Journal articles on the topic 'Equal pay for equal work – Law and legislation – Italy'

The Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998 (EEA) is the main piece of legislation which seeks to achieve equity in the workplace by redressing unfair discrimination. Unequal pay for equal work and work of equal value are specific forms of discrimination which are dealt with in the EEA. The EEA provisions dealing with pay discrimination applies to all employees in the workplace which includes atypical employees. An employee experiencing pay discrimination in the workplace would thus use the EEA to institute an equal pay claim. This, however, has changed since the introduction of sections 198A-198D of the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 (LRA) which provides equal pay protection for atypical employees earning below the threshold of R205 433.30 and subject to certain other conditions. Sections 198A-198D of the LRA only deals with equal pay for the same or similar work. The sections do not deal with equal pay for work of equal value. This equal pay protection in the LRA is unique as the redress of unfair discrimination is not one of the purposes of the LRA. The purpose of this article is to analyse the equal pay provisions as set out in sections 198A-198D of the LRA in order to ascertain the ambit of the protection offered by the sections, the limitations thereof and the dispute resolution procedure which should be followed. A brief comparative study with the law regulating equal pay for atypical employees in the United Kingdom will be undertaken in order to learn lessons for the equal pay legal framework in the LRA. International labour law will also be referred to.

This article analyses the consistency between the implementation of the EU Youth Guarantee and the fundamental right to work. Focusing on the use of traineeships as an implementation instrument, it explores various types of national Active Labour Market Policies (ALMP) for young unemployed people in Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Poland. The case studies show that it remains to be seen whether the traineeships considered in this research comply with the right to work. The authors argue for the need to strengthen the Youth Guarantee to accord with the right to work, so that in addition to the right to a first job, it ensures that work-related instruments include the provision of effective training, as well as the right to equal pay for work of equal value, and decent working conditions. This is particularly important in view of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, that has had an unprecedented economic impact in the EU and is likely to result in another dramatic upsurge in the number of young unemployed. Youth Guarantee, Right to Work, NEETs, Traineeships, Decent Work, Equal Pay, Active Labour Market Policies

ABSTRACTThe article highlights the discordance between the reality and the perception of women's independence and equality. The changes in legislation and increased female participation in the labour market since the 1960s give the impression of considerable progress. Equal treatment of men and women has been proposed. Evidence from national survey data however, shows that women's income is still lower than men's with no matching increase with age and career. Social security policy has always been based on labour market participation but women's labour market participation is quite different from that of men. Because of childcare responsibilities many women work parttime at some time in their working lives. Equal pay legislation has had little influence on the incomes from part-time work. The failure of real income from part-time work to rise over time has been a major cause along with job segregation and the segmentation of the labour market in maintaining the difference between men's and women's incomes. Women's continued lack of personal income has consequences for the support for women and children, particularly evident in the case of lone mothers. The incomes available to a woman are unlikely to be high enough to provide an adequate independent living standard for herself and any dependent children.

In this paper, we investigate whether gender employment rate responses to upward and downward fluctuations in the business cycle are symmetric and whether these responses differ depending on gender employment segregation in sectors and on different type of welfare states using the Esping-Andersen’s classification. We use the VAR model both in linear and non-linear (asymmetric) specification of GDP shocks and impulse response function. We find no convincing evidence of discouraged worker effect as it occurs in neither country fully, which suggests not hidden unemployment but rather the phenomenon of involuntary part-time workers becoming more common with the increase of precarious employment. Furthermore, we find that the pattern of gender employment adjustments to GDP fluctuations indicates that the gender sectoral segregation is a deeply entrenched feature within given economic sectors (construction, education, and accommodation) in all studied countries (Germany, Poland, and Portugal). Hence, this stagnation of gender segregation contributes to the preservation of gender pay differentials in spite of many years of equal pay legislation in the EU members.

The article is devoted to a study of the influence of the decisions of the European Committee of Social Rights on the content of labour law. In particular, the author argues that the decisions of the European Committee of Social Rights have a direct influence on the content of labour law norms, although they have a recommendatory meaning. Since our state has developed a plan of measures to implement the provisions of the European Social Charter, the government reports annually on the implementation of its provisions. The content of these reports demonstrates the changes that have already been made to existing legislation concerning employees' labour rights and those planned to be made in the near future. There is an urgent need to prohibit the employment of people under the age of 15 in view of the international obligations that our state has undertaken. It is proposed to amend Article 188 of the Labour Code and amend the third paragraph of Article 188. It is proposed to establish the concept of a light work for minors and a list of related work when improving the draft law «On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Regulation of Domestic Workers' Labour». The author proposes to develop social adaptation programmes for people with disabilities, a compulsory element of which should be the employment of such people, vocational guidance taking into account their capabilities and the needs of the labour market, as well as the establishment of stricter liability for employers for violating the right to work of people with disabilities. It is noted that in order to overcome gender discrimination in employment, it is necessary to establish the characteristics of equal and equivalent work, taking into account the type of tasks undertaken by employees, skills, education and qualification requirements, and to oblige employers to report to the Public Employment Service on differential pay data, as these are the indicators of compliance with Article 20 of the European Social Charter. It is substantiated that the Committee has repeatedly pointed out in its conclusions the importance of transparency in remuneration, the application of the principle of equal pay for work of equal value, formally supported by the Government of Ukraine. Ukraine has approved the State Social Programme for Equal Rights and Opportunities for Women and Men for the period up to 2021. In particular, it provided for improvement of the legal framework, inclusion of a gender component in economic and social development programmes, expansion of the list of statistical indicators differentiated by article, etc. The programme still has not been fully implemented. In addition, the article proposes a ratification of the Additional Protocol to the European Social Charter providing for collective complaints. The European Committee of Social Rights interprets and details the Charter's provisions in its deliberations and thereby gives significance to its decisions. These activities result in a practice of modern implementation of the provisions of this international treaty, which can be used by the signatory countries in their own practice.

Labour lawyers often feel deeply ambivalent about the European Court of Justice. Few can doubt the pivotal role played by the Court in shaping the contours of European Community employment law. The Court has breathed life into the dry language of Treaty provisions and Community legislation in areas such as equal pay and acquired rights, enabling individuals to use the law as a sword against their employer and/or Member State in the national courts. Community law has also, in the hands of the Court, provided a shield for the protection of collective systems of social organisation and distribution against untrammelled market forces. However, for every advance, the Court’s detractors can point to a retreat: the potential of P v S was soon limited in Grant; Schmidt was trumped in Süzen; and BECTU was narrowed down in Bowden. Cases such as Albany International and Schröder, initially lauded, have, on closer inspection, left a mixed and uncertain legacy. For all of these reasons – and more – a book that places the work of the Court of Justice at the centre of its examination of Community employment law is both timely and welcome.

The European legislation on labour policies is emblematically represented by the system managed by the European Central Bank (ECB) in which price stability first comes, then all the rest. Unlike other similar institutions, the ECB is the only central bank whose sole objective is to maintain price stability, or better win the fight against inflation. Unlike the ECB, the US Federal Reserve has the so-called dual mandates, which is a dual objective of intervention: price stability and employment. In this sense, the Fed is required to effectively promote the objectives of maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long-term interest rates, protecting in an equal way both the needs of the market economy and the rights of workers.In the European Union, in general, the objective of price stability is in fact superordinate to all the others, even those that Art. 3 of the Treaty of the European Union seemed to be on the same level. The fight against unemployment therefore becomes secondary even if, for example, in the Italian constitution the right to work since 1948 is considered a fundamental right.The decisive point is that the prevailing value is attributed to monetary stability with the consequent weakening of policies - potentially inflationary - such as the active ones of labour and more generally of stimulus of the economy.The new EU policies on financial issues are therefore destined to have a strong impact on the regulation of workers' rights in individual states. And above all in Italy where the principle of a balanced budget in 2012 even became a constitutional provision.

