Grounding Globalization

Webster, Edward; Lambert, Rob; Bezuidenhout, Andries

doi:10.1002/9781444303018

Cited by 167 publications

(44 citation statements)

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“…Webster, Lambert, and Bezuidenhout find that growing labor market flexibility has led to "market despotism," which is a return of an "old" form of control through coercive market power "where the whip of the market was used to discipline workers." 11 Any labor market dynamic that increases workers' sense of vulnerability -be that an increase in part-time work, short-term contracts, or outsourced labor -will also increase labor control. Workers in such contexts are inclined to put up with bad conditions and low wages rather than risk unemployment and poverty out of fear that, should they speak up, they may lose their jobs as a result.…”

Section: Labor Control and Worker Resistance In Global Supply Chainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Labor control regimes and worker resistance in global supply chains

2015

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This article seeks to examine two inter-related dynamics, the relationship between the international dispersion of apparel production and labor control regimes, and the relationship between labor control regimes and patterns of worker resistance. The article argues that where apparel production has concentrated in the last decade has as much to do with labor control regimes as with wages and other economic factors. It suggests that there are three main labor control regimes in the sector: state control, market despotism, and employer repression. The article then argues that these systems of labor control are conducive to three patterns of worker resistance: wildcat strikes, international accords, and cross-border campaigns. The article explores these arguments by examining examples of apparel global supply chains in Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Honduras.

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Section: Labor Control and Worker Resistance In Global Supply Chainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Labor control regimes and worker resistance in global supply chains

2015

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“…This concept re-emerged in the face of advancing free trade, and several authors have argued that from 2001 onwards there was a double-movement in society against free trade. 105 As also outlined by Webster, Lambert, and Bezuidenhout, 106 in Polanyi's analysis there is a lack of understanding on how society's countermovement is made and takes place. Polanyi does not consider then the power dynamics under which the society reacts to market forces.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Transnational labor action in Latin America: from the struggle against the Free Trade Area of the Americas to the return of labor relations

Dobrusin¹

2015

Labor History

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Neoliberalism was the hegemonic political and economic model in Latin America during the 1990s. The promotion of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) was a fundamental policy to extend neoliberal policies and foreign influence throughout the region. In a momentum built throughout that decade and into the 2000s, the trade union movement joined forces with social movements to create a counterhegemonic force using traditional and novel power resources. This alliance managed to defeat the FTAA and was a central force in supporting new center-left administrations throughout the region. The developments since that historic event have shown the relevance of political contexts and strategic outlooks for the long-term success in maintaining, or failing to maintain, such kinds of alliances.

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“…The “countermovement” appears in Polanyi's Great Transformation as a preordained spontaneous reaction of “society”, but the book is short of analysis of the imperatives of capital accumulation, relations of power, class conflict and exploitation (Burawoy, ), as well as concerning its organization and the social basis of its actual agents (Webster et al., ). Historically, reforms in terms of the extension of rights of citizenship have hardly come about “from above” without the agency of broad intra‐ and trans‐class popular alliances with trade unions as spearhead.…”

Section: A “Realizable Utopia”?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Otherwise they might lose precarious workers and, in particular, a multitude of new migrants and ethnic minorities, differentially inserted into fractured neoliberal labour markets and societies (Munck, ). That is a vision of a global countermovement driven by a reformed union internationalism, sensitive to a multitude of everyday livelihood strategies of migrants; a “networked international of labour's others” (Waterman, ); a vision of “grounding globalization” through “linking workplace issues to the community… a critical source of power [that] takes participation beyond representative democracy to new forms of participation that embrace an active civil society” (Webster, Lambert and Bezuidenhout, : 220).…”

Section: A “Realizable Utopia”?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Migration, Precarization and the Democratic Deficit in Global Governance

Schierup

Ålund

Likić-Brborić

2014

International Migration

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This article attempts to provide a critical understanding of the dual signification of "precarity". It explores what "precarity" as a concept may potentially offer to studies of the changing contemporary political economy of migration. It discusses shifting trends in global migration and point to tendencies for a possible convergence between "South" and "North", "East" and "West". Based on a review of current advances in research, it discusses, with reference to the classical work of Karl Polanyi, the potential for a contemporary "countermovement" which would challenge the precarity of migrants. Bringing forward the issue of the "space for civil society" the article addresses a still lingering democratic deficit in the global governance of migration. POLICY IMPLICATIONSThe article is relevant to policymakers, trade unions and civil society organizations. It contributes to the understanding of policy making processes in emerging multilevel global governance and focuses on issues of precarization, migration, and the implementation and accountability of human, migrant and labour rights.

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Grounding Globalization

Cited by 167 publications

References 0 publications

Labor control regimes and worker resistance in global supply chains

Labor control regimes and worker resistance in global supply chains

Transnational labor action in Latin America: from the struggle against the Free Trade Area of the Americas to the return of labor relations

Migration, Precarization and the Democratic Deficit in Global Governance

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