Sunday 24 January 2016

The new book edited by Kim Scipes on global labor solidarity

Kim Scipes (ed.) (2016) Building Global Labor Solidarity in a Time of Accelerating Globalization. Haymarket Books.


Despite the prevailing "doom and gloom" of many labor scholars around the world about neoliberal capitalism and its affects on Labor globally, new labor movements are emerging across the Global South. This is happening in countries as disparate as China, Egypt, and Iran. New developments are taking place within labor movements in places such as Colombia, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Mexico, Pakistan, South Africa and Venezuela. Activists and leaders in these labor movements are seeking information from workers and unions around the world about alternative developmental paths they can consider, for the purpose of helping them decide how best to proceed.

At the same time, the issue of global labor solidarity is becoming of more and more interest to labor activists in the United States and Canada: workers are increasingly recognizing their weakness in the face of escalating corporate and military globalization (generally understood as "corporate attacks on our unions"). Workers in North America are more and more becoming aware of workers’ struggles in other countries (such as Foxconn in China), and are paying more and more attention to them.

Building Global Labor Solidarity in a Time of Accelerating Globalization is an intimate and authoritative look at how workers are building solidarity, both at home and around the world in nine key ways. While workers in the South are looking for information, workers in the North are looking for inspiration. The book unites them both.

Other contributors inclued: David Bacon, Bruno Dobrusin, Jenny Jungehülsing, Katherine Nastovski, Timothy Ryan, Michael Zweig.