The phenomenon of malicious non-payment of wages is widespread in all countries of the world, maybe it is especially serious in China, it has attracted a lot of attention from the Party (CPC) and the Chinese government. Under conditions when the solution of this issue through civil and administrative methods is not very effective, the Chinese legislative bodies, under the leadership of offi cials, fi nally decided to use the intimidating power of criminal punishment to solve this problem, which has tormented the government for many years.Article 41 “Amendments to the Criminal Code (8) of the People’s Republic of China” states: After article 276 of the Criminal Law, an article is added as one of the articles 276: Evasion of payment of wages to workers by transferring property, escape, etc. Or those who are able to pay, but do not pay wages to employees in the case when the amount is relatively large, and the relevant government departments order the payment of wages, but still cannot pay, are punished with imprisonment for up to 3 years or arrest, and additionally or as an independent punishment — a fi ne; Persons who have committed the same violations that have entailed serious consequences are punished with imprisonment for a term of 3 to 7 years and additionally with a fi ne. If the crime mentioned in the fi rst part of this article was committed by an organization, a fi ne is applied to the organization, and the directly responsible heads of the organization and other directly responsible persons are punished in accordance with the fi rst part of this article. The acts provided for in the fi rst and second parts of this article, which did not entail serious consequences, in which the employee’s salary for work is paid before the charge is brought and appropriate compensation is accepted in accordance with the law, then the punishment may be commuted or released. Article 276 of the Criminal Code provides for the crime of causing harm to production and economy, which belongs to this chapter crime against property (Chapter 5 of the special part of the Criminal Code). Therefore, the crime of malicious non-payment of wages is a crime against the property of citizens (employees).Due to the fact that the Chinese Constitution does not provide that citizens have the right to receive remuneration, only the Labor Legislation states: that Workers have the right to equal employment and choice of profession, the right to receive wages for work ... In view of this, that from the point of view of legal relations, based on both the Labor Law and the Law on the Employment Contract, the effect of non-payment of wages only occurred between the employee and the employer. According to the employment contract, disputes arising when, after the employee has fulfi lled the contract, but the employer does not pay him wages in accordance with the contract.The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation provides for crimes of non-payment of wages, pensions, scholarships, allowances and other necessary payments in chapter 19 “crimes against the constitutional rights and freedoms of man and citizen” of section VII “Crimes against the person”. Bringing together the above, the rights to pay for work, receive state pensions and social benefi ts, etc., protected by the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, are constitutional rights. And also, they are specifi ed in Article 2 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation a person, his rights and freedoms are the highest value. Recognition, observance and protection of human and civil rights and freedoms is the duty of the state, specifi ed in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.In China, when criminalizing the action of non-payment of wages, the most fundamental issue that needs to be resolved is to have a basis of justice, that is, to introduce "income from labor" into the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, which provides for the basic rights of a citizen. At the same time, it is necessary to amend the chapter related to “crimes against the rights of the individual and the democratic rights of citizens in the Criminal Code,” and to amend the “crime against constitutional rights,” as well as the chapter includes “crimes of non-payment of wages, scholarships, pensions and benefi ts”, but should not be included in chapter 5 “crime against property”.As a result, a comparison of the criminal code between the two countries China and Russia on the crime of malicious non-payment of wages shows that there are contradictions and problems in Chinese legislation, and the political signifi cance of the legislation far exceeds the legal signifi cance, which will directly affect its application in judicial practice.

Currently, many authors pay attention to the criminological description of the object of their research. This approach is absolutely justified. It is better to examine the institutes of criminal law in correlation with the interdisciplinary spheres of knowledge. The article presents an analysis of adjacent but not equal legal categories of the subject of crime and the personality of a criminal. This research is relevant today because crimes committed by persons with characteristics of a special subject in general, and with the use of their official position in particular, have a higher degree of public danger. It is connected with a wide area of official interests of public officers. Their criminal offences destabilize the normal work of governmental bodies. Corruption, abuse of office, general crimes committed for personal gain act as negative social and legal phenomena that widen the range of persons in criminal statistics referring to special subject. A heightened degree of public danger in the actions of public officers is a factor that influences current criminal legislation. An example is the abuse of public office as a circumstance that aggravates criminal liability. The contents of the norms in the Special Part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation could be named a legislative reaction of the authorities to the growing level of misuse of office. The current Criminal Code of the Russian Federation mentions the misuse of office with mercenary motives or for personal gain, acting as an aggravating circumstance for the main crime, over 60 times. Taking into account that the contemporary condition and scale of the self-determination of crime according to the characteristic of a special subject are developing interconnected systemic causes and conditions, it is possible to discuss the necessity of criminological prevention of crimes with a special subject — a criminogenic person who has specific functions (as a rule, a representative of authorities).

Abstract. This work aims at providing an updated scenario on the underrepresentation of women in the Italian university system in the area of geosciences in the last two decades. The retrieved official data on permanent full and associate professors in the 19-years considered highlight some positive trends: an increase in the number of female full professors from 9.0 % to 18.5 % and in female associate professors from 23.6 % to 28.9 %. However, although the number of female full professors almost doubled in this period, such increase still represents an excessively slow trend. Slightly better is the trend related to associate professors. The picture portrayed for non-permanent researchers, called RTD-b, as introduced by the Italian Law no. 240/2010 (essentially tenure-track associate professor position), instead raises strong concerns for the future seen that the female percentage is just 26 %, thus exhibiting a significant gender imbalance. This is even more significant if we consider that the student population in geosciences shows a gender imbalance of about 37 %, no gender gap at PhD level and a relatively high Glass Ceiling Index (GCI) during the career progression of women. An analysis of the geographical distribution of female researchers in geosciences has evidenced that, although the percentages of women are comparable, the GCI calculated in Southern Italy has been alarmingly high in the last 2–3 years and is divergent from the decrease observed in Northern and Central Italy. The work also analyses the gender balance over different areas of geosciences, showing that in Paleontology and Paleoecology the gap is inverted with more female than male professors, both at full and associate professor level, whereas the gap is almost closed in Mineralogy for associate professors, far though from being balanced for full professors. All remaining geological disciplines suffer a gender imbalance. Further analysis carried out in this work unveils that the number of female full professor is low (<10 %) both at national and regional level in the 2000–2009 decade, consistent with a GCI higher than 2.5–3. From 2010 to 2013, likely in response to the Italian Law no. 240 of 2010, an important progressive increase, associated with a decrease of GCI, is visible. However, from 2014 to 2019 the percentage remains constant (∼20 %) with the exception of Southern Italy, which displays a return to lower values (<15 %). Finally, an international comparison with countries like Germany and the USA definitively indicates that the Italian university system is more equal in terms of gender balance. Even if some significant and positive steps have been carried out in the Italian university system, still much effort is required to fight a general and crucial problem which is the gender balance issue. Results could be achieved promoting work-life balance policies that better reconcile family and work, stimulating a reorganization of the work system still currently set on the male model but, and more importantly, changing the prevailing patriarchal mentality. The Italian university system has already a great example to follow: the zero-pay gap. This is possibly the only system worldwide where male and female professors earn the same identical salary, compared to the salary gap of between 15 % and 30 % of countries richer than Italy, and must be the target to reach, in the near future, for gender balance.

The article analyzes the legal regulation for the denunciation of the conventions of the International Labour Organization. Both automatic and "pure" denunciations of conventions are examined. Ratified ILO conventions have traditionally been one of the key sources of national labour law. However, over time, some of them have lost their relevance and practical importance. The most common way to waive obligations under ratified conventions is to denounce them. Denunciation is provided for in every ILO convention, with the exception of Conventions Nos. 80 and 116, which contain rules relating to the partial revision of previous conventions. In addition, a mechanism for partial denunciation is provided for certain conventions. Such a mechanism is expressed in the possibility of denunciation of: a) certain sections of the Convention, e.g. Invalidity, Old-Age and Survivors' Benefits Convention, 1967 (No. 128); b) certain categories covered by the scope of the convention, e.g. Working Environment (Air Pollution, Noise and Vibration) Convention, 1977 (No. 148). It is determined that most denunciations of ILO conventions occur automatically, due to the country's ratification of more recent conventions. In Ukraine, all denunciation of ILO conventions took place automatically. The "pure" denunciations are more relevant to outdated conventions or conventions that no longer correspond to existing fundamental principles in the world of work. An example is Night Work (Women) Convention (Revised), 1948 (No. 89), which was denounced by Austria, Greece, Italy, Ireland, France, the Czech Republic, etc. The provisions of this Convention are no longer in line with the ILO's existing policy of equal rights and opportunities for men and women in world of work. The practice of denouncing up-to-date ILO conventions should not be called widespread, primarily due to the need for mandatory prior tripartite consultations on this issue, which involves comprehensive consideration of the interests of government, employees and employers. Ratification by the country of the ILO conventions puts national labour legislation in a fairly clear framework, which in some cases may serve as a reason for slowing down specific areas of its further development. After all, certain conventions were adopted at a time when completely different regulatory approaches in the world of work were applied than those that exist today. Resolving this issue is possible through the timely and balanced application of the denunciation procedure. This procedure, provided for in almost all ILO conventions, should be considered as a clear example of the harmonious evolution of international labour standards. Keywords: International Labour Organization, conventions, automatic denunciation, "pure" denunciation, ratification, national legislation.

