Employment Dualism in Crisis: Labour Market and Welfare State Reforms Before and During COVID-19

Dual labour markets have been a specific feature of employment systems in Con-tinental Europe after an initial wave of deregulation that started in the 1980s in a situation of high and persistent unemployment. Since then, the institutional duali-sation of employment by type of contract has had massive implications on the quality and quantity of jobs. However, while dualisms were conceived as inevita-ble and stable, the perception has become more nuanced and dynamic, account-ing for partial dedualising steps observable over the last decade in particular. This paper gives an overview of the history of dualisation and dual labour markets before addressing current challenges arising from the digital transition and the COVID-19 pandemic. It concludes with a discussion about potential policies to overcome labour market dualisms.

Building Inequality: Wage Disparity between Bangladeshi and Thai Guestworkers in Singapore’s Construction Industry

Existing research on wage inequality in the construction industry focuses on dual labour markets in which migrants earn considerably less than native workers. This article examines occupational inequality between higher-paid Thai and lower-paid Bangladeshi first-time guestworkers in Singapore’s low-wage construction industry. It argues that differently priced national groups of first-time construction guestworkers persist in Singapore’s industry; first, because Singapore wages are established with reference to the economies of sending states, and second, because construction firms associate worker productivity with nationality. Alleged differences in productivity between Thai and Bangladeshi guestworkers are related to the workers’ differently classed socialization in their home countries: Bangladeshis are recruited from their country’s middle-class, whereas Thais are working-class. Sourcing reflects the subset of each sending state’s population who can afford the considerable recruitment and training fees and are attracted by Singapore wages and work.

Distributive Justice and Labour Law

Redistribution is considered one of the main goals of labour law. When we refer to redistribution as a goal, we usually do so, implicitly, as shorthand for distributive justice. The goal of this chapter is to explore theories of distributive justice, and ask to what extent current labour laws are in line with those ideas, and what else can (or should) labour law do to advance this goal. Several theories are examined: that distributive justice should be based on ‘desert’; theories of distributional equality—notably, luck egalitarianism—which demand redistribution in order to achieve equality in distribution; and theories of redistribution as instrumental to the advancement of equality. At the end of each section, the possible implications for labour law are briefly considered, both in terms of employer–employee relations and in terms of intra-worker distribution. The question will be: what kinds of labour market regulations (if at all) can be supported by each distributive justice theory? Specifically, to what extent do these theories justify existing labour laws? Then in the concluding section some remarks are offered on one area that requires new labour law regulations to address distributive justice concerns: in the light of the previous sections, several steps are suggested that should be taken to address divisions in two-tier and dual labour markets.