Central Labor Councils are the local arm of the labor movement responsible for coordinating collective activities among different unions in a region. Once quite powerful organizations with important political roles at local and regional levels, CLCs waned significantly during the 1940s and 50s. This work examines the recent re-emergence of Central Labor Councils and how they are being utilized as effective bodies to help rejuvenate the labor movement. It combines comprehensive history of t...

First Published in 2017. This encyclopedia, in A-Z format, has as its subject those cities that are the most important to the world in terms of their cultural, historic, economic, demographic or political significance: some 150 world cities are included. City profiles focus on areas such as economy, demographics, labour, culture, crime, education, health, housing, land and environment etc., as well as incorporating data that ranks each city on the basis of more than 75 indicators. This ena...

The site of industrial struggle is shifting. Across the Global South, peasant communities are forced off the land to live and work in harsh and impoverished conditions. Inevitably, new methods of combating the spread of industrial capitalism are evolving in ambitious, militant and creative ways. This is the first book to theorise and examine the present and future shape of global class struggles.Immanuel Ness looks at three key countries: China, India and South Africa. In each case...

'A breath of fresh air' - Norman FinklesteinWorkers in the Global South are doomed through economic imperialism to carry the burden of the entire world. While these workers appear isolated from the Global North, they are in fact deeply integrated into global commodity chains and essential to the maintenance of global capitalism.Looking at contemporary case studies in India, the Philippines and South Africa, this book affirms the significance of political and economic repres...

Over the past 50 years the global labour market is transforming from reliable employment to low-wage and unstable informal and precarious jobs. This ineluctable shift is a consequence of the concentrated application of neoliberalism since the 1980s, as capitalism is converting standardised labour markets in the developed Global North into contingent and informal labour.Platform Labour and Global Logistics: A Research Companion examines the most important developments and f...

Imperialism has resurfaced as an area of scholarly study in recent years, particularly among those concerned with political economy and international relations. Do countries engage in foreign intervention and "just war" because they feel a responsibility toward the international community? Or are these actions rationalizations for the pursuit of commercial, industrial, financial, and military interests? Around the world, economies, cultures, politics, laws, and nation-states are profoundly...

This book broadens the research on the underworld of precarious and not-represented workers, through a selection of original case studies from across the globe written by leading experts. The book unveils the working conditions affecting this vast labour force that is so important to capital accumulation in the global age. It also helps us to understand the forms and processes of organization that these groups of workers, almost on an everyday basis, put in place to improve their working c...

Bureaucratic labor unions are under assault. Most unions have surrendered the achievements of the mid-twentieth century, when the working class was a militant force for change throughout the world. Now trade unions seem incapable of defending, let alone advancing, workers’ interests.As unions implode and weaken, workers are independently forming their own unions, drawing on the tradition of syndicalism and autonomism—a resurgence of self-directed action that augurs a new period of ...

This ground-breaking look at contemporary immigrant labor organizing and mobilization draws on participant observation, ethnographic interviews, historical documents, and new case studies of three organizing drives. The expert contributors provide tangible evidence of immigrants' eagerness for collective action and organizing. Parting company with mainstream thinking, they argue lucidly that immigrants' propensity to organize stems from social isolation. Many of the contributors highlight ...

How do individuals and organizations move beyond the boundaries of constitutional or legal constructs to challenge neoliberalism and capitalism? As major urban areas have become the principal sites of poor and working-class social upheaval in the early twenty-first century, the chapters in this book explore key cities in the Global South. Through detailed cases studies, Urban Revolt unravels the potential and limitations of urban social movements on an international level.

Strikes have been part of American labor relations from colonial days to the present, reflecting the widespread class conflict that has run throughout the nation's history. Against employers and their goons, against the police, the National Guard, local, state, and national officials, against racist vigilantes, against their union leaders, and against each other, American workers have walked off the job for higher wages, better benefits, bargaining rights, legislation, job control, and jus...

Solidarity Unionism is critical reading for all who care about the future of labor. Drawing deeply on Staughton Lynd's experiences as a labor lawyer and activist in Youngstown, OH, and on his profound understanding of the history of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), Solidarity Unionism helps us begin to put not only movement but also vision back into the labor movement.While many lament the decline of traditional unions, Lynd takes succor in the blos...