Global Labour Governance: An Integrated Approach

For decades, the regulation of work and employment issues have been studied primarily at the national level. This methodological nationalism was explained by the fact that industrial relations remain regulated primarily at the national level, which is also the main level of organisation of labour, still. 

The situation started to change in the 1990s in light of the enduring, albeit uneven, processes of internationalization of the world economy. Following the relaunch of the process of European integration, scholars started to analyse the emerging system of European industrial relations. Noting that European industrial relations did not just resemble national systems of a larger scale, the literature thus conceptualised the emerging regime of regulation as a multi-level governance system. Speaking of ‘governance’ rather than ‘government’ allowed to consider the role of non-state actors in the process of multi-level regulation, including employers and trade unions. The ‘multi-level’ definition captured the fact that European trade unions and employer organisations were increasingly operating across different scales, from the local to the supranational level. Moreover, more critical approaches to governance also looked at the uneven power relations generated by multi-scalar institutional arrangements. 

While the study of European-level labour governance has produced major theoretical and analytical contributions overcoming ‘methodological nationalism’, it is now time to overcome also the limitations of Eurocentrism: in comparison to the 1990s, when debates and regulations on ‘social Europe’ started, the economy is even more integrated on a global scale, with the rise of China and other emerging economies involving deep economic restructuring. The increased integration of the world economy - even with the stumbling blocks of financial and political crises or of pandemics - have had profound implications for work organisation and working conditions. The reshaping of production in global production networks have thus brought to the fore the issue of regulating labour rights in an increasingly transnational economy and with it the concept of ‘global governance of labour’.

This conference aims to contribute to this debate, using an integrated approach. On the one hand, it will provide an overview of different forms of transnational labour regulation, from above and from below. On the other hand, it will provide evidence on working conditions and labour processes in different production sectors that are now subject increasing transnational integration. In doing so, it will also consider most recent developments such as the increased geopolitical competition between the US, China and the EU, and their consequences for labour, as well as take into account the increasing interconnection between labour and the environment, both at the level of the labour process as well as in the different regulatory attempts. 

Program:

Monday, January 19

Aula Altana

9.30 –– 10.15: Welcome and introduction: Vincenzo Maccarrone (SNS) – Global labour governance: an integrated approach

10.15 – 10.30: Break

10.30 – 12.30: Setting up the terrain: global labour governance in the era of polycrisis

Chair: Sarrah Kassem (SNS)

Elena Baglioni (Queen Mary): Labour across labour regimes, ecology and social reproduction

Guglielmo Meardi (SNS): Potential and limits of global labour governance

Mario Pianta (SNS): Global labour in the age of tariffs and military conflicts

Ben Selwyn (Sussex): Capitalist Value Chains: Labour Exploitation, Nature Destruction, Geopolitics

Discussants: Devi Sacchetto (Unipd), Vincenzo Maccarrone (SNS)

12.30 – 14.15 Lunch 

Aula Altana

14.15 -16.15: Labour governance and labour regimes in automotive supply chains 

Chair: Costanza Galanti (Unipd)

Stefanie Hürtgen (Universität Salzburg / Frankfurter Institut für Sozialforschung) Some empirical and theoretical spotlights on the European electric vehicle and battery production

Clelia Li Vigni (SNS) Working for Stellantis. The politics of permanent restructuring in the automotive industry and its implications for labour

Lorenzo Lodi (SNS) Labor regimes, production apparatuses and mass integrative apparatuses in global production. The case of Morocco and Tunisia in the automotive GPN.

Gabriela Julio Medel – Devi Sacchetto (Unipd): Political economy of the transition: the automotive supply chain in Italy and Poland

Discussants: Angelo Moro (Unimore), Ben Selwyin (Sussex)

16.15 – 16.30: Break

16.30 – 18.30: Roundtable (in Italian): La lotta per i diritti del lavoro nelle filiere della moda 

Chair: Guglielmo Meardi (SNS)

Interventions by:

Silvia Borelli (Unife)

Deborah Lucchetti (Fair - Campagna Abiti Puliti)

Trade union representative from SUDDCobas 

Discussants: Lucia Amorosi (Unitn), Valeria Piro (Unipd)

Tuesday, January 20

Aula Altana

9.00 – 9.15: Welcome

9.15 – 11.15: Analysing different forms of global labour governance

Chair: Stella Christou (SNS)

Andreas Bieler (Nottingham): Resisting Exploitation: Global Labour and the Challenges of Free Trade.

Dario di Conzo (SNS): ILO and China: From Formal Alignment to Pragmatic Leverage

Gemma Gasseau (SNS), Robin Schulze Waltrup (Bielefeld), Madelaine F. Moore (New South Wales): The labours of global water governance. Contradictions, tensions and transformations

Johannes Jaeger (BFI Vienna): Has the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive still potential for pushing for progressive developments?     

Discussants: Giulia Frosecchi (Unifi), Riccardo Fornasari (PSL)

11.15 – 11.30: Break

11.30 – 13.15

Book launch: Critical Political Economy of the European Polycrisis 

Chair: Michele Bavaro (SNS)

With editors (Andreas Bier, Vincenzo Maccarrone), chapter authors (Stella Christou, Riccardo Fornasari, Gemma Gasseau, Johannes Jaeger) 

Discussants: Gabriele Beretta (SNS), Armanda Cetrulo (Sant’Anna)

13.00 – 14.30: Lunch 

Aula Pollaiolo

14.30 – 16.15: Labour governance and labour regimes in the Global South

Chair: Iraklis Dimitriadis (SNS)

Lucas Cifuentes (Manchester): Just transition on whose shoulders: the production regime and global pressures in the lithium industry in Chile

Nicolò Deiana (SNS) – Women and migrants in the electronics global production network: adverse incorporation and social upgrading in Malaysia and Vietnam

Riccardo Fornasari (PSL) and Vincenzo Maccarrone (SNS): The Fix that Never Was: The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and the Limits of a Neocolonial Socio-ecological Project

Discussants: Marcel Artioli (SNS), Elena Baglioni (Queen Mary)

16.15 -16.30: Break

16.30 – 18.15: Labour governance from above and from below

Chair: Alba Arenales Lope (SNS)

Sarrah Kassem: Spaces of Agency in Conditions of Hyper-Precarity: Migrant Workers at Amazon in Germany

Nicola Quondamatteo (Unitn): The Domestic Spatial Fix: Reverse Relocation and Internal Subcontracting in Italian Shipbuilding

Stefano Tortorici (SNS): Extending the Fairwork Framework to Platform Cooperatives

Discussants: Andrea Bottalico (Unina), Lorenzo Cini (Unina)

18.15 – 18.30: Conclusion and next steps

Vincenzo Maccarrone (SNS)

Horizon Europe programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 101067573 - GLOGOLAB

Photo: João Saplak by Pexels