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Alex Gourevitch, From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth
Alex Gourevitch, From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth - Labor and Republican Liberty in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2015
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Alex Gourevitch, From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth - Labor and Republican Liberty in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2015
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Skilled workers’ performance is one of the crucial aspects of labour productivity that requires proper attention for effective projects delivery in the construction industry. The level of skilled workers’ low performance has been seen to be a major factor which contributes toward inefficient construction projects productivity. Therefore, the objective of this research is to identify the causes of low-skilled workers’ performance in construction projects in the Nigeria. The objective was achieved through a structured quantitative method of questionnaire distributed to 150 respondents that comprise of active stakeholders in the Nigerian construction industry. 111 responses representing 74 % were retrieved. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The finding shows that; low wages of skilled, lack of sufficient skill acquisition centres and lack of incentive schemes for skilled workers were the most significant causes of low-skilled workers’ performance in the Nigerian construction industry. The homogenous analysis indicates that there are significant differences in perception of respondents on few variables whereas majority of respondents have similarities in most of the variables. The research findings indicate the need for stakeholders in the Nigerian construction industry to provide incentives and motivate skilled workers, provide training and retraining, conducive working condition, supply of quality materials and equipment, and proper site management in order improve low-skilled workers’ performance in Nigerian construction industry towards optimal performance.
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Purpose: The object of this research is to investigate work motivating factors in the public sector in Greece, as well as to study demographic attributes, placing emphasis on age and gender as determinants of employee motives. Design/methodology/approach: To answer our research questions, a questionnaire was distributed at the beginning of 2015 to a public - sector organization in central Greece. A total of 318 anonymous survey responses were collected and analysed with SPSS. Findings: In the public organization under survey, the leading employee motives are an increase in salaries, opportunities for hierarchical advancement in the organization, as well as the development of personal skills. Moreover, motivational differences are noted among Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y. Research limitations/implications: As the present study has been conducted on a single public organization, awareness should be raised as far as the generalizability of the results providing useful insights for further exploration. Originality/value: Limited research has been conducted in the Greek public sector comparing motives among generations.
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This paper examines the role of preferences and technological differences between two countries in determining dynamics of global wealth and pattern of trade in a reformed H-O model of international trade. The paper builds a trade model with endogenous wealth accumulation and labor and capital distribution between sectors and between countries under perfectly competitive markets and free trade. The model is based the H-O model, the Solow-Uzawa neoclassical growth model and the Oniki-Uzawa trade model. Each country has three sectors, producing one globally homogenous tradable capital good, specifying in producing one-tradable commodity, and supplying non-tradable goods and services. The study simulates the model for the economy to demonstrate existence of equilibrium points and motion of the dynamic system. It examines effects of changes in output elasticity of an industrial sector, population expansion, and propensities to consume the domestic commodity, to consume the other country’s commodity, to consume services, and to hold wealth.
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This paper seeks to explain the relationship between a firm’s profitability and firm size, leverage ratio and labour costs – using a sample of 782 Slovenian fast-growing firms from the years 2008 and 2009. We determined that profitability is negatively related to the firm size and leverage ratio, but positively to the labour costs. These results illustrate that, with increasing firm size, a fast-growing firm becomes less profitable. The negative coefficient for the leverage ratio indicates that the higher the extent to which debts were used as the source of financing, the lower the profits. One explanation for this is that profitable, fast-growing firms rely on their equity capital. Alternatively, higher-leveraged firms bear greater risks of bankruptcy; consequently, creditors are reluctant to approve credit for such clients. The positive association between labour costs and profitability implies that the higher the labour cost, the higher the profitability of fast-growing firms.
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Elections of the most attractive employer take place both in Lithuania and worldwide. Instruments used to measure organizational attractiveness in these elections are focused on a priori features of a universal “employer of choice” and therefore neglecting a fact that people may have different perceptions and preferences. Addressing this limitation the article presents the results of an empirical study of employer attractiveness in Lithuanian business sector. Based on the responses (N = 1020) to an open-ended question, the study allowed to identify the most important features of an attractive employer, namely: attractive salary, good working atmosphere, flexibility and freedom at work, timely payment of wages.
