What next, after Tsipras dashed Schäuble’s hopes for a Grexit?

Frank Hoffer

A Greek government forced to bow to the impossible, a referendum brushed aside, the Franco-German partnership damaged, European compromise diplomacy replaced by ultimatums, the euro in limbo, large parts of Europe swept by anti-German fear and resentment and another €83bn sunk into a doomed “rescue package”. Not quite how successful policies are supposed to play out.

The worst thing about German policy is not that it is harsh and uncompromising towards the “reform-shy” Greeks, but that it is wrongheaded. Instead of sustainable debt restructuring and support for real investment in order to gain the time and acceptance needed for difficult and sometimes lengthy structural reforms, the Greeks have once again been prescribed more of the same: keep cutting till you collapse. Pursuing this failed policy with Swabian thoroughness and Prussian rigour has made Wolfgang Schäuble a popular figure at home and an unloved German martinet abroad. In Europe, this policy has done much to destroy confidence in, and respect for, Germany.

Power and Classification: Casual Workers Struggles in the South African Post Office

David Dickinson

Jennifer Chung’s (2009) important study illustrates how marginalised workers mobilised symbolic power in their struggles for better pay and conditions in the US and South Korea. Chung uses Bourdieu’s understanding of symbolic power as ‘one of the most fundamental mechanisms of change in the social world.’ Central to the disputes she describes were ‘classification struggles’ in which the legitimacy of the triangular employment relationship, created by the introduction of labour brokers, was challenged: workers demanded to be legally classified as employees of the client company, not of the labour broker. Labour broking separates the de jure and de facto employer, usually to the disadvantage of workers. Chung places emphasis on the ability of the precarious workers to shame their de facto employer by making visible the conditions under which they worked.

Labour broker employees or ‘casuals’ in the South African Post Office (SAPO) engaged in their own struggles against exploitation (Dickinson 2015). Organised into workers committees they successfully challenged labour broking. After strenuous attempts to resolve the dispute through legal channels, they focused on, often violent, forms of ‘disruptive power’ (Wilderman 2015). There were symbolic victories in their struggle, but these alone were far from decisive in their struggle.

The Labour Code on Industrial Relations Bill 2015: Tough times ahead for labour in India

Sharit Bhowmik

Headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as of May 2014, the right-wing government has been in talks of increasing jobs by restricting workers’ rights. The government has categorically stated that, in the past, too much protection was given to workers in the formal sector. Subsequently, this is the main hurdle for expanding employment. If job protection is removed, job creation (it was argued) will peak when the employers have the power of hiring and firing. In keeping with its objectives, the government has decided to amend and amalgamate the existing laws that provide protection to labour. The Factories Act has been redefined to exclude all manufacturing units that employ less than 40 workers. In other words, nearly 75% of factories in the country will be exempted from regulating working conditions. Similarly four acts relating to wages and bonuses have been merged in one code. However the approval of parliament will be required before they become laws.

Fiscal Space for Social Protection: Options to Expand Social Investments in 187 Countries

Isabel Ortiz

It is often argued that social protection is not affordable or that government expenditure cuts are inevitable during adjustment periods. But there are alternatives, even in the poorest countries.

The paper "Fiscal Space for Social Protection: Options to Expand Social Investments in 187 Countries", published by the ILO Social Protection Department, offers an array of options that can be explored to expand fiscal space and generate resources for social investments. These include: (i) re-allocating public expenditures; (ii) increasing tax revenues; (iii) expanding social security coverage and contributory revenues; (iv) lobbying for aid and transfers; (v) eliminating illicit financial flows; (vi) using fiscal and foreign exchange reserves; (vii) borrowing or restructuring existing debt and; (viii) adopting a more accommodative macroeconomic framework. To serve as a general advocacy resource, Annex 1 of the paper provides a summary of the latest fiscal space indicators for 187 countries.

Not performing to standard: The IFC’s social conditionality and freedom of association

Conor Cradden

The potential for private or non-state regulation to improve labour standards has been much canvassed in recent years. It has been argued that working conditions in developing economies can be upgraded by making supply or investment contracts conditional on labour standards compliance. Alternatively, this can be achieved by offering access to premium price markets through product labels that certify the successful completion of a social auditing process. Nevertheless, it remains in dispute whether this kind of private regulation is effective from the perspective of workers. Existing research has found that while firms are often prepared to make modest improvements to pay for working conditions in pursuit of some market advantage, they remain unwilling to accept any significant increase in the capacity of workers to influence management decisions about employment conditions and the organisation of work. The research we report here confirms that as long as private regulators do not see it as their role to address the power imbalance between workers and employers, they will have little durable impact on labour standards.