Part II of this Comment discusses the origins and development of eminent domain in the United States and Texas as well as briefly exploring the judicial developments in the interpretation of public use in the United States and Texas. As discussed below, case law has articulated the breadth of the public use definition to include utility and development plans that are for public purposes. This breadth and delegation of authority encompasses a wider range of property that may be taken than originally conceived without any sort of balancing growth in protection for landowners. Part II also discusses the origins, modern development and process of compensating landowners for their condemned property. Part III analyzes the fair market value calculation of just compensation and its failure to adequately compensate landowners. It then suggests methods that Texas could employ to establish an improved balance between the power of the state to condemn land and the financial well-being of targeted property owners. This comment recommends legislation to include relocation costs to a comparable dwelling as part of a displaced homeowners "adequate compensation" to put them in the same pecuniary position they were in before the condemnation proceedings. This comment also suggests Texas tax legislation to roll the effective date of a residence property tax exemption designed to freeze elderly or disabled landowner's property taxes to the landowner's new residence after eminent domain displacement. This would not only provide calculable, subjective compensation not available by fair market value but also maintain stable economic circumstances for a particularly susceptible group of citizens. This Comment then also recommends harkening back to the early American Mill Acts, which granted private entities the ability to use another's land for a public purpose but required the landowners to be compensated an additional fifty percent of their damages. This extra (or debatably equal) compensation is a way to restrain private eminent domain authorities since they do not have public oversight of their actions and work as a tax on the coercive ability to take the land of another. Re- quiring private entities to pay more for land they take will reduce the number of private entity takings, while still allowing for productive development. Additionally, providing more than fair market value to condemnees would more accurately compensate for the true costs of a forced relocation and thus reduce the incentives of the property owner to litigate or otherwise oppose the taking. All three recommendations focus on the just compensation needed to place landowners in the same pecuniary position they would have been prior to condemnation and serve as a meaningful safeguard to rebalance the equity of eminent domain to its origins.

Problem setting. One of the most important tasks of modern science of public management and administration is the further improvement of management technologies, management decisions in banking in particular and the increase of their efficiency and effectiveness. Accordingly, the scientific interest is not only in the study and the analysis of banking legislation of certain countries, but in the adaptation of national legislation to the directives of the European Union. The urgency of improving the mechanism of state regulation of the market for the provision of services for the collection of funds and transportation of currency valuables in the banking system of Ukraine is undeniable, the implementation of which should include the mandatory establishment of real requirements and measures of responsibility of managers of both individual financial institutions and regulatory bodies. Recent research and publications analysis. The organization of central banks of the world, their legal status, main functions, comparative aspects, regulatory activities in the field of the organization of cash circulation and cash collection were studied in the works of L. Voronova, D. Hetmantsev, V. Krotyuk, S. Yehorychev, M. Starynsky, P. Melnyk, S. Laptev, I. Zaverukha. Legal problems of legalization of firearms circulation in Ukraine were studied by А. Kolosok, P. Mitrukhov, P. Fries, S. Shumilenko and others. The works of V. Baranyak, V. Меzhyvy, М. Pinchuk, T. Pryhodko, V. Rybachuk, В. Tychyi, etc. are devoted to the study of legal problems of illegal handling of weapons. However, these works do not reflect the peculiarities of the use of firearms in subdivisions of collection of funds. Native and foreign scholars generally have not paid due attention to the study and the analysis of the existing model of cash circulation in Ukraine, its advantages, risks and disadvantages as well as the effective functioning of the market of collection of funds and transportation of currency valuables in the banking system of Ukraine. Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem. The purpose of this article is to analyze the innovative foreign experience of state regulation of the market of collection of funds and transportation of currency valuables in the banking system of Ukraine (hereinafter – collection of funds) and to justify the need for its implementation in Ukraine. Another important problem in collection activities is the lack of legislative regulation of firearms trafficking as there is no law on weapons in Ukraine, there are only regulations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, which greatly complicates its regulation by the state according to P. Fries. Paper main body. The market of collection of funds and transportation of currency valuables (hereinafter – the market of collection) is one of the most closed segments of the banking system of any country as a whole. The most popular way to pay for services and goods during the last few years, according to annual surveys conducted by the Swiss central bank, is cash. The important factor is that even with the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, the demand for cash and cash flow has increased significantly. The National Bank of Ukraine carries out regulatory activities in accordance with the requirements of the Law of Ukraine “On Principles of State Regulatory Policy in the Field of Economic Activity”. Collection of funds has never been a particularly profitable activity, for the subdivisions of collection of any country along with the staff and transportation costs, that is why to ensure the proper security of cash transportation is a very costly item of the estimate. In this regard, there is an urgent need for the adoption of the Law of Ukraine “On collection of funds and transportation of currency valuables” and “On firearms”, which would define the basic foundations, principles, forms of activities in the field of collection services, rights, duties and responsibilities of all participants in the collection market, in order to increase their reliability, safety and efficiency. In the countries of the European Union (EU), services for the collection and transportation of currency valuables are provided by public and private enterprises. In many EU countries there is no legal definition of the concept ‘collection’. In most cases, collection falls under the general legislation on the basics of security, except for Austria and Germany, which regulate such activities through professional organizations, insurance and collective agreements. Today, five foreign global CIT companies account for almost 60% of the global CIT market for cash collection and cash handling services. They are: – Brinks (USA) – 23%; – G4S (England) – 15%; – Loomis (Sweden) – 12%; – Prosegur (Spain) – 7%; – Garda (Canada) – 4%; – GSLS – 0.01%; – Other regional independent companies – 39%. In six EU countries (Denmark, Ireland, Greece, Sweden, Great Britain and the Netherlands) the presence of firearms during collection of funds is prohibited. In Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and Spain, the presence of a weapon in the performance of professional collection duties is mandatory. Safe collection of funds largely depends on the fast, without delays, safe travel by road. Ukraine needs to reform its transport system to gain access to the European Union’s rail, road, river and air transport markets and to financial resources for building safe infrastructure of high quality. Conclusions of the research and prospects for further studies. Unfortunately, there are no well-known world CIT collection companies in the Ukrainian market of collection services and therefore Ukrainian banks and legal entities have to deal with local CIT companies, the authorized capital of which in some cases may be significantly less than the amount of the collected cash. In accordance with the mentioned above, for the effective functioning of the Ukrainian market of collection of funds and a balanced regulatory policy of the state, we suggest making appropriate changes and additions to the Laws of Ukraine on “Banks and Banking”, “National Bank of Ukraine”. To initiate the development and adoption of the Laws of Ukraine “On Collection and Transportation of Currency Valuables” and “On Firearms” which will ensure equal competitive conditions in the collection market for all its participants, reliable labor protection, social guarantees and rights of employees of collection divisions.

