Claims have been made on the emergence of a new labour internationalism in response to the growing insecurity created by globalization. However, when persons face conditions of insecurity they often turn inwards. This book contains a warning and a sign of hope. Some workers become fatalistic, even xenophobic. Others are attempting to globalize their own struggles.This work: examines the claim that a new labour internationalism is emerging by grounding the book in evidence, rather than assertion; analyzes three distinct places - Orange, Australia; Changwon, South Korea; and, Ezakheni, South Africa - and how they dealt with manufacturing plants undergoing restructuring; explores worker responses to rising levels of insecurity and examines preconditions for the emergence of counter-movements to such insecurity; and, highlights the significance of 'place' and 'scale', and demonstrates how the restructuring of multi-national corporations, and worker responses to this, connect the two concepts.

Table of Contents

Preface: A Journey of Discovery. List of Abbreviations. 1. The Polanyi Problem and the Problem with Polanyi. Part One: Markets Against Society. 2. Manufacturing Matters. 3. The Return of Market Despotism. 4. Citizenship Matters. Part Two: Society Against Markets. 5. Strong Winds in Ezakheni. 6. Escaping Social Death in Changwon. 7. Squeezing Orange. Part Three: Society Governing the Market? 8. History Matters. 9. Grounding Labour Internationalism. 10. The Necessity for Utopian Thinking. Notes. References. Index.

About the Author

Edward Webster is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Sociology of Work Unit (SWOP) at the University of the Witwatersrand. Rob Lambert is the Chair of Labour Studies at UWA's Business School and is the Director of the Australian Global Studies Research Centre. Andries Bezuidenhout works as a senior researcher in the Sociology of Work Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Reviews

"Grounding Globalization is a magnificent culmination of work the authors have done previously on South Africa and SIGTUR in particular. It is most certainly 'grounded' in the working lives of real people. It is robust and critical social research at its best. Labour analysts and activists will undoubtedly be reading it carefully for years to come." (Globalizations, February 2009)