IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ecolab/v20y2010i2p77-97.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Managing Diverse Commodities? From Factory Fodder to Business Asset

Author

Listed:
  • Lucy Taksa
  • Dimitria Groutsis

Abstract

From its foundation in 1919, the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) guiding principle has been that labour is not a commodity. Following an examination of the origins and impact of this principle on ILO and United Nations (UN) conventions relating to migrant workers, the paper examines how Australia has responded to such conventions. In this regard, the paper highlights the counterveiling influence of the neoclassical economic perspective on the way migrant workers in Australia have been treated and represented from the post-war period until recent times as either ‘factory fodder’ and/or ‘business assets'. Both representations, we argue, treat migrants as commodities. To challenge this approach the paper identifies how migrant workers have distinguished themselves from commodities through resistance to poor working conditions and also management strategies that treat them as if they were commodities.

Suggested Citation

  • Lucy Taksa & Dimitria Groutsis, 2010. "Managing Diverse Commodities? From Factory Fodder to Business Asset," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 20(2), pages 77-97, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecolab:v:20:y:2010:i:2:p:77-97
    DOI: 10.1177/103530461002000206
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/103530461002000206
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/103530461002000206?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ecolab:v:20:y:2010:i:2:p:77-97. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.