Labour futures: A comparative study of precarious labour and cooperative enterprise in Kampala and Dar es Salaam

劳动力未来：坎帕拉和达累斯萨拉姆不稳定劳动力与合作企业的比较研究

• 批准号: ES/W011468/1
• 负责人: Michaela Collord
• 金额: $ 28.52万
• 依托单位: University of Nottingham
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FW011468%2F1
• 关键词: Labour; futures; comparative; study; precarious

Informal or "precarious" labour - associated with insecure work, low pay and poor conditions - is on the rise globally. This trend raises pressing questions about the future of work. Who will work, under what conditions, for whom? These questions are particularly salient in Africa where informal labour accounts for an estimated 86 percent of total employment. Moreover, nowhere is the informal workforce growing faster than in the region's expanding cities.In response to this labour precarity, a large body of work emphasises the need for more formal sector employment; however, precarity persists across both the formal and informal economies of the global south and, increasingly, the global north too. Meanwhile, 'formalization' efforts yield mixed results with no clear impact on poverty levels. The proposed research adopts an alternative emphasis, building on work examining self-organising as a means for the precariously employed to secure better working conditions. This line of inquiry also raises important questions about how, especially in the authoritarian contexts that prevail in much of Africa, collective action can help redress the power imbalances that disadvantage workers relative to private sector and allied state actors. Various forms of worker collective action-including trade unions, worker associations and the like-have produced mixed results in the past. This study will examine the specific role of co-operative (co-op) organising in mitigating the adverse conditions that perpetuate workers' precarity. Through a comparative study of urban co-ops in Kampala and Dar es Salaam, the commercial capitals of Uganda and Tanzania, the research will determine whether and how these groups enhance the economic security and organisational power of their members. By focusing on co-ops, the research will address an important empirical gap in the literature. Co-ops remain an understudied topic, and this despite their expansion and diversification within urban informal economies, including in Africa amidst a recent co-op "revival". Co-ops are also of growing interest to policymakers, and yet their efficacy in tackling urban poverty and insecure employment remains poorly understood.For its conceptual framing, the research will adapt a "power resource approach" from labour studies. It will analyse how the success of workers' co-op organising depends on their "structural power", their "associational power" and their strategic position within the wider political landscape. This three-part focus will create room to help advance related scholarly debates, namely: (1) on informal workers' position within the wider economic system, whether marginal or potentially more decisive in shaping economic outcomes; (2) on the distinctive power resources that co-op organising may provide, specifically how democratic ownership may distinguish co-ops from other kinds of worker self-organising like unions; and (3) on the significance of worker collective action within the larger urban political arena, notably its potential to create more inclusive politics within otherwise authoritarian contexts. In this way, the proposed research will offer a fresh contribution to literatures on informal labour and co-ops plus urban and authoritarian politics, in the process clarifying the relationship between bottom-up collective action and top-down strategies of authoritarian political dominance. For evidence, the study will examine four co-op case studies, two from each city. These will be selected from transport and trade because of these sectors' economic centrality, their tendency to grow along with a growing urban workforce, and the prevalence of casualised labour conditions. The case study analysis will draw on a strategic mix of methods and sources. It will use original survey data as well as interviews and archival data to examine the co-ops' organisational histories and the experience and work-life histories of their members.

非正式或“不稳定”的劳动力--与不安全的工作、低工资和恶劣的条件相关--在全球范围内呈上升趋势。这一趋势对工作的未来提出了紧迫的问题。谁将在什么条件下为谁工作？这些问题在非洲尤为突出，那里的非正规劳工估计占总就业人数的86%。此外，在该地区不断扩张的城市中，非正规劳动力增长最快。针对这种劳动力匮乏，大量工作强调需要更正规的部门就业；然而，在全球南方的正规和非正式经济体，以及越来越多的全球北方，这种早熟现象依然存在。与此同时，“正规化”的努力产生了好坏参半的结果，对贫困水平没有明显影响。这项拟议的研究采用了另一种侧重点，建立在考察自我组织作为不稳定就业人员确保更好工作条件的一种手段的工作基础上。这条调查路线还提出了一些重要问题，即集体行动如何帮助纠正权力失衡--相对于私营部门和盟友国家行为者，工人处于不利地位--尤其是在非洲大部分地区盛行的威权背景下。各种形式的工人集体行动--包括工会、工人协会等--过去产生了好坏参半的结果。这项研究将考察合作社组织在减轻导致工人早产的不利条件方面的具体作用。通过对乌干达和坦桑尼亚的商业首都坎帕拉和达累斯萨拉姆的城市合作社进行比较研究，这项研究将确定这些组织是否以及如何增强其成员的经济安全和组织能力。通过将重点放在合作社上，这项研究将解决文献中一个重要的经验差距。合作社仍然是一个研究不足的话题，尽管它们在城市非正规经济中进行了扩张和多样化，包括在最近合作社“复兴”的非洲。政策制定者对合作社也越来越感兴趣，但人们对合作社在解决城市贫困和不稳定就业方面的有效性仍缺乏了解。就其概念框架而言，这项研究将采用劳动力研究中的“权力资源方法”。它将分析工人合作社组织的成功如何取决于他们的“结构性力量”、他们的“结社力”以及他们在更广泛的政治版图中的战略地位。这三个部分的关注将为推动相关的学术辩论创造空间，即：(1)非正式工人在更广泛的经济体系中的地位，无论是边缘的，还是可能在塑造经济结果方面更具决定性的地位；(2)合作社组织可能提供的独特权力资源，具体而言，民主所有制如何将合作社与工会等其他类型的工人自组织区分开来；以及(3)工人集体行动在更大的城市政治舞台上的重要性，特别是它在其他威权背景下创造更具包容性的政治的潜力。通过这种方式，拟议的研究将为关于非正式劳工和合作社加上城市和威权政治的文献提供新的贡献，在这个过程中澄清自下而上的集体行动和自上而下的威权政治主导战略之间的关系。作为证据，这项研究将研究四个合作公寓的案例，每个城市两个。这些行业将从运输和贸易行业中挑选出来，因为这些行业具有经济中心地位，它们倾向于随着城市劳动力的增长而增长，以及临时工条件的普遍存在。案例分析将借鉴方法和来源的战略组合。它将使用原始调查数据以及访谈和档案数据来审查合作社的组织历史及其成员的经验和工作生活历史。