Tag

Industry – Manufacturing

Nov 20
0

Do labour unions mitigate labour conflicts in China’s manufacturing firms? Evidence from the China employer-employee survey

By | China

Summary

This study assesses the current state of union dialogue in China with both employers and the government. Currently, the presence of unions positively correlates with labour conflicts, especially in cases where the union leader is appointed by the employer’s management. It concludes that unions are not able to efficiently and accurately represent the concerns or desires of workers, and, because of this, they are not being translated to the government.

For the original source, please click here

Apr 24
0

Economic impact of political protests (strikes) on manufacturing firms : evidence from Bangladesh

By | Bangladesh, Case-study, India, Social dialogue

Abstract

Political protests in the form of strikes, locally known as hartal, remain quite common in the Indian subcontinent countries. Such a form of protests is associated with mass movement, intended to cause a total shutdown of economic activities and often results in coercion, violence, and damage to both public and private properties. Utilizing the World Bank Enterprise survey data of 2007 and 2013 of Bangladesh, this study examines the impacts of hartals on manufacturing firms. We find that political protests significantly increase costs for firms. Using flexible cost function based on factor analysis we see that the factor-neutral effect of strikes is positive and statistically significant, showing evidence of a reduction in firm productivity due to hartals. However, we did not find any evidence for systematic factor re-optimization by firms – in response to political strikes – suggesting that firms do not reallocate factor shares to tackle uncertain and irregular shocks like hartals.
For the original source, please click here.
DOWNLOAD
Apr 20
0

Working conditions in the Bangladeshi garment sector: Social dialogue and compliance

By | Bangladesh, Case-study, Social dialogue

Abstract

The Bangladeshi garment sector is a leading garment manufacturing industry in the world that has been growing constantly during the last decades. Today the garment sector represent the 80% of the national export and counts USD 19 billions revenues; these numbers describe the sector as the most important manufacturing industry in Bangladesh. The numbers are also outstanding when it comes to number of workers employed, about five millions, and number of factories about five thousands of different sizes. The cheap labour cost attracted many international brands that chose the Bangladeshi factories to produce their products for the European and US markets that take up to the 60% and 20% of the total export. Despite the impressive numbers presented, the level of working conditions cannot be described with the same positive attitude. In fact to an increasing level of profit and continuous expansion, the new wealth has not been equally distributed and workers are employed in factories that too often can be categorised as sweatshops. The working conditions do not allow a decent level of living for garment workers that are exploited and forced to meet exhausting production quota for very little level of wage and very low social security. The situation is even more worsened by the very low power that unions have and their limited activities that cannot ensure a proper protection of workers’ rights. In this thesis project we used the literature to understand the current status quo of the working conditions in the garment sector and to identify the major factors that influence, impact and contribute in making the labour standards low. We used the interviewing methodology to gather facts and opinions of the current system and to organize the information and draw the status of the system. Afterwards we analysed the findings using cultural and economic indicators and the design of recommendation that could contribute in improving the working conditions’ level. Through the literature review and the interviews we defined the working conditions as: wage, job security, safety, discrimination, harassment and freedom of association; through the analysis we could acknowledge that workers are clearly exploited and the conditions are far to comply with the International Labour Standards defined by the international organizations. In the specific we analysed how two factors, compliance and social dialogue impact on the working conditions; the result shows the very low law enforcement level and little practice of a dialogue among government, business associations and workers, where the latter has almost no power; we can conclude that they significantly contribute to keep the working conditions low. Finally we provided recommendations to improve the working conditions and distribute the benefits among workers, employers and government, guaranteeing the sectorial long-term expansion and the significant benefits for global buyers.

For the original source, please click here.

DOWNLOAD
Apr 19
0

How Industrial Relations Affects Plant Performance: The Case of Commercial Aircraft Manufacturing

By | Case-study, Social dialogue, United States

Abstract

This analysis examines how changes in major industrial relations policies affected productivity over the years 1974–91 at one of the most important manufacturing plants in the United States. The authors find that productivity fell greatly, both in percentage terms and in absolute dollars, during strikes and a slowdown and during the terms of office of tough union leaders. In contrast with much of the firm performance literature, they find only small initial productivity effects of a movement from adversarial labor-management relations, which is the norm in this industry, to total quality management (TQM) and back again. How and why TQM is adopted, the authors suggest, may be as important as whether it is adopted. Finally, major industrial relations events like strikes, a slowdown, and the TQM program did not have long-term productivity effects; the firm returned to pre-event levels of productivity within one to four months.

For the original source, please click here.

DOWNLOAD
Apr 18
0

High Performance Work Practices, Industrial Relations and Firm Propensity for Innovation

By | Italy, Social dialogue

Abstract

This paper examines the influence of high performance work practices (HPWPs) and industrial relations (IR) on firm propensity for product and process innovation. The authors distinguish between two styles of workplace governance – democratic and autocratic – based on whether the management is willing to cooperate with workers’ representatives, and two styles of IR – participatory or advocatory – based on the extent of their influence. The estimates carried out indicate that HPWPs always have a significant and positive effect on both product and process innovation, while IR has a positive effect only in respect of product innovation, and provided the style is of participatory type. An interpretation of the IR effects could be that process innovation makes workers feel insecure about their jobs, while product innovation represents the path that can better protect workers’ prospects in an uncertain and unstable competitive environment. In respect of the style of IR, the effect is positive when workers’ representatives adopt a participatory role; the effect is instead cancelled out when employing an advocatory role. Participatory style IR is very likely to contribute to creating a positive attitude towards change, with workers willing to share the adjustment costs (such as learning new competencies), while advocatory style IR generates, in the minds of managers, a perception of the risk that investments in product innovation may turn into sunk costs for the firm through a likely appropriation of quasi-rent by workers (‘hold-up problem’).
For the original source, please click here.
DOWNLOAD
Apr 18
0

What Do Unions Do to Productivity? A Meta‐Analysis

By | Meta-analysis, Social dialogue, UK, United States

Abstract

The impact of unions on productivity is explored using meta‐analysis and meta‐regression analysis. It is shown that most of the variation in published results is due to specification differences between studies. After controlling for differences between studies, a negative association between unions and productivity is established for the United Kingdom, whereas a positive association is established for the United States in general and for U.S. manufacturing.

For the original source, please click here.
DOWNLOAD
Apr 13
0

Industrial Relations, Techno-Organizational Innovation and Firm Economic Performance

By | Italy, Social dialogue

Abstract

In the last decades the changes in firm’s organizational structures has attracted great interest because of their widespread diffusion. At the same time technological innovation, especially in the domain of ICT, has also experienced a rapid diffusion. Several works have tried to disentangle the linkage between innovation and its determinants as well as to uncover the relation between techno-organizational changes and firm economic performances. I likewise conduct an empirical investigation using original information collected through a questionnaire administered to union representatives of manufacturing firms with at least 20 employees located in a province of Northern Italy, Reggio Emilia. The phases of the analysis are two: at first, the aim is to uncover the relationship between a participative industrial relations regime, contractual flexibility and the propensity to innovate; secondly, I investigate on the existence of linkages between several innovation activities, namely technology, organization, ICT and training, on the one hand, and firm economic performance, on the other. The results can be summed up as follows. First, the participative aspects of the industrial relations system and contractual flexibility show a nexus mainly with two kinds of innovative spheres: organization and training. Second, firm performance is linked to all four innovation spheres. Since the regressions are also conducted in principal components, evidence of complementarities between innovation spheres is provided.

 

For the original source, please click here.

DOWNLOAD