Break or Weld?: Trade Union Responses to Global Value Chain Restructuring

2008 | Business & Finance

Volume 2 No 1 of Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation is entitled 'Break or Weld? Trade Union Responses to Global Value Chain Restructuring' and focuses on trade union responses to globalisation. Most trade unions evolved to negotiate with single employers in an single country. Now, multiple sites around the world are linked to each other in complex value chains and global employers are more likely to answer to their shareholders than to national institutions. In this new context, what is the furutre for traditional forms of organisation and representation? Does the defence of local jobs pit workers on different sites against each other? Or can new solidarities emerge that strengthen links along the value chain? This issue asks these and other questions, including: Are new forms of organisation emerging and, if so, how effective are they? How can workers past traditions of organising be built on in changed circumstances? How can traditional European national social dialogue models adapt to globalisation? Can initiatives to establish labour standards and good corporate governance at a global level provide answers?How can trade unions work with campaigns and community-based organisations?

Contributors include: Ursula Huws, Ronaldo Munck, Vincent Mosco, Pamela Meil, Monique Ramioul and Tom de Bruyn, Michelle Rodino-Colocino, Marlea Clarke and Carolyn Bassett, Leonardo Mello e Silva, Marco Aurelia Santana, Bruce Robinson, Patrick Develtere and Peter Waterman.

Ursula Huws (Author)