skip to main |
skip to sidebar
 |
| Sharit Bhowmik |
The issue of minimum wages in India has long been discussed but never resolved. It crops up during labour movements but dies out soon after. There was a nation-wide strike on 20 and 21 February 2013 (Bhowmik, 2013), and one of the ten demands submitted by the trade unions was to fix a national floor wage of Rs10 000 a month (roughly US$155). This is higher than the usual wage in agriculture; plantations and informal employment, but there was no real explanation for why this figure was chosen. Moreover, the trade unions did not take it up as a campaign issue after the strike.
When the new government led by BJP (Indian People’s Party) was voted into power in May 2014, it adopted a more aggressive attitude to labour, stressing the old World Bank stand that protective legislation would decrease employment. The government started to modify existing labour laws to be more employer friendly (Bhowmik, 2015).
Trade unions in the country then formed an alliance to oppose these anti-labour policies. The BMS (Bharatiya Mazdur Sangha, Indian Workers’ Union), which is the largest trade union federation with around 10 million members, was initially part of this alliance. BMS is closely affiliated with the government through a common mentor, the RSS (Rashtriya Swamsevak Sangh, National Volunteers Union), which is a Hindu fundamentalist body.
 |
| Maarten van Klaveren |
National and international debates concerning the establishment of a Statutory Minimum Wage (SMW) have hitherto tended to polarise around what we might term the ‘social justice’ arguments for a wage floor to tackle poverty level wages on one hand, and on the other, the ‘economic imperative’ to ensure a SMW does not depress demand in certain labour markets. Lately, as low or declining rates of economic growth have gripped many developed and developing nations, the negative macro-economic effects of low pay have begun to receive long overdue attention. As a result, the need to address low pay has increasingly been articulated as a labour market recalibration that combines both social justice and economic imperatives. Crudely speaking, where levels of household debt are already unsustainably high, possibly the quickest way to increase consumer demand is through wage growth. Moreover, improving life at the bottom of the national wage distribution has further attractions, not least for politicians under pressure to reduce income inequality. This fusion of social and economic interests has rejuvenated the interest of governmental policy makers in Europe in the setting of national minimum wages and, in some cases, has even prompted them to consider ‘living wages’ higher than minimum wages as a means of arresting increases in income inequality.
 |
| ElÃsio Estanque |
 |
| Hermes Augusto Costa |
The elections on 4 October 2015 ushered in a changed parliamentary scenario which seems to herald a major political shift. After four years of austerity, which have affected every aspect of Portuguese life but particularly labour, the election outcome proved contradictory right from the start. The victory of the right-wing alliance between the Social Democratic Party, the PSD, and the Social Democratic Centre, the CDS, opened up the possibility for an alliance of the left.
The election results
There was a high rate of abstention – 44.14 % - from the parliamentary elections. The PSD-CDS coalition, which had been in government since 2011, received the most votes (36.86 % of the votes), followed by the Socialist Party (32.31 %), the Left Bloc (10.19 %) and the Portuguese Communist Party (8.25 %). In our view, this electoral outcome was not because the Portuguese people like austerity. Rather, the following factors must be considered:
 |
| John Cody |
In a coup for lobbyists and harmful special interests, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is just months away from full ratification. TPP is a trade agreement among twelve Pacific Rim countries concerning a variety of matters of economic policy that will impact nearly 40 percent of global GDP. It is designed to lower trade tariffs, establish an investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism, and will have a broad impact on intellectual property, healthcare, and Internet freedom. However, this deal can still be stopped if labour, activists and progressives can successfully capitalize on growing discontent surrounding it. Already US labour has done much to fight TPP, but it’s important that it ramps up its efforts over the coming months or it may face the consequences of a deal that will negatively impact people around the world.
Where TPP Stands
Countries involved in the TPP wrapped up negotiations in October and recently released the text of the massive 5,554-page agreement. In the US, the Obama administration is racing to push the deal through within the next 90 days. The fear is that if agreement on TPP is not reached in time, the debate about its massive impact on the US workforce could spill over into the 2016 Presidential and House of Representatives election cycle.
 |
| Helen Russell |
Across the globe trade unions are faced with increasing restrictions on their ability to take industrial action. Within days of being elected to power, the British Conservative government announced its intention to make it harder for trade unions to take industrial action and introduced the Trade Union Bill, describing it as a “legislation to reform trade unions and to protect essential public services against strikes” (Queen Elizabeth II 2015).
The Bill is an assault on British trade unions, containing a raft of draconian measures designed to stifle their ability to protect workers’ rights. Although a continuation of the anti-trade union legislation passed since the 1980s by Conservative governments, the Trade Union Bill goes further than anything that Margaret Thatcher introduced.
New thresholds on union balloting
The Bill contains new thresholds and minimum turnouts for any industrial action ballot. Currently in the UK there is no minimum threshold for turnouts and ballots only require a simple majority to take action. However, for a ballot to be accepted now, unions in all sectors have to ensure that 50 percent of members vote.
