Workers, Unions, and Global Capitalism

Workers, Unions, and Global Capitalism PDF Author: Rohini Hensman
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231519567
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 585

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Book Description
While it's easy to blame globalization for shrinking job opportunities, dangerous declines in labor standards, and a host of related discontents, the "flattening" of the world has also created unprecedented opportunities for worker organization. By expanding employment in developing countries, especially for women, globalization has formed a basis for stronger workers' rights, even in remote sites of production. Using India's labor movement as a model, Rohini Hensman charts the successes and failures, strengths and weaknesses, of the struggle for workers' rights and organization in a rich and varied nation. As Indian products gain wider acceptance in global markets, the disparities in employment conditions and union rights between such regions as the European Union and India's vast informal sector are exposed, raising the issue of globalization's implications for labor. Hensman's study examines the unique pattern of "employees' unionism," which emerged in Bombay in the 1950s, before considering union responses to recent developments, especially the drive to form a national federation of independent unions. A key issue is how far unions can resist protectionist impulses and press for stronger global standards, along with the mechanisms to enforce them. After thoroughly unpacking this example, Hensman zooms out to trace the parameters of a global labor agenda, calling for a revival of trade unionism, the elimination of informal labor, and reductions in military spending to favor funding for comprehensive welfare and social security systems.

Workers, Unions, and Global Capitalism

Workers, Unions, and Global Capitalism PDF Author: Rohini Hensman
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231519567
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 585

Get Book Here

Book Description
While it's easy to blame globalization for shrinking job opportunities, dangerous declines in labor standards, and a host of related discontents, the "flattening" of the world has also created unprecedented opportunities for worker organization. By expanding employment in developing countries, especially for women, globalization has formed a basis for stronger workers' rights, even in remote sites of production. Using India's labor movement as a model, Rohini Hensman charts the successes and failures, strengths and weaknesses, of the struggle for workers' rights and organization in a rich and varied nation. As Indian products gain wider acceptance in global markets, the disparities in employment conditions and union rights between such regions as the European Union and India's vast informal sector are exposed, raising the issue of globalization's implications for labor. Hensman's study examines the unique pattern of "employees' unionism," which emerged in Bombay in the 1950s, before considering union responses to recent developments, especially the drive to form a national federation of independent unions. A key issue is how far unions can resist protectionist impulses and press for stronger global standards, along with the mechanisms to enforce them. After thoroughly unpacking this example, Hensman zooms out to trace the parameters of a global labor agenda, calling for a revival of trade unionism, the elimination of informal labor, and reductions in military spending to favor funding for comprehensive welfare and social security systems.

The Unions’ Response to Globalization

The Unions’ Response to Globalization PDF Author: Gary Chaison
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1493904884
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 63

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Book Description
Globalization is commonly described in trade and cultural terms but its impact on unions and collective bargaining is seldom assessed. The few studies of unions and globalization are mostly collections of cases studies of how unions can work together or with other alliance partners to defend against the power of multinational corporations. This book goes beyond the current research by asking how unions have tried to deal with globalization and how globalization might threaten the fundamental union mission of taking wages, hours and conditions of employment out of competition. The introductory chapter defines globalization and uses the case of the Detroit Three automakers (GM, Chrysler and Ford) to show how globalization can affect employment and union size, influence and relevancy. The second chapter shows how unions deal globalization through collective bargaining regarding outsourcing, alliances, strikes and political action, including lobbying and international work standards. The final chapter argues that the unions cannot continue unchanged in this age of globalization and asks what they must do to be effective and relevant.

Transnational Cooperation Among Labor Unions

Transnational Cooperation Among Labor Unions PDF Author: Michael E. Gordon
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801437793
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Organized labour faces many challenges in the increasingly global economy, including the portability of technology and capital, and lowered trade barriers. This text, however, presents evidence that unions can survive and grow if labour is willing to co-operate across national borders. The book is a study of such co-operation as an effective weapon against the exploitation of workers in today's world.

Labour and the Challenges of Globalization

Labour and the Challenges of Globalization PDF Author: Andreas Bieler
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
This book critically examines the responses of the working classes of the world to the challenges posed by the neoliberal restructuring of the global economy. Neoliberal globalisation, the book argues, has created new forms of polarisation in the world. A renewal of working class internationalism must address the situation of both the more privileged segments of the working class and the more impoverished ones. The study identifies new or renewed labour responses among formalised core workers as well as those on the periphery, including street-traders, homeworkers and other 'informal sector' workers. The book contains ten country studies, including India, China, South Korea, Japan, Germany, Sweden, Canada, South Africa, Argentina and Brazil. It argues that workers and trade unions, through intensive collaboration with other social forces across the world, can challenge the logic of neoliberal globalization.

