Book Review: Rethinking Global Labour: After Neoliberalism by Ronaldo Munck

In Rethinking Global Labour, Ronaldo Munck provides an overview of some of the key trends that have been occurring in the workplace on a global level throughout much of the neoliberal period. In doing so, he brings together a wealth of research on industrial relations, capitalism, globalization, labour studies and political economy, to argue that the changing nature of class relations in globalized neoliberal capitalism are such that new opportunities for resistance and worker-led organization have been created (rather than merely witnessing the defeat of national labour movements). These developments have generated the potential to ‘forge a new global labour movement that improves the lives of everyone’ and which would see the joining up of a range of grassroots actors, including ‘workers, women, peasants and students’ (p. 1) on a global basis (p. 1).

Adopting an approach to capitalism that views workers as inherently possessing agency, the transition from the Fordist period to post-Fordism is seen both as a response that was prompted by the mobilizations of labour during the 1960s and 1970s, and subsequently an opening up of opportunities for new (global) forms of organization in the present. This, Munck argues, is especially the case following the global economic crisis of 2008, which has prompted an ongoing expansion of global dissent, prompted by global capitalism’s inability to meet the demands of the global population.

This new global movement includes traditional organizations, such as trade unions, representing the interests of workers, as well as more ‘horizontal’ forms of mobilization, such as the Occupy movement. It also includes attempts to fuse these two organizational forms, typically referred to as ‘social movement unionism’.

In charting these developments, Rethinking Global Labour provides a summary of a number of key trends that are commonly observed within the literature, including the move from Fordism to post-Fordism, the breaking down of a clear distinction between the experience of workers in the Global North and South during the age of globalization, the emergence of a precariat and a new international division of labour, the feminization of the global (paid) labour force, the rise of labour migration and the rise of the anti-globalization movement that coincided with the hegemony of neoliberal globalization during the 1990s and 2000s. Two developments which are key to these changes are the large expansion of the global proletariat that occurred due to both the collapse of the Soviet Union (witnessing an expansion of western capitalism into East Europe) and the insertion of the Chinese workforce into the global economy.

Central to Munck’s thesis is the claim that we should not forget about labour, working class organization, or trade unions as a key way through which workers organize. This is a direct response to the decline of class-based analysis which accompanied the onset of neoliberal globalization. Key trends observed here include the growing internationalist outlook of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) trade union federation in the United States, the continued relevance of international labour organizations, including the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU).

Perhaps, the key strength of Rethinking Global Labour is the way in which it discusses changes to the global labour movement in truly global terms. Whereas much of the literature focusing on trends such as the move from Fordism to post-Fordism typically limits its focus to North America and Western Europe, Munck consistently draws our attention to the different experiences of labour in different parts of the global economy. He also manages to bring together, in an impressive way, a number of important strands of research in a single monograph, providing an important overview of the key trends in global capitalism from the perspective of labour. At times, the reader is left wanting a little more in terms of detail in considering the trends under discussion. The conclusion posits a new global labour movement which is pushing at the limits of global capitalism, but more concrete examples of how this movement is developing and manifesting itself would have been helpful. There was also a tendency, at times, to refer to developments in the present which have arguably already been surpassed by events – the discussion of the Battle of Seattle and the changing politics of the AFL-CIO during the mid 1990s are two examples that come to mind.

In sum, Ronaldo Munck’s Rethinking Global Labour: After Neoliberalism will be of interest to students and scholars seeking an overview of the key trends facing global labour, as understood within a changing (globalizing) capitalism, brought together impressively in this single monograph and, in doing so, highlighting a number of key trends that are simultaneously occurring to produce the current range of opportunities and constraints of the present. Whereas some observers have written off workers as an agent of social change under neoliberal globalization, Munck shows clearly how doing so would be a serious mistake.