SPINE 19mm ROYAL V G erity Burgmann lobalization and ROUTLEDGE ADVANCES IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY L abour in the T wenty- First C entury Globalization and Labour in the Twenty- First Century Verity Burgmann A PDF version of this book is available for free in Open Access at www.tandfebooks.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. ISBN 978-0-415-52853-5 www.routledge.com 9 780415 528535 SPINE 19mm Globalization and Labour in the Twenty- First Century Globalization has adversely affected working- class organization and mobiliza- tion, increasing inequality by redistribution upwards from labour to capital. However, workers around the world are challenging their increased exploitation by globalizing corporations. In developed countries, many unions are transform- ing themselves to confront employer power in ways more appropriate to con- temporary circumstances; in developing countries, militant new labour movements are emerging. Drawing upon insights in anti-determinist Marxian perspectives, Verity Burg- mann shows how working- class resistance is not futile, as protagonists of ­globalization­ often­ claim.­ She­ identifes­ eight­ characteristics­ of­ globalization­ harmful to workers and describes and analyses how they have responded collec- tively to these problems since 1990 and especially this century. With case studies from around the world, including Greece since 2008, she pays particular atten- tion to new types of labour movement organization and mobilization that are not simply defensive reactions but are offensive and innovative responses that compel corporations or political institutions to change. Aging and less agile manifestations of the labour movement decline while new expressions of working- class organization and mobilization arise to better battle with corporate globalization. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of labour studies, globalization, political economy, Marxism and sociology of work. Verity Burgmann is Adjunct Professor of Politics in the School of Social Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Routledge Advances in International Political Economy 16 Contested Capitalism 23 Global Criminal and Sovereign The­political­origins­of­fnancial­ Free Economies and the Demise institutions of the Western Democracies Richard W. Carney Dark renaissance Edited by Robert J. Bunker and 17 Economic Growth, the Pamela Ligouri Bunker Environment and International Relations 24 Capitalist Alternatives The growth paradigm Models, Taxonomies, Scenarios Stephen James Purdey Paul Dragos Aligica and Vlad Tarko 18 Variety of Capitalism, Types of Democracy and Globalization 25 International Mobility, Global Edited by Masanobu Ido Capitalism, and Changing Structures of Accumulation 19 States, Nonstate Actors, and Transforming the Japan–India IT Global Governance relationship Projecting polities Anthony P. D’Costa Edward A. Fogarty 26 The Crisis and Renewal of 20 The Political Economy of Space Amer ican Capitalism in the Americas A civilizational approach to The new Pax Amer icana modern American political Alejandra Roncallo economy Laurence Cossu- Beaumont, 21 Trade, Development and Jacques- Henri Coste and Globalization Jean- Baptiste Velut S. Javed Maswood 27 Globalization and Labour in the 22 Transatlantic Politics and the Twenty- First Century Transformation of the Verity Burgmann International Monetary System Michelle Frasher Globalization and Labour in the Twenty- First Century Verity Burgmann First published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 Verity Burgmann The­right­of­Verity­Burgmann­to­be­identifed­as­author­of­this­work­has­ been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.tandfebooks. com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered­trademarks,­and­are­used­only­for­identifcation­and­explanation­ without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Names: Burgmann, Verity, author. Title:­Globalization­and­labour­in­the­twenty-frst­century­/­ Verity Burgmann. Description: New York : Routledge, 2016. | Series: Routledge advances in international political economy | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifers:­LCCN­2015043510|­ISBN­9780415528535­(hardback)­|­ ISBN­9781315624044­(ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Labor movement–History–21st century. | Labor and globalization. | Capitalism–History–21st century. Classifcation:­LCC­HD4855­.B87­2016­|­DDC­331.88–dc23 LC­record­available­at­http://lccn.loc.gov/2015043510 