The Battles in Seattle

Levi, Margaret; Olson, David J.

doi:10.1177/0032329200028003002

Cited by 58 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…To be sure, an appreciation of the need for transnational action came sooner to some port unions than others, and some unions committed greater forces, and force, to the war on Europe's waterfront. Nonetheless, most European dockers accepted that they now shared a 'community of fate' (Levi and Olsen 2000) and trade union leaders, both nationally and internationally, recognized that by organizing across space they could draw on a much wider set of social resources to defend their members' interests. Once suitably armed, instead of being inhibited by the political opportunity structure of the EU, organized labour was able to exploit the existence of supranational governance institutions to decisive effect.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The War on Europe's Waterfront - Repertoires of Power in the Port Transport Industry

Turnbull

2006

Br J Industrial Relations

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

When the European Commission proposed a Directive On Market Access to Port Services in February 2001, the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) issued a declaration of war on Europe's waterfront. To protect established terms and conditions of employment in the port transport industry, the ITF developed a strategy of internationalization that required dock workers to engage in a new politics of scale wrought by globalization. A new repertoire of collective action - based on more effective union articulation (i.e. stronger interrelationships between the workplace, national and international levels of organization) combined with the activities of new labour networks that connected port workers at the trans-national corporation, port range and pan-European levels - enabled dockers to sink the Directive in the European Parliament in November 2003. The dockers' victory will not be lost on other European unions or indeed other global union federations, although their success will doubtless prove more difficult for other occupational groups to emulate. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2006.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The War on Europe's Waterfront - Repertoires of Power in the Port Transport Industry

Turnbull

2006

Br J Industrial Relations

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…There are three major themes in this new literature (Ford, 2003a(Ford, , 2003b: cooperative campaigns between NGOs and unions, NGOs' role as "substitute" unions in authoritarian contexts, and NGOs' attempts to unionize traditionally un-unionized sectors. In the first strand of the literature, some theorists have promoted the concept of social movement unionism to explain unions' links to community and political activists (see for example Adler and Webster, 2000), while others have described organized labour's long association with causes more generally associated with new social movements, such as the environment (Jahn, 1993) or labour's involvement in wider protest movements, such as the anti-globalization protests in Seattle (Levi and Olson, 2000). The second strand of the literature has concentrated primarily on the role of NGOs as an alternative vehicle for labour organizing in the absence of effective unions, such as pre-1998 Indonesia (Hadiz, 1997) and South Korea under President Park (AMRC, 1987).…”

Section: Crossing the Theoretical Bordersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The first of these was the formation of trade blocs that included both industrialized and developing countries, particularly the North American Free Trade Association, or NAFTA (Carr, 1999). The second was the rise of the anti-globalization movement, culminating with the Seattle protests of 1999 (Levi and Olson, 2000). Much of the newer work on international and/or transnational labour activism, which includes relatively frequent references to non-union labour organizations, emerged from the NAFTA context (Armbruster-Sandoval, 1999;Boswell and Stevis, 1997;Evans, 2000;Williams, 1999).…”

Section: Crossing the Theoretical Bordersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organizing the Unorganizable: Unions, NGOs, and Indonesian Migrant Labour

Ford

2004

International Migration

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There has been little engagement between the organized labour and labour migration literatures. Studies of organized labour movements in Asia have traditionally focused on trade unions that organize workers in factories, in offices, and on the plantations of the countries in which those unions are based, or on international cooperation between such unions. Studies of migrant labour, on the other hand, have tended to emphasize the demographic features of labour migration flows, or the experiences of migrant workers in either their country of origin or their host society. Yet, with the help of local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), migrant workers from countries such as the Philippines and Indonesia are beginning to organize both at home and abroad. This article examines the emergence and operation of both migrant labour NGOs and migrant labour associations from a labour movement perspective. It focuses on the schism between the literature on labour migration, in which descriptions of migrant labour NGOs most often appear, and the literature on organized labour, which has generally ignored both the increasing significance of temporary overseas labour migration and the role of non-union bodies in the organization of labour. Examples from Indonesia and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China (herinafter Hong Kong) are used to argue that the experiences of migrant labour NGOs and migrant labour associations should be taken more seriously by trade unions and by the scholars who study them.

show abstract

“…This has focused mostly on the issues raised by the movement in the West -neo-liberalism, globalisation, privatisation and the market, the role of the international financial institutions, the reasons for continuing Third World poverty and international inequality, the domination of consumerism and brand image in Western societies, and the alleged decline in the power of nation states in the face of rampant multinational activity (Bove and Dufour, 1999;Klein, 1999;McMichael, 2000;Monbiot, 2000;Bircham and Charlton, 2001). There is also a growing literature describing the major protest events, and a rather more limited series of works on the major organisations involved and the individuals who have been drawn into the movement (Brecher, Costello and Smith, 2000;Levi and Olson, 2000;Barlow and Clarke, 2001;O'Brien, 2001;Cohen and McBride, 2002;McNally, 2002;Watson, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Whose Streets? Our Streets! Activist Perspectives on the Australian Anti-capitalist Movement

Bramble

Minns

2005

Social Movement Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The purpose of this paper is to provide a summary of the Australian anti-capitalist movement of 2000-01 as seen through the eyes of its activists. On the basis of 35 interviews conducted in mid-2002 we examine the background of the activist layer, the nature of the social networks and connective structures which shaped the Australian anti-capitalist movement, the character of the mobilising structures that were used to organise the protest movement, the degree to which the Australian movement was connected to international activity or learned from international political theorising, the tactics that were used at the protests, and the political frameworks that shaped the thinking of key activists. We conclude with some considerations as to the strengths and weaknesses of the movement.To be published by Social Movement Studies (UK) (2004) 2

show abstract

The Battles in Seattle

Cited by 58 publications

References 0 publications

The War on Europe's Waterfront - Repertoires of Power in the Port Transport Industry

The War on Europe's Waterfront - Repertoires of Power in the Port Transport Industry

Organizing the Unorganizable: Unions, NGOs, and Indonesian Migrant Labour

Whose Streets? Our Streets! Activist Perspectives on the Australian Anti-capitalist Movement

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About