Labor Movements (eBook)

Global Perspectives

Stephanie Luce (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2014
John Wiley & Sons (Verlag)
978-0-7456-8239-6 (ISBN)

Infos

Fewer than 12 percent of U.S. workers belong to unions, and union membership rates are falling in much of the world. With tremendous growth in inequality within and between countries, steady or indeed rising unemployment and underemployment, and the marked increase in precarious work and migration, can unions still play a role in raising wages and improving work conditions?

This book provides a critical evaluation of labor unions both in the U.S. and globally, examining the factors that have led to the decline of union power and arguing that, despite their challenges, unions still have a vital part to play in the global economy. Stephanie Luce explores the potential sources of power that unions might have, and emerging new strategies and directions for the growth of global labor movements, such as unions, worker centers, informal sector organizations, and worker co-operatives, helping workers resist the impacts of neoliberalism. She shows that unions may in fact be more relevant now than ever.

This important assessment of labor movements in the global economy will be required reading for advanced undergraduates and graduate students of labor studies, political and economic sociology, the sociology of work, and social movements.

This important assessment of labor movements in the global economy will be required reading for advanced undergraduates and graduate students of labor studies, political and economic sociology, the sociology of work, and social movements.

Autor

Stephanie Luce is an Associate Professor of Labor Studies at the Murphy Institute, City University of New York. She is a leading expert on living wages. Professor Luce worked as an economist at the U.S. Department of Labor and a Congressional Commission on Agricultural Workers before earning her Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1999. She has also worked as a researcher at the Center on Wisconsin Strategy and the Political Economy Research Institute.

Inhalt

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

Part I: Background

2. A Role for Unions?

3. Why Unions Decline: External Challenges on the Macro
Level

4. Adding to Further Decline: Labor Market Changes

Part II: Union Response

5. Changing from Within

6. Union Power

7. Rebuilding the Movements

8. New Directions - Going Global

Notes

References

Index

Rezensionen

''Stephanie Luce gives us an informed and wise assessment of the crucial role of unions in resisting the forces unleashed by neoliberal capitalism. She deals unblinkingly with the opposition that unions confront today and with their own internal weaknesses as well. Yet she concludes that rolling back an unbridled capitalism cannot be accomplished without a revived and innovative labor movement. A sobering yet refreshing antidote, and one that inspires both hope and hard work.''
Frances Fox Piven, Graduate Center, City University of New York

''Stephanie Luce's "Labor Movements" is must read book for those who are interested in workers' rights, unionization and the future of labor movements. Luce provides a critical review on neo-liberal gobalization, global financial crisis, illusion of economic growth, and assess the effect on the role of unions and workers' struggles. By debunking the myth of mobile and global capitalism, the book calls for changes on the existing system and new ways of workers' emancipation worldwide.''
Pun Ngai, Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Textauszug

1

     

Introduction

Vignette #1:

When the BJ&B hat factory opened in a free trade zone in the Dominican Republic in 1987, it brought the promise of jobs and a better life for local residents. Over 2,000 workers, primarily women, were hired. But soon, the women realized the jobs came at a cost. Managers were verbally abusive, sometimes threatening physical violence, forcing most workers to work overtime shifts, and firing or refusing to pay workers for small infractions. By the late 1990s, a small group of workers began to organize a union. But when they declared their union in 2001, 20 union supporters were fired. The workers enlisted supporters in the Dominican Republic and abroad, and over the next two years, they waged a campaign against BJ&B. The company asserted that unionization would result in factory closure (Gonzalez 2003; Ross 2004).

The U.S.-based United Students Against Sweatshops launched a campaign against Nike and Reebok, two of the largest purchasers of BJ&B products, urging the companies to pressure the factory owners to recognize the union. After much effort, in 2003, BJ&B agreed to let workers decide whether to form a union, remain neutral during the process, as well as negotiate a contract if that was the workers’ decision. They also agreed to rehire the fired workers. Workers won raises, scholarships, and better working conditions. The victory was hailed as groundbreaking, since unions have had little success organizing workers in the free trade zones of the Dominican Republic or elsewhere (Ross 2004).

But soon after the victory, the large brands began reducing their orders and moving work to cheaper factories in other countries. In February 2007, the brands abruptly ended all orders and BJ&B shut its doors without warning, leaving the workers without jobs and with little recourse (Greenhouse 2010; Dreier 2011). Like so many cases where garment workers have organized, the victory at BJ&B was short-lived. In the end, the factory owner’s dire predictions that work will dry up were not just idle threats (Armbruster-Sandoval 2005).

Vignette #2:

In August 2008, 134 workers at the Stella D’oro bakery in the Bronx, New York went on strike, two weeks after their union contract expired. The company was demanding significant wage and benefit cuts. Stella D’oro was founded in 1932 by a New York family, who grew it to a successful business with 575 employees. In 1992 the family sold the company to Nabisco, which sold it to Kraft, which then sold it to Brynwood Partners, a private equity firm, in 2006. Brynwood obtained over $425,000 in tax abatements from the city to upgrade machinery at the plant, but by 2008, it argued that wages must be cut to retain profits (Jaccarino 2009; Lee 2009).

The workers, members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Local 50, went on strike for the next 10 months. The union filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), one of which claimed that Brynwood had refused to provide the union with a copy of its 2007 financial statement, thereby failing to bargain in good faith. In June 2009 an NLRB judge ruled in favor of the union, and ordered the company to reinstate the workers.

