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1 – 10 of over 2000The purpose of this paper is to delineates workers’ labour turnover and considerations around work, in a context of informalisation of work, through a case study of temporary…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to delineates workers’ labour turnover and considerations around work, in a context of informalisation of work, through a case study of temporary non-resident farm workers in the deciduous fruit sector in Ceres, South Africa.
Design/methodology/approach
The research design is a three-phase exploratory sequential mixed-methods strategy. Findings from 29 in-depth interviews were refined, verified and ranked in four focus groups. These informed grounded indicators in a survey of 200 farm workers employed in peak season and their 887 household members.
Findings
Considerations are informed by work-related insecurities, interpersonal workplace relationships and reproductive insecurity in the form of care of others, social linkages and residential insecurity, seemingly hierarchical. The least important considerations most thwart workers’ ability to complete fixed-term contracts and account for over 70 per cent of labour turnover in the form of resignations. In sum, workers experience constrained considerations around work arising from their material, social and economic conditions.
Originality/value
This is the first study on the labour turnover of farm workers in South Africa and the fifth globally. The research gives precedence to the voice of farm workers and is a thick description of workers’ considerations around work.
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Since 1986, when the immigration Reform and Control Act was passed, migration to the United States has grown steadily. This includes immigrants, nonimmigrants, undocumented…
Abstract
Since 1986, when the immigration Reform and Control Act was passed, migration to the United States has grown steadily. This includes immigrants, nonimmigrants, undocumented immigrants, and border crossers. Immigration averaged nearly one million annually from 1990 to 2002, with family unification accounting for over 70 percent of the new immigrants. The number of nonimmigrants topped 30 million by 2002, most of whom were tourists. Estimates for undocumented aliens topped 400,000 by the turn of the 21st century, in spite of large increases in funding from the Immigration and Naturalization Service and substantial new positions along the Mexican-United States border. The exact number of border crossers is not known, but the federal government has noted that well over 200 million crossings (mostly along the Mexican border) are recorded each year. In response to tighter controls on migrants after 9/11 the numbers coming to the United States dropped in 2003. However, they increased again in 2004. It appears that the figures will increase in the future.
The purpose of this paper is to link theories on the meaning of work with the meanings participants in a public work scheme attribute to work, in a context of high national and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to link theories on the meaning of work with the meanings participants in a public work scheme attribute to work, in a context of high national and local unemployment and precarious employment.
Design/methodology/approach
This study followed a qualitative strategy to allow participants to express their own meanings of work through a work-life history approach. Findings from eight interviews are substantiated by two focus groups and thematically analysed.
Findings
Analysis of the findings revealed a high correlation with Kaplan and Tausky’s typology of the meanings of work (1974). The implication of this grounded approach is that this study expands the typology from six to eight factors. In this manner, work in a public work scheme not only has meaning as an economic activity, a structured routine, intrinsic satisfaction, interpersonal experiences, social status and a morally correct activity, but is also gendered and an opportunity for training.
Originality/value
Apart from expanding Kaplan and Tausky’s typology on the meanings of work (1974), this study highlights the added-value of public work schemes, in that, by providing the unemployed with the opportunity to work, they also improve their quality of life in a number of aspects.
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Diana Traikova, Judith Möllers and Gertrud Buchenrieder
This chapter takes a qualitative snapshot of rural entrepreneurs in Bulgaria. The aim is to shed light on the formation of non-farm start-up intentions in rural post-communism…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter takes a qualitative snapshot of rural entrepreneurs in Bulgaria. The aim is to shed light on the formation of non-farm start-up intentions in rural post-communism communities.
Methodology
A qualitative ethnographical methodological approach centred on a theoretical framework, based on Ajzen’s (1991) Theory of Planned Behaviour. Primary survey data are drawn from the village of Kostandovo, in the Pazardjik region of Bulgaria.
Findings
A holistic perspective reveals entrepreneurship to be just one facet of complex rural livelihood strategies. Distrust in formal institutions by rural entrepreneurs dominates the Bulgarian business climate. A culture of informality in business is accompanied by widely accepted corruption. Crucial factors affecting the start-up decision in post-communist economies are social capital, a lack of experience of the entrepreneurs, and by public administrators.
Practical implications
The presented evidence highlights different dimensions of the theoretical constructs. Future research could focus on the impact of inefficient/corrupt institutions on the decisions of potential rural entrepreneurs.
Originality/value
By coupling universally applicable intention predicting theory with unique ethnographic evidence, the chapter gives a face of the otherwise abstract entrepreneurial agents. The perceptual perspective tackles the most relevant start-up aspects of the post-communist context, providing insights applicable beyond the case country.
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Evan Bowness, Hannah Wittman, Annette Aurélie Desmarais, Colin Dring, Dana James, Angela McIntyre and Tabitha Robin Martens
This chapter considers the place of responsibility in confronting ecological sustainability and social equity problems in the food system. We present two illustrations addressing…
Abstract
This chapter considers the place of responsibility in confronting ecological sustainability and social equity problems in the food system. We present two illustrations addressing the following question: In what ways does responsibility present a way to close the metabolic rift in line with the vision of the global food sovereignty movement? First, using the example of Metro-Vancouver in Canada, we consider the ways in which urban people claim responsibility for land protection through the concept of urban agrarianism, defined as an urban ethic of care for foodlands, with an associated responsibility to exercise solidarity with those who cultivate and harvest food. Second, we discuss how deepening relational responsibility in legal and regulatory frameworks might hold the corporate food regime accountable in the Canadian context to address their role in and responsibility for mitigating an increasingly risky world, as evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that the responsibility of urban people to mobilise in solidarity with food movements, and against the corporate food regime in particular, will play a critical role in supporting the transition to sustainable and just food systems. This applies both to finding new ways to claim responsibility for this transition and to hold those actors that have disproportionately benefitted from the corporate food regime responsible. Such a reworking of responsibility is especially necessary as the context for food systems change becomes increasingly urbanised and risky.
