REVITALIZING LABOR: GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES AND A RESEARCH AGENDA

Abstract

Labor movements have played a central role in promoting democracy, the expansion of welfare states, and improvements in working conditions in many regions of the world during the last century (Jose, 2002). Despite the central social, political and economic role of labor movements, labor union memberships have declined in many world regions during the last quarter-century. Labor union memberships have declined with increasing global economic competition and capital mobility, the advent of neo-liberal macroeconomic policies, privatization of public services, changes in production technology, the substitution of casual, flexible and contingent employment arrangements for formal, bureaucratic internal labor markets, the restructuring of national economies from manufacturing to services, and mounting employer resistance to unionization (Clawson & Clawson, 1999; Cornfield & Fletcher, 2001; Griffin et al., 1990; Jose, 2002; Olney, 1996; Western, 1997, 1998).

Citation

Cornfield, D.B. and McCammon, H.J. (2003), "REVITALIZING LABOR: GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES AND A RESEARCH AGENDA", Cornfield, D.B. and Mccammon, H.J. (Ed.) Labor Revitalization: Global Perspectives and New Initiatives (Research in the Sociology of Work, Vol. 11), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-2833(03)11001-1