Workers in a Lean World: Unions in the International Economy

This is a comprehensive study of current labour relations worldwide. It surveys both sides of the picket lines, and provides an assessment of multinational managements' strategies to downsize, introduce flexible production and compel workers to accept less pay for more work. The book emphasizes the need, in the face of these changes, for international co-ordination among national unions, and provides examples of where and how this has been achieved. The book argues that despite frequent hostility from traditionally pro-labour political parties and opposition on the part of union leaderships, the threatened demise of organized labour across the globe has been greatly exaggerated. The mid-1990s have witnesses an upsurge in workers' militancy. From France, Germany and Belgium to Korea, Canada and Brazil, the international labour movement has shown surprising resistance to the global re-organization of capital and the savage assaults of neo-liberal state policy.… (more)