The next week Stella D’oro invited the workers back but within a few weeks announced that it would close the factory and move production elsewhere. Brynwood sold the company to the Lance Corporation, which moved the production to a non-union bakery in Ohio.

Despite a strike, significant community support, favorable court ruling, and media coverage in major newspapers, the union was unable to keep the plant open or maintain the jobs of its members. While the company ended up moving production inside the U.S., the dynamics are indicative of the reduced power that unions have in an era of global capitalism. Whether companies threaten to move overseas or to the neighboring city, they can still use their mobility to break a union. When employers are free to move investments and production with little penalty, what can unions do?

* * *

Just a few decades ago, mainstream economists predicted that increased international trade and the spread of free markets around the globe would lead to new jobs for many and an increased standard of living for all. Noted economist Paul Krugman argued for increased free trade, dismissing those who raised concerns as “silly,” protectionist, or simply wrong (Greider 2013). But while globalization has led to a massive increase in wealth, and an average increase in gross domestic product per capita, a closer look reveals a troubling picture for many of the world’s workers.

In the world’s biggest economy – the United States – unemployment, including long-term unemployment, is at levels not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Worse, millions of workers are underemployed in various ways – working part-time when they want to be full-time, or stuck in seasonal and temporary work. A 2012 report found that over half of new college graduates were either unemployed or working in jobs that did not require a college degree (Associated Press 2012).

The picture is similar across much of the world. Since the great recession of 2008, youth unemployment has skyrocketed. Almost 13 percent of young people around the world – 73.8 million people under the age of 25 – are officially unemployed, and the numbers are much worse when we include those who are underemployed or not in the formal economy. For example, 12.7 percent of European youth are not in the labor market or in school as of 2012 (ILO 2013).

It isn’t just young people that are suffering. The International Labor Organization (ILO) found that 197 million people world-wide were without jobs in 2012 – almost 6 percent of the formal labor market. But 39 million people have dropped out of the labor market due to the recession, meaning that unemployment is actually much higher – and the ILO predicts things will only get worse in the coming years. In 2012 part-time employment increased in two-thirds of wealthy countries (ILO 2013).

More disconcerting is the growth of workers in the informal economy and in “precarious employment” or contingent work – people in temporary or seasonal work, or other forms of work with no job security and lack of social protection.1 Neoclassical economics predicted that as capitalism spread, and economies experienced economic growth, formal employment would rise. Yet in many countries this has not been the case, as the past few decades of economic growth have come hand in hand with an increase in informal employment.

High unemployment and underemployment, and increasing precarity comes alongside stagnant, or even falling, average wages. What is most remarkable is that in many countries, wages have stagnated while labor productivity has increased. For example, between 1999 and 2011, labor productivity grew over twice as fast as wages in wealthy countries (ILO 2013). Figure 1.1 shows that whereas wages and labor productivity moved together in the United States for several decades after World War II, the two began to diverge in the 1970s, resulting in a serious gap. And where the postwar period saw workers maintaining their share of the expanding economic pie, over the past four decades employers have captured the gains from increased productivity.

Even before the global financial meltdown, some analysts noted the alarming trend of stagnant wages. Morgan Stanley economist Stephen Roach wrote in 2007:

The pendulum of economic power is at unsustainable extremes in the developed world. For a broad collection of major industrial economies – the United States, the euro zone, Japan, Canada and the U.K. – the share of economic rewards going to labor stands at a historical low of less than 54% of national income – down from 56% in 2001. Meanwhile, the share going to corporate profits stands at a record high of nearly 16% – a striking increase from the 10% reading five years ago. (Roach 2007)

After the 2008 crisis, things looked even worse. The global labor income share continued to fall in the OECD (Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation) countries as well as most developing countries, as the share of national income going to corporate profits rose – particularly in the financial sector (ILO 2013).

There are some exceptions. China has experienced real wage growth in the last decade, even when controlling for cost of living increases. Real wages went up for salaried workers in India for most years since 2005. The growth in wages and employment in China and India means that absolute poverty has fallen in those countries, and on average, worldwide. But despite these gains, over one-quarter of the world’s workers are living in poverty. In 2012, 397 million workers in developing countries were living in extreme poverty, despite holding a job, and another 472 million were above extreme poverty but did not have enough income to regularly meet their basic needs (ILO 2013).2 Furthermore, despite wage growth in China and India, inequality is rising rapidly as the share of national income...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 23.1.2014
• Reihe/Serie: Social Movements
• Reihe/Serie: Social Movements
• Reihe/Serie: Social Movements
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Staat / Verwaltung
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Spezielle Soziologien
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Volkswirtschaftslehre ► Makroökonomie
• Schlagworte: Development Studies • Entwicklungsforschung • Entwicklung u. Globalisierung • Gesellschaftliche Bewegungen, Bürgerbewegungen • Gesellschaftliche Bewegungen, Bürgerbewegungen • Globalisierung • Globalization & Development • Political Science • Politikwissenschaft • Social Movements / Activism • Sociology • Sociology of Organizations & Work • Soziologie • Soziologie am Arbeitsplatz • Wirtschaftssoziologie • work, unions, sociology of work, protest, labor organization, unionization, trades unions
• ISBN-10: 0-7456-8239-1 / 0745682391
• ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-8239-6 / 9780745682396