Prof. Dr. Irene Dingeldey and Andrea Schäfer have published a new article on standard employment and segmentation practices within the automotive industry in South Africa, in "Frontiers in Sociology". They were part of the team working in project A03 "Worlds of Labour: Coverage and Generosity of Employment Law" from the second phase of CRC 1342 (2022–2025).
Focusing on segmentation practices in an automotive manufacturing cluster in South Africa allowed us to present a detailed picture of a specific industrial labor market in the Global South. Segmentation practices are outlined in terms of the variation in employment security and quality, encompassing the use of different types of employment, wage levels, and working hours. To explain these practices in collective bargaining and at the firm level, we draw on the insights of the global production network approach, as well as the labor market segmentation approach, which emphasizes national institutional settings such as general labor law, collective bargaining systems, but also power resources of different actors. Using a deductive qualitative design, we subjected 17 semi-structured interviews conducted in 2023 to qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis. This qualitative inquiry was further supplemented with quantitative data for the period 2022 to 2025 on labor norms and collective agreements.
Our findings demonstrate that, despite the presence of a universalist labor law regime, the power asymmetries between companies within the production network and along the supply chain as well as the bifurcated bargaining structure influence power relations between unions and employers. Hence, power asymmetries between companies are reproduced in the relationship between trade unions and employers along the supply chain, resulting in a specific pattern of segmentation.
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Irene Dingeldey
Institut für Arbeit und Wirtschaft (iaw)
University of Bremen
Tel: +49 421 218-61710
E-Mail: dingeldey@uni-bremen.de
Andrea Schäfer
University of Bremen
Tel: +49 421 218-60351
E-Mail: andrea.schaefer@uni-bremen.de
