Grounding Globalization: Labour in the Age of Insecurity - Softcover

Webster, Edward

Softcover

ISBN 10: 140512914X ISBN 13: 9781405129145

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008

Synopsis

*Winner of the 2009 Distinguished Scholarly Monograph Prize, awarded by the American Sociological Association Labor and Labor Movements section*

Claims have been made on the emergence of a new labour internationalism in response to the growing insecurity created by globalization. However, when persons face conditions of insecurity they often turn inwards. The book contains a warning and a sign of hope. Some workers become fatalistic, even xenophobic. Others are attempting to globalize their own struggles.

• Examines the claim that a new labour internationalism is emerging by grounding the book in evidence, rather than assertion
• Analyzes three distinct places – Orange, Australia; Changwon, South Korea; and Ezakheni, South Africa – and how they dealt with manufacturing plants undergoing restructuring
• Explores worker responses to rising levels of insecurity and examines preconditions for the emergence of counter-movements to such insecurities Highlights the significance of 'place' and 'scale', and demonstrates how the restructuring of multi-national corporations, and worker responses to this, connect the two concepts

About this title

About the Author

Edward Webster is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Sociology of Work Unit (SWOP) at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Rob Lambert is the Chair of Labour Studies at UWA’s Business School and is the Director of the Australian Global Studies Research Centre.

Andries Bezuidenhout works as a senior researcher in the Sociology of Work Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand.

From the Back Cover

Widespread claims have been made on the emergence of a new labor internationalism in response to the growing insecurity created by globalization. However, when persons face conditions of insecurity – as a result of war, terrorism, environmental catastrophe, or insecurity in the workplace – they often turn inwards. During previous phases of global insecurity we witnessed the rise of fascism.

What is distinctive about this book is that it grounds globalization in the everyday lives of workers, their households, and their communities. It compares three towns, Orange in Australia, Changwon in South Korea, and Ezakheni in South Africa, and shows how the global restructuring of white goods corporations is creating a profound experience of insecurity within workers, their families, and their communities.

The book contains a warning. At times, workers do turn inward and become fatalistic, even xenophobic. But there are also signs of hope. The book explores the possibilities of reempowering labor through engaging space and scale in new ways. Workers are rising to the challenge of neoliberal globalization by attempting to globalize their own struggles.

What is distinctive about this book is that it grounds globalization in the everyday lives of workers, their households, and their communities. It compares three towns, Orange in Australia, Changwon in South Korea, and Ezakheni in South Africa, and shows how the global restructuring of white goods corporations is creating a profound experience of insecurity within workers, their families, and their communities.

The book contains a warning. At times, workers do turn inward and become fatalistic, even xenophobic. But there are also signs of hope. The book explores the possibilities of reempowering labor through engaging space and scale in new ways. Workers are rising to the challenge of neoliberal globalization by attempting to globalize their own struggles.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 140512914X
• ISBN 13: 9781405129145
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288