Uncertain times : anthropological approaches to labor in a neoliberal world / edited by E. Paul Durrenberger.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Durrenberger, E. Paul, 1943- editor.

JSTOR (Online Service)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Business anthropology.

Organizational behavior.

Labor unions.

Labor unions--Organizing.

Neoliberalism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 361 pages.)

Place of Publication:

Boulder : University Press of Colorado, [2017]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

This first-ever collection of labor anthropology from around the world asserts that traditional labor unions have been co-opted by neoliberal policies of corporate capital, becoming service organizations rather than drivers of social movements. The current structure of labor unions facilitates corporations' need for a stable labor force while reducing labor's power to prevent outsourcing, subcontracting, and other methods of undercutting worker security. This process of neutering unions has been uneven over time and among nations, but the potential exists for renewed union power based on more vociferous and creative collective action. These global, firsthand accounts from activist anthropologists, union members and staff, and academics illustrate the many approaches that workers around the world are taking to reclaim their rights in this ever-shifting labor landscape. Uncertain Times uses a crucial comparative, ethnographic approach for understanding the new rules of the global labor struggle and the power workers have to change those rules. Book jacket.

Contents:

Hope for labor in a neoliberal world / Paul Durrenberger

Anthropologists, activists, and the labor movement / Emma Braden

The gift of labor : the town, the union and the corporate state in the demise of the Swedish car industry / Staffan Löfving

Trade unions, labor conflict and contested institutions in the Swiss construction industry / Christopher Kelley

Union power and transnational corporations in the Argentine steel industry / Julia Soul

Agents of change or status quo? Labor NGOs in South China / Darcy Pan

Labor struggles in the shipbuilding industry of Piraeus / Manos Spyridakis

The struggle for labor rights in the Maquiladoras of Northern Mexico / María Eugenia de la O

Growers, unions, and farm laborers in Mexico's Baja California / Christian Zlolniski

Policies, economic forces, class relations and unions in Spain's strawberry fields : globalized agriculture in Andalusia / Alicia Reigada

Subcontracted employment and the labor movement's response in Turkey / Alpkan Birelma

Organized labor in contemporary Israeli retail chains / Gadi Nissim

National unions, international capital and bankworkers / Steven Payne.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Electronic reproduction. New York Available via World Wide Web.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781607326311

1607326310

Publisher Number:

40027550742

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.