[Book Review:] Workers and labour in a globalised capitalism, edited by Maurizio Atzeni. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2013, 264 pp., ISBN: 9780230303171, £28.99, paperback

Review of Workers and Labour in a Globalised Capitalism, edited by Maurizo Atzeni. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2013, 264pp., ISBN: 9780230303171, Price £28.99, paperback

Best value and workplace partnership in local government

Purpose – This paper explores employee experiences concerning job security/insecurity, workload, job satisfaction and employee involvement in the aftermath of Best Value reviews in a local authority. Design/methodology/approach – Using a mix of quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques employees’ experiences of Best Value reviews in a local authority are compared and contrasted with council staff employed elsewhere in the authority to establish the extent to which workplace partnership principles have taken hold under a Best Value regime. Findings – Little evidence of positive outcomes was found from partnership at work under a Best Value regime. The constraints imposed by central government, under which managers in the public sector operate, contributed significantly to partnership at work remaining little more than a hollow shell. Originality/value – This paper provides a recent in-depth case study of the experience of workplace partnership, which was developed not discrete from but as part of the Best Value modernisation programme in a local authority

Striking with social media: the contested (online) terrain of workplace conflict

In this paper we review the workplace battleground and explore the potential of social media for mobilizing social movements in labour conflicts and beyond. By conducting a case study with empirical accounts obtained from the 2010/2011 British Airways cabin crew dispute in the UK, along with secondary sources, we discern social media in the workplace as a contested field. Inquiring into the unfolding dynamic of social media and workplace conflict, we investigate the mobilizing prospects of theoretical concepts like ‘distributed discourse’ and ‘accelerated pluralism’ through the analytical prism of our interviews (Bimber, 1998; Greene et al, 2003). Our analysis of these empirical accounts will tease out certain empowering potentials in the use of social media to shape discourse and mobilize movement. However, we also note that these same communicative actions may challenge internal union authority, generate counter-mobilizing efforts and constitute an integral part in exposing both our private and working lives to the processes of marketization and commodification

Stationary phase mutagenesis in Bacillus subtilisis independent of genome replication

Stationary phase mutagenesis is defined as cellular mechanisms that produce genetic diversity in cells experiencing conditions of stress. These processes are associated with many biological phenomena, including those that produce the formation of cancers in animal cells and other degenerative diseases. Also, these mechanisms are associated with the accumulation of beneficial mutations in bacteria, but follow stochastic processes and are controlled by genetic factors. The current models explaining the generation of stress-induced mutations are predicated on the formation of DNA replication intermediates that are formed during the repair of damaged DNA or during DNA replication and transcription encounters. Here we test the hypothesis that genome (DNA) replication is not required for the generation of stress-induced mutations. Our experiments compared the accumulation of mutations in cells differing in their ability to initiate and elongate genome replication at high temperatures (45° C) and showed that both types of cells accumulate mutations at very similar rates. These results then suggest that resting cells possess replication-independent mechanisms that generate mutations and therefore add novel aspects to our view of the evolutionary process

The transformation of work and industrial relations in the post-Soviet bloc: 25 years on from 1989

The uprisings of 1989 in the Soviet sphere were momentous in their political impact. Examination of this prolonged transformation is timely. We progress from case study analysis of the workplace – important in the early stages of transformation – to reflective overviews which consider the accumulated experience of a quarter of a century of post communism. Our overview studies highlight, for example, aspects of gender difference within the frame of ‘winners and losers’. The commonalities of ‘state capture’ are revealed across the states and geographical differences emerge in post-communist ‘recovery’ which highlight processes of uneven and combined development. Finally we identify relationships between state, labour and capital which stand outside the economic prescribed orthodoxy and the expected convergence of East with West. Instead of convergence to liberal economic values and practices we find crony capitalism associated with clientelism and mafia crime forming the backdrop to institutional failure