Local Labour Markets and the Reconfiguration of the Sugar Industry in Northeast Brazil

This paper focuses on a set of debates surrounding the working of local labour markets in the depressed sugarcane sector of Pernambuco, which faces strong competition from the Centre-South of Brazil. Millowner, planter, labour and union perspectives on current problems in the sugar industry and their solution are reviewed, with particular reference to issues of low productivity, access to land and the potential for diversification out of sugar. Historical antagonisms between (white) landowner classes and (black) labour, and their reworking in recent years, complicated by competing economic rationalities between these groups, make progress towards viable, sustainable socioeconomic improvement difficult. Employer attempts at reconfiguration of the labour market by relocating sites of labour reproduction (thereby breaking old social attachments) while retaining control over labour at sites of production bring continued conflict with the unions.     

Geographies of Trade Unionism: Translating Traditions Across Space and Time

In the context of national trade union decline, this paper explores the geography of trade union organization through case study research at the Shredded Wheat Factory in Welwyn Garden City (Herfordshire, UK). This example highlights the geographical constitution of trade union traditions, focusing upon the ways in which collective practices and ideas are forged in particular places but also how trade union traditions can be translated across space, from one place to another. This translation is argued to take place in three ways: (i) through the direct migration of workers, (ii) through the "demonstration effects" of strikes, trade union defeats and the ensuing media and trade union coverage of these events, and (iii) through solidarity initiatives taken by workers themselves. Rather than understanding workers' traditions as being historical products in place, I argue they are simultaneously geographical in their constitution. Trade unionism is shown to be processual, constantly evolving in and across time and space. Through such insights the research enhances existing geographical work in the field, advocating an approach which focuses upon the agency involved in trade union organization, the processual nature of trade union organization and the importance of the spatial translation of trade union traditions.     

Scale, Sovereignty, and Strategy in Environmental Governance

Close examination of the scalar politics of environmental organizations engaged in contesting the terms of neoliberal globalization highlights four limitations of current theorizations of scale in radical geography. First, this body of work has paid little attention to environmental NGOs and movements as important actors in scalar politics. This is not only an empirical gap, but a theoretical one: taking environmental actors and issues into account requires rethinking the ontologies and dynamics in scale theory. Second, recent attention to social reproduction in scale debates must be extended to the reproduction of environmental conditions. Third, sharp analytical distinctions between scalar structuration and the production of nature are untenable and reproduce a culture/nature dualism. Fourth, sharp distinctions between politics within or about established scales, versus politics among scales, are unstable and miss the precise strategies pursued in some politics of scale. These arguments are illustrated and explored via case material drawn from current struggles over efforts to define environmental governance as a form of regulatory expropriation in international trade agreements.     

Experiments in Cross‐Scalar Labour Organizing: Reflections on Trade Union‐Building Work in Aceh after the 2004 Tsunami

Abstract: As part of the post‐tsunami reconstruction effort in Aceh, international labour movement organizations “jumped scale” in an attempt to revitalize a moribund local labour movement. This article provides a close analysis of the four internationally sponsored trade union building projects undertaken as part of that process. This unique intervention sheds light on the crucial role of local context and the extent to which the principles of international solidarity and the pragmatics of trade union diplomacy are mediated through money, institutions, individuals and day‐to‐day activities. The Aceh case underscores the importance of contingency and the agency of individuals in shaping an international intervention of this kind. In doing so it demonstrates how circuits of labour activism can be affected by constraints and opportunities unrelated to trade union politics or the relations of production.     

Embedded Internationalisms: Building Transnational Solidarity in the British and Norwegian Trade Union Movements

There has been growing interest in the prospects for a new trade union internationalism in recent years, following the end of the Cold War and the coming together of the main national union organisations into one confederation, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). For the first time in decades, geopolitical straitjackets and defensive nationalistic postures are giving way to more open, internationalist perspectives as unions attempt to get to grips with global capitalism. However, despite some well‐publicised grassroots globalisation campaigns, effective international labour organising and networking remains thin on the ground. One of the reasons for this is that, despite the rhetoric of globalisation and the reality of multi‐layered governance, the "national" space remains the critical scale at which unions operate. Variations in both union organisation and the politico‐institutional context within which unions operate nationally continue to shape international solidarity activities. This theme is pursued in this paper through the contrasting cases of the UK and Norwegian trade union movements. Although both union movements have been subject to similar problems in recent years, in terms of membership decline and the pressures of increasing global economic integration, the different national political and economic contexts within which unions are embedded have been important in facilitating or constraining international strategies.     

