One of many roads to industry 4.0? Technology,policy, organisational adaptation and worker experience in ‘Third Italy’ SMEs

Industry 4.0 (I4.0) is a technological framework and policy programme that emerged in Germany in the 2010s, promising to revitalise manufacturing and revalue work by means of intelligent productive systems. The paradigm's cross-national diffusion raises questions about its context-dependent adaptation. This article focuses on the Italian I4.0 programme and its implementation among medium-sized manufacturing companies in the country's Veneto region. It analyses Italian policy and company strategies through the perceptions and experiences of managers, unionists and workers. The research highlights how a system dominated by small and medium enterprises (SMEs)—one with limited technological investment and without a coordinated system of industrial relations—reshaped the I4.0 policy goals, technological developments and work outcomes. The results show how the features of the productive context are associated with a far less ambitious I4.0 plan, the limited and selective adoption of technology at the level of firms, and modest top-down organisational changes that do not fulfil the promises of the project.     

Discipline and resistance in southwestern Ontario: Securitization of migrant workers and their acts of defiance

COVID-19 has had deep impacts on a wide range of vulnerable communities in Canada. Migrant agricultural workers in the southwestern region of Ontario were particularly impacted. Fearing the threat of the ‘racialized foreign other’, the Canadian state produced myriad securitization responses with heightened surveillance. This paper will examine both state and non-state forms of securitization and the response from both workers and activists such as the advocacy group Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW). While there has been ample discussion of how vulnerable migrant agricultural workers were affected during the pandemic, there has been less attention paid to how state policies have heightened and targeted specific groups such as migrant agricultural workers through modes of securitization. Central to this was to ensure that labour needs would be met to ensure the viability of Canada's multi-billion agricultural industry. This paper shows how securitization and control were vital to ensure no disruptions to production levels and Canada's role as a leading agricultural export producer.     

‘There will be no law,or people to protect us’: Irregular Southeast Asian seasonal workers in Taiwan before and during the pandemic

This paper investigates the everyday lived realities of Southeast Asian migrant workers who left the formal sector of the labour market and entered the informal agricultural sector before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan. Drawing on observations of migrants' daily lives and farm work and 19 in-depth interviews, it delves into migrants' subjective experiences of vulnerability, paternalism, exploitation, and control at work due to a lack of legal protection and the illegality of their employment. Although the literature has identified a link between ‘running away’ from formal employment and seeking freedom, this research suggests a continuum between experiences of work in the formal and informal economic sectors. The paper sheds new light on mobility, work, illegality, and informality and how these have constantly shaped ‘runaway’ workers' subjective experiences of freedom and unfreedom during the pandemic.     

重庆市农民工市民化的成本约束与制度创新

户籍制度改革是中国城乡二元制度改革、缩小二元差距的牛鼻子,以户籍制度改革推动社会制度改革是中国未来三十年社会制度改革的重心。重庆市推进以农民工户籍制度改革为切入的统筹城乡综合配套改革,是中国社会制度变革的一个试点和示范。但是城乡二元制度是一个相互关联的巨复系统,制度之间相互约束;同时制度改革隐含巨大的改革成本。重庆市一方面要循序推进农民工户籍制度改革,同时在已有土地制度、农村养老保障制度、农村医疗保障制度、农村教育制度等系列改革基础上,还应推出农村退休养老保障制度、农村承包地退休退出制度、农村住房保障制度等关键制度,为农民工市民化提供必要的资金支持,削弱和消除因制度原因造成的农民工市民化心理障碍。     

MIGRANT URBANISM: Cape Verdean Djunta-mon and its Impact on the Built Environment of Cova da Moura (Lisbon)

International migrations are transforming the urban landscape in cities all around the world. In this article I address the effect of Cape Verdean migration on the built environment of Lisbon's periphery. Specifically, I analyse a traditional practice of mutual aid originating in rural Cape Verde, the djunta-mon system, as a device of migrant urbanism projected onto the urban landscape of the Cova da Moura neighbourhood. In this article, which is based on ethnographic fieldwork, I discuss the role of the djunta-mon in the urban evolution of the neighbourhood from its formation in the 1970s to the present day. The data collected shows that this practice has had an important effect on the appropriation, functional delimitation and significance of the urban space by residents. The results thus point to the importance of understanding how the cultures and identities of human groups crystallize through the processes of social production of space.