Focused on the United Nations since its inception women's rights without any discrimination between men and women, Vchrist right to education, through resistance to discrimination in education Treaty, and their right to enjoy political rights through three international documents is the Political Rights of Women, the Convention on Elimination of All Forms discrimination against women, on civil and political rights, which asked the Member States to abide by securing equality between spouses in the rights and responsibilities of the marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution and the international Covenant. ILO also focused on women's work, issued a number of international conventions in this regard, including the Maternity Protection Convention, and the Convention on the prohibition of night work for women, the Convention on equal pay between male and female workers at the equal value of work, and the Convention on discrimination in employment and occupation. On the basis of the principles of equality and equal opportunities between men and women and a commitment to the principles and international resolutions to abolish all forms of discrimination on grounds of sex, it made Algeria efforts to guarantee women's rights and the equality between men and women in rights and duties, and this was confirmed by the constitutions of the Algerian successive constitutional amendment for the year 2016 and the various legislation the most important of the national Labour and social security and the family Law Act and order No. 76-35 on the organization of education and training modified and complemented.

The article presents a study of the legal regulation of women and persons with family responsibilities. An analysis of domestic regulations on this topic. In particular, the norms enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine have been studied. Chapter XII, which deals with women's labor, is analyzed in the Labor Code. The Law of Ukraine "On Labor Protection" and the Law of Ukraine "On Ensuring Equal Rights and Opportunities for Women and Men", the draft Labor Code were also considered. International normative legal acts are analyzed. ILO Conventions: No45 - on the use of women in underground work in mines of any kind, No100 - on equal pay for men and women for work of equal value, No103 - on maternity protection, No111 - on discrimination in employment and occupations, No156 - on equal treatment and equal opportunities for working men and women: workers with family responsibilities; Article 11 of the 1979 UN Convention. It is noted that for working women there are: guarantees for part-time work, a ban on the involvement of pregnant women and women with children under 3 years of age, night, overtime work, work on weekends and sending them on business trips; restricting the involvement of women with children aged 3 to 14 or children with disabilities in overtime work and sending them on business trips; maternity leave and childcare leave; the procedure for granting leave to care for a child and enrolling him in the length of service; leave for women who have adopted children; additional leave for employees who have children; guarantees of employment and prohibition of dismissal of pregnant women and women with children; providing pregnant women and women with children under the age of 14 with vouchers to sanatoriums, rest homes and financial assistance; mother's service at enterprises, organizations; guarantees that also apply to parents raising children without a mother, as well as to guardians (trustees). Deficiencies in the current labor legislation have been identified. Gender inequalities in the workplace have been identified. The conclusions and prospects for the development of protection and protection of the rights of women and persons with family responsibilities are presented.