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This paper proposes an empirical analysis of the effects of unemployment benefit on unemployment in Romania. First, the existence of a long-run equilibrium relation between the two variables was checked using single-equation cointegration tests. The results showed that such a relation does not exist. Next, in order to evaluate the short-term effects of unemployment benefit on unemployment level, a VAR analysis was employed. Impulse response functions analysis showed that the number of persons registered as unemployed is expecting to rise as the value of monthly unemployment benefit is increasing. However, the variance decomposition analysis pointed out that only a small part (under 5%) of unemployment short-term dynamics could be explained by potential shocks in the unemployment benefit level.
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This paper proposes a dynamic economic model with wealth accumulation and human capital accumulation with elastic labor supply. The economic system consists of one production sector and one education sector. Our model is a synthesis of three main models in economic theory: Solow’s onesector neoclassical growth mode, the Uzawa-Lucas two sector model, and Arrow’s learning by doing model. The model also includes Zhang’s idea about creative leisure or learning by consuming. Demand and supply of education in our model are determined by market mechanism. The model describes dynamic interdependence among wealth accumulation, human capital accumulation, division of labor, and time distribution among leisure, education and work under perfect competition. We simulate the model and examine effects of changes in the total productivity of the education sector, the total productivity of the production sector, the propensity to obtain education, and learning efficiency in school.
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Maritime Labor Convention of 2006 fulfills the assumptions of the recommendation of 1920 concerning the adoption of a binding “International maritime labor code” in the form of the “Bill of Rights for Seafarers”. The uniqueness of this convention is perceived inits unanimous adoption at the maritime session in 2006, which confirms the status of the Maritime Labor Convention as an act providing widely accepted standard for the minimum protection of seafarers. What is more, the Convention has been incorporated into the audit system used by the International Maritime Organization which is indicated by: 1. the element of the certification of sea vessels of the weight more than 500, 2. the coordination of bodies preparing maritime labor certificates (Port State Control – PST) 3. the creation of a common profile of the risk of the flag of a ship for the ports of European Union Member States.
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On 11 May 2012 the Sejm passed law providing the increase and equalization of the retirement age for men and women in Poland. The raise of the retirement age took place on 1 January 2013 and it applied to women born after 1952 and men born after 1947. The process of gradual unification of the retirement age for men and women is supposed to finish in 2040, when every insured person regardless of gender will retire at the age of 67. The doubts have been raised in regard to the compliance of the mechanism used in order to raise and standardize the retirement age for women and men with the constitutional principles of the protection of rights already acquired, the citizens’ trust to the state and its laws, the appropriate legislation, as well as the equality before the law and equality between men and women in matters of social security. It is also said that the above mentioned regulation violates art. 26 p. 2 of the Convention No 102 of the International Labor Organization, which has been ratified by Poland, in regard to minimum standards of social security, which defines the maximum age limit for the retirement at 65 years and allows for older age only if older people in particular country retain the ability to work. These doubts have been resolved by the Constitutional Tribunal in its judgment of 7 May 2014 (K 43/12). The Tribunal stated that the amending of the Act of 11 May 2012 infringed art. 2, art. 32 and art. 33 of the Constitution. The Tribunal pointed out that the acquiring of the right to partial retirement under different conditions provided for women and men was not restricted by a term and therefore it did not harmonize with the alignment of the retirement age for men and women. In other respects, the Tribunal did not see any grounds for declaring the unconstitutionality of the law of 11 May 2012 and its noncompliance with art. 26 p. 2 of Convention No. 102. The Author critically assesses the Tribunal’s point of view on the compatibility of the provisions of the law of 11 May 2012 with art. 26 p. 26 of the Convention No. 102. In his opinion, the Tribunal unreasonably appealed to other circumstances than citizens’ ability to provide work due to a natural phenomenon of aging.
