"Globalization and Labor Conditions explains how the three main mechanisms of globalization - trade, international migration, and international capital flows - alter working conditions (particularly wages, work hours, and job safety) and labor rights (freedom of association, nondiscrimination, and the elimination of forced and child labor). An important subtheme is the relative importance of international markets and international regulation in providing improvements in labor conditions around the world. Robert Flanagan draws on analyses from his own database on international labor conditions assembled for this project and research on globalization and labor conditions. The book presents evidence on how conditions changed during late 20th-century globalization, and on how economic growth, international trade, migration, and multinational companies influence labor conditions."--BOOK JACKET.
Migration presents a stark policy dilemma. Research repeatedly confirms that migrants, their families back home, and the countries that welcome them experience large economic and social gains. Easing immigration restrictions is one of the most effective tools for ending poverty and sharing prosperity across the globe. Yet, we see widespread opposition in destination countries, where migrants are depicted as the primary cause of many of their economic problems, from high unemployment to declining social services. Moving for Prosperity: Global Migration and Labor Markets addresses this dilemma. In addition to providing comprehensive data and empirical analysis of migration patterns and their impact, the report argues for a series of policies that work with, rather than against, labor market forces. Policy makers should aim to ease short-run dislocations and adjustment costs so that the substantial long-term benefits are shared more evenly. Only then can we avoid draconian migration restrictions that will hurt everybody. Moving for Prosperity aims to inform and stimulate policy debate, facilitate further research, and identify prominent knowledge gaps. It demonstrates why existing income gaps, demographic differences, and rapidly declining transportation costs mean that global mobility will continue to be a key feature of our lives for generations to come. Its audience includes anyone interested in one of the most controversial policy debates of our time.
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.
In this study, the authors move beyond the debate on the relative merits and risks of a social clause in trade agreements and focus on practical approaches for improving labour standards in a more intergrated global economy.
Over the past two decades, the percentage of the world’s population living on less than a dollar a day has been cut in half. How much of that improvement is because of—or in spite of—globalization? While anti-globalization activists mount loud critiques and the media report breathlessly on globalization’s perils and promises, economists have largely remained silent, in part because of an entrenched institutional divide between those who study poverty and those who study trade and finance. Globalization and Poverty bridges that gap, bringing together experts on both international trade and poverty to provide a detailed view of the effects of globalization on the poor in developing nations, answering such questions as: Do lower import tariffs improve the lives of the poor? Has increased financial integration led to more or less poverty? How have the poor fared during various currency crises? Does food aid hurt or help the poor? Poverty, the contributors show here, has been used as a popular and convenient catchphrase by parties on both sides of the globalization debate to further their respective arguments. Globalization and Poverty provides the more nuanced understanding necessary to move that debate beyond the slogans.
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.
This book explains how three major mechanisms of globalization international trade, international migration, and the activities of multinational companies have altered working conditions and labor rights around the world during the late 20th century. Drawing on analyses of a database on international labor conditions assembled for this project and a growing research literature on globalization and labor conditions, the book finds that trade, migration, and multinational companies are associated with improvements in world labor conditions.
Americans have been shocked by media reports of the dismal working conditions in factories that make clothing for U.S. companies. But while well intentioned, many of these reports about child labor and sweatshop practices rely on stereotypes of how Third World factories operate, ignoring the complex economic dynamics driving the global apparel industry. To dispel these misunderstandings, Jane L. Collins visited two very different apparel firms and their factories in the United States and Mexico. Moving from corporate headquarters to factory floors, her study traces the diverse ties that link First and Third World workers and managers, producers and consumers. Collins examines how the transnational economics of the apparel industry allow firms to relocate or subcontract their work anywhere in the world, making it much harder for garment workers in the United States or any other country to demand fair pay and humane working conditions. Putting a human face on globalization, Threads shows not only how international trade affects local communities but also how workers can organize in this new environment to more effectively demand better treatment from their distant corporate employers.
How are national and international labour laws responding to the challenge of globalization as it re-shapes the workplaces of the world? This collection of essays by leading legal scholars and lawyers from Europe and the Americas was first published in 2006. It addresses the implications of globalization for the legal regulation of the workplace. It examines the role of international labour standards and the contribution of the International Labour Organization, and assesses the success of the European experiment with continental employment standards. It explores the prospects for hemispheric co-operation on labour standards in the Americas, and deals with the impact of international labour standards on the rights of women and migrant workers. As the nature and organization of work around the world is being decisively transformed, new regional and international institutions are emerging that may provide the platform for new labour standards, and for protecting existing ones.
This is a scholarly and erudite work. . . There is a wealth of detail, all illustrated with plenty of fascinating examples. . . It is impossible to give the full flavour of this thoughtful and stimulating book in even a long review, but it deserves to be widely accessible and read. Citizen s Income . . . this is the greatest book ever about work (in all its forms). . . Work after Globalization offers us the kind of foundation we need to launch a new social-democratic program. . . do yourself a favour, don t take my word for it. You need to read this book for yourself. . . If you re ever going to read a book about work, make it this one. Peter Hall-Jones, New Unionism Network This is an important book. It shifts emphasis from the role of capital to the creativity of labour in the creation of value in the real economy. A central role is accorded to each and all of the skills and occupations which contribute to the construction of an economy and a civic culture governed by the public interest. Guy Standing has made an original contribution to the validation of human creativity in the economic process. The work owes an acknowledged debt to the vision of Karl Polanyi. Kari Polanyi-Levitt, McGill University, Canada Standing has written a comprehensive account of what the forces and developments that govern the contemporary world (such as states, employers, trade unions, the globalization of labor markets, financial market crises etc.) do to workers and the conditions under which they work and live. It is rare for a social science work that is full of empirical information to be as accessibly written as this one. It is even rarer to find all three of the things that good social science can deliver fine-grained description, original explanation, sophisticated normative reflection in the pages of a single volume. One of the richest accounts of the fates of labor since Polanyi (1944). Claus Offe, Hertie School of Governance, Germany In Work after Globalization, Guy Standing, one of the most knowledgeable and theoretically sophisticated scholars in the area of labor relations today, paints a rich panorama of contemporary labor practices around the world to demonstrate that we are in the midst of a societal shift of historical dimensions. Standing s concept of occupational citizenship provides a way to re-capture both human agency and community, thereby reconciling the individual with society and flexibility with new forms of social security. This book is a tour de force for its sweeping scope, incisive analysis, and predictive power. Katherine Stone, University of California, Los Angeles, US In this ground-breaking book, Guy Standing offers a new perspective on work and citizenship, rejecting the labourist orientation of the 20th century. Karl Polanyi s The Great Transformation marked the rise of industrial citizenship, which hinged on fictitious labour decommodification. Since the 1970s, this has collapsed and a Global Transformation is under way, in which inequalities and insecurities are becoming unsustainable. Guy Standing explains that while a struggle against paternalism is essential, the desirable egalitarian response to the problems caused by globalization is a strategy to build occupational citizenship. This is based on a right to universal economic security and institutions to enable everybody to develop their capabilities and work whilst respecting the ecological imperatives of the 21st century. The book also explores a phasing out of labour law and a re-orientation of collective bargaining towards collaborative bargaining, highlighting the increased importance of the relationship between groups of workers and citizens as well as between workers and capital. Work after Globalization offers a new perspective on work, rejecting the labourist orientation of the 20th century. Social scientists interested in globalization and labour market issues will warmly welcome this book. It will also strongly appeal to stude
