‘The Chiefs’ Country': a Malaitan View of the Conflict in Solomon Islands

ABSTRACT This account of the recent conflict in Solomon Islands, based on personal experience, offers a local Malaitan perspective on the historical causes and course of events which has not been well represented in other published accounts. It describes the Malaitan settlement of Guadalcanal and the failure of government to deal with the resulting grievances in terms of traditional values which also informed the author's own responses to the conflict and its resolution. The Malaitan community is shown as forced into politically‐manipulated militancy through neglect of the conciliatory role of clan leaders as chiefs. As a perspective from one side of the conflict, the paper invites responses and discussion of indigenous histories.     

The geographical distribution of Labour

The small volcanic and limestone islands of the Lesser Antilles, in the eastern Caribbean, have a continuous history of commercial agricultural production which goes back 370 years. During this period, conditions of the environment, both natural (volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts) and human‐induced (deforestation, erosion, land degradation and reduction in the water‐table), have interfered with development in a variety of ways. The paper reviews past and present situations, and considers how growing sectoral imbalances may accentuate the resulting problems.     

The Rural Labour Market in Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT Wage labour in Zimbabwe is most often associated with large commercial farms. The use of wage labour within ‘peasant’ agriculture has been rarely investigated and remains largely undocumented. In 1986/7, the author conducted research in Zimbabwe which was explicitly concerned with issues of rural economic differentiation and the wage labour supplied and hired by ‘peasant’ households. The data suggest that a dynamic labour market exists in rural Zimbabwe. Further, it was found that in addition to the many part-time rural wage workers, there is a group of people who depend upon wages for all or the bulk of their income. These people, who have been largely ignored by policymakers, cannot be defined as farmers at all.     

Uneven Geographies of Capital and Labour: The Lessons of European Works Councils

This contribution explores the ways in which trade unions have sought to organise workers in transnational corporations (TNCs) before looking at the pitfalls and possibilities of European Works Councils in more detail. The EWC directive covers an estimated 1400 companies across Europe, employing at least 15 million workers, and there are now more than 500 EWCs in existence. These new institutions are designed to allow employee representatives from across Europe to meet together for the purposes of information exchange and consultation with the senior managers from the TNC concerned. EWCs thus provide new horizontal networks of employee representatives across Europe and create new opportunities for information exchange, the formulation of transnational trade union responses and strategy and even active solidarity across national divides. This contribution draws upon original empirical evidence that highlights the difficulties of making EWCs work in this way. It is argued that there are at least four areas in which trade union intervention would make a difference to the operation of EWCs: (1) building active networks within and beyond any EWC; (2) sharing corporate intelligence; (3) formulating strategy at the level of the EWC; and (4) fostering identification with colleagues in other parts of the corporate network.     

伪满洲国劳动界的民族结构和民族间的位置关系

在分析伪满洲国的民族间的地位关系时,有着在满朝鲜人是处于支配民族的日本人和被支配民族的中国人之间的“中间”或说是比中国人优越的“二等公民”的说法。这样的论据提示了伪满洲国时期劳动界的民族间的工资差异,劳动条件的差异及民族间的粮食供给顺序。虽然伪满洲国的工厂、矿山、搬运、通信劳动领域中民族间平均每人工资额数为日本人一朝鲜人一中国人的顺序,平均每人工资额数朝鲜人比中国人多;但是其中高收入的比重却是中国人比朝鲜人高很多,朝鲜人中高收入的人是极少数。劳动条件也是朝鲜人比中国人恶劣。另外伪满洲国劳动界事实上是日本人和中国人两分天下,朝鲜人的比重微乎其微。其结果是伪满洲国的劳动政策也是以日本人和中国人为主,朝鲜人在其劳动政策中处于次要的地位。     

Labour after Land Reform: The Precarious Livelihoods of Former Farmworkers in Zimbabwe

What happens to labour when major redistributive land reform restructures a system of settler colonial agriculture? This article examines the livelihoods of former farmworkers on large‐scale commercial farms who still live in farm compounds after Zimbabwe's land reform. Through a mix of surveys and in‐depth biographical interviews, four different types of livelihood are identified, centred on differences in land access. These show how diverse, but often precarious, livelihoods are being carved out, representing the ‘fragmented classes of labour’ in a restructured agrarian economy. The analysis highlights the tensions between gaining new freedoms, notably through access to land, and being subject to new livelihood vulnerabilities. The findings are discussed in relation to wider questions about the informalization of the economy and the role of labour and employment in a post‐settler agrarian economy, where the old ‘farmworker’ label no longer applies.     

Labour Bureaucracy and Labour Officialdom in Evo Morales's Bolivia

Evo Morales has labelled his government the ‘government of social movements’, and much has been written on relations between social movements and the state in Bolivia since the turn of the century. The Central Obrera Boliviana (COB) — Bolivian Workers’ Central — has, however, remained largely absent from discussions in much of the literature. This article seeks to analyse the position of the COB under Morales, and to explore the nature and consequences of its relationship with the government over the past 12 years. The article differentiates between the concepts of labour bureaucracy and labour officialdom and examines how they can be used as analytical lenses that shed light on the position of the COB today. The author argues that during Bolivia's neoliberal period (1985–2005) the need to look after the COB bureaucratized union structures, as personal needs of the leadership were placed above those of the Bolivian working classes. This then allowed Morales's government to easily co‐opt sections of the labour movements’ leadership to form a labour officialdom, leaving the COB unable to challenge the continuation of the neoliberal structure of the economy and represent the majority of the country's working classes.