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This paper studies issues related to global economic growth, trade patterns and elastic labor supply with capital accumulation and knowledge creation. Trade patterns among countries are determined by free competition and knowledge accumulation is through learning by doing. This study considers knowledge as public good. Knowledge is accessible to all the people in the world, even though different countries apply knowledge with different efficiencies. The countries differ in preference (such as propensities to save and to use leisure time), knowledge utilization efficiency and creativity. First, we show that the dynamics of the J -country world economy is described by 1J differential equations. Then, we simulate the motion of the global economy with three economies, respectively called developed, industrializing, and underdeveloped economies. We carry out comparative dynamic analysis with regard to changes in knowledge utilization efficiency.
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Author of the article wrote about dr. Zivko Topalovic, a socialist and labor union activist, who marked history of socialism with his political activity in 20th century in Serbia. Dr Zivko Topalovic was born in 1886 in Uzice and graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Belgrade, granted Ph.D. in Law Sciences in Germany and was active in Serbian Social-Democratic Party of Dimitrije Tucovic and in Main Labor Association of Serbia. After 1918, he founded the Socialist Labor Party of Yugoslavia (1921) and became its president. He was engaged in activities of inter-war Labor Union and Labor Movement. During the Second World War, starting from 1943, he jointed the Ravnogorski Movement and in 1944 he went to Italy. While in the exile in France, he founded the Democratic Union of Yugoslavia, as well as the journal Labor Unionist. For many years he lived abroad as an emigrant – “enemy of the nation”, publishing prominent books and other works. He passed away on February 1972 in Vienna, Austria.
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This research develops a theoretical model of sustainable leadership, organizational trust and satisfaction at work in higher education environment in Syria. The model assesses staff perception of outstanding leadership behaviors and examines its relationship with perceived organizational trust in the field of higher education institutions in Syria. This research examines a conceptual framework identifying outstanding leadership styles and behaviors which are associated with sustainable leadership, organisational trust identified by members’ trust in their coworkers, and job satisfaction at an institutional level. The research methodology applied in this research develops a quantitative approach through application of questionnaire survey. To measure the dimensionality of scale factors an exploratory factor analysis is conducted. Reliability analysis is performed, Cronbach alpha test indicates that the research scales are internally consistent. The sample of the study employed a convenience sample from higher education institutions. The managerial implication of the research study recommends application and adoption of sustainable leadership behaviors among functional, mid and senior levels of managers and academics in management positions in higher education institutions. The limitation of research is mainly indicated in the sample size and measurement scales of sustainable leadership, organizational trust and job satisfaction.
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The article discusses the legal nature of the so-called constitutional legal employment,also known as systemic employment, which is a legal relationship which concerns persons performing functions of the most important state authorities (f. ex. the President, the Prime Minister, ministers) or the members of collective state authorities (f. ex. the members of parliament). Each of these persons remain in the so called organizational legal relationship, the content of which concerns the exercise of political, governmental, administrative or representative competences. Sometimes labor relations are established with persons holding the functions of state authorities in order to protect their social and professional interests, but it is not always the case. This means that in most cases the professional and social status of such persons is virtually unregulated. The only privilege they enjoy in all such cases is the right to remuneration (except for parliamentarians, who have a high degree of professional and social rights). This situation is highly unsatisfactory and raises a number of practical questions related to the establishment of professional and social rights (f. ex. the right to leave) of persons who hold the functions of state authorities.
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One of the main consequences of Globalization process is migrations flows. Migration has two sides; one is related to positive gains in the host country in that migration is a source of invaluable human resources and contributes to increase the production of goods and services. The other side has to do with the impact of immigrants on the native labour market especially on wages and employment conditions. Both effects will have an influence on the native income distribution. The case of Spain is unique in the context of Europe. Spain has been a traditional emigration country with a long history of emigration. This tradition has changed in recent years and now Spain has become an important country for immigration such as Germany or the USA. The immigration process in Spain has been strongly concentrated especially in recent years. This large flow of immigrants, (over 5 millions in less than 15 years) has caused a strong impact on several political, social, demographic and economic aspects in Spain. One of the most important reasons for immigration into Spain is connected to the good evolution of the Spanish economy during the long period 1995-2007 and a similar evolution of the Labour Market. The impact of immigration flows is large, complex and shows different perspectives for the Spanish society and economy. In this paper we will consider some impacts of migration on the Spanish economy and the Spanish Labour Market. Having this objective in mind the paper is organized as follows. After this introduction, in section 2 we present some selected facts of the importance of migration flows into Spain as compared to other European countries. In section 3, we will estimate the impact of migration on Spain’s GDP over the last decade using a simple labour market model. In section 4 we will focus on the impact of immigration on the structure of the Spanish labour supply and especially on the participation of women in the Labour Market, which is one of the most outstanding events having taken place in the last decade. The paper finishes with some conclusions.
