Academic Wits Research Outputs (All submissions)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10539/36827
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Item The Inequality—Financial Markets Nexus: Implications for Developing Metrics for Voluntary Disclosures(Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2024-01-21) Khan, Zoheb; Theobald, Stuart; Ewinyu, Arabo K.; Francis, David; Mogale, Etumeleng; Valodia, ImraanCan a disclosure framework reduce overall socio-economic inequality, or will it shift inequality somewhere else, for example, to other firms, other regions, or out of the firm and the private sector and into households? Are there material regional variations in the perceptions of the causes and effects of socio-economic inequality? What is the appropriate level of focus for an inequality disclosure framework? Surplus generated by workers accrues to the owners of capital and, at the most basic level, is a significant contributor to socio-economic inequality. There is also inequality in income between workers within firms and sectors. Furthermore, inequality is produced by access to and changes in asset prices, and by sovereign investing activities, among other factors. The correct unit of analysis for the proposed Taskforce on Inequality-related Financial Disclosures (TIFD – which since the original drafting of this paper has now converged efforts with new partners to form the Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures (TISFD)) deserves attention. The authors of this paper believe that regional variations mean that a one-size-fits-all disclosure framework is unlikely to be appropriate. For instance, the distribution of informal employment needs to be considered, with 61% of all global employment being informal and with as much as 90% of employment being informal in many countries in the global South. While disclosure frameworks matter for formal companies, what is often overlooked in the development of disclosure frameworks are the implications for the large number of people, particularly in the global South, who are informally employed or who work in informal enterprises. A second consideration is high unemployment given that the distribution of labour income is one of the great drivers of income inequality. Furthermore, the growth of precarious and non-standard employment, with the rise of platform work as an example, is an additional concern.Item The labour process and workers’ rights at Mercado Libre: Hiding regulation in the digital economy.(Southern Centre For Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2022-11-15) Atzeni, Mauritzio; Kenny, BridgetIn this working paper we consider the case of Mercado Libre in Argentina, the largest e-commerce platform there and in Latin America. E-commerce is, most basically, the sale or purchase of goods or services over the internet (Goga and Paelo, 2019: 2). E-commerce platforms such as, most famously, Amazon use digitalised control systems in warehousing and distribution services. We examine how such digitalised labour processes impact upon the quality and protection of labour in warehousing, and how regulation and trade unions’ practices combine to represent workers in these new sectors of the economy. Based on the Argentinian experience, we found that workers’ jobs were fragmented, with high use of labour broking. The workforce was overwhelmingly young and temporary. It was the combination of algorithmic management with discretionary human management which imposed stressful working conditions on workers required to negotiate daily conditions, often with negative implications for health and safety. Yet the image of the firm and its reliance on young workers mediated experiences of working there for many. In addition, high turnover relieved some grievances through workers exiting. Still, the Argentinian case also suggests the key potential role of trade unions in the sector to protect workers, given the regulatory context of labour rights and sectoral representation. However, we suggest, this was not an automatic condition of institutionalised regulatory frameworks. Indeed, the recognised union served to buffer management from workers’ complaints while the more militant transport workers’ union fought to organise warehouse workers more meaningfully. We conceive this study of labour process dynamics and collective issues in Argentina as a way of generating ‘lessons’ for worker organising and trade union mobilisation in South Africa and more broadly in the global South, which we discuss in the conclusion. We also conceive of this research as the first leg of a broader comparative research agenda on labour relations in Argentina and South Africa to be jointly developed in the future.