2014/09/30 by Peter Evans · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Capital (architecture) #Corporate governance #Economic geography #Economics #Geography #Global South #Global governance #Industrial relations #International Labor and Employment Law #Labor Movements and Unions #Labor history #Labor relations #Labor union #Labour economics #Law #Management #Neoliberalism (international relations) #Openness to experience #Political Economy and Marxism #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Sociology #Transnationalism
paper · pdf · doi:10.15173/glj.v5i3.2283
openalex publication_date 2014/09/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/06
The neoliberal era has undermined worker’s rights and labor's power at the national level, but has also been characterized as an era of 'the new labor transnationalism'. Shifting fortunes at the national level have been fundamental to expanding openness to transnational alliances. An analysis of campaigns connecting U.S. labor to the Honduran CGT, the Bridgestone-Firestone workers in Liberia, the Gerdau Workers World Council, and other national unions in both North and South show how adversity at the national level has pushed U.S. labor toward transnational alliances. Conversely, the growing global role of major countries in the South has expanded their potential contribution to transnational alliances, as illustrated by Brazilian labor's involvement with both European unions like the Dutch FNV and U.S. unions like the UAW and the USW. New connections among national labor movements are complemented by the expansion of Global Union Federations and new governance instruments like Global Framework Agreements, which articulate multi-country connections. Assessing the connections among national labor movements and the new global organizational infrastructure that have emerged under neoliberalism is a necessary foundation for building better theories of labor’s evolving contestation with global capital.