This book is about the largest displacement crisis and resettlement of our time. However, it is not another piece that elaborately describes the appalling situation of Syrian workers in Turkey, but explores how they are integrated into the lower ends of the value chain in several sectors. The book seeks answers of what has been largely overlooked in the literature on the question of how labor processes have been shaped in various labor-intensive sectors by class and identity.

Given the substantial and increasing encroachment of trade agreements into almost every aspect of economic and social life, there is a pressing need for research that provides a more coherent framework for understanding the source and effectiveness of organised labour ’s power and capacity to influence international trade policy. Taking the union protests against the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) as a case study, this research uses core concepts derived from social movement theory to analyse the ...

This book investigates country-specific responses to privatisation by examining two of the most important Latin American examples of the 1990s, the Argentine and the Brazilian programmes, and one essential public service sector, electricity. In doing so, it aims to: identify the impact of privatisation on electricity sector employees in Argentina and Brazil during the 1990s; explore how the impact came about; and analyse the reasons for this impact. A multi-dimensional perspective provides a comparative analysis ...

This book sheds light on the role that migrant union members and their transnational connections play in unions' cross-border work. By bringing together concepts from (international labor) solidarity theory and transnational migration research, it shows that migrants organized in labor unions and their manifold cross-border ties and networks, transnational ways of belonging, and the social remittances and cultural knowledge they bring, can help overcome some major obstacles to international labor solidarity. Based ...

The book makes a major contribution to the controversy about the factors driving the persistence and expansion of the informal economy. Unlike most others studies which either take a structuralist or an actor’s choice approach to the topic, this study combines a careful assessment of the economic, social and political circumstances promoting informality with a meticulously carried out econometric analysis of the dominant characteristics of workers as well as enterprises in the informal economy in comparison to those ...

The United States of America and the European Union are currently negotiating a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). It is one of the most ambitious free trade and investment initiatives, going much further than eliminating tariffs. TTIP mainly aims at reducing “non-tariff barriers”. While tariffs on goods have been imposed with an eye to foreign competition, most of the non-tariff barriers are the laws and regulations that are the result of social struggles for the protection of consumers and ...

Up to 60 percent of the Global South’s work force toils in agriculture. Most smallholders and waged agricultural workers labor under poor health, safety and environmental conditions. This volume explores - the extent of the decent work deficit with a focus on women in agriculture, - the drivers of the poor remuneration and working conditions - some strategies for mitigating the decent work deficits. Its contributors argue that the severity of the decent work deficits in agriculture calls for action. Given the divers ...

A new collection of Case studies about gender and trade unions in nine countries, ranging from Turkey to India, Brazil to Africa, the Philippines and New Zealand. Researched and written by insider/outsider union activists and officers, the book is the culmination of five years of collaborative research by the Global Labour University Gender and Trade Unions Research Group.

Numerous uprisings and social movements in recent decades sprawled in seemingly disconnected political landscapes, from Turkey to Brazil, from South Africa to China, from Argentina to Portugal. These social protests centered on issues as varied as the right to affordable transportation, land dispossession or minority rights. The place of the working class in them seemed increasingly insignificant, and the framework of class analysis outdated. But did the concept of class really become obsolete? Are these social ...

Unionists part ways when it comes to the practical meaning of solidarity with workers who lack work permits. To some union members, undocumented migrant workers ought to be included in the bonds of union solidarity by virtue of being workers. To others, undocumented migrant workers are primarily illegal and unfair competitors undermining existing institutions of solidarity. In this controversial context, six union centers for undocumented migrant workers called MigrAr (German "Migration & Arbeit", English "migration ...