Global transformation of the contemporary labour market for merchant navy seafarers : case studies of Filipino, South African and British seafaring labour markets.
Year: 2008
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The central aim of this thesis is to investigate how and why labour markets are \nformed in specific ways under contemporary global capitalism. This thesis achieves \nthis through a sociological analysis and explanatory account of the contemporary \ntransformation of merchant navy seafaring labour markets for Filipino, South African \nand British seafarers. The study is centrally concerned with four questions relating to \nthe restructuring of these labour markets. These questions are: \n1. How has the labour market for seafarers been reshaped? \n2. How has the restructuring of shipping capital facilitated this process process? \n3. What has the role of labour been in this restructuring process? \n4. What other labour market institutions contribute to this restructuring? \nAnswering these four questions allows me to achieve the central aim of my thesis \nwhich is to investigate how and why labour markets are formed in specific ways \nunder contemporary global capitalism. In answering these questions this thesis makes \nthree theoretical interventions in industrial sociology. Firstly, this work offers a \nsubstantially different account of labour markets that advances a more fully social \nexplanation of labour market formation that does not consider the social as a 'factor' \nor an 'add on' as does classical and neo classical economics (and some strands of \neconomic sociology) but a significant shaper of global labour markets. Secondly, it \nfills a gap in theorising the agency of organised labour under global capitalism. The \nthesis demonstrated how the agency of organised labour and the importance of \nlocality or place should also be accorded primacy in arguing how labour markets are \nproduced. Thirdly in making my own assertions about the creation and decimation of \nworking classes under capitalism, I draw on three detailed case studies of seafaring \ntrade unions, capitalist and state strategies in the shaping and transformation of \ncontemporary labour markets for seafarers and therefore demonstrate the fallibility of \nthe 'race to the bottom' thesis using contemporary research and data.
Author: Shaun Ruggunan
Language: English
Subfield: Industrial relations
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1567249227