The union recognition dispute at McDonald's Moscow food‐processing factory

This article reports on the union recognition dispute that took place at the McDonald's food‐processing plant in Moscow. It examines this dispute in the context of McDonald's employment practices worldwide, the interventions made by international and local unions, and Russian government bodies. Despite these interventions it became impossible to either organise the workforce or establish a collective agreement. The case illustrates the difficulties facing both local unions and global union federations when confronted by intransigent multinational companies, especially in low‐skilled sectors in transitional economies.     

At the cutting edge of new realism: the engineers’ 35 hour week campaign

British engineering unions’ campaign for a 35 hour week in 1989–90 was a watershed dispute in terms of strike strategy and its impact on collective bargaining institutions. This article examines the dynamics of the dispute and the tensions between the national and local leaderships of the union campaign and compares it to similar ones waged by the German metalworkers’ union, IG Metall.     

THE DECADES‐LONG DISPUTE OVER SCALE EFFECTS IN THE THEORY OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

The so‐called “new growth theory” is characterized by the now Nobel Prize winning insight that ideas are a nonrival input to and output from endogenous investment in innovation. Nonrivalry implies increasing returns to scale, but this also unintentionally creates an empirically disputed scale effect that a growing population implies an ever‐increasing growth rate. Empirical evidence supports fully‐endogenous growth without scale effects, but theoretical issues sustain the decades‐long dispute over exactly how to negate the scale effect. This article surveys theoretical approaches to resolving the scale effect and shows how four generations of endogenous growth theory are defined by the maturing of modeling techniques for constraining increasing returns. The synthesis suggests that the dispute over scale effects is really a narrative about how the powerful application of increasing returns has followed a standard theoretical development pattern. This implies that a fourth generation is now emerging that negates the scale effect while retaining fully‐endogenous growth without relying on assumptions of linearity. Instead, the market response to excessive increasing returns to innovation constrains explosive growth by expanding the market, rather than by a linear assumption. This latest class of endogenous growth models may be the final chapter to resolving the long‐running dispute.     

‘Totally Un‐Australian!’: Discursive and Institutional Interplay in the Melbourne Port Dispute of 1997–98*

ABSTRACT We examine how discourses are mobilized and deployed by actors in an inter‐organizational domain during a critical industrial relations event. We identify the ways that business interests and union interests in the Melbourne Port industrial dispute of 1997–98 related to each other. We weave concepts from domain theory and organizational discourse theory in deriving the concept of the discursively ordered domain. This suggests that the main processes that occur in a domain are actors’‘mapping’ texts onto discourses and discourses onto interpretive schemes which make certain courses of action rational and sensible. Methodologically, we join an institutional‐historical analysis and a text‐based discourse analysis to gain a well‐rounded understanding of the situation. We extract several discursive frameworks which the major actors mobilized to make sense of the situation, and draw linkages to the actions that those positions made possible. The main findings are that actors in the two networks performed complex mapping in different ways, the material and symbolic outcomes of the dispute are products of those mapping processes, and the material and discursive aspects of the domain interweave. We discuss the value of the concept of discursively ordered domain for mutually enriching domain theory and discourse analysis and for understanding critical events such as major industrial disputes in new ways.     

探索人民调解委员会在医疗纠纷调解中的应用

为了妥善处理医疗纠纷,积极探索人民调解委员会在湖北省十堰市医疗机构调解医疗纠纷应用,进行分析、总结;人民调解处理的模式对于医疗纠纷处理有着积极的作用,有良好的发展趋势。     

浅议行政调解

矛盾无处不在,矛盾无时不有,纠纷其实就是矛盾,纠纷的产生是人类社会发展的必然结果。我们要正视纠纷,那就需要去解决纠纷,其中调解是处理纠纷的一种方式。在行政管理活动中,行政纠纷的产生是不可避免的,而调解制度是构建和谐社会的关键所在。通过分析行政调解制度的概念、原则、与其他调解的区别及不足,进而提出完善行政调解制度建议,使其在构建和谐社会过程中能发挥更大的作用。     

Mělée on the Mersey: contracts,competition and labour relations on the docks

Although strikes on the waterfront are now rare, the Liverpool dock dispute is indicative of how deregulation of the dockland labour market has compelled operators to cut ever more deeply into labour costs, and casualise the employment relationship. This has had an adverse effect on port performance and undermines the ability of employers to compete effectively.     

The genesis of private dispute resolution in Irish industrial relations

This article examines the genesis of private dispute resolution arrangements introduced by employers and unions in Ireland. These forms of collective alternative dispute resolution (ADR) comprise three‐person panels or sole adjudicators, who mediate and issue findings on collective disputes. Findings may be non‐binding or binding. Using data and interviews covering 11 private dispute resolution arrangements in 10 organisations, the paper identifies the circumstances in which they have emerged and a series of influences that lead employers and unions make path‐breaking changes in dispute resolution procedures.     

