Conference Agenda

The current paper introduces the Labour Rights Index (LRI), comparing labour legislation in 135 countries. Given that labour law comparisons are rare or restricted only to employment protection legislation, working condition legislation or trade union rights legislation, LRI is the first comprehensive de-jure Index. It follows an employment life cycle approach and evaluates countries along ten indicators - fair wages, decent work hours, employment security, family responsibilities, maternity at work, safe work, social security, fair treatment, child and forced labour, and trade unions. The ten indicators and 46 sub-indicators are rooted in the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda.

The Index compares local labour legislation with international labour standards and scores a country accordingly. Based on their scores, countries are rated on a six-point scale ranging from a “Total Lack of Decent Work” to “Decent Work”. The Index analyses all labour legislation, ranging from minimum wage laws and employment protection laws to social security legislation and fundamental principles and rights at work legislation to the laws supporting work-life balance, as applicable on 1 January 2022. It uses publicly available labour legislation (on Government websites, ILO NATLEX, and WageIndicator Labour Law Database) and codes this information under a detailed yet straightforward methodology to make it comparable. The country profiles provide a full legal basis for each sub-indicator score, adding to the transparency and external validity of how each country was scored and rated. This leads to objective and replicable scoring.

Comparative work on labour regulations has been done before; however, it either covers a limited number of countries or a limited number of topics (World Bank’s Women, Business and Law Database, ITUC Global Rights Index) or is outdated (CBR-Labour Regulation Index).

With its binary scoring system, the Labour Rights Index provides a unique dataset enabling researchers, policymakers and transnational employers to track changes in labour regulations from 2020 onward for these countries. The Labour Rights Index is released biennially, and the next edition will be released in 2024, covering 140 countries.

Given that the WEF’s Global Risks Report 2023 identifies employment crises as an important risk in the short and long-term risk, comparing labour legislation globally and identifying best regulatory practices is crucial. Moreover, the Index provides a comprehensive perspective of de-jure working norms, making it a useful benchmarking tool in policy debates at the national and international levels.

https://labourrightsindex.org/

South Africa is still considered the most economically, ethnically, and culturally diverse country in the world. Ensuring that workers enjoy a level of fairness and equality in the workplace the Employment Equity Act (EEA) No. 55 of 1998 was passed into law. The purpose of the Act is to protect the rights of workers against any form of discrimination by their employers.

This law also aims to correct past injustices by implementing affirmative action measures.

The Minister of Employment of Labour in South Africa recently amended the EEA of 1998 to regulate both sector-specific Employment Equity (EE) targets and the compliance criteria for the issuing of EE Compliance Certificates in terms of Section 53 of the EEA. These amendments will come into effect on September 1, 2023.

This study focuses on the impact and gaps of the EEA since its inception in 1998 and highlights the number of EEA reports submitted to the South African Department of Employment and Labour, from 1998 to 2022. The focus between 2019 and 2022 will be on determining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the South African labour force, employed by the designated companies, which need to report on EE targets.

This research project used a mixed-method research approach. This approach combined qualitative and quantitative research methods to collect and evaluate the data for this study. This study is based on the analysis of a series of documents and secondary data obtained from various sources for the period 1998-2022.

The research questions are (1) what is the relationship between EEA and gender differences; (2) what is the relationship between the EEA and the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) initiatives; (3) what has been the impact of the EEA on organisational change; (4) what have been the main impacts since the implementation of the EEA?

This type of research enabled the researcher to contribute to the current body of knowledge, influence policy, qualitatively identify current EEA gaps, and quantify the plausibility of the results through numbers, statistical analyses, and graphs.

The findings suggest that the South African Government, through the Department of Employment and Labour needs to look at the impact of the EEA on the broader workforce, especially entities that are regarded as designated employers. Areas of impact should focus on gender, empowerment and change management within these organisations.

Keywords: Employment Equity, Gender, Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment, Change Management.

In light of the millions of workers who are excluded from key worker protections (literally or effectively) or who face severe barriers to organizing, worker groups in the United States have organized to pass legislation and regulations protecting some of the most precarious workers. In the context of labor market changes, workers across low-wage industries have organized to secure essential protections and lift industry standards through federal, state and/or municipal legislation. Yet given the profound limits of the existing regime of labor standards enforcement, it is increasingly recognized that simply passing new laws is insufficient. Our research on the janitorial industry in California, the nail salon industry in New York State and domestic workers in New York State demonstrates that, while these crucial wins have been made through organizing workers, the enforcement of the new regulations falters without channels to support worker organizing after the legislative wins. Drawing on these three examples, this paper will argue that workers themselves must be empowered to advance their rights and protections, and that worker organizations—beyond their role in advocating for the passage of new protections—play a critical role in ensuring new protections are realized by fostering worker organizing and training. Our research documents a peer training program developed in California’s janitorial industry to combat workplace sexual violence; worker organizing amid recent and proposed legislation for regulating the nail salon industry in New York State; and the use of training programs for base-building among domestic workers in New York City after the enactment of New York’s Domestic Worker Bill of Rights. Based on findings from our research, we argue that new forms of organizing are needed to ensure that significant, innovative legislation is actually enforced for the most precarious of workers. In the absence of well-resourced government oversight, collective organizing and training strategies that workers have developed are a crucial ingredient in ensuring stronger protections and higher standards are realized and have meaning.

Multiple pressures and crises impact the world of work, obliging trade unions to reflect and act upon uncertainty and change (Peels and Mwamadzingo, 2022; Ramos et al., forthcoming). Increasingly, trade unions worldwide explore different tools and methods to address uncertainty and change through strategic thinking (Wambeke et al., 2017; Ponce del Castillo, 2019; Peels and Mwamadzingo, 2022; Ramos et al., forthcoming). One method of strategic thinking that can be particularly useful in a trade union context, is strategic foresight, for being not prescriptive; participatory; inclusive; and allowing for complexity and empowerment. The paper is first of its kind, documenting trade union experiences worldwide on doing foresight. Furthermore, it investigates questions about the effectiveness of foresight in a trade union context, examining organisational, institutional and pedagogic factors. Data collection is based on literature review and desk research, mapping trade union practices worldwide; and participant observation during foresight training courses and workshops organized by ILO, ITC and ETUI in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas in the period 2022-23. There is a long history of research on organizational change applied to trade unions, mostly from the angle of trade union revitalization or renewal (Ibsen et al., 2017; Murray, 2017; Visser, 2019). Often power resources are central to this analysis (Schmalz et al., 2018). This paper builds further on this literature, by paying particular attention to the ability of trade unions to think strategically on revitalization, by applying foresight literature to the context of trade unionism (Wambeke et al., 2017; Ponce del Castillo, 2019). Furthermore, whereas research in this field has predominantly focussed on Western Europe and North America, this paper contributes to a better global understanding, incorporating experiences from the Global South (see also FES, 2018).The research contributes to foresight scholarship in bringing a multi-disciplinary view, combining organizational change and foresight studies, political sciences, as well as pedagogics to the context of the trade union movement. It provides concrete examples - with different degrees of formality and comprehensiveness - of trade unions experimenting with strategic thinking and foresight. While assessing the effectiveness of the latter, the paper finds that certain organizational (e.g. political support; research capacity) and institutional factors (e.g. respect for trade unions rights) drive success; together with particular pedagogic choices (e.g. to create trust; target group).