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The right to strike now belongs to the corpus of fundamental human rights, protected by national constitutions and laws, but also by many international political and legal documents. However, at the international level, despite the large number of sources of the right to strike, there are no unified rules about the necessary conditions for the legality of the strike. Also, the consequences which arise as a result of organizing and / or participating in (un)lawful strike differ from one to another legal system. When the strike is legitimate and when not; what kind of strikes are allowed and which are not; which are necessary conditions for organizing a strike; who may have legitimacy to activate this right and with which requirements; and, finally, which are labor-legal, civil-legal, criminal-legal, misdemeanor-legal and administrative-legal consequences of (un)lawful strike, represent questions to which, as a rule, the answer can be given only by specific national legislation.
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The teaching profession can be considered an emotionally demanding one since teachers usually experience a wide variety of pleasant and unpleasant emotions of significant intensity. Such emotions, as well as the strategies teachers may implement in order to regulate them, can have a significant impact on teachers' well-being, burnout, job satisfaction and their intention to stay in the profession. The aim of this study was to examine the contribution of different pleasant and unpleasant emotions that teachers experience in relation to their students, parents, colleagues and the educational system in general, as well as the emotional labor strategies they implement to regulate such emotions, in explaining teachers' emotional exhaustion (as a key component of burnout) and job satisfaction. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that teachers' emotions and emotional labor strategies have a unique significant contribution in explaining the variance of emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction. Teachers who experience higher levels of unpleasant emotions of fatigue, anger and disappointment, and use surface acting more frequently, also experience higher levels of emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, teachers who experience joy and pride in relation to their students more intensely, and freely express their naturally felt emotions, are more satisfied with their job. Finally, teachers who experience a higher intensity of fatigue and disappointment, and those who use surface acting more frequently, are less satisfied with their job.
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This article aims to discuss the obligation to give reasonable cause notice by the employer, one of the pillars of the system of protection of workers employed for an indefinite period by the arbitrary dismissal. There is no legal definition regarding the legitimate reasons for the termination or directory such reasons in the labor code, so you should in this respect rely on the achievements of jurisprudence, which in addition to indication of the case law of the specific reasons already justifying termination of the employment contract, also indicates the manner in which notice must assessed in terms of its legitimacy. The article is an attempt to present complex issues of the legitimacy of termination of an employment contract for an indefinite period.
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The subject matter of the dissertation embraces issues concerning mediation in labour law disputes. The article is focused on the amendments which were enacted into the Civil Procedure Code on 1 January 2016. They should contribute to an increase in the significance and popularity of such method; which is an alternative to judicial procedures and relatively inexpensive. As previously, mediation may be conducted under an agreement between the parties (employee and employer) and the mediator, or by decision of the court. At present the court may direct the parties to mediation at every stage of judicial procedures and it can proceed in that way many times. Moreover, before the first trial term the court may oblige the parties to take part in an informative meeting concerning mediation. The aim of the meeting is to impel the parties to reach mutual agreement. In spite of the fact that mediation, as before, is voluntary, the legislator has enhanced instruments which are supposed to restrain the parties from an unjustified refusal to participate in mediation proceedings. According to the Civil Procedure Code, the dissenting party may be charged for legal expenses.
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There is no doubt that the rapid increase in population aging across the globe is signaling the most astonishing demographic changes in the history of humankind. Demographic changes are among the most important challenges facing societies, labor markets and economies. This paper analyzes how low fertility rates, aging populations, and a growing number of migrants from other countries change the face of our globe and created the new threat to national security.
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