Paradoxes of Labour Reform by Luigi Tomba

Author:Luigi Tomba [Tomba, Luigi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138977914
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2016-06-03T00:00:00+00:00

... the labour contract system is not the best among the labour and employment systems that man has devised. Its positive advantages are often offset by its disadvantages. For enterprises in the East, in particular, it is certainly not the best option. Like a streak of bright colour on a quietly elegant painting, it jars with the harmony unique to the enterprise management system [based] so strong on personal feelings that has developed in the East (China is no exception). To make the labour contract system the predominant labour and employment system in Chinese enterprises will spell no end of trouble for the future.45

This uncommonly outspoken article goes on to list the major disadvantages for the unit of using the labour contract system on a large scale: pressure to cope with the short-term interests of the workers, thereby neglecting the long-term interests of the unit; the development of a psychology of ‘what is outside the labour contract is none of my business’ and the weakening of workers’ feelings for the company; an increase in worker-management disputes; uncertainty about the duration of work relations; economicism in labour relations, etc. All of these disadvantages involve differences in the ‘Eastern’46 conception of the work-unit and labour relations as compared to the marketised relationship of Western enterprises. As largely demonstrated by more recent literature on working conditions inside ‘Eastern’ enterprises within China,47 the so-called ‘Eastern’ management of labour relations has proven even more exploitative than others and it certainly is not more effective in complying with demands for a greater say by the workers in the production process.

According to this view, however, the central issue is the reform of enterprises rather than reform of the labour system. ‘Given genuine enterprises,’ that is, enterprises with entrepreneurs, ‘workers will show new initiative even without any change in the existing labour and employment system.’48

Despite changes in the labour system, during this phase the unit still remained the central focus. Its autonomy from the state, acquired through administrative reform as well as through reform of property rights and distribution of the surplus, faced the challenges of becoming an independent economic unit, and it had to cope with the conflicting interests deeply embedded in its structure and a rapidly changing society.

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