Grounding Globalization: Labour in the Age of Insecurity

Widespread claims have been made on the emergence of a new labor internationalism in response to the growing insecurity created by globalization. However, when persons face conditions of insecurity as a result of war, terrorism, environmental catastrophe, or insecurity in the workplace they often turn inwards. During previous phases of global insecurity we witnessed the rise of fascism.

What is distinctive about this book is that it grounds globalization in the everyday lives of workers, their households, and their communities. It compares three towns, Orange in Australia, Changwon in South Korea, and Ezakheni in South Africa, and shows how the global restructuring of white goods corporations is creating a profound experience of insecurity within workers, their families, and their communities.

The book contains a warning. At times, workers do turn inward and become fatalistic, even xenophobic. But there are also signs of hope. The book explores the possibilities of reempowering labor through engaging space and scale in new ways. Workers are rising to the challenge of neoliberal globalization by attempting to globalize their own struggles.

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.

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.

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)