Worlds of Work: Changing Landscapes of Production and the New Geographies of Opportunity

Abstract

This paper provides a critical overview of major trends impacting labor standards in the global economy. On the production side, these include the increasing financialization of capital, internationalization of production networks, and informalization of employment. These processes interact with changes within labor markets resulting from a doubling of the number of workers who comprise the labor pool available within the capitalist system as well as increases in international migration. The paper concludes by considering emerging approaches that are being developed by workers' rights organizations, labor unions, and advocacy organizations to organize workers' and improve labor protections.

Sharing and neoliberal discourse: The economic function of sharing in the digital on-demand economy

“…Sharing discourses hold out on the promise of change to the capitalist mode of production, through an appeal to a more authentic and "traditional" form of predominantly social (and not economic) relation that encourages workers" complicity in the normalization of flexible labor. While Marx (1976) (Peck, 1992;Theodore, 2016), in particular in the context of new media production (Benner, 2002;Christopherson, 2002). With the sharing discourse, attitudes toward labor in other digital contexts is often oriented toward the justification of lowpaid, on-demand, piece-work, in which workers" disparate geographical contexts, and punitive discouragement by digital platforms undermine workers" possibilities for collective action and progressive changes to their circumstances (Ettlinger, 2016;Irani, 2015;Lehdonvitra, 2016).…”

Informalisation in Low‐wage Labour Markets: a Case Study of the UK Food Industry

“…Whilst there was never a golden age of employment (Sennett, ; Uchitelle, ), it is clear from the literature that, post 1970s, changes have taken place that have put even those workers in the formal economy in ever‐more precarious positions (Sassen, : CH9; Standing, ; Theodore, ). It is against this post‐Fordist and neo‐liberal backdrop of employment degradation that the motivation for this paper first emerged.…”

“…Following this regulatory peak, however, there has been ‘a decline in a broader institutional framework that shaped the employment relation’ (Sassen, : 5). In other words, many workers have become less sheltered and more exposed to the ‘free’ market since the 1970s (Sassen, ; Theodore, ). This applies most obviously to low‐wage labour, but it also applies to the increasingly squeezed middle classes (Sassen, : CH9).…”

Samfunnsgeografi: En innføring

“…Et litt vanskelig ord som forteller noe om hvordan kapitalen, det vil si bedrifters investeringer, gradvis har blitt mer mobile de siste femti årene. I artikkelen «Worlds of work» fra 2016, trekker Theodore (2016) fram tre endringer i det globale arbeidsmarkedet i en nylig artikkel. Disse er henholdsvis (1) at kapitalen har blitt mer finansdrevet (eng.…”

“…For de fleste innbyggere i byer i sør finnes det få alternativer enn uformelt arbeid. Selv om lønnsarbeid i byen gir nye økono-miske muligheter for mennesker fra rurale strøk, og selv når betingelsene og arbeidsforholdene er dårlige, betyr det også at lønnsarbeidet som sådan er i ferd med å bli mer uformelt (Theodore 2016). …”