Globalization of employment relations: a case of ECOWAS

Author: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie

Published: 13th of April, 2014

Introduction

‘Workers of the world, Unite!’ – is the present view and context of labour force created by globalization, and it entails a rallying call for proletarian internationalism that have for long been proclaimed by the Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’s ideologies of the 1848. The implication is the existence of an optimistic notion of great possibilities that emerges across border and coordinated for the interest of workers, which results to a world society without boundary. So far, history has not been able to prove this revolutionary prediction right, but it is importance to understand that ‘Real Socialism’ has collapsed, and a uniform market ideology has been spread across the world. Thus, this raises skepticism among international labour scholars as to where collective regulation of work and employment across borders will actually work. Increase in internationalization and global competition has caused shift in the way employments are undertaken as companies employee more of workers from their target markets in order to gain better understanding of the market and be successful (even when they are not originally from the target market). In line with this view, this research seeks to understand whether a shift from national to globalized employment relation is the right answer.

Shift to globalized employment relations

On a general sense, employment relations entails the underlying contractual and conceptual agreement established between employing industries and their labour force in terms of how both will work together for a mutually beneficial outcome.

Considering the effects that globalization has caused in interrelating economy and society over the time, there has been an increase in sociological interest related to employment relations (Streeck 1997; Weber 2001; Durkheim 1984), and historical views to the development of this relationship exist with rich set of instrument and differing social perspectives. Contemporary diagnosis and analysis done in the second half of the 21^st century have also pointed out the increase in the dynamic interplay of such relationship, which leads to the creation of new uncertainties for both individual and corporate actors (Cohen and Kennedy 2000; Beck 1999; Hann and Keith 2009). In line with this understanding, Webster et al. (2008) conducted a study on labour proposed new view on the impact that globalization can have on local realities of work and employment, thus creating the concept of market embeddedness based on the concept that was originally introduced by Karl Polanyi in the 1940s. In accordance with Polanyi’s view, dynamics in modernization is created through an interplay of market and other institutions that coordinates the economy, creating guiding principles that are used to organize the production and distribution of goods and service. In essence, economic globalization is viewed as a partial “disembedding” of segmented national markets and production systems that are structured by national institutions. Such an understanding has led numerous scholars to conclude that economic globalization leads to a “neoliberal” global view of competition, production and trade, and value chain e (e.g. Altvater and Mahnkopf 1997; Burawoy 2010; Webster 2010), thus creating a semi-automatic system that is unbound from any kind of institutionalized regulation and control in the global sense.

In consideration of the above discussion, it become evidently clear that there is a need to shift to internationalized form of employment relations and numerous literatures have come in support of such view (e.g. Pries and Dehnen 2009; Ruigrok and van Tulder 1995; Spatz and Nunnenkamp 2002; Sturgeon and Florida 1999; Whitley 1992). Globalization has eliminated boundaries and bridged gaps that exit between nations, thus if people can relocate from one nation to another in search of a job, then there is a need to have a centralized regulations on how people are employed and treated.

Many regional policies have also come strong in support of the shift to globalized employment relations. For instance, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is a regional in the West African region with common regulations on free trade and partnership amongst its member states for the continued and sustainable growth of the region. Such regulations include the freedom of movement of goods and people. Such freedom member that citizens of member states can freely relocate in search of employment in any of the states. If that is the case, then it can be seen that globalized view on employment relation is necessary. Supplementary protocols from the ECOWAS agreement has also offered a general standard in employment relations and how employees must be fairly treated in member states that they are not originally from (Ecowas n.d, Online). Thus, it is now important to talk about regional/international employment relations rather than just focus on national employment relation because numerous policies and regulations are now offering people the same employment rights internationally and increased global competition now means that companies can employee or deploy from/to any country across the globe.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is stated that global view on employment relation is now inevitable because increased globalization has bridged and will continue to bridge (potentially eliminate) existing gaps in national employment. Thus, it is now important to discuss global employment relations but national discussions is still important. This is because while they are international policies and regulations, national policies still overrules these international policies in most cases.

References

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