Globalization and Labour in the Twenty-First Century

Globalization and Labour in the Twenty-First Century PDF Author: Verity Burgmann
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317227832
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.tandfebooks.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license.Globalization has adversely affected working-class organization and mobilization, increasing inequality by redistribution upwards from labour to capital. However, workers around the world are challenging their increased exploitation by globalizing corporations. In developed countries, many unions are transforming themselves to confront employer power in ways more appropriate to contemporary circumstances; in developing countries, militant new labour movements are emerging. Drawing upon insights in anti-determinist Marxian perspectives, Verity Burgmann shows how working-class resistance is not futile, as protagonists of globalization often claim. She identifies eight characteristics of globalization harmful to workers and describes and analyses how they have responded collectively to these problems since 1990 and especially this century. With case studies from around the world, including Greece since 2008, she pays particular attention to new types of labour movement organization and mobilization that are not simply defensive reactions but are offensive and innovative responses that compel corporations or political institutions to change. Aging and less agile manifestations of the labour movement decline while new expressions of working-class organization and mobilization arise to better battle with corporate globalization. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of labour studies, globalization, political economy, Marxism and sociology of work.

Solidarity Transformed

Solidarity Transformed PDF Author: Mark S. Anner
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801461057
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
Mark S. Anner spent ten years working with labor unions in Latin America and returned to conduct eighteen months of field research: he found himself in the middle of violent raids, was detained and interrogated in a Salvadoran basement prison cell, and survived a bombing in a union cafeteria. This experience as a participant observer informs and enlivens Solidarity Transformed, an illustrative, nuanced, and insightful account of how labor unions in Latin America are developing new strategies to defend the interests of the workers they represent in dynamic global and local contexts. Anner combines in-depth case studies of the auto and apparel industries in El Salvador, Honduras, Brazil, and Argentina with survey analysis. Altogether, he documents approximately seventy labor campaigns—both successful and failed—over a period of twenty years. Anner finds that four labor strategies have dominated labor campaigns in recent years: transnational activist campaigns; transnational labor networks; radical flank mechanisms; and microcorporatist worker-employer pacts. The choice of which strategy to pursue is shaped by the structure of global supply chains, access to the domestic political process, and labor identities. Anner's multifaceted approach is both rich in anecdote and supported by quantitative research. The result is a book in which labor activists find new and creative ways to support their members and protect their organizations in the midst of political change, global restructuring, and economic crises.

The Role of Collective Bargaining in the Global Economy

The Role of Collective Bargaining in the Global Economy PDF Author: Susan Hayter
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1849809836
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
The book examines the ways in which collective bargaining addresses a variety of workplace concerns in the context of today.s global economy. Globalization can contribute to growth and development, but as the recent financial crisis demonstrated, it also puts employment, earnings and labourstandards at risk. This book examines the role that collective bargaining plays in ensuring that workers are able to obtain a fair share of the benefits arising from participation in the global economy and in providing a measure of security against the risk to employment and wages. It focuses on a commonly neglected side of the story and demonstrates the positivecontribution that collective bargaining can make to both economic and social goals. The various contributions examine how this fundamental principle and right at work is realized in different countries and how its practice can be reinforced across borders. They highlight the numerouschallenges in this regard and the critically important role that governments play in rebalancing bargaining power in a global economy. The chapters are written in an accessible style and deal with practical subjects, including employment security, workplace change and productivity and working time.

European Responses to Globalization and Financial Market Integration

European Responses to Globalization and Financial Market Integration PDF Author: Amy Verdun
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : European Union countries
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Unions and Collective Bargaining

Unions and Collective Bargaining PDF Author: Toke Aidt
Publisher: Directions in Development
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
This book offers an extensive survey and synthesis of the economic literature on trade unions and collective bargaining and their impact on micro-and macro-economic outcomes. The authors demonstrate the effects of collective bargaining in different country settings and time periods. A comprehensive reference, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of labor policy as well as to policy makers and anyone with an interest in the economic consequences of unionism.

The Economics of Trade Unions

The Economics of Trade Unions PDF Author: Hristos Doucouliagos
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317498283
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Richard B. Freeman and James L. Medoff’s now classic 1984 book What Do Unions Do? stimulated an enormous theoretical and empirical literature on the economic impact of trade unions. Trade unions continue to be a significant feature of many labor markets, particularly in developing countries, and issues of labor market regulations and labor institutions remain critically important to researchers and policy makers. The relations between unions and management can range between cooperation and conflict; unions have powerful offsetting wage and non-wage effects that economists and other social scientists have long debated. Do the benefits of unionism exceed the costs to the economy and society writ large, or do the costs exceed the benefits? The Economics of Trade Unions offers the first comprehensive review, analysis and evaluation of the empirical literature on the microeconomic effects of trade unions using the tools of meta-regression analysis to identify and quantify the economic impact of trade unions, as well as to correct research design faults, the effects of selection bias and model misspecification. This volume makes use of a unique dataset of hundreds of empirical studies and their reported estimates of the microeconomic impact of trade unions. Written by three authors who have been at the forefront of this research field (including the co-author of the original volume, What Do Unions Do?), this book offers an overview of a subject that is of huge importance to scholars of labor economics, industrial and employee relations, and human resource management, as well as those with an interest in meta-analysis.