ISBN:­978-0-415-52853-5­(hbk) ISBN:­978-1-315-62404-4­(ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear Contents Acknowledgements vii List of abbreviations viii Introduction: the workers of the globalizing world 1 The inegalitarian effects of globalization 3 The ‘capital-labour split’ 6 1 Working- class agency and labour movement action 15 Anti- determinist theories 15 Optimism and pessimism of the intellect: scholarly perspectives 23 2 Confronting post- Fordist production 34 Recent transformations in production and labour process 34 From Flint to Foshan: striking at the Achilles heel of lean production 36 The problem of size: organizing high- turnover, small workforces 43 3 Reversing decline by going online? 54 The issue of union membership levels 54 The early history of labour and the internet: 1981–2005 56 Workers of the world, unite online? 59 Labour in the Web 2.0 world 64 The challenge of Web 2.0 71 4 Subverting the shift in production 78 New sites of working-class formation 78 Where capital goes, labour-capital confict follows 81 The scourge of sweatshops: naming and shaming campaigns 95 vi Contents 5 Countering capital mobility 106 Capital fight and unfair trade 106 The evolution of labour transnationalism 108 Regional labour transnationalism 113 Global Unions in the twenty-frst century 116 6 Confounding workforce fragmentation 134 Discrimination and globalization 134 The problem of prejudice: the case of immigrant labour 136 Labour and new social movements: the ‘circulation of struggles’ 140 Mobilizing the marginalized: labour inclusivity since the 1980s 143 7 Opposing unemployment and precarity 155 The reserve army of labour 155 Struggles against segmentation 159 Factories without bosses and FaSinPat in Argentina 170 8 Protecting the public 180 The mercantilization of life 180 The ‘social factory’ and ‘community unionism’ 183 Privatization and its discontents 186 9 Raging against the rich 210 Structural adjustment riots and other outbursts 210 The grand refusals of European labour: before the GFC 214 In the wake of the GFC 215 Anti- austerity mobilization in Greece 2008–2011 216 The Occupy moment and the labour movement 224 Greece 2011–2015: from Eurozone crisis to Syriza 226 Conclusion: striking back against Empire 237 Index 243 Acknowledgements I am grateful to Jan Aart Scholte and Robin Cohen of the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation at the University of Warwick for their helpful- ness at the start of this project in 2004. Others who assisted in some way include: Peter Alexander, Antonis Balasopoulos, Julia Ramírez Blanco, Linda Briskin, Marissa Brookes, Rowan Cahill, Drew Cottle, Ralph Darlington, Boris Frankel, Richard Freeman, Carla Lipsig- Mummé, David Lockwood, Andrew Milner, Richard Milner, Immanuel Ness, Silke Neunsinger, Bryan Palmer, Sean Scalmer, Andrew Schuller, Rakhi Sehgal, Beverly Silver, Amanda Tattersall, Marcel van der Linden, Raquel Varela, Charles Weathers, Eddie Webster, Steve Wright and Charlotte Yates. In 2010–2012 the Australian Research Council provided $90,000 for casual research assistants, which I would not have received without generous help with my funding application from Patricia Grimshaw and Chips Sowerwine. Jack Roberts was an excellent research assistant in English-language sources. Georgie Kamaris and Gonzalo Villaneuva were fantastic Greek- and Spanish- language research assistants. Unfortunately, the funding did not provide for any teaching relief and from 2009 my Head of School at the University of Melbourne made my working life a misery. I was therefore unable to complete the research and write the book until after I gave up paid academic employment in 2013. Thanks to Raelene Frances and James Walter, I became an honorary professor in Social Sciences at Monash University, which provided a very pleas- ant­ workplace­ and­ infrastructural­ support­ in­ this­ fnal­ stage.­ The­ team­ at­ Routledge – Sophie Iddamalgoda, Andrew Taylor, Laura Holiday, Emma Critch- ley­and­Sara­Barnes­were­highly­effcient­and­profcient. ­ For­support­through­diffcult­times­in­the­workplace,­I­am­grateful­to­many­ colleagues, especially Philomena Murray, Hans Baer, Joy Damousi and Lynne Wrout. Most of all, I was sustained throughout this project by my family: husband Andrew Milner; sons David Milner, James Burgmann Milner and Robert Milner; daughters- in-law Clare McCutcheon and Jessica Turner; sisters Beverley Firth and Meredith Burgmann; and the memory of my parents,