The “Commons” Versus the “Commodity”: Alter‐globalization,Anti‐privatization and the Human Right to Water in the Global South

Abstract: In response to the growth of private sector involvement in water supply management globally, anti‐privatization campaigns for a human right to water have emerged in recent years. Simultaneously, alter‐globalization activists have promoted alternative water governance models through North‐South red‐green alliances between organized labour, environmental groups, women's groups, and indigenous groups. In this paper, I explore these distinct (albeit overlapping) responses to water privatization. I first present a generic conceptual model of market environmentalist reforms, and explore the contribution of this framework to debates over ‘neoliberalizing nature’. This conceptual framework is applied to the case of anti‐privatization activism to elucidate the limitations of the human right to water as a conceptual counterpoint to privatization, and as an activist strategy. In contrast, I argue that alter‐globalization strategies—centred on concepts of the commons—are more conceptually coherent, and also more successful as activist strategies. The paper concludes with a reiteration of the need for greater conceptual precision in our analyses of neoliberalization, for both academics and activists.     

Locating Neoliberalism in Dubai: Migrant Workers and Class Struggle in the Autocratic City

Abstract: In recent years, portrayals of neoliberalism in Dubai have often hinged on narratives about the hyper‐exploitation of migrant workers in the city. In this paper I interrogate these narratives by exploring the governance of lower‐waged construction migrants and their recent role in market‐led processes of urbanization. Through a focus on the recent growth of private worker welfare initiatives and dozens of illegal labour strikes led by migrant builders, I draw attention to the fraught and contradictory character of autocratic neoliberalism that operates in the governance of these workers, and point to workers’ bodily capital and the construction labour camp as two emergent sites in which these labour politics are unfolding. I argue that these social reproductive realms of the body and the mass‐worker household have offered a temporary spatial fix to the limitations of autocratic rule in a neoliberalizing city, while also conjuring moments of political possibility for construction migrants.     

No Italian Stalingrads. The C.G.I.L. and the working class in the northern industrial heartlands, 1945-1955

ABSTRACT

This article challenges conventional wisdom on the northern Italian industrial heartlands during the first decade after the Second World War. For there still exists a certain mythology about the post-war proletarian north as a region that was both intensely political and united in purpose. What this article demonstrates is that the ‘industrial triangle’ of Genoa, Milan and Turin was far more divided than historians have assumed. By revisiting the manifold (wildcat) strikes, trade union demonstrations, and factory occupations of the early post-war years, it shows the industrial north to be divided along both social and geographical lines. In doing so, it sheds fresh light on the series of defeats that the main Italian trade union confederation (C.G.I.L.) suffered in the late 1940s and early 1950s. It argues that these defeats were due as much to the explicit politicization of labour struggles and their exclusive focus on the interests of skilled workers as to the hostile socio-political climate in which the C.G.I.L. had to operate.     

Labor Internationalism and the Contradictions of Globalization: Or, Why the Local is Sometimes Still Important in a Global Economy

In this paper I examine two case studies of workers fighting against transnationally organized corporations. In the first case, a 1990–1992 dispute between the United Steelworkers of America and the Ravenswood Aluminum Corporation, union workers developed an international campaign to pressure the corporation to rehire them after they had been locked out in a dispute over health and safety issues. In the second case, a 1998 dispute between the United Auto Workers and General Motors, strikes by workers at just two plants in Flint, Michigan over the corporation's plans to introduce new work rules resulted in the virtual shutdown of GM for several weeks. Drawing on these two cases, I suggest that, in challenging transnationally organized employers, workers may on some occasions best achieve their goals through engaging in practices of transnational solidarity aimed at matching the global organization of their employer ("organizing globally"), whereas on other occasions they may be able to do so through highly focused local actions ("organizing locally") against strategic parts of a corporation. Of course, which of these two strategies is most likely to succeed in particular cases will depend on a coterie of contingencies, such as how interconnected the corporation's component parts are. However, the fact that different geographical strategies may be open to workers challenging globally organized capital means at least two things. First, some workers may not have to organize at the same geographical scale (ie globally) as corporations in order to challenge them. