China\u27s New Labor Contract Law and Protection of Workers

This Comment will discuss the labor conditions in China that prompted many provisions in the recently enacted Labor Contract Law, and how the new law responds to deficiencies of China\u27s Labor Law to address various labor problems. Part I of this Comment contains a brief presentation of the historical and economic background of the emergence of migrant workers. Part I also examines the causes of the main problems faced by migrant workers, in particular the insufficiencies of China\u27s Labor Law in protecting migrant workers. Part II looks into the legislation\u27s background and specific provisions of China\u27s new Labor Contract Law that supplement the Labor Law and stress the protection of laborers. Many provisions of the new law specifically address labor abuses faced by migrant workers. Finally, Part III discusses the insufficiencies and likely effects of the new Labor Contract Law

The Impact of China’s Labor Contract Law on Workers

ILRF\u27s report examines the impact of the Labor Contract Law on workplaces in China’s export manufacturing hubs. ILRF argues for various strategies, from a greater emphasis on collective bargaining to community-based legal education, to ensure full implementation of the Labor Contract Law

Incomplete Contingent Labor Contract, Asymmetric Residual Rights and Authority, and the Theory of the Firm

In the paper the trade-offs among endogenous transaction costs caused by two-sided moral hazard, exogenous monitoring cost, and economies of specialization are specified in a Grossman, Hart and Moore (GHM) model to absorb Maskin and Tirole’s recent critique and Holmstrom and Milgrom’s criticism of the model of incomplete contract. The extended GHM model allowing incomplete contingent labor contract as well complete contingent contract of goods trade is used to explore the implications of structure of ownership and residual rights for the equilibrium network size of division of labor and productivity.theory of the firm, incomplete labor contract, asymmetric authority, two-sided moral hazard, transaction cost, asymmetric residual rights, division of labor, specialization

Efficient Labor Force Participation with Search and Bargaining

A fixed wage is inefficient in a standard search model when workers endogenously separate from employment. We derive an efficient employment contract that involves agents paying a hiring fee (or bond) upon the formation of a match. We estimate the fixed wage and efficient contract assuming the hiring fee is unobservable, and find evidence to reject the efficient contract in favor of the fixed wage rule. A counterfactual experiment reveals the current level of labor force participation to be 9% below the efficient level, and a structural shift to the efficient contract improves welfare by nearly 4%.labor supply, unemployment, matching, efficiency wages

Factory Compliance Life Cycle

Nike’s strategy to enforce monitoring and compliance of labor codes in contract factories

Contracts and the Division of Labor

We present a tractable framework for the analysis of the relationship between contract incom- pleteness, technological complementarities and the division of labor. In the model economy, a firm decides the division of labor and contracts with its worker-suppliers on a subset of activities they have to perform. Worker-suppliers choose their investment levels in the remaining activities anticipating the ex post bargaining equilibrium. We show that greater contract incompleteness reduces both the division of labor and the equilibrium level of productivity given the division of labor. The impact of contract incompleteness is greater when the tasks performed by di¤erent workers are more complementary. We also discuss the e¤ect of imperfect credit markets on the division of labor and productivity, and study the choice between the employment relationship versus an organizational form relying on outside contracting. Finally, we derive the implications of our framework for productivity di¤erences and comparative advantage across countries.

Federal Contract Labor Standards Statutes: An Overview

CRS_February_2005_Federal_Contract_Labor_Standards_Statutes.pdf: 4032 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

An Introduction to U.S. Collective Bargaining and Labor Relations

[Excerpt] This comprehensive textbook provides an introduction to collective bargaining and labor relations with a focus on developments in the United States. It is appropriate for students, policy analysts, and labor relations professionals including unionists, managers, and neutrals. A three-tiered strategic choice framework unifies the text, and the authors’ thorough grounding in labor history and labor law assists students in learning the basics. In addition to traditional labor relations, the authors address emerging forms of collective representation and movements that address income inequality in novel ways. Harry C. Katz, Thomas A. Kochan, and Alexander J. S. Colvin provide numerous contemporary illustrations of business and union strategies. They consider the processes of contract negotiation and contract administration with frequent comparisons to nonunion practices and developments, and a full chapter is devoted to special aspects of the public sector. An Introduction to U.S. Collective Bargaining and Labor Relations has an international scope, covering labor rights issues associated with the global supply chain as well as the growing influence of NGOs and cross-national unionism. The authors also compare how labor relations systems in Germany, Japan, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa compare to practices in the United States

Labor-Management Relations and the Federal Aviation Administration: Background and Current Legislative Issues

[Excerpt] This report discusses labor-management relations at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the 2006 implementation of a new labor contract on air traffic controllers. The FAA’s ability to implement the new contract with its controllers was arguably supported by a mediation procedure prescribed by federal law. Concern over the fairness of this procedure has prompted Congress to consider legislation that would allow for the use of binding arbitration to resolve negotiation impasses between the agency and the exclusive bargaining representatives of its employees. This report provides background information on the mediation procedure, discusses litigation involving the FAA and two labor organizations, and examines legislative attempts to amend the existing system

The Japanese Labor Movement and Institutional Reform

This paper traces the evolution of the Japanese labor movement's stance toward institutional change from the early post-World War II era to the present. It argues that, like most labor movements, the Japanese movement began as a movement that promoted the wholesale reconstruction of national political economic institutions. However, over time, its role vis-à-vis institutional change shifted. By the 1970's, rather than being a force devoted to precipitating wholesale institutional change, the Japanese labor movement shifted to a stance of active defense of institutional status quo in both industrial relations and the Japanese political economy writ large. Recently, however, the movement is showing signs that it may be altering its stance once again. I use the concept of "social contract" to make sense of these shifts in the labor movement's stance toward institutional change. I argue that the earlier shift from that of promoting institutional change to a defense of the status quo can be understood to be a byproduct of the establishment of a social contract acceptable to organized labor that was forged between business, labor and government. The recent initial steps toward an alteration in that stance, in turn, is argued to be a consequence of a perceived breakdown of that social contract precipitated by Japan's prolonged recession of the 1990s and increased international competitive pressures.Japan; institutional change; unions; industrial relations; social contract; political economy.