Unions in a Globalized Environment: Changing Borders, Organizational Boundaries and Social Roles / Edition 1

by Bruce Nissen

Overview

How can American unions survive in our increasingly globalized business environment? With the trend toward multinational corporations, free trade pacts, and dismantling import barriers, organized labor has been steadily losing ground in the United States. This book argues that to reverse this trend, U.S. unions must create ties with workers and unions in other countries, and include the ever-increasing number of immigrant workers in their ranks. And it calls for a shift toward "social movement unionism, " which would change unions' orientation from exclusively market-focused and more toward social issues and rights.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780765608697
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/31/2002
Pages:	302
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Bruce Nissen is Program Director at the Center for Labor Research and Studies at Florida International University in Miami. He has published numerous scholarly articles and six books, including Theories of the Labor Movement (coeditor, 1987); Grand Designs: The Impact of Corporate Strategies on Workers, Unions and Communities (coeditor and contributor, 1993); Fighting for Jobs: Case Studies of Labor Community Coalitions Confronting Plant Closings (1995); Unions and Workplace Reorganization (editor and contributor, 1998), and Which Direction for Organized Labor? - Essays on Organizing, Outreach, and Internal Transformations (editor and contributor, 1999). He is coeditor of Labor Studies Journal and an executive board member of the United Association for Labor Education (UALE). Recent research interests include living wage movements and immigrant experiences with organized labor.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures, 1. The Labor Movement in a New Globalized Environment: An Introduction, Part 1: Cross-Border Organizing and Solidarity, 2. Free Trade and Worker Solidarity in the North American Auto Industry, 3. Four Models of Cross-Border Maquila Organizing, 4. Union Global Alliances at Multinational Corporations: A Case Study of the Ameritech Alliance, Part II: Responding to Immigration, 5. New Workers, New Labor, and the New Los Angeles, 6. Unions and Immigrants in South Florida: A Comparison, Part III: Internal Transformation: Moving Toward Social Movement Unionism?, 7. The Strategic Challenge of Organizing Manufacturing Workers in Global/Flexible Capitalism, 8. Does Neoliberal Restructuring Promote Social Movement Unionism? U.S. Developments in Comparative Perspective, 9. Citizenship Movement Unionism: For the Defense of Local Communities in the Global Age, 10. Concluding Thoughts: Internal Transformation?, About the Editor and Contributors, Index

Editorial Reviews

U.S. unions have been facing declining membership and suggestions that they have become increasingly irrelevant. Nissen (Center for Labor Research and Studies, Florida International U.) and his contributors argue that in the age of corporate globalization, unions are more relevant than ever and examine ways in which they can increase that relevancy. Nine chapters are organized into sections that focus on how unions need to "globalize" labor by creating more solidarity contacts with third world labor movements and workers, reach out to immigrants in the United States, and reinvent their ideologies such that they move more toward social movement unionism and abandon business unionism. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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