Bringing together papers from some of the leading national and international experts from the Global Union Research Network (GURN), this book provides a valuable overview of how trade unions around the world are responding to globalization.

Globalization has proved a complex and multi-faceted process for workers, as are the strategies they must develop to face its challenges. The case studies in this volume demonstrate successful strategies undertaken by trade unions in Brazil, Bulgaria, the Caribbean, Colombia, India, Poland, the United Kingdom, Turkey as well as Southern and Eastern Africa. In the process, the contributors highlight issues crucial to trade unions in this period of fast-paced change, such as the struggle for transparent governance for a fairer globalization, the implementation of labour standards, employment creation, social protection, poverty alleviation including meeting the UN’s Millennium Development Goals and gender equality and more.

Above all, this book shows how trade unions are key in influencing the rules of globalization to achieve a fairer globalization, while also playing a paramount role in implementing and enforcing these rules.