Women in Universities Women have been fighting for the right to participate in universities since 1873, when Sophia Jex Blake went to court with her fight to enrol at Edinburgh University. In rejecting her application, one of the judges stated: It is a belief, widely entertained, that there is a great difference in the mental constitution of the two sexes, just as there is in their physical conformation. The powers and susceptibilities of women are as noble as those of men; but they are thought to be different, and, in particular, it is considered that they have not the same power of intense labour as men .... (Scutt 224) In Australia, from the 1850s to the 1880s, both the University of Sydney and The University of Melbourne refused to admit women as students. In 1879, the Chancellor of the University of Sydney suggested that: The best course to be taken by advocates of advanced education for women, would be to found some sort of affiliated college for them in the vicinity of the University ... if there really be a widespread wish on the part of young women for a higher education ..." (Scutt 228). Having finally won the right to study at university in 1881, and to enter the academic workforce, women are still finding many of the old prejudices remain. Numerous studies have demonstrated that women's experiences in academe are qualitatively different from men's and that women are systematically paid lower salaries than men of equivalent academic achievement, age and length of service (Bagilhole 431-47; Loder 713-4; McElrath 269-81;). Studies have shown that differences in the experiences of male and female faculty are largely explained by gender (Booth & Burton 312-33; Everett 159-75; Over & Lancaster 309-18; Ready 7) and sex discrimination is highlighted as an ongoing contributor to the inequity (Allport 5-8; Hall & Swadener 1; Tuohy 8). A recent UNESCO-Commonwealth (http://www.unesco.org/) report states that: ... in spite of advances which women have made in many areas of public life in the past two decades, in the area of higher education management they are still a long way from participating on the same footing as men. With hardly an exception, the global picture is one of men outnumbering women at about five to one at middle management level and at about twenty to one at senior management level (Singh 4). The introduction in Australia of Sex Discrimination legislation (http://www.hreoc.gov.au/sex_discrimination/) in 1984 and more recently, Affirmative Action policies ( http://www.austlii.edu.au/) in employment and promotion rounds in some universities has not improved women's situation to the extent expected. In 1978, women held 16% of full time academic posts while gaining 25% of all higher degrees and 30% of undergraduate degrees (Commonwealth Government statistics cited by Over and McKenzie 61-71). In 1999, 54% of students were women yet women's participation in academe had only increased to 35% (DETYA) (http://www.deet.gov.au/). Women are mainly employed at the lowest academic levels. In 1999, 72% of women were employed at Levels A and B (Associate Lecturer/Lecturer) compared to 46% of men, with only 8% of women reaching Levels D and E (Associate Professor/Professor) compared to 26% of men. Women continue to be clustered in the traditionally female areas of Health, Education and Arts while few seem to have successfully broken through the barriers in the traditionally male areas of Engineering, Architecture or Agriculture (DETYA) (http://www.deet.gov.au/). Business has traditionally been viewed as a male preserve but enrolments have increased to the point where women almost equal men. However, the staff ratio of men to women remains very low at 70/30 (DETYA) (http://www.deet.gov.au/). The slow growth rate for women in academe belies the fact that more women than men are now completing university degrees. The purpose of this study was to determine how well the experiences of academic women in the male-dominated faculties of business and commerce, reflect the literature on women in universities, in general. Previous empirical studies have found inequitable treatment of women without necessarily exploring the processes of discrimination. The Study This study involved interviews with academic women who had been employed in faculties of business and commerce for at least five years. The research used the 'snowballing' technique: participants initially comprised women known to me but as these women told female colleagues of my study I was given the names of other women who were willing to participate. Participants comprised twenty-one women from three universities in Western Australia, two universities in New South Wales and one Victorian university. One woman had recently left academe and started her own business because of discriminatory practices she had encountered and another was contemplating leaving. In each university, women comprised a minority of the faculty and felt disadvantaged in some way. A semi-structured interview was used to explore with the women the issues that had been identified from previous studies of sex discrimination in the academic profession. Open-ended questions were used and the interviews conducted face to face, or, in the case of those interstate, via telephone or email. The women spoke frankly about their experiences. Findings and Discussion Promotion Each of the women in this study said that their university had established an internal promotion policy based on merit. However, they felt the greatest problem they had encountered in gaining promotion was in determining the criteria upon which they would be judged each year, and in meeting those criteria. "I have been chasing promotion for over five years. At first I was told that I would not be promoted until I got my masters degree so I worked really hard to complete it but then a male colleague was promoted without a masters. Once I got the masters I was told I needed to publish to be promoted but in the next year someone else was promoted without any publications. You go all out to meet the criteria each year but in the next year the promotions committee changes and so do the criteria for that year"(Lecturer applying for Senior Lecturer position). The promotion procedure at one university was explained by a Senior Lecturer who had served on promotion committees on two occasions. "There are about ten criteria upon which promotion can be based. When the applications are received we all get together to determine which are the criteria to be applied. In the last promotion round only four of the ten criteria were used so only people satisfying those criteria were selected." When asked whether the criteria were the same as the previous year she replied: "Last year there was more emphasis on qualifications and publications. This year community involvement and involvement in university affairs were judged as more important ... it varies from year to year". On questioning about the promotion procedures at their universities, women stated they were largely dissatisfied with the process, that they were presumed to be satisfied with their lot while the men were actively encouraged to apply. "I was told not to bother to apply (for a senior lecturer position) as I would not get it ... that there was a queue of people to be promoted before me - (named males) - and until they were promoted, I would not be considered" (Lecturer). "The position was advertised with a specific male applicant in mind and specifically excluded me by stating that the appointee must have supervisory experience. Women in my department are not given the opportunity to supervise students so I didn't even bother applying."(Lecturer aspiring to a Senior Lecturer position). One woman, upon inquiring why she was not promoted, was told that she should be grateful to have tenure and asked why she wanted to be promoted, anyway. "They would never have said that to a male, they would have expected a male to be working towards promotion" (Associate Lecturer). All women interviewed stated that they had problems keeping up with the 'goal posts' which moved from year to year. The 'moving of the goal posts' is one means by which universities are able to maintain the position of women at lower levels. Unsurprisingly, some women said they felt that promotion at their university was based on politics rather than merit. However, defining merit in universities is problematic. According to Burton (430), definitions of what is meritorious depend upon the power of particular groups to define it and, as a result, can change. The narrow view of merit is 'the best person for the job' which Burton (113) describes as an "overwhelming tendency to select in your own image". Burton (430) and Allport (5) claim universities define merit along male cultural lines with current selection, remuneration and career progression practices strongly influenced by an underlying gender bias. Burton (430) argues that there is still a tendency for work to be ranked as 'men's' or women's work with lower status attributed to the latter and an assumption that different skills and abilities are needed for each. Over and McKenzie (61-71) claim that women are disadvantaged by the fact that invalid merit criteria are applied to them which men as a group are more likely to satisfy. They state that the academic careers of most women do not fit the stereotypic male experience and it is mainly men who decide whether women should be promoted. At one university in the study, the merit criteria for senior lecturer include the requirement that aspirants have a number of overseas conference presentations. "Some of us are single working mothers and overseas conference attendance is out of the question because who's going to mind our children while we are away? The senior males were astonished when I mentioned that this was a problem for me. It had never occurred to them" (Associate Lecturer on why women at her university do not apply for promotion). Family Responsibilities The women commented on the numerous difficulties they had encountered in combining an academic career with responsibility for children. They felt that certain male faculty members perceived married women with children as lacking in career commitment, whereas married men with families were viewed as being more stable and committed to their careers. One married woman claimed that when she needed to go home to tend a sick child, her male Head of Department told her she should "get her priorities right". In 1992, Family Responsibility provisions were added to the Sex Discrimination Act (http://scaleplus.law.gov.au/html/pasteact/0/171/top.htm). However, it would appear that individual practice doesn't always follow as a result of changes in policy. Equal Pay On the subject of equal pay for equal work, the women said that they were often paid lower wages than their male colleagues despite having higher qualifications and equivalent teaching and research experience. Some women felt that the barriers between academic levels were used to artificially maintain the wage gap between men and women, regardless of qualifications and ability. This was felt to be particularly the case between the levels of Associate Lecturer (Level A) and Lecturer (Level B). "They find excuses to keep you at Associate Lecturer so that they can pay you less to do the same work that you would be doing as a lecturer ... lecturing, coordinating units and so on"(Associate Lecturer). "There are no men below Lecturer in my Department, either lecturing or with Masters degrees. As soon as they get their Masters they are promoted to Lecturer.... I'm coordinating units as an Associate Lecturer while some male lecturers have less responsibility' (Associate Lecturer with Masters degree and publications) Two women said that they had been performing higher level duties (Level B) for up to five years while working on their Masters but their university refused to pay them at the higher level until they had completed their degree. Even when they satisfied all the requirements for the Masters degree and had a letter from their supervisor saying they had satisfied all the requirements, the university refused to pay them until they had actually graduated, which was some time later. Shortly afterwards their university took on two men to perform the same duties, paying these at the higher level even though they had not completed a masters degree. One former lecturer claimed that she was employed at a time when there was a large turnover of staff in her department. A number of new staff were appointed of whom she was the only female. Although she and the other new staff were all employed at Lecturer Level B, it wasn't until later on that she discovered that the men were appointed at the top of the Lecturer salary scale while she was appointed at the bottom, with a salary differential of about10 000pa. This was despite the fact that both she and the men had similar qualifications and work experience at commencement. Teaching Loads Another complaint by women concerned inequitable teaching loads. An analysis in one Business School showed that women had higher teaching loads while men were given more time off for research. The women complained that the supervision of post-graduate students was divided up between the men, and women were excluded. Since research publication and student supervision are usually the most highly ranked criteria in academic promotion rounds, women who are not given the opportunity to participate in these areas are disadvantaged when applying for promotion. This problem is compounded since women are overwhelmingly employed at the lower levels where responsibility for the majority of teaching takes place. This leaves them with little time left to devote to research even if given the opportunity. The women also said they were often pressured into taking on higher duties than those prescribed in the Position Classification Standards for their level. They tended to acquiesce because of their need to prove they were better than men to gain promotion. One woman said that the extra administrative duties she had been given meant that she had less time for research which actually reduced her prospects for tenure and promotion. She said she didn't dare complain as the men in her department would use it as an excuse to question her commitment to her job. Conclusion An examination of women's perceptions and experiences in the workplace can help us understand the informal processes that work against women. The experiences of the women discussed in this paper provide an insight into the subtle processes that continue to operate in some higher education institutions to prevent women from reaching their full potential. Although equal opportunity legislation (http://www.hreoc.gov.au/about_the_commission/legislation/index.html) has been enacted to prevent discrimination and disadvantage to women, the implementation of policy does not always filter through to the operational levels. It is still possible to circumvent legislation in subtle ways, perhaps without even being aware that these practices are discriminative. The women in this study spoke frankly about their experiences and the difficulties they had encountered in gaining equal recognition to men, with very few satisfied that they were receiving equitable treatment. The women felt that their work was not valued as highly as that of the men they worked with and they were given less opportunities for advancement. Overall, the interviews with the women revealed interesting insights into their experiences in pursuing academic careers and in trying to gain recognition for their achievements. The collective experiences of the women provide an insight into the subtle ways in which disadvantage can be engendered. The findings of this study have serious implications for university administrators, particularly deans and heads of schools. There are many well-qualified women academics and universities cannot afford to overlook the valuable contribution these women can make to teaching, research and university governance. References Allport, Caroline. "Improving Gender Equity: Using Industrial Bargaining". NTEU Frontline4.1 (1996): 5-8. Bacchi, Carol. "The Brick Wall: Why So Few Women Become Senior Academics". Australian Universities Review36.1 (1993): 36-41. Bagilhole, Barbara. "Survivors in a Male Preserve: A Study of British Women Academics' Experiences and Perceptions of Discrimination in a UK University". Higher Education26 (1993): 431-47. Booth, Alison, and Jonathon Burton. "The Position of Women in UK Academic Economics". The Economic Journal110.464 (2000): 312-33. Burton, Clare. "Merit and Gender: Organisations and the Mobilisation of Masculine Bias." Australian Journal of Social Issues22 (1987): 424-35. Burton, Clare. An Equity Review of Staffing Policies and Associated Decision-making at Edith Cowan University. Report commissioned by ECU. 1994. DETYA. Selected Higher Education Statistics. 1999. Everett, James. "Sex, Rank and Qualifications at Australian Universities". Australian Journal of Management19.2 (1994): 159-75. Hall, Elaine, and Beth Blue Swadener. "Chilly Climate: A Study of Subtle Sex Discrimination at a State University". Initiatives (Online)59.3 (2000): 1. Loder, Natasha. "US Science Shocked by Revelations of Sexual Discrimination". Nature405.6787 (2000): 713-4. McElrath, Karen. "Gender, Career Disruption and Academic Rewards". Journal of Higher Education63.3 (1992): 269-81. Over, Ray, and Sandra Lancaster. "The Early Career Patterns of Men and Women in Australian Universities". The Australian Journal of Education28.3 (1984): 309-18. Over, Ray, and Beryl Mckenzie. "Career Prospects for Women in Australian Universities". Journal of Tertiary Educational Administration7.1 (1985): 61-71. Ready, Tinker. "West Coast US Recognizes Academic Gender Bias". Nature Medicine 7.1 (2000): 1. Scutt, Jocelyn. The Sexual Gerrymander.The Law Printer, 1994. Singh, Jasbir. "Women and Management in Higher Education: A Commonwealth Project." A.C.U. Bulletin of Current Documentation. 133 (1998): 2-8. Tuohy, John. "Sex Discrimination Infects Med Schools: Women Say Bias Blocks Chances for Advancement". USA Today2000. 8. Links http://www.unesco.org/ http://www.deet.gov.au/ http://www.hreoc.gov.au/sex_discrimination/ http://www.hreoc.gov.au/about_the_commission/legislation/index.html http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgibin/disp.pl/au/legis/cth/consol%5fact/aaeofwa 1986634/?query=title+%28+%22affirmative+action%22+%29 http://scaleplus.law.gov.au/html/pasteact/0/171/top.htm Citation reference for this article MLA Style Ellis-Newman, Jennifer. "Women and Work" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 4.5 (2001). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0111/Ellis-Newman.xml >. Chicago Style Ellis-Newman, Jennifer, "Women and Work" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 4, no. 5 (2001), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0111/Ellis-Newman.xml > ([your date of access]). APA Style Ellis-Newman, Jennifer. (2001) Women and Work. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 4(5). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0111/Ellis-Newman.xml > ([your date of access]).

Abstract Hidden discrimination in treatment, inability to pay for health services, insufficient information about health and social rights, are just some of the obstacles faced by Roma population and other marginalized communities in terms of achieving health rights in North Macedonia. Previous experience has shown encouraging community activism and following social determinant in the exercise of health rights are of particular importance for achieving positive outcomes. Therefore, in the past year, a group of 18 Roma community activists called Community Health Promoters was formed. Their task was to monitor community movements, share promotional materials, initiate discussions on health care topics, identify what problems citizens are experiencing especially the ones that may be a sign of systemic barriers. What is also very important and, to our opinion, a revolutionary step to building up this group is that we had additional 4 non-Roma activists who voluntarily applied to be part of it. Community Health Promoters by the end of the previous year reached the number of 22 people (18 Roma and 4 non-Roma). More than 100 individual cases and 2 major systemic barriers to the exercise of rights have been identified - the first concerned the right to health insurance for persons who have just turned 18 years and are not in regular education, and the second on inadequate regulation in the new Law on Social Protection, regarding the obligation for the beneficiaries to seek allowance from his/her adult children not living in their household. In both cases, written reactions were submitted to the competent bodies. In the first case, a notification was received that a technical solution to the problem was already been prepared, and in the second case, within one month, an amendment to the Rulebook was made, for more appropriate regulation. Through these two cases, it has been demonstrated that this approach is critical to achieving adequate and equal access to health protection for all. Key messages If the legislation is not for all, it is not a right but a privilege. Community-based work is the only way to find out if the laws are applicable for all or just for the few.

This podcast is a recording of a roundtable discussion on Co-operatives in the Cultural Industries, that took place at City University London on April 1, 2015, organised by Marisol Sandoval and Jo Littler. Speakers were Robin Murray, Rhiannon Colvin, Sion Whellens and Tara Mulqueen. The lives of cultural workers are complex and contradictory; often combining work satisfaction, pleasure and autonomy with job insecurity, low pay, long hours, anxiety and inequality.The roundtable discussed the potentials and limits of worker co-operatives as an alternative way of organizing cultural work. It explored how worker co-operation might contribute to new collaborative forms of cultural production; how they do, or might, strengthen a 'cultural commons'; and the role cultural co-ops play in the wider context of movements for workers' rights. Questions that were discussed include: To what extent can worker co-operatives be a means to confront precariousness and individualisation in work in the cultural sector? Do worker co-ops open up new possibilities for the collaborative production of cultural commons? What role can worker co-operatives play within a broader movement for creating more just, equal and humane cultural work and an alternative to capitalist economies? Where lies the boundary between neoliberal calls for self-help and individual responsibility and a radical co-op movement? What is the relation between worker co-ops and other forms of progressive politics such as the union movements, social protests and civil society activism? Can cultural co-ops contribute to reinventing the meaning and practice of work in the 21st century? About the speakers:Marisol Sandoval is a Lecturer at the Department of Culture and Creative Industries at City University London. Her research critically deals with questions of power, responsibility, commodification, exploitation, ideology and resistance in the global culture industry. Jo Littler is Senior Lecturer at City University London's Department of Culture and Creative Industries. Her work explores questions of culture and power from an interdisciplinary, cultural studies-informed perspective. Rhiannon Colvin after graduating in 2010 to find the world of work competitive and brutal, Rhiannon founded AltGen to empower young graduates to get together and create their own work. http://www.altgen.org.uk/ Tara Mulqueen is a PhD candidate at Birkbeck College School of Law. Her thesis concerns the development of legislation for co-operatives in the 19th century. Robin Murray is an industrial economist. He was Director of Industry at the Greater London Council (GLC) in the 1980s, and has been a Research Fellow at the University of Sussex, the Director of Development for the Government of Ontario and co-founder of Twin and Twin Trading. He is an associate of Co-operatives UK and author of Co-operation in the age of Google. http://www.uk.coop/ageofgoogle Sion Whellens is a member of the graphic design and print co-operative Calverts. As part of the Principle Six partnership, he also advises and supports co-ops in creative industries. http://www.calverts.coop

Both at the federal and state levels, tax credits have proved effective policy instruments to combat poverty, and they are at the heart of President Biden's massive initiative on childhood poverty. However, about one of every five children suffering poverty in the United States has an unauthorized immigrant parent and thus little or no access to tax credits. That is nearly two million children, and 85 percent of them are US citizens. Achieving historic reductions in childhood poverty thus will be impossible without remedying the eligibility exclusions and bureaucratic impediments that unauthorized immigrants face in the US tax system. All individuals who make money and reside in the United States are obliged to pay federal income taxes via a return filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). For unauthorized immigrants and others who do not qualify for a Social Security Number (SSN) that requires an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). In this two-tier system, ITIN filers have the same income tax due as Social Security filers, but they do not receive the same credits. ITIN filers have never been eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and some of their children were excluded from the Child Tax Credit (CTC) in the Trump administration's 2017 tax bill. Both credits are highly effective anti-poverty programs, providing immediate relief while also incentivizing work and earnings. The tax credits are the critical policy tool in Biden's American Plan for reducing child poverty, and they would be funded through the budget reconicilation legislation devised by Congressional Democrats in the summer of 2021. As summer drew to a close, ITIN inclusion was beginning to enter the discussion among advocates and legislators about the bill's detailed provisions. But eligibility is not the only barrier. Internal government monitors have repeatedly criticized the IRS for heavy-handed and inefficient practices that have placed undue burdens on ITIN taxpayers and that have hindered compliance with the law. The use of ITINs has plummeted in recent years from a high of 4.6 million returns in 2014 to 2.5 million in 2020. Prompted by the economic losses and the medical toll suffered by unauthorized immigrants during the pandemic and by their newly valued roles as “essential workers,” the federal government and several state governments have taken important steps to lessen the exclusion of ITIN taxpayers. The first federal stimulus package excluded not only ITIN holders but also their family members with SSNs. Congress extended eligibility to members of ITIN households with SSNs for the second and third stimulus checks. Meanwhile, California, Colorado, Maryland, New Mexico, Washington, Maine, and Oregon broke with the federal government and made ITIN filers fully eligible for their state EITCs, and as of July 2021 similar measures were under consideration in four other states. Early evidence from California and Colorado suggests that ITIN inclusion could prove a highly effective means of reaching poor children with the benefits of a state EITC. Child poverty can only be attacked successfully if ITIN households receive equal access to federal and state tax credit programs. This can be accomplished if: Congress and state legislatures permit full eligibility for all EITC and CTC programs. Congress mandates reforms to the procedures for getting and keeping an ITIN that have been proposed in multiple reports to Congress by the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an internal monitor at the IRS. Immigrants’ rights advocates and other civil society organizations, with government support, undertake a multi-year campaign to encourage ITIN application and use. The IRS receives funding to support a greatly expanded ITIN program.

For the past twenty years, academics and other social commentators have, by and large, shared the view that the phase of modernity through which we are currently passing is defined by two interrelated catalysts of change: the physical movement of people and the virtual movement of information around the globe. As we enter the second decade of the new millennium, it is certainly a timely moment to reflect upon the ways in which the prognoses of the scholars and scientists writing in the late twentieth century have come to pass, especially since—during the time this special issue has been in press—the revolutions that are gathering pace in the Arab world appear to be realising the theoretical prediction that the ever-increasing “flows” of people and information would ultimately bring about the end of the nation-state and herald an era of transnationalism (Appadurai, Urry). For writers like Arjun Appadurai, moreover, the concept of diaspora was key to grasping how this new world order would take shape, and how it would operate: Diasporic public spheres, diverse amongst themselves, are the crucibles of a postnational political order. The engines of their discourse are mass media (both interactive and expressive) and the movement of refugees, activists, students, laborers. It may be that the emergent postnational order proves not to be a system of homogeneous units (as with the current system of nation-states) but a system based on relations between heterogeneous units (some social movements, some interest groups, some professional bodies, some non-governmental organizations, some armed constabularies, some judicial bodies) ... In the short run, as we can see already, it is likely to be a world of increased incivility and violence. In the longer run, free from the constraints of the nation form, we may find that cultural freedom and sustainable justice in the world do not presuppose the uniform and general existence of the nation-state. This unsettling possibility could be the most exciting dividend of living in modernity at large. (23) In this editorial, we would like to return to the “here and now” of the late 1990s in which theorists like Arjun Appaduri, Ulrich Beck, John Urry, Zygmunt Bauman, Robert Robertson and others were “imagining” the consequences of both globalisation and glocalisation for the twenty-first century in order that we may better assess what is, indeed, coming to pass. While most of their prognoses for this “second modernity” have proven remarkably accurate, it is their—self-confessed—inability to forecast either the nature or the extent of the digital revolution that most vividly captures the distance between the mid-1990s and now; and it is precisely the consequences of this extraordinary technological revolution on the twin concepts of “glocality” and “diaspora” that the research featured in this special issue seeks to capture. Glocal Imaginaries Appadurai’s endeavours to show how globalisation was rapidly making itself felt as a “structure of feeling” (Williams in Appadurai 189) as well as a material “fact” was also implicit in our conceptualisation of the conference, “Glocal Imaginaries: Writing/Migration/Place,” which gave rise to this special issue. This conference, which was the culmination of the AHRC-funded project “Moving Manchester: Literature/Migration/Place (2006-10)”, constituted a unique opportunity to gain an international, cross-disciplinary perspective on urgent and topical debates concerning mobility and migration in the early twenty-first century and the strand “Networked Diasporas” was one of the best represented on the program. Attracting papers on broadcast media as well as the new digital technologies, the strand was strikingly international in terms of the speakers’ countries of origin, as is this special issue which brings together research from six European countries, Australia and the Indian subcontinent. The “case-studies” represented in these articles may therefore be seen to constitute something of a “state-of-the-art” snapshot of how Appadurai’s “glocal imaginary” is being lived out across the globe in the early years of the twenty-first century. In this respect, the collection proves that his hunch with regards to the signal importance of the “mass-media” in redefining our spatial and temporal coordinates of being and belonging was correct: The third and final factor to be addressed here is the role of the mass-media, especially in its electronic forms, in creating new sorts of disjuncture between spatial and virtual neighborhoods. This disjuncture has both utopian and dystopian potentials, and there is no easy way to tell how these may play themselves out in the future of the production of locality. (194) The articles collected here certainly do serve as testament to the “bewildering plethora of changes in ... media environments” (195) that Appadurai envisaged, and yet it can clearly also be argued that this agent of glocalisation has not yet brought about the demise of the nation-state in the way (or at the speed) that many commentators predicted. Digital Diasporas in a Transnational World Reviewing the work of the leading social science theorists working in the field during the late 1990s, it quickly becomes evident that: (a) the belief that globalisation presented a threat to the nation-state was widely held; and (b) that the “jury” was undecided as to whether this would prove a good or bad thing in the years to come. While the commentators concerned did their best to complexify both their analysis of the present and their view of the future, it is interesting to observe, in retrospect, how the rhetoric of both utopia and dystopia invaded their discourse in almost equal measure. We have already seen how Appadurai, in his 1996 publication, Modernity at Large, looks beyond the “increased incivility and violence” of the “short term” to a world “free from the constraints of the nation form,” while Roger Bromley, following Agamben and Deleuze as well as Appadurai, typifies a generation of literary and cultural critics who have paid tribute to the way in which the arts (and, in particular, storytelling) have enabled subjects to break free from their national (af)filiations (Pearce, Devolving 17) and discover new “de-territorialised” (Deleuze and Guattari) modes of being and belonging. Alongside this “hope,” however, the forces and agents of globalisation were also regarded with a good deal of suspicion and fear, as is evidenced in Ulrich Beck’s What is Globalization? In his overview of the theorists who were then perceived to be leading the debate, Beck draws distinctions between what was perceived to be the “engine” of globalisation (31), but is clearly most exercised by the manner in which the transformation has taken shape: Without a revolution, without even any change in laws or constitutions, an attack has been launched “in the normal course of business”, as it were, upon the material lifelines of modern national societies. First, the transnational corporations are to export jobs to parts of the world where labour costs and workplace obligations are lowest. Second, the computer-generation of worldwide proximity enables them to break down and disperse goods and services, and produce them through a division of labour in different parts of the world, so that national and corporate labels inevitably become illusory. (3; italics in the original) Beck’s concern is clearly that all these changes have taken place without the nation-states of the world being directly involved in any way: transnational corporations began to take advantage of the new “mobility” available to them without having to secure the agreement of any government (“Companies can produce in one country, pay taxes in another and demand state infrastructural spending in yet another”; 4-5); the export of the labour market through the use of digital communications (stereotypically, call centres in India) was similarly unregulated; and the world economy, as a consequence, was in the process of becoming detached from the processes of either production or consumption (“capitalism without labour”; 5-7). Vis-à-vis the dystopian endgame of this effective “bypassing” of the nation-state, Beck is especially troubled about the fate of the human rights legislation that nation-states around the world have developed, with immense effort and over time (e.g. employment law, trade unions, universal welfare provision) and cites Zygmunt Bauman’s caution that globalisation will, at worst, result in widespread “global wealth” and “local poverty” (31). Further, he ends his book with a fully apocalyptic vision, “the Brazilianization of Europe” (161-3), which unapologetically calls upon the conventions of science fiction to imagine a worst-case scenario for a Europe without nations. While fourteen or fifteen years is evidently not enough time to put Beck’s prognosis to the test, most readers would probably agree that we are still some way away from such a Europe. Although the material wealth and presence of the transnational corporations strikes a chord, especially if we include the world banks and finance organisations in their number, the financial crisis that has rocked the world for the past three years, along with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the ascendancy of Al-Qaida (all things yet to happen when Beck was writing in 1997), has arguably resulted in the nations of Europe reinforcing their (respective and collective) legal, fiscal, and political might through rigorous new policing of their physical borders and regulation of their citizens through “austerity measures” of an order not seen since World War Two. In other words, while the processes of globalisation have clearly been instrumental in creating the financial crisis that Europe is presently grappling with and does, indeed, expose the extent to which the world economy now operates outside the control of the nation-state, the nation-state still exists very palpably for all its citizens (whether permanent or migrant) as an agent of control, welfare, and social justice. This may, indeed, cause us to conclude that Bauman’s vision of a world in which globalisation would make itself felt very differently for some groups than others came closest to what is taking shape: true, the transnationals have seized significant political and economic power from the nation-state, but this has not meant the end of the nation-state; rather, the change is being experienced as a re-trenching of whatever power the nation-state still has (and this, of course, is considerable) over its citizens in their “local”, everyday lives (Bauman 55). If we now turn to the portrait of Europe painted by the articles that constitute this special issue, we see further evidence of transglobal processes and practices operating in a realm oblivious to local (including national) concerns. While our authors are generally more concerned with the flows of information and “identity” than business or finance (Appaduri’s “ethnoscapes,” “technoscapes,” and “ideoscapes”: 33-7), there is the same impression that this “circulation” (Latour) is effectively bypassing the state at one level (the virtual), whilst remaining very materially bound by it at another. In other words, and following