Labour and the Challenges of Globalization What Prospects for Transnational Solidarity?

by Bieler, Andreas; Lindberg, Ingemar; Pillay, Devan

• ISBN13: 9780745327570
• ISBN10: 0745327575
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-02-20
• Publisher: UCP

Summary

This book examines the main challenges facing the world labor force and possible responses from trade unions. The working classes across the world are feeling the effects of globalization and the race to the bottom that it encourages. Core jobs for workers in the developed world are being outsourced to countries where pay and conditions are terrible and union membership is often forbidden. Much of the work of the world economy is now taking place in a burgeoning informal sector, making worldwide organization of labor very difficult. Case studies from 11 different countries, including China, Germany, Canada and South Africa, illustrate what is happening and show how workers and trade unions can successfully adapt to the neoliberal world.

Author Biography

Andreas Bieler is Professor of Political Economy in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham.

Ingemar Lindberg, a former trade unionist, is a senior researcher at the Swedish think-tank Agora.

Devan Pillay, a former trade unionist, is Associate Professor in Sociology, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa.

Table of Contents

List of figures
List of tables
Foreword: rebuilding the unity of the 'labour front'
The future of the global working class: an introduction	p. 1
The contested politics of gender and irregular employment: revitalizing the South Korean democratic labour movement	p. 23
Globalization and the informalization of labour: the case of South Africa	p. 45
Globalization and labour in India: emerging challenges and responses	p. 65
How China's migrant labourers are becoming the new proletariat	p. 81
The globalization of capital and its impact on the world of formal and informal work: challenges for and responses from Argentine unions	p. 98
Neoliberal policies, labour market restructuring and social exclusion: Brazil's working-class response	p. 115
The impact of globalization on trade unions: the situation in Japan	p. 139
Challenges facing the Canadian labour movement in the context of globalization, unemployment and the casualization of labour	p. 161
German trade unions between neoliberal restructuring, social partnership and internationalism	p. 178
Swedish unions and globalization: labour strategies in a changing global order	p. 199
Building alliances between formal and informal workers: experiences from Africa	p. 217
European integration: a strategic level for trade union resistance to neoliberal restructuring and for the promotion of political alternatives?	p. 231
A trade union internationalism for the 21st century: meeting the challenges from above, below and beyond	p. 248
What future strategy for the global working class? The need for a new historical subject	p. 264
Bibliography	p. 287
Notes on contributors	p. 315
List of abbreviations	p. 319
Index	p. 325
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