I just returned from an ILO Research Roundtable in Geneva on the global crisis and its impact on the auto industry. Barry Bluestone of NE University moderated the day and a half meeting. There were reps from all major auto producing countries, except from Korea and Mexico. There was a union rep from Fiat and other labor leaders from the EU. Clearly unemployment in the auto industry world wide was a concern with ILO and one of the key issues that came out was formulating a kind of social compact between the tripartite constituencies -- labor, employers, and the government. One other issue was the vulnerability of the contract workers. A third dynamic was the that the auto dynamics in China and India are quite different from the OECD countries. The crisis there is nowhere near the US or other OECD economies. Finally there was considerable discussion about alternative energy and transportation systems especially mass transit systems and its implications on the auto industry. I expect a quick and dirty report to be released soon.
Cheers, Anthony xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Anthony P. D'Costa Professor of Indian Studies and Research Director Asia Research Centre Copenhagen Business School Porcelænshaven 24, 3 DK-2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark Email:[email protected] Ph: +45 3815 2572 Fax: +45 3815 2500 http://uk.cbs.dk/arc www.cbs.dk/india xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx We had repr On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 12:41AM, MICHAEL YATES <[email protected]> wrote: > Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org. This was on > countrpunch, too, but I have added links in the blog post. > > > Economists never say much about work. They talk about the supply of and > the demand for labor, but they have very little to say about the nature of > the work we do. Like most commentators, they seem to believe that modern > economies will require ever more skilled work, which will be done in clean > and quiet workplaces, by educated workers, who will share in decision-making > with managerial facilitators. We should disabuse ourselves of such > notions. In the world today, the overwhelming majority of workers do hard > and dangerous labor, risking the health of their bodies and minds every > minute they toil. > > > > The International Labor Organization (ILO), an agency of the United > Nations, issued its *Global Employment Trends* this past January. The > report examines unemployment, poverty employment, and vulnerable employment. > The unemployed are those not working but actively searching for employment. > The working poor are those with jobs that do not provide above a threshold > amount of money. Two thresholds are used: $1.25 per day (in 2005 prices), > which is “extreme poverty,” and $2.00 per day, which is just “poverty.” > People > in vulnerable employment are the self-employed (called in the report > “own-account” workers) and unpaid but working family members in the > household of the self-employed. In most of the world, vulnerable > employment is what is known as casual work; the workers who do this do not > have formal arrangements with an employer, such as a labor contract with > stipulated wages. A man selling lottery tickets on a street corner, a > woman hawking tamales in a parking lot, or a teenager offering rickshaw > rides are examples of vulnerable employment. A child helping her mother > sell the tamales is an example of an unpaid family member doing vulnerable > work. In all countries, and especially in rich ones, not all > self-employment is vulnerable. However, in all countries, but mostly in > poor ones, the vast majority of the self-employed are poor and vulnerable. > > > > The ILO estimates the number of people in each of the three categories > (unemployed, working poor, vulnerably employed) in 2009 under three > scenarios. The deep economic downturn now afflicting most of the world > has befuddled most economists, who neither saw it coming nor have been able > to say how much worse it will get. To compensate for the uncertainty > enveloping the global economy, the ILO economists have made three estimates > of the three labor market categories. The details of the three > “scenarios” are not important for our purposes. But, given the severity > of the “great recession” we are now experiencing, the deepest since the > 1930s, the third or *pessimistic* scenario seems the most realistic. Relief > is nowhere in sight, especially for the world’s workers. > > > > Here are the numbers for 2009, under the pessimistic scenario, for world > unemployment, working poor, and vulnerable employment: > > > > *Unemployment*: 230 million (7.1 percent of a world labor > force of about 3.24 billion) > > *Worki Working Poor* (using $2 per day as poverty threshold): > 1.377 billion (about 46 percent of total world employment of about three > billion) > > *Vulnerable employment*: 1.606 billion > > > > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > --
_______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