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The Equal Value Amendment. At long last the first cases under the equal value amendment to the U.K. Equal Pay Act have made it through the legal minefield to the House of Lords…
Abstract
The Equal Value Amendment. At long last the first cases under the equal value amendment to the U.K. Equal Pay Act have made it through the legal minefield to the House of Lords. Unfortunately, however, employers have not liked their lordships' pronouncements and the CBI is now lobbying for legislative changes. In the October issue of Personnel Management Lorraine Paddison explains the latest decisions and confirms that there is indeed no room for complacency.
This work is keeping with the increasingly frequent studies that take into account a broader context challenging entrepreneurship as high-growth, technology-driven and venture…
Abstract
This work is keeping with the increasingly frequent studies that take into account a broader context challenging entrepreneurship as high-growth, technology-driven and venture capital-backed process. Addressed comprehensively in the migration studies, Mexicans are examples of those groups who are often ‘invisible’ when attempting to understand the dimension of entrepreneurship, since they are associated more like ‘workers’ than ‘entrepreneurs’. This research presents an exploratory case study of Mexican entrepreneurs in the province of Quebec, Canada context. It is a qualitative analysis using a methodology inspired by the grounded theory. Twenty-three interviews were conducted with Mexican residents of the cities of Montreal, Quebec and Gatineau. The main objective was to initiate a theorisation about the immigrant entrepreneurship phenomenon in a poorly documented group and context. Some conceptual categories were built from the perspective of the migrants themselves. The importance of previous experiences, family support and the reading of the territory to detect business opportunities were relevant. Routes of business entry profiles were detected. In addition, the ethnic positioning category (the social construction that is made in the host society according to the ethnic group to which immigrant entrepreneurs belong) is proposed. This category was a key to shape the structure of opportunity that allows the creation of businesses in the host cities.
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Suwen Pan, Jaime Malaga and Xiurong He
The paper aims to measure the effects of market liberalization on Chinese farmers' crop planting decisions.
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to measure the effects of market liberalization on Chinese farmers' crop planting decisions.
Design/methodology/approach
The effects are measured using a censored, two‐stage, least‐square regression.
Findings
The results show that the effects of market liberalization on planting decisions are more significant in the case of crops with minimum support price (rice, wheat, and corn) than in the case of crops where planting decision is determined by market prices (cotton and soybean). The effects appear to be different across regions and time zones and more significant in 1993 than in 2005.
Originality/value
The result suggests that market liberalization along the past ten years achieved significant effects in Chinese farmers planting decision. This outcome should be taken into consideration when evaluating and implementing future Chinese agricultural policy income‐based interventions as a means to meet domestic food security goals and increase farmers' income level.
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This chapter illustrates how labor is organized in a branch of export-grape production in the São Francisco valley, North East Brazil. It describes how Northern retailers'…
Abstract
This chapter illustrates how labor is organized in a branch of export-grape production in the São Francisco valley, North East Brazil. It describes how Northern retailers' corporate strategy involves continually improving product quality, and how grape producers respond to evolving demands by attempting to increase the skill content of labor and labor productivity. Simultaneously, relatively militant rural trade unions organize agricultural workers in the region, often staging strikes, achieving significant gains for workers, and continually attempting to improve their position vis-à-vis capital. As a response, farms go to significant lengths to recruit, retain, and discipline workers they consider to be good and relatively uninfluenced by trade unions. It is argued that in order to better understand strategies of firms and developmental outcomes in new regions of export agriculture it is necessary to pursue a three-pronged investigation, focusing simultaneously.
Farm labor contractors operate as intermediaries between farmworkers and agricultural employers by recruiting and supplying labor to US farms. In a political economy where there…
Abstract
Purpose
Farm labor contractors operate as intermediaries between farmworkers and agricultural employers by recruiting and supplying labor to US farms. In a political economy where there are employer sanctions for hiring workers without proper documentation, contractors share risk alongside final employers. Furthermore, contractors may facilitate quick employment matches during time sensitive agricultural tasks such as harvesting. For undocumented workers, using a contractor may decrease uncertainty associated with a foreign labor market and ease language barriers. The purpose of this paper is to examine the current role of labor contractors in delivering immigrant agricultural workers, particularly undocumented workers, to farms.
Design/methodology/approach
Determinants of labor contractor use and relationships to final worker outcomes are examined using econometric methods and a large nationally‐representative worker survey that is distinctive in that it distinguishes legal status.
Findings
Undocumented farmworkers are shown to be more likely to use contractors than are documented workers, though statistical significance is sensitive to the inclusion of crop and task indicators, and wages and fringe compensation to workers who use contractors are lower, even after controlling for legal status.
Research limitations/implications
The paper contributes to limited recent academic work on the role of labor contractors in US agriculture. Future work may examine ongoing changes to this role in the context of mutable immigration policy and public opinion.
Practical implications
It is argued that the decline in labor contracting increases the need for employer‐level bilingual communication skills and compliance with labor regulations.
Originality/value
Understanding current dynamics of the agricultural labor market should be of value to scholars of rural economies, farm owners and agricultural policymakers.
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