Labour And Transnational Action In Times Of Crisis

Processes of neoliberal globalization have put national trade unions under pressure as the transnational organization of production puts these labour movements in competition with each other. The global economic crisis has intensified these pressures further. And yet, economic and political integration processes have also provided workers with new possibilities to organize resistance. Emphasizing the importance of agency, this book analyzes transnational labour action in times of crisis, historically and now. It draws on a variety of fascinating cases, across formal and informal collectives, in order to clarify which factors facilitate or block the formation of solidarity. Moving beyond empirical description of cases to an informed understanding of collective action across borders, the volume provides an insightful theorization of transnational action.

Analyses the EU's post-2008 economic governance regime and the labour protests it triggered that threw a lifeline to EU democracy.

If the recent global economic crisis has debilitated labour in many parts of the world, many segments of the trade union movement have been fighting back, combining traditional and innovative strategies and articulating alternatives to the dominant political and economic models. Trade unions and the global crisis offers a composite overview of the responses of trade unions and other workers' organizations to neoliberal globalization in general and to the recent financial crisis in particular. The essays here, by trade unionists and academics from around the world, explore the state of labour in Brazil, China, Nepal, South Africa, Turkey, Europe and North America. The authors offer a range of short-term strategies and actions, medium- and long-term policies, and alternative visions that challenge the current development paradigm. This book makes a stimulating contribution to the continuing debate on labour's role as an economic, political and social force in building a more democratic and just society.

Prosser argues that labour movements respond to European integration in a manner which instigates competition between national labour markets. The book's hypothesis has key implications for debates about labour movements and the EU and its engaging style will captivate scholars, students and policymakers.

This edited volume provides a collection of historical and contemporary commodity chain studies placing labor at the centre of their analysis. It represents an important contribution to commodity chain research, but also to the fields of social-economic and global labour history.

Chinese development is widely considered to be an example of successful developmental catch-up with double-digit growth rates year on year. Some even talk of an emerging power, which may in time replace the US as the global economy’s hegemon. And yet there is a dark underside to this ‘miracle’ in the form of workers’ long hours, low pay and lack of welfare benefits. Increasing levels of inequality have gone hand in hand with super exploitative working conditions. Nevertheless, Chinese workers have not simply accepted these conditions of super-exploitation; they have started to fight back. Set against the background of China’s integration into the global economy along uneven and combined development lines, this volume explores new forms of resistance by Chinese workers, be it through the state trade union All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) or through informal labour NGOs. It also analyses the links between Chinese formal and informal labour organisations, with labour organisations outside China. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Globalizations.

While workers movements have been largely phased out and considered out-dated in most parts of the world during the 1990s, the 21st century has seen a surge in new and unprecedented forms of strikes and workers organisations. The collection of essays in this book, spanning countries across global South and North, provides an account of strikes and working class resistance in the 21st century. Through original case studies, the book looks at the various shades of workers’ movements, analysing different forms of popular organisation as responses to new social and economic conditions, such as restructuring of work and new areas of investment.

With an unparalleled amount of empirical material, this is the most comprehensive introduction to comparative politics written by the leading experts in the field.