Guy Mundlak

Spheres of Migration: Political, Economic and Universal Imperatives in Israel’s Migration Regime

This article seeks to describe the piecemeal process of creation of what may, arguably, be a new immigration regime in Israel. In order to do so, we focus on three distinct waves of non-Jewish entry to Israel. The first is the day-labor entry of Palestinian workers from the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) since 1967; the second is the entry of migrant workers from various countries, primarily since 1993; and the third is the entry of asylum-seekers, primarily from Africa, since 2007. Each of these waves was carved out by the state as a distinct sphere of migration, a narrow exception to Israel’s general Jewish Settler Regime, which is based on a different functional imperative. The entry of Palestinians is justified primarily by a political imperative – the political relationship between Israel and the Palestinians under occupation. The entry of migrant workers is, first and foremost, seen as the result of economic imperatives – a way to supply cheap labor to cater to the needs of the domestic labor market and fulfill the economic needs of the state. The entry of asylum-seekers (and their rights upon entry) rests primarily on a universal humanitarian imperative led by the state’s moral and convention-based responsibility toward those who are in dire need, and particularly in need of a safe territorial haven.

New Directions for the Law of the Workplace

Professors Getman and Marshalls in-depth account of the paperworkers strike in Jay, Maine 2 vividly portrays the legal and economic blows that have been suffered by workers in the United States over the last fifteen years. The authors put a badly-needed human face on the dry statistics that we see on the business pages and on the technical jargon we read in the law reports regarding labor. The events in Jay-like those in countless other union and nonunion workplaces across the country--evidence a major shift in the nations direction with respect to economic policy. Bill Clinton won the presidency in November, 1992, in part because the electorate believed his (and Ross Perots) message that the country needed a fundamental change in economic policy. The new President, together with his Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, have put American workers-this countrys human, not financial, capital-at the forefront of their agenda for economic rejuvenation The principal focus of the forthcoming policy debate will be upon major changes in the way this country educates, trains, deploys, and motivates labor-a resource that is crucial to the nations competitive standing. Legal change is a second-order priority. But the fact that the law is less important

Justice in a Globalizing World: Resolving Conflicts Involving Workers Rights beyond the Nation State

This paper focuses on two examples – first, the imposition of tariffs on tires made in China and exported to the United States, which culminated in a decision of World Trade Organization’s (WTO) appellate body to uphold the US tariffs, and, second, the development of the European law, especially the decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union, on posted workers in the context of public procurement – in which labour concerns transcend the nation state’s borders and the relevant agents (states, municipalities, NGOs, trade unions, employers, industry associations) are in conflict outside the familiar space of the nation state. The examples refer to different markets – goods and capital, on the one hand, and services and labour, on the other, and they operate on different scales, the international in one case and the transnational (or regional) in the other. They also focus on qualitatively different governance regimes, which involve different constellations of political and social actors and different relationships between economic and social/political integration. Drawing on Fraser’s discussion of “abnormal justice”, a situation in which the traditional discourse and grammar of justice are being doubted, the paper juxtaposes the case studies in order to highlight three political dilemmas (“what”, “who”, and “how”) that arise in the context of abnormal justice and to illustrate how these dilemmas are interconnected. Although both cases exemplify the “what” question, the paper emphasizes the “who” and “how” dimensions of justice, arguing that if the process for resolving the conflict is fair, inclusive, and dynamically open to challenges, then its outcomes on distributive justice are more likely to be considered legitimate and persuasive.

Carefully stepping on the academic ridge: on Ruth Dukes, The labour constitution

Ruth Dukes’ The Labour Constitution 1 bravely walks on the ridge separating the history of labour law and its future. Spanning several venues (Germany, the United Kingdom and the European Union), a...

