This short commentary on the Special Issue ‘Agricultural Regimes and Migrant Labour’ emphasises colonial roots of employment conditions labour relations in contemporary capitalist food supply chain; continued reliance agriculture racialisation unfree labour; some individual collective ways which these have been resisted.

This comment examines the Legal framework of collective labour disputes (CLD) resolution by Labour Relation Board (LRB) in Ethiopia. Only two members LRB out seven (and alternate members) are from legal profession. Moreover, there is no provision (under Proclamation) regarding selection criteria other Board. The decision rendered majority vote and appeal permitted only on error relating to issu...

Introduction Despite pervasive debates around globalisation, the effect of international organisation and of foreign governments on labour relations has received little attention in industrial relations and in labour process theory: the former has long focussed on national institutions, while the latter has focussed on the company level or on capitalism in general. The drastic reforms passed in...

The common perception, particularly among employers of labour is that enforcement or implementation of enhanced labour standards would negatively impact on overhead costs thereby impeding the organisation’s competitive advantage through price mechanisms at both national and global marketplace. The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis and draw inherent relationships between enforcemen...

BACKGROUND: To determine the prevalence, types and demographic features of child labour among school children in Nigeria. METHODS: A cross-sectional interview study of 1675 randomly selected public primary and secondary school pupils aged 5 to less than 18 years was conducted in the Sagamu Local Government Area of Ogun State, Nigeria from October 1998 to September 1999. RESULTS: The overall pre...

Using qualitative information, this paper studies the labour experiences of a group of skilled Spanish migrants in Mexico City. The paper identifies two types of migrants amongst the interviewed Spaniards: TNCs transferees and “migrants in the middle” (“those who are neither low-skilled migrants nor high-skilled migrants”; Conradson and Latham, 2005a). This somehow challenges assumptions about ...

Introduction Debates on labour market and industrial relations convergence in the EU have been concerned mostly with two types of possible convergence: between liberal and co-ordinated market economies, and between East (new member states) and West (old member states). This paper argues that the most striking process of convergence, if a partial one, has actually occurred between South and East...

It is often argued that risk-sharing employment relationships provide a better description of labour relations than the standard Walrasian framework. Such relationships have been introduced in macroeconomic models under an assumption of full commitment. In the absence of commitment, however, these relationships must be self-enforcing. This paper examines the impact of limited commitment on labo...