The politics of globalisation
Globalisation has had a profound impact on labour worldwide. But what, exactly, has this impact been? Enthusiastic proponents of globalisation in its heretofore dominant form argue that it levels the playing field between developed and developing countries, creating employment in the latter and enabling them to pull themselves out of poverty (cf T.Friedman 2005). Diametrically opposed to them are the passionate proponents of de-globalisation, who see globalisation as synonymous with inequality and oppression, and advocate disabling the World Trade Organisation (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and transnational corporations (cf. Bello 2000).
The economic crisis, which started in the US in September 2008 and swept through the world, left the first camp in disarray. With financial institutions collapsing, millions of jobs being lost, GDP shrinking and world trade contracting (Wade 2009), even Thomas Friedman (2009) had to admit that the market was ‘hitting the wall’. The opposite camp, predictably, was triumphant: ‘The current global downturn, the worst since the Great Depression 70 years ago, pounded the last nail into the coffin of globalization,’ proclaimed Walden Bello (2009).
However, there is a third position, which represents the majority of workers throughout the world. They have been fighting a losing battle for jobs, better employment conditions and social security for over three decades, a struggle that has become more desperate since the downturn. While it is clear that the model of globalisation pursued so far has been a disaster for them, de-globalisation would mean a further loss of jobs for workers in exporting countries, and raise both costs of production for companies using their products and the cost of living for consumers. Dissatisfied with both these positions, international unions have advocated building workers’ rights into the new global order (cf. ICFTU 1999), but this has yet to emerge as a concrete alternative.
This book argues that it is not globalisation as such but the dominant neoliberal model of it, alongside traditional authoritarian labour relations, that have exerted downward pressure on labour standards. It attempts to put flesh on the bones of the third alternative by looking at workers’ responses to globalisation: responses which indicate that labour is ‘a social force which is central to the development of the international political economy and international relations’ (Harrod and O’Brien 2002a: 8).