Organizing Workers in “Hybrid Systems”: Comparing Trade Union Strategies in Four Countries — Austria, Germany, Israel and the Netherlands

The freedom and right to associate carries distinct meanings in different systems of industrial relations, giving rise to distinct institutions. Where bargaining is based on grassroots association, rates of membership in trade unions and coverage of collective agreements are low. Where bargaining is actively endorsed by the state, high rates of membership are matched by considerable coverage. Over the last two decades, some countries, four of which are studied here, have gone through a process that I designate as hybridization, in which a gap emerges between a rapidly declining rate of membership and persistent relatively high level of coverage. The Article accounts for the growing gap between coverage and membership and its implications. On the basis of extensive interviews with trade union officials, organizers, works councils’ members, Labor Chamber representatives, academics and journalists in the four countries, the Article further seeks to document and explain new organizing practices at two levels. First, why do unions seek to organize, despite persistent power accorded to collective agreements by the state? Second, which strategies are used for current recruitment and organizing practices? The discussion highlights the ongoing tension that is folded in the meeting of institutions that are aimed at sustaining the centralized system of bargaining and social partnership, with the dynamics that are characteristic of raising membership levels. Some best practices that seek to address this tension are identified, but are also characterized as difficult to emulate and extend as a general practice

Introduction to the Comparative Labor Law Handbook

We begin with a rumination on the organic nature of law. Law has a shelf life. As the society in which law is embedded changes, parts of the law wither away or become vestigial; parts are extended or renewed in novel application; new law is fashioned whole, to commence the life cycle afresh. Consequently, the study of law, when not totally fixated on the here and now, is inherently comparative. Students of the law look to the before and the after – to discern change, to explore reasons for change, to ask whether there is need for change, and to see how it all fares. But some look beyond their borders; for counterpoints, parallels, or counterfactuals. This adds another dimension. It confronts differences in legal systems and cultures – sometimes superficial, sometimes not – sometimes couched in vernaculars that lack equivalents or are so steeped in the unspoken that the meaning can and often does elude even the astute non-native. But the non-native, in open-eyed wonder, may give voice and form to that which has become so ingrained in a foreign system, is so much a matter of second nature to those who live in the system that those who live in it fail to appreciate its significance. These are the challenges and rewards of studying law comparatively. Unlike ancient institutions long subject to comparative legal study – real property, the family, the use of violence – labor law is a young discipline. At its core, it concerns the institution of wage labor and the situation of the waged worker, which did not emerge as a major focal point for the law’s concern until well into the nineteenth century, and was not a subject of systemic legal academic study until the twentieth. Labor law arose as a consequence of the rise of capitalism and industrialization – both global phenomena. In that sense, labor law from the outset was a comparative enterprise insofar as it developed in separate nation states, but in reaction to common methods of production and common means for the deployment and administration of labor on a global scale. Efforts to produce manufactured goods with interchangeable parts in the mid-nineteenth century evolved into mass industrial production,1 accelerating the extreme division of labor characterized by the assembly line, which took on the sobriquet of “Fordism” worldwide. Meanwhile, the growth of large and complex organizations entailed the development of bureaucratic means for the administration of

Workplace – Democracy: Reclaiming the Effort to Foster Public and Private Isomorphism

Abstract The idea of workplace democracy is to apply public-related institutions in the sphere of private enterprise, thereby creating a process of isomorphism between public and private entities. One formulation of this idea argues that the workplace is a community in which democratic values and institutions should be implemented, while another formulation claims that the organization of the workplace is important to the quality of democracy at the state level. Despite the host of justifications and a plurality of institutions that are associated with workplace democracy, there has been a gradual move away from tying democracy and work in favor of a liberal script that acknowledges the need to prescribe some employment-related rights, but keeps the private and public separate. The Article attributes this change to two processes - marketization and globalization, both affecting the sense of community in which democratic practices prevail, whether the place of work or the state. However, the Article identifies a growing reliance on process-based law that governs work. Process-based law integrates proceduralism - that is, norms that require public values such as due process, visibility, accountability and deliberations; and layering - the congruence of norms at multiple levels that engage a diverse set of agents. This new emphasis in labor law, broadly defined, provides an opportunity for reintroducing democratic values and practices throughout different spheres that are associated with the world of work.

The Global Governance of Domestic Work

Paid domestic and care-related work in the household — the provision of in-home household services such as cleaning and taking care of dependent children, disabled family members, or the elderly — has long been an unregulated form of labour in most countries. Domestic workers, mostly women, often migrants and from racial or ethnic minorities, have been excluded from some or all employment and labour legislation and social security schemes, and are mostly not covered by collective agreements. Domestic work around the globe is characterized by low levels of regulation, low wages, long working hours and difficult working conditions (ILO, 2013).