Abstract
The articles in this issue, the last number of 2013, interpret various national and European experiences, of, for example, European monetary integration, the role of unions in Germany, the trend in strike activity in Western European countries and the situation for immigrants in Ireland. Outside Europe, articles investigate Indian experiences of bullying at the workplace and experiences of call centre work in global value chains for the quality of jobs on the Argentinian labour market.
The first article in this issue, ‘Immigrant experiences of fairness at work in Ireland’, by Christine Cross and Thomas Turner, Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Ireland, discusses the central role of fairness at the workplace. With the aid of organizational justice and relative deprivation theory, as well as interviews with immigrants, the authors discuss expectations and experiences of immigrants in Ireland. The authors’ model and the results point to, for example, the importance of perceived unfairness at the workplace, in relation to lower levels of well-being and satisfaction at work.
The second article, ‘Bullying in the Indian workplace: A study of the ITES-BPO sector’, by Premilla D’Cruz, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, India, and Charlotte Rayner, Portsmouth Business School, UK, discusses the results from an empirical enquiry regarding workplace bullying in India’s ITES-BPO (Information Technology Enabled Services-Business Process Outsourcing) sector. The results suggest that over 43% of the 1036 respondents had experienced bullying, with a majority identifying their superior as the main source of bullying. The authors suggest that the results underscore the relevance of sociocultural dynamics in workplace bullying. The authors also point to the role of ‘cross-level co-bullying’.
In the third article, ‘Security and change: The Swedish model and employment protection 1995–2010’, Sofia Murhem, Uppsala University, Sweden, argues that the Swedish model, despite the crises in the 1990s, has undergone few changes in terms of employment protection. The author shows that critical decisions were made with a high degree of consensus. These results are discussed in view of new research concerning the development of the Swedish model. Special attention is paid to the role of severe economic crises during the period studied as a window of opportunity for politicians and the social partners.
The fourth article, ‘Capital openness, monetary integration, and wage-setting coordination in developed European countries’, by Sung Ho Park, Yonsei University, South Korea, discusses how capital openness influences the wage-setting process in Europe. Does a higher degree of capital openness also lead to a tendency towards de-coordination? The author, studying 11 European countries, suggests that the role of monetary integration is important, and therefore capital openness loses its effect when financial integration takes place.
The fifth article, ‘Quiescence continued? Recent strike activity in nine Western European economies’, by Gregor Gall, University of Hertfordshire, UK, investigates strike activities in a selection of Western European countries. The author shows that there has been a general decline in aggregate strike activity, but the general trend has often been punctuated by sharp peaks. Also, collective actions have been more directed towards policy, rather than classical industrial issues. A third important result is the declining quality of official data, making the overall downward trend overestimated.
In the article ‘Call centres’ employment practices in global value networks: A view from Argentina as a receiving economy’, Andrea del Bono, CONICET (National Council of Scientific and Technical Research), Argentina, María Tatiana Gorjup, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Catalonia, Spain, Laura Henry, CONICET, Argentina, and Mireia Valverde, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Catalonia, Spain, suggest that the role of call centres in global value network chains has implications for the receiving economy. By analysing the impact of outsourcing and offshoring call centre activities on the employment practices, organization, management and quality of jobs in the receiving economy of Argentina, the authors show that suppliers’ shrinking profit margins lead to a progressive precarization of labour conditions at the lower end of the chain. The strategy to upgrade suppliers’ services, and the limitations for such a strategy to succeed, are discussed by the authors.
The final article in this issue, ‘Collective bargaining unity and fragmentation in Germany: Two concepts of trade unionism?’, by Pete Burgess and Graham Symon, University of Greenwich, UK, discusses a recent trend in Germany, where the traditional collective bargaining arrangements have been challenged by union activity, and the role of the courts. The authors conclude that the emergence of sectional organizations might demonstrate further militancy. The polarization of the unions is also discussed, but the authors conclude that the German system is still unlikely to be tipped towards a totally decentralized system.