#JIR Special Issue #CFP #decentwork #tradeunions #informaleconomy #industrialrelations

Journal of Industrial Relations
Call For Papers
Special Issue
The Potential and Challenges in Supporting Decent Work in Sub-Saharan
Africa
https://journals.sagepub.com/pb-assets/PDF/CALL%20FOR%20PAPERS%20JIR%20-%20The%20Potential%20and%20Challenges%20in%20Supporting%20Decent%20Work%20in%20Sub-Saharan%20Africa-1695964842.pdf

Guest Editors:
Desmond Tutu Ayentimi, University of Tasmania
Shaun Ruggunan, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Kantha Dayaram, Curtin University
John Burgess, Torrens University

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) encompasses 46 countries that lie below the Sahara Desert. The region embraces a diversity of ethnicities, cultures, languages, geographies, and climate. The region has a shared history of colonial occupation. The economies are dominated by small businesses,
informal work, and high unemployment and underemployment (Ayentimi & Burgess, 2021).
Agriculture and resource industries are important throughout the region. In turn multinational corporate investment is extensive within the resource extractive industries. The region has major development challenges including poverty, child labour, low rates of participation in post-
secondary education, gender inequities, poor infrastructure, and political instability (Horowiz, 2006). For industrial relations scholars the region is of interest since unionisation and formal systems of employment regulation are limited; informal employment and multiple job holding is extensive; and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are important in the representation and mobilisation of labour (Ayentimi & Burgess, 2023; Webster et al., 2021). Against this backdrop the African Union has endorsed the ILOs decent work agenda and the UN sustainable development agenda.
According to the ILO (2023), decent work “involves opportunities for work that is productive and delivers a fair income, security in the workplace and social protection for all, better prospects for personal development and social integration, freedom for people to express their concerns, organize and participate in the decisions that affect their lives and equality of opportunity and treatment for all women and men”. These conditions are at the cornerstone of the UN Sustainable Development agenda. While many countries in the region encompass these ideals through
legislation, such legislation is difficult to monitor and enforce, especially in the context of workforce informality.

Within the region and within countries there are divisions as to the extent to which workers collectivise, subject to rules and regulations, and can access rights and standards at work (Horowitz, 2006). Colonisation established industrial relations systems based on those of the colonial power and led to unionisation, rules, and workplace regulations applying in the public sector (Ayentimi et al., 2018). Divisions in formalisation and institutionalisation of industrial relations processes can be found between public and private sectors; formal and informal sectors; urban and rural workers; and across sectors. The formalised private sector is linked to large private businesses,
government instrumentalities and multinational enterprises who exercise agency in shaping organisational and industry industrial relations processes (Ayentimi et al., 2019). Formal legislation supporting rights and employee protections is limited in its application and effectiveness across the workforce (Ruggunan et al., 2022). However, for many countries in the
region informal and unregulated employment are the dominant employment arrangement. It is also the sector where workers’ organize and worker voice emerge in non-traditional forms (WIEGO, 2023).
Labour regulation and a decent work agenda cannot be detached from societal functioning at large (Rikhotso et al., 2022; Wood et al., 2019). In SSA, there is a need for new ways of imagining and thinking about labour markets, labour legislation and social protections. Given that the application
of the decent work agenda in SSA underpins the ILO’s (2022) fifth ‘Fundamental Principle ‘and ‘Rights at Work’, this special issue aims to draw on key case studies to offer opportunity to identify and examine the converging and diverging stakeholder actions within country and sector studies, evaluation of regulatory and supporting policies, stakeholder perspectives, specific decent work objectives, the implications for MNEs operations in host countries, ILO member states and workers’ ‘Right to Safe Work’ which require a different lens and foci, and needs to be removed
from Western contexts, constructs, and assumptions, particularly with the ILO’s Convention 190 right to safe work and broader definition of worker.
Research on the emerging employment and industrial relations challenges in SSA remain sparse. [...]

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