the rise of precarious work through a systematic comparative study of Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia.The methodological design aims to identify the historical trajectories as well as the similarities and differences in the contemporary transformations in the three nations.Utilising quantitative and qualitative data, the authors find that "the extent and consequences of precarious work reflect the relative strengths or weaknesses of transnational and domestic capital and labour in particular sectors of the economy" (175).As economic inequality and poverty have deepened across all three Asian countries in recent decades, they conclude that "class-based redistribution of income and wealth" is much needed to "reduce the inequality between nonregular and regular workers" ( 14).This trans-disciplinary research clearly informs a new direction in social policy debate, rather than prescribing barely adequate services or financial needs to the most adversely affected individuals.
In 2019 and 2020, Hongkongers witnessed—and, in many cases, participated in—one of largest and most exacting grassroots movements in the city’s history. Triggered by a proposed Extradition Bill and fuelled by a decades-long struggle for democracy and political freedom, the decentralised protest quickly seeped into the city’s everyday life. While some of the protestors
“Buy now with one click” has simplified the different stages of online shopping. E-commerce behemoths like Amazon and Alibaba have created a high-speed, high-tech logistics ecosystem through partnering with contracted or third-party delivery firms. This ethnographic research analyzes the social organization of delivery work by focusing on labor subcontracting practices. Through firsthand interviews in Beijing, the author documents the working conditions of male migrant workers and explores their individual and collective coping strategies to fast-delivery demands. As “independent contractors,” they have to provide their own means of production at work (such as the delivery vehicle and parcel packaging materials) and face the uncertainties and risks shifted by the delivery firms. They are doubly trapped in nonstandard employment relations and an unequal citizenship regime segmented by rural/urban household registration status in China. Importantly, familial and social resources are frequently drawn on to complete the delivery tasks, thus the emergence of a less visible and more exploitative form of unpaid homework in the downstream logistics chain. This field study will contribute to the growing debates of labor informality, migrant workers’ struggles, and the role of the state in employment protections in a highly competitive market environment.
Based on interviews with students and teachers at one electronics company, we analyse the use of student interns to do regular manufacturing work in China. We argue that student workers need to be seen as a distinct category of constrained labour; part of a growing insecure workforce in China. We find that students enrolled in vocational schools are moved into internships, without their consent, to suit the needs of employers. This results in a misalignment between interns and their area of study that invalidates the basic principle of vocational education, which is to combine theory and practice within a sector or occupationally-focused education programme. Teachers in vocational schools follow their students into the factory and become ‘teacher-supervisors’, receiving a second salary for co-managing the utilization of student interns’ labour power. Thus, within such an unfree labour regime, student workers are subject to dual control in the workplace from managerial and teacher-supervisors.
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