环境污染纠纷的防范措施与调解处理对策浅探

文章就环境污染纠纷的防范措施及调解处理的原则、程序等进行了探讨,并针对目前在调解处理环境污染纠纷中存在的一些问题提出了相应的解决对策。     

江苏劳动争议案件数量的灰色预测及启示

以2000～2009年江苏省劳动争议受理案件数据为依据,运用灰色系统理论,建立灰色GM(1,1)主模型和GM(1,1)残差模型,对江苏省劳动争议受理案件时间序列进行了拟合、分析与预测。通过实证分析表明,GM(1,1)残差模型的拟合程度较高,是一种有效的劳动争议数量预测算法,模型预测结果可为劳动关系管理和劳动争议处理提供有利的理论依据。     

替代性纠纷解决机制在我国的适用

替代性纠纷解决机制在司法审判实践与民事诉讼法学理论研究中越来越引起学者关注,它在解决民事纠纷的过程中具有独特的价值。但是与此同时,替代性纠纷解决方式的适用过程中存在若干冲突性问题。从完善立法、构建有效的多元化纠纷解决的法律体系、对民事案件进行分流以及加强法院的监督职能等多方面入手去解决这些问题就显得十分必要。     

企业危机发生的防火墙——食品药品企业争议管理

本文以食品和药品行业为对象,从产品争议管理的角度探讨企业危机防范和化解,分析引发产品争议的内外部部原因,探讨产品研制、开发、生产、销售过程中的风险防范,提出实施产品争议管理的步骤,以及处理类似危机应遵循的原则。     

Post‐Childe,Post‐Wirth: Response to Smith,Ur and Feinman

This is a reply to a critique of Jane Jacobs' ‘cities first' thesis with respect to agricultural origins. The critique's basic premise is that the archaeological record regarding the development of agriculture precedes the earliest cities and therefore the thesis is empirically refuted. Accepting this archaeological record for agriculture, the dispute centres on the archaeological record for city origins. Substituting a process definition of cities—city‐ness—for a ‘thing' definition (e.g. monumentality), this reply opens up pre‐Mesopotamian possibilities for city networks while conceding the difficulty in empirically obtaining evidence in earlier periods. Thus Jacobs' thesis cannot be absolutely refuted, and an exciting agenda for urban research emerges for archaeologists and social scientists.     

某机械集团劳资关系调查及和谐发展对策

在显性劳动争议日趋增加的情况下,如何有效地控制和减少劳动争议的发生和发展、构建和谐稳定的新型劳资关系,已成为我国经济社会发展中紧迫而重要的课题。     

The implications of the Messenger Newspaper Group dispute

This article traces the origins and development of the dispute between the Messenger Newspaper Group and the NGA (1982), including the use of the Employment Acts by the company. It then goes on to discuss the wider implication of the dispute for UK industrial relations.     

浅谈香港公共工程承包商索赔和争议解决

本文通过实例研究,分析了在香港政府土木工程标准合同条件下索赔及争议解决的方式,并从承包商角度总结了索赔解决的经验,以及承包商选择用调解程序来解决索赔争议所做的准备和分析工作.     

Managerial third party dispute resolution: An overview and introduction to the special issue

In this article I review each of the five articles included in the special issue on managerial third party dispute resolution. This review is followed by a brief listing of the goals for this special issue and three suggestions for future research. These suggestions include the need for more focus on the nonunion sector, a call for interdisciplinary research, and a plea for research concentrating on managerial third party dispute resolution in other cultures.     

Police pay—contested and contestable

This article provides an analysis of developments in the determination of police pay since 1919. It reveals the contested nature of public sector pay setting where the government of the day pursues short‐term economic goals rather than taking a long‐term approach to staffing issues in essential public services. In the case of the police, the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) has traditionally used both industrial and political methods to put pressure on key government decision makers. Developments reveal increasingly fraught relations between the police and the government, with the 2008 pay dispute in particular marking a new low point. Once it became clear after the 2010 general election that the government would ignore industrial pressure, then the Police Federation of England and Wales felt driven to increase the activities of its political arm. This ultimately backfired with the Plebgate scandal leaving them naked in the negotiating chamber.     

Due process for non-union employees: The influence of system characteristics on fairness perceptions

This article examines fairness perceptions associated with alternative dispute resolution systems. Collaborating with seven Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies sponsors, data collected from 450 non-union, non-management employees were analyzed. The major finding is that alternative dispute resolution systems that are regarded as credible, accessible, and safe (i.e., no retaliation) influence perceptions of fairness which, in turn, influence the likelihood to use the system. Implications are drawn for practice and research. © 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.