Global Perspectives On Workers And Labour Organizations

This book broadens the research on the underworld of precarious and not-represented workers, through a selection of original case studies from across the globe written by leading experts. The book unveils the working conditions affecting this vast labour force that is so important to capital accumulation in the global age. It also helps us to understand the forms and processes of organization that these groups of workers, almost on an everyday basis, put in place to improve their working conditions and lived experiences.

Fewer than 12 percent of U.S. workers belong to unions, and union membership rates are falling in much of the world. With tremendous growth in inequality within and between countries, steady or indeed rising unemployment and underemployment, and the marked increase in precarious work and migration, can unions still play a role in raising wages and improving work conditions? This book provides a critical evaluation of labor unions both in the U.S. and globally, examining the factors that have led to the decline of union power and arguing that, despite their challenges, unions still have a vital part to play in the global economy. Stephanie Luce explores the potential sources of power that unions might have, and emerging new strategies and directions for the growth of global labor movements, such as unions, worker centers, informal sector organizations, and worker co-operatives, helping workers resist the impacts of neoliberalism. She shows that unions may in fact be more relevant now than ever. This important assessment of labor movements in the global economy will be required reading for advanced undergraduates and graduate students of labor studies, political and economic sociology, the sociology of work, and social movements.

Informal Workers and Collective Action features nine cases of collective action to improve the status and working conditions of informal workers. Adrienne E. Eaton, Susan J. Schurman, and Martha A. Chen set the stage by defining informal work and describing the types of organizations that represent the interests of informal workers and the lessons that may be learned from the examples presented in the book. Cases from a diverse set of countries—Brazil, Cambodia, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Georgia, Liberia, South Africa, Tunisia, and Uruguay—focus on two broad types of informal workers: "waged" workers, including port workers, beer promoters, hospitality and retail workers, domestic workers, low-skilled public sector workers, and construction workers; and self-employed workers, including street vendors, waste recyclers, and minibus drivers.These cases demonstrate that workers and labor organizations around the world are rediscovering the lessons of early labor organizers on how to aggregate individuals' sense of injustice into forms of collective action that achieve a level of power that can yield important changes in their work and lives. Informal Workers and Collective Action makes a strong argument that informal workers, their organizations, and their campaigns represent the leading edge of the most significant change in the global labor movement in more than a century.Contributors Gocha Aleksandria, Georgian Trade Union Confederation Martha A. Chen, Harvard University and WIEGO Sonia Maria Dias, WIEGO and Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil Adrienne E. Eaton, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey Mary Evans, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey Janice Fine, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey Mary Goldsmith, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco Daniel Hawkins, National Trade Union School of Colombia Elza Jgerenaia, Labor and Employment Policy Department for the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs, Republic of Georgia Stephen J. King, Georgetown University Allison J. Petrozziello, UN Women and the Center for Migration Observation and Social Development Pewee Reed, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Republic of Liberia Sahra Ryklief, International Federation of Workers' Education Associations Susan J. Schurman, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey Vera Alice Cardoso Silva, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil Milton Weeks, Devin Corporation

"This book offers analysis of the causes and extent of the movement's current malaise from a variety of vantage points. It provides eight national and regional studies - China, Britain, France, the US, Eastern Europe, Brazil, Ghana and Cameroon - that detail problems face and the revitalisation strategies trade unions have pursued in response. It also offers fresh scholarly perspective on a host of pressing labour issues: the extent and impact of global corporate restructuring; the ongoing fight to achieve core labour standards; the enduring importance of gender and diversity; the fortunes of the international labour movement; the relationship between trade unions and NGOs; the intellectual response to organised labour's present predicament; and the role of labour in the global social justice movement." -- BACK COVER.

Living wage activism has spanned time and space, reaching across decades and national boundaries. Conditions generating living wage movements early in the twentieth century have resurfaced in the twenty-first century, only on a global scale: 'sweated' labour, macroeconomic instability, and job insecurity. Upon reviewing the empirical evidence, the book's contributors make strong cases both for and against living wage activism. The effective blend of historical, contemporary, and global perspectives provides opportunities for teachers, scholars, and activists to evaluate how we can address low pay at the organizational and macroeconomic levels.

This open access book explores the role of the ILO (International Labour Organization) in building global social governance from multiple and mutually complementary perspectives. It explores the impact of this UN ́s oldest agency, founded in 1919, on the transforming world of work in a global setting, providing insights into the unique history and functions of the ILO as an organization and the evolution of workers’ rights through international labour standards stemming from its regulatory mechanism. The book examines the persistent dilemma of balancing the benefits of globalization with the protection of workers. It critically assesses the challenges that emerge when international labour standards are implemented and enforced in highly diverse regulatory frameworks in international, regional, national and local contexts. The book also identifies feasible ways to achieve more inclusive labour protection, putting into perspective the tension between the economic and the social in the ILO’s second century of operation. It includes reflections on the work of the ILO World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation by Tarja Halonen, who as President of Finland co-chaired the Commission with Benjamin William Mkapa, President of Tanzania. Written by distinguished experts and scholars in the fields of international labour law and international law, the book provides an insightful and in-depth analysis of the role of the ILO as an international organization devoted to decent work and social justice. It also sheds light on tripartism and its particular role in the work of the ILO, examining the challenges that a profoundly changing working life presents in terms of labour protection and social justice, and examining the transnational dimension of labour law. Lastly, the book includes a postscript by Nobel economics laureate Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz.

In February and March 2003, the Committee on Monitoring International Labor Standards (CMILS) of the National Research Council (NRC) convened regional forums in Costa Rica, Sri Lanka, and South Africa. Participants included representatives from the International Labour Organization (ILO), national governments, workers' and employers' organizations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and the academic community. These meetings were designed to provide the CMILS with a broad range of international perspectives on the many complex issues related to monitoring compliance with international labor standards, particularly within developing countries. The CMILS has convened similar forums in the United States and held workshops examining data quality, assessing national legal frameworks, and exploring linkages between human capital development and compliance with labor standards.

This book provides an understanding of the processes in which unions engage with young people, and views and opinions young people hold relating to collective representation. It features a selection of specific national cases of high relevance to contemporary debates of precariousness, trade union revitalization strategies and austerity policies.