Bauman, we would suggest that it is quite possible for contemporary subjects to be both the agents and subjects of globalisation: a paradox that, as we shall go on to demonstrate, is given particularly vivid expression in the case of diasporic and/or migrant peoples who may be able to bypass the state in the manufacture of their “virtual” identities/communities) but who (Cohen) remain very much its subjects (or, indeed, “non-subjects”) when attempting movement in the material realm. Two of the articles in the collection (Leurs & Ponzanesi and Marcheva) deal directly with the exponential growth of “digital diasporas” (sometimes referred to as “e-diasporas”) since the inception of Facebook in 2004, and both provide specific illustrations of the way in which the nation-state both has, and has not, been transcended. First, it quickly becomes clear that for the (largely) “youthful” (Leurs & Ponzanesi) participants of nationally inscribed networking sites (e.g. “discovernikkei” (Japan), “Hyves” (Netherlands), “Bulgarians in the UK” (Bulgaria)), shared national identity is a means and not an end. In other words, although the participants of these sites might share in and actively produce a fond and nostalgic image of their “homeland” (Marcheva), they are rarely concerned with it as a material or political entity and an expression of their national identities is rapidly supplemented by the sharing of other (global) identity markers. Leurs & Ponzanesi invoke Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the “rhizome” to describe the way in which social networkers “weave” a “rhizomatic path” to identity, gradually accumulating a hybrid set of affiliations. Indeed, the extent to which the “nation” disappears on such sites can be remarkable as was also observed in our investigation of the digital storytelling site, “Capture Wales” (BBC) (Pearce, "Writing"). Although this BBC site was set up to capture the voices of the Welsh nation in the early twenty-first century through a collection of (largely) autobiographical stories, very few of the participants mention either Wales or their “Welshness” in the stories that they tell. Further, where the “home” nation is (re)imagined, it is generally in an idealised, or highly personalised, form (e.g. stories about one’s own family) or through a sharing of (perceived and actual) cultural idiosyncrasies (Marcheva on “You know you’re a Bulgarian when …”) rather than an engagement with the nation-state per se. As Leurs & Ponzanesi observe: “We can see how the importance of the nation-state gets obscured as diasporic youth, through cultural hybridisation of youth culture and ethnic ties initiate subcultures and offer resistance to mainstream cultural forms.” Both the articles just discussed also note the shading of the “national” into the “transnational” on the social networking sites they discuss, and “transnationalism”—in the sense of many different nations and their diasporas being united through a common interest or cause—is also a focus of Pikner’s article on “collective actions” in Europe (notably, “EuroMayDay” and “My Estonia”) and Harb’s highly topical account of the role of both broadcast media (principally, Al-Jazeera) and social media in the revolutions and uprisings currently sweeping through the Arab world (spring 2011). On this point, it should be noted that Harb identifies this as the moment when Facebook’s erstwhile predominantly social function was displaced by a manifestly political one. From this we must conclude that both transnationalism and social media sites can be put to very different ends: while young people in relatively privileged democratic countries might embrace transnationalism as an expression of their desire to “rise above” national politics, the youth of the Arab world have engaged it as a means of generating solidarity for nationalist insurgency and liberation. Another instance of “g/local” digital solidarity exceeding national borders is to be found in Johanna Sumiala’s article on the circulatory power of the Internet in the Kauhajoki school shooting which took place Finland in 2008. As well as using the Internet to “stage manage” his rampage, the Kauhajoki shooter (whose name the author chose to withhold for ethical reasons) was subsequently found to have been a member of numerous Web-based “hate groups”, many of them originating in the United States and, as a consequence, may be understood to have committed his crime on behalf of a transnational community: what Sumiala has defined as a “networked community of destruction.” It must also be noted, however, that the school shootings were experienced as a very local tragedy in Finland itself and, although the shooter may have been psychically located in a transnational hyper-reality when he undertook the killings, it is his nation-state that has had to deal with the trauma and shame in the long term. Woodward and Brown & Rutherford, meanwhile, show that it remains the tendency of public broadcast media to uphold the raison d’être of the nation-state at the same time as embracing change. Woodward’s feature article (which reports on the AHRC-sponsored “Tuning In” project which has researched the BBC World Service) shows how the representation of national and diasporic “voices” from around the world, either in opposition to or in dialogue with the BBC’s own reporting, is key to the way in which the Commission has changed and modernised in recent times; however, she is also clear that many of the objectives that defined the service in its early days—such as its commitment to a distinctly “English” brand of education—still remain. Similarly, Brown & Rutherford’s article on the innovative Australian ABC children’s television series, My Place (which has combined traditional broadcasting with online, interactive websites) may be seen to be positively promoting the Australian nation by making visible its commitment to multiculturalism. Both articles nevertheless reveal the extent to which these public service broadcasters have recognised the need to respond to their nations’ changing demographics and, in particular, the fact that “diaspora” is a concept that refers not only to their English and Australian audiences abroad but also to their now manifestly multicultural audiences at home. When it comes to commercial satellite television, however, the relationship between broadcasting and national and global politics is rather harder to pin down. Subramanian exposes a complex interplay of national and global interests through her analysis of the Malayalee “reality television” series, Idea Star Singer. Exported globally to the Indian diaspora, the show is shamelessly exploitative in the way in which it combines residual and emergent ideologies (i.e. nostalgia for a traditional Keralayan way of life vs aspirational “western lifestyles”) in pursuit of its (massive) audience ratings. Further, while the ISS series is ostensibly a g/local phenomenon (the export of Kerala to the rest of the world rather than “India” per se), Subramanian passionately laments all the progressive national initiatives (most notably, the campaign for “women’s rights”) that the show is happy to ignore: an illustration of one of the negative consequences of globalisation predicted by Beck (31) noted at the start of this editorial. Harb, meanwhile, reflects upon a rather different set of political concerns with regards to commercial satellite broadcasting in her account of the role of Al-Jazeera and Al Arabiya in the recent (2011) Arab revolutions. Despite Al-Jazeera’s reputation for “two-sided” news coverage, recent events have exposed its complicity with the Qatari government; further, the uprisings have revealed the speed with which social media—in particular Facebook and Twitter—are replacing broadcast media. It is now possible for “the people” to bypass both governments and news corporations (public and private) in relaying the news. Taken together, then, what our articles would seem to indicate is that, while the power of the nation-state has notionally been transcended via a range of new networking practices, this has yet to undermine its material power in any guaranteed way (witness recent counter-insurgencies in Libya, Bahrain, and Syria).True, the Internet may be used to facilitate transnational “actions” against the nation-state (individual or collective) through a variety of non-violent or violent actions, but nation-states around the world, and especially in Western Europe, are currently wielding immense power over their subjects through aggressive “austerity measures” which have the capacity to severely compromise the freedom and agency of the citizens concerned through widespread unemployment and cuts in social welfare provision. This said, several of our articles provide evidence that Appadurai’s more utopian prognoses are also taking shape. Alongside the troubling possibility that globalisation, and the technologies that support it, is effectively eroding “difference” (be this national or individual), there are the ever-increasing (and widely reported) instances of how digital technology is actively supporting local communities and actions around the world in ways that bypass the state. These range from the relatively modest collective action, “My Estonia”, featured in Pikner’s article, to the ways in which the Libyan diaspora in Manchester have made use of social media to publicise and support public protests in Tripoli (Harb). In other words, there is compelling material evidence that the heterogeneity that Appadurai predicted and hoped for has come to pass through the people’s active participation in (and partial ownership of) media practices. Citizens are now able to “interfere” in the representation of their lives as never before and, through the digital revolution, communicate with one another in ways that circumvent state-controlled broadcasting. We are therefore pleased to present the articles that follow as a lively, interdisciplinary and international “state-of-the-art” commentary on how the ongoing revolution in media and communication is responding to, and bringing into being, the processes and practices of globalisation predicted by Appadurai, Beck, Bauman, and others in the 1990s. The articles also speak to the changing nature of the world’s “diasporas” during this fifteen year time frame (1996-2011) and, we trust, will activate further debate (following Cohen) on the conceptual tensions that now manifestly exist between “virtual” and “material” diasporas and also between the “transnational” diasporas whose objective is to transcend the nation-state altogether and those that deploy social media for specifically local or national/ist ends. Acknowledgements With thanks to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) for their generous funding of the “Moving Manchester” project (2006-10). Special thanks to Dr Kate Horsley (Lancaster University) for her invaluable assistance as ‘Web Editor’ in the production of this special issue (we could not have managed without you!) and also to Gail Ferguson (our copy-editor) for her expertise in the preparation of the final typescript. References Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation. 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