Abstract
This book should be received gratefully and read avidly by lecturers and students alike. It provides a critical, sociological perspective on a wide-ranging set of themes and issues. It is highly accessible while remaining sophisticated and rigorous in its analysis. It is empirically rich and theoretically informed and the clear commitment to progressive social change should inspire students.
Chapter 1 states its transformationalist perspective on globalization and analyses it as a process, project and practice. It roots the analysis in the lived experiences and social practices of social actors contesting the restructuring of work and its social consequences. These consequences are presented in frequent case studies highlighted in text boxes that will certainly trigger classroom discussion. Chapter 2’s focus on the call centre workplace and fair trade initiatives discusses the relationship between ‘consumption, work and identity’ in terms of forms of accommodation and resistance to the neoliberal project and its associated practices such as business process outsourcing. Alternatives to neoliberalism are not overstated and due attention is given, in Chapter 3, to the dominant role played by multi-national corporations and the transnational capitalist class in shaping how work and employment have been globalized. Case studies of union repression in Colombia at the behest of Coca Cola and the failed campaign to stop the relocation of Burberry’s factories ground the analysis empirically. Case studies of ethical fashion group ‘Monsoon’ and ‘Students against Sweatshops’ are utilized in Chapter 4 to introduce the often dry topic of regulating international labour standards. The limitations of existing regulation are linked well to the limited response of labour and social movements to globalization. The focus on international labour organizations could be widened here to include the mobilizations by workers, although these are presented later in the book. Its assumption that the majority of workers are now part of a global ‘precariat’ can be criticized on empirical and theoretical grounds, as can the linkage of community unionism with new social movements. The cases of ‘UK Uncut’ and ‘Occupy’ will, however, engage the likely readers.
Chapter 6, ‘Work and management of labour in “global factories”’ is the most interesting and informative, particularly when it demonstrates how ‘identity and resistance’ are fraught with ambiguities that may turn practices such as humour into mechanisms of coping with, as well as challenging, management control. Highlighting studies of women workers in Thailand and Malaysia locates women at the heart of globalization and work and women are presented as central protagonists throughout the book. Workers too are shown as agents as well as the hidden victims of the globalization of work. The desperate, suicidal response of migrant Asian construction workers in Chapter 7 depicted as the ‘dark side of Dubai’ will surely prick the moral conscience of students, although this chapter could be strengthened by examples of collective agency by migrants such as the sans papiers movement.
Chapter 8 problematizes the apparent ‘light’ side of globalization by discussing highly skilled migration. The ways in which the ethnic diversity of ‘Eurocity’ London attracts young mobile cosmopolitans will provoke interest and the question as to whether highly skilled IT workers are ‘symbolic analysts’ or ‘indentured servants’ will generate lively debate, as will the discussion of the global sex industry in Chapter 9. This chapter also explores the fascinating intersections of gender and class through the lives of three women living in Bristol. The focus on intersectionality also brings ‘race’ into the discussion by showing how ‘dirty work’ is undertaken mainly by the migrant women workers who have increasingly been employed to undertake the domestic tasks of over-worked upper middle class women. Through its intersectional analysis the book again shows its sensitivity to the ambiguities produced by the globalization of work and so is able to recognize, but not overplay, the resurgence of feminist activism.
Worker mobilization is recognized in Chapter 10, which argues against the ‘pacification thesis’ to demonstrate how labour conflict has been transformed so as to displace strikes to the global South and to generate new forms of worker protest. While acknowledging that the balance of power still favours global capital, the authors argue in Chapter 11 that labour has increasingly formed part of a broader social movement against neoliberal globalization that is a key agent of an alternative project for a more democratic process of globalization that can generate more socially progressive practices.
Overall, the book achieves its aim of bridging the gap between theoretical approaches which chart objective processes and the everyday lived experiences of globalization. Its main limitation is its vision of cosmopolitan social democracy, derived largely from the ‘Scandanavian model’, as the alternative to neoliberal globalization. The global South provides rich examples of alternative projects that are both ‘conservative’ and ‘socialist’ in orientation. Students would also benefit from debating the possibilities and limits of all these competing projects.