Transforming the labour governance of global supply chains

Transnational industrial relations agreements involving multiple firms and global union organisations work better than unilateral approaches, writes Sarah Ashwin. Activists and academics alike hailed the conclusion of the Accord on Fire and Building Safety which offered hope that lessons had been learned from the carnage of the 2013 Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh. Lauded as a "landmark," a "gamechanger," a "breakthrough," this transnational industrial relations agreement (TIRA) between 222 global brands and retailers and IndustriALL and UNI Global Unions appeared to offer a new way forward in the governance of global supply chains at a time when the serious limitations of auditing-based corporate social responsibility (CSR) approaches were increasingly recognised. More than six years on, how far has this transformative potential been realised

Anatomy of a stalled revolution: processes of reproduction and change in Russian women's gender ideologies

Russia’s gender revolution notoriously produced women’s economic empowerment without domestic equality. Although the Soviet state vastly expanded women’s employment, this had little impact on a starkly unequal gender division of domestic labor. Such “stalling” is common, but in Russia its extent and persistence presents a puzzle, requiring us to investigate linkages between macro-level factors and micro-level interactions regarding the gender division of domestic labor. We do this by focusing on gender ideology, an important variable explaining the gender division of domestic labor that bridges the macro-level of the gender order and the micro-interactional level. We use longitudinal qualitative data to examine continuity and change in young Russian women’s gender ideologies between 1999 and 2010. Based on analysis of 115 in-depth interviews from 23 respondents, we identify traditional and egalitarian trajectories and the processes underlying them, showing how the male breadwinner schema and an ideology of women’s independence support traditionalism, while non-traditional breadwinning and interactional support from men facilitate egalitarianism. Our analysis enables us to explain the Soviet gender paradox and distinguish sources of change in the post-Soviet era. Our theoretical contribution is to situate gender ideology in a multi-level framework, the efficacy of which we demonstrate in our empirical analysis

Masculinity Restored?: Putin’s Russia and Trump’s America

A major legacy of the Soviet Union is the overburdening of Russian women and demoralization of men. Putin uses hypermasculinity to appeal to these men. Is Trump stealing from Putin’s playbook in wielding masculine bravado as a tool of state power? We may be witnessing a remasculinization of both countries, as gendered performances continue to galvanize waves of populism worldwide

Can business collaborate to save the planet?

In a world fractured by conflict, the difficulty in intergovernmental coordination to avoid climate catastrophe is apparent. Can business step in and help speed up collaboration? Sarah Ashwin, Nora Lohmeyer, and Elke Schüßler consider a mechanism enabling firms to cooperate with each other to address systemic problems: the creation of market-protected spaces through collective regulation

Medical symptoms associated with tobacco smoking with and without marijuana abuse among crack cocaine-dependent patients.

Despite the widespread use of tobacco and marijuana by cocaine abusers, it remains unclear whether combined tobacco and marijuana smoking is more harmful than tobacco smoking alone in cocaine abusers. We investigated the differences in medical symptoms reported among 34 crack cocaine abusers who did not smoke tobacco or marijuana (C), 86 crack cocaine abusers who also smoked tobacco (C + T), and 48 crack abusers who smoked both tobacco and marijuana (C + T + M). Medical symptoms were recorded using a 134-item self-report instrument (MILCOM), and drug use was assessed using the Addiction Severity Index (ASI). After controlling for clinical and demographic differences, the C + T + M group reported significantly more total symptoms on the MILCOM as well as on the respiratory, digestive, general, and nose/throat subscales than the C + T or C groups. The C + T group reported higher total and respiratory and nose/throat symptoms than the C group. HOwever, the C group had the highest number of mood symptoms among the three groups. The C + T and C + T + M groups were comparable in number of cigarettes smoked and ASI scores. Although tobacco smoking is associated with higher reports of medical problems in crack abusers, smoking both marijuana and tobacco seems to be associated with greater medical problems than smoking tobacco alone. Tobacco smoking was not related to changes in cocaine use. Also, marijuana smoking does not appear to be associated with a reduction in tobacco or cocaine use

“Behind every great man…”: the male marriage wage premium examined qualitatively

Studies across diverse national contexts reliably show that married men earn more than unmarried men, but the mechanisms responsible for this are still disputed. This article explores the male marriage wage premium from a new perspective, using longitudinal qualitative data from Russia (N = 94). Qualitative research is particularly suited to identifying underlying processes and, by analyzing men's accounts of the influence of their marital trajectories on their work, the authors were able to reexamine existing hypotheses and develop new ones. They propose 4 mechanisms that they hypothesize can influence men's work motivation and performance: premarital planning, 2 distinct “breadwinner” effects using expectancy and self determination theory, and monitoring by wives. They integrate these mechanisms within gender theory, arguing that the treatment aspect of the male marriage wage premium is an outcome of the “coproduction” of masculinity within marriage. Their recontextualization of existing theory also enables them to reveal weaknesses in the specialization hypothesis

Spillover Effects Across Transnational Industrial Relations Agreements:The Potential and Limits of Collective Action in Global Supply Chains

Using qualitative data from interviews with multiple respondents in 45 garment brands and retailers, as well as respondents from unions and other stakeholders, the authors analyze the emergence of the Action Collaboration Transformation (ACT) living wages initiative. They ask how the inter-firm coordination and firm–union cooperation demanded by a multi-firm transnational industrial relations agreement (TIRA) developed. Synthesizing insights from the industrial relations and private governance literatures along with recent collective action theory, they identify a new pathway for the emergence of multi-firm TIRAs based on common group understandings, positive experiences of interaction, and trust. The central finding is that existing union-inclusive governance initiatives provided a platform from which spillover effects developed, facilitating the formation of new TIRAs. The authors contribute a new mapping of labor governance approaches on the dimensions of inter-firm coordination and labor inclusiveness, foregrounding socialization dynamics as a basis for collective action and problematizing the limited scalability of this mode of institutional emergence

'Complaining in corners' : mineworkers and the transition from communism.

This thesis examines the nature and limits of workers' organisation during the Russian transition from communism, on the basis of a detailed case study of a South Kuzbass coal mine, 'Taldym', conducted between 1994 and 1996. Miners have been the most militant group of Russian workers since the perestroika era, while the workers and trade union at Taldym are among the most active in their industry. The thesis considers the issue of workers' organisation in the transition period from two perspectives. First, it asks why it has proved so difficult for the former communist trade unions, which organised the overwhelming majority of Soviet workers in the past, to transform themselves into independent organisations capable of representing workers' interests during the transition period. This, it is argued, is not primarily a problem of political will within the union bureaucracies, but is a structural problem at the enterprise level, the nature of which is explored in a detailed analysis of the dilemmas and constraints confronting the mine trade union committee. Second, the thesis examines why, given the limited extent of reform within the union, workers have not organised within or outside existing structures to defend their interests in the face of the catastrophic drop in their living standards. The analysis focuses on the way in which the structure of the traditional Soviet enterprise and the characteristic forms of informal relations which developed within it inhibited any form of independent collective organisation. This argument not only explains the apparent quiescence of Russian workers in the reform period, it also provides a more sophisticated understanding of the way in which Soviet workers were integrated under communism than that provided by established theories. The concluding section of the thesis considers the nature of workers' influence on the post-communist recomposition of the Russian state and economy