会的主要学术观点进行了综述。涉及产业政策理论、区域和国际比较、产业规制政策研究等前沿内容，反映了当前产业经济学研究中关于产业政策研究的新进展。     

Why has Irish Social Partnership Survived?

The present system of social partnership in Ireland is in its twentieth year. A range of explanations have been put forward to explain why social partnership has been so durable even though it does not possess the institutional endowments often considered necessary to sustain tripartite industrial relations arrangements. Although these accounts are considered to have merits, this article suggests that they also suffer from a range of weaknesses. The article suggests that the longevity of the social partnership regime is a result of it being part of an unorthodox system of institutional complementarities that triggered a spectacular period of economic and employment growth.     

河北省产业集群竞争力评价比较研究

产业集群已成为当今区域经济发展的重要力量,而集群的竞争力又是发展的关键。本文从集群发展能力、集群创新能力、集群市场开拓能力、集群资源整合能力、集群环境因素5个方面建立了产业集群竞争力评价指标体系;采用层次分析法及灰色关联分析法,建立集群竞争力评价模型,将河北产业集群竞争力与江苏、浙江、广东3个位居全国前列的发达省份以及与我省经济总量相近的辽宁、河南、福建三省比较。研究河北省集群竞争力的优劣势,分析原因、寻求对策。     

Transnational Collective Agreements and the Development of New Spaces for Union Action: The Formal and Informal Uses of International and European Framework Agreements in the UK

Transnational collective agreements (TCAs) are an important development in the international dimension of industrial relations. This article compares four case studies of multinational companies in the UK covered by TCAs. Findings show that while the formal influence of TCAs was limited, they were invoked around particular disputes and could strengthen union influence in a context otherwise characterized by limited union rights. Such influence depended on the co‐ordination of workplace‐ and firm‐level industrial relations institutions, union access to management at headquarters level and union receptiveness to and outward engagement with transnational activity. The formal but also the informal dimensions of these dynamics played a significant role.     

Root Metaphor in the Old and New Industrial Relations

Why have academic concerns and priorities within the old industrial relations paradigm seemingly wilted before the ideas of a new, more business oriented paradigm? I suggest that the answer lies partly in the relative appeal of their respective root metaphors. The metaphor of the old tends to be closed, static and pessimistic — industrial relations as trench war. The new offers a more hopeful, essentially American pioneering metaphor that conveys challenge and progress and makes a fetish of change. However, while I accept the inevitability of metaphorical devices in disseminating and even generating ideas in social science, the article warns against being seduced by the attractiveness of the metaphor rather than the robustness of the idea.     

Institutional support for new work roles: The case of care coordinators in the United States and England

Drawing on comparative employment relations literature, this article explores how employment relations (ER) institutions support the ‘care coordinator’, a new role tasked with aiding the exchange of information between health and social services in the United States and the UK. Findings show that in both countries, multi-employer collective bargaining facilitated this role by providing good working conditions and a stable work environment; additionally, the new role performed better in England due to the broader scope of bargaining and supportive management practices. The article advances a comparative institutional perspective on the creation of new tasks focused on sub-national (sectoral and regional) ER.     

Accounting for National and Sectoral Variance in the Implementation of European Social Partner ‘Soft’ Law: The Cases of the Implementation of the Telework and Work‐Related Stress Agreements

This article investigates the factors that explicate the implementation of European social partner ‘soft’ framework agreements. The implementation of two such agreements, the Telework and Work‐Related Stress Agreements, in four countries and two sectors is investigated. Seven hypotheses, primarily derived from the study of generic European ‘soft’ law, about the factors that explain the implementation of European social partner ‘soft’ law are tested. The article concludes that European social partner ‘soft’ law is distinctive from generic European ‘soft’ law in that its successful implementation is contingent upon the extent the industrial relations system in which it is implemented is centralized and co‐ordinated.     

International Political Economy and Industrial Relations

The field of international political economy offers valuable insights into global economic integration, trade liberalization, global governance and the nature and activities of international organizations and regimes. Despite their impact on industrial relations, industrial relations theory has not wholeheartedly engaged with these phenomena or this sister field. This paper argues that the field of international political economy offers much to industrial relations, particularly in terms of understanding the nature and impact of internationalization and emerging global governance. The potential in a closer relationship between the two fields is illustrated by the example of the international labour standards regime and its principal organization, the International Labour Organisation.     

Uneven Development,Uneven Response: The Relentless Search for Meaningful Regulation of GVCs

The regulation of employment in global value chains (GVCs) is a story of the interaction of corporation and state in transnational space, where uneven international development has allowed the commodification and exploitation of international labour. Global standards are well articulated by bodies such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UN. We know what ‘decent work’ should look like as well as what all workers should enjoy as basic employment and human rights. Yet, internationally, the different mechanisms of private and public regulation fail at the point of implementation and across the world we see no fundamental shift in the condition of labour in terms of its capacity for social or economic upgrading. This article examines the regulatory mechanisms, and outcomes of regulation, of industrial relations in GVCs. It commends a future research agenda to illuminate the interaction between different sources of standards and rules and the complexities of intersecting private and public regulation, in the pursuit of enforceable, meaningful regulation of work and employment in international supply chains.     

Addressing the Legitimacy Gap in the Israeli Corporatist Revival

Since the mid-1980s, Israel's labour law and industrial relations have transitioned from a Continental corporatist system to an Anglo-American pluralist system. The process has been characterized by greater fragmentation of the labour market and the system of interests' representation. However, in recent years, there have been several episodes of nationwide collective agreements and social pacts. These agreements resonate with a second generation of social corporatist bargaining that has been identified in some European countries. In this article, I question the legitimacy of the new agreements. The legitimacy gap evolves from the use of corporatist instruments against the backdrop of a pluralist system. I discuss the attempts to increase the legitimacy of the corporatist instruments, pointing to their limited success. Future attempts must consider solutions that track the hybrid nature of the industrial relations system and devise institutions that bring together the traditional corporatist social partners and the new pluralist agents. Of particular importance is the need to consider the role of the new associations in civil society that voice the interests of the growing segment of disadvantaged workers in the secondary labour market.     

关于我国页岩气资源开发利用问题的思考

长期来看,能源相对短缺将是我国面临的一个重大难题。在常规能源供给日益紧张的情况下,合理开发利用非常规能源资源迫在眉睫,在非常规能源中,页岩气资源储量丰富具有较大的开发潜力,然而,我国对页岩气的开发利用仍处于起步阶段,经验匮乏,技术不成熟,政策有待完善。本文根据大量详实的调研数据,综合运用循环经济理论、资源可持续发展理论、矿产资源规划理论及供应链管理理论等相关理论对页岩气资源开发利用进行研究,包括分析我国页岩气开发利用的现状及存在问题,并提出促进我国页岩气开发利用的相关对策建议。     

Comparative research on regional regulators’ associations: A theory-driven path for progress

Since the 1990s regional economic communities have been increasingly involved in the development of model telecommunications policies and regulations. Through semi-independent regional regulators’ associations, these communities aim to harmonize telecommunications policy and regulation across member states in hopes of stimulating cross-border investments and market development. To fully understand the role and effects of these administrative bodies, analyses are needed within and between a variety of regions. The research described herein facilitates such analyses by providing a series of theoretically derived propositions developed with reference to a number of regions including the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and the European Union (EU).