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This book broadens the research on the underworld of precarious and not-represented workers, through a selection of original case studies from across the globe written by leading experts. The book unveils the working conditions affecting this vast labour force that is so important to capital accumulation in the global age. It also helps us to understand the forms and processes of organization that these groups of workers, almost on an everyday basis, put in place to improve their working conditions and lived experiences.
List of contents
Rethinking Labor Unionism in Spaces of Precarious Work.- Organizing Immigrant Workers Through 'Communities of Coping': An Analysis of Migrant Domestic Workers' Journey from an Individual Labour of Love to a Collective Labour with Rights.- Mobilizing Concealment and Spectacle Among Uruguay's Waste-Pickers.- Local Sweatshops in the Global Economy: Accumulation Dynamics and the Manufacturing of a Reserve Army.- Labour Politics and South African Retail Workers: Enduring Collectivities in the Face of Precariousness.- The Collective Resistance of China's Industrial Workers.- "We Fight Against the Union!": An Ethnography of Labor Relations in the Automotive Industry in Mexico.- Organizing Informal Female Workers in India: Experiences from the Construction Industry of Mumbai.- Digital Labour and Workers' Organisation
About the author
Maurizio Atzeni is a researcher at the Centre for Labour Relations/Argentinian National Research Council based in Buenos Aires, having previously held positions at Loughborough and De Montfort Universities in the UK. He has published extensively on labour-related issues and is currently on the editorial board of
Work, Employment and Society and of
Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society.
Immanuel Ness is professor of political science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York and senior research associate at the University of Johannesburg's Centre for Social Change. His research focuses on working class mobilization, global south workers, migration, resistance and social movements. He is general editor with Peter Bellwood of
The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration, and is also editor of
Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society.
Summary
This book broadens the research on the underworld of precarious and not-represented workers, through a selection of original case studies from across the globe written by leading experts. The book unveils the working conditions affecting this vast labour force that is so important to capital accumulation in the global age. It also helps us to understand the forms and processes of organization that these groups of workers, almost on an everyday basis, put in place to improve their working conditions and lived experiences.
Additional text
“The main theme of this edited volume is precariousness, explored through the perspectives of workers in localities of the Global South and North. … this volume is a noteworthy addition to a body a literature that conducts academic research ‘from below’. Its most valuable asset is the great detail and depth that most case studies provide.” (George Tsogas, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 57 (1), March, 2019)
Report
"Global Perspectives on Workers' and Labour Organizations groups nine in-depth and interesting labour studies on both the Global South and Global North, which allow us to see how widespread the precariousness of work is across the globe ... . Each chapter shows interesting ways in which a researcher can be useful for the processes of workers' self-organization ... . The invitation implied in this book is to build a public sociology through strong relationships ... ." (Nicolás Ratto, International Review of Social History, Vol. 64 (2), August, 2019)
"The main theme of this edited volume is precariousness, explored through the perspectives of workers in localities of the Global South and North. ... this volume is a noteworthy addition to a body a literature that conducts academic research 'from below'. Its most valuable asset is the great detail and depth that most case studies provide." (George Tsogas, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 57 (1), March, 2019)
