Trade Unions and the Global Crisis: Labour’s Visions, Strategies and Responses

If the recent global economic crisis has debilitated labour in many parts of the world, many segments of the trade union movement have been fighting back, combining traditional and innovative strategies and articulating alternatives to the dominant political and economic models. This book offers a composite overview of the responses of trade unions and other workers’ organizations to neoliberal globalization in general and to the recent financial crisis in particular.

The essays here, by trade unionists and academics from around the world, explore the state of labour in Brazil, China, Nepal, South Africa, Turkey, North America and Europe. The authors offer a rich range of short-term strategies and actions, medium- and long-term policies, and alternative visions that challenge the current development paradigm. This book makes a stimulating contribution to the continuing debate on labour’s role as an economic, political and social force in building a more democratic and just society.

"In a context of sustained economic crisis ... there are no clear roadmaps for the alternative, a sustainable society that can only be forged through innovative mobilization. We are fortunate, therefore, for the rich offerings in this book that examine the crisis and craft inspiring elements of a vision for a more economically and environmentally viable society. Based on well-informed research, this fine collection of writings also points toward the innovative strategies labor unions and their allies need in the battles ahead."
Lowell Turner, Cornell University, USA