Labour Worldwide in the Era of Globalization Alternative Union Models in the New World Order

The trade union movement internationally is finding itself peripheralized by a series of mutually-reinforcing processes: the on-going world economic crisis; the uneven transition from an industrial to an information and service capitalism; the aggressive policies of neo-liberalism; the collapse of Communism and Radical Nationalism; the decline of the globalization that undermines the nation-state to which union hopes have long been pinned. The editors argue that this crisis provides an opportunity for labor to recover or reinvent itself.

Ronaldo Munck is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Liverpool.

Peter Waterman is Senior Lecturer in Politics of Alternative Development Strategies at the Institure of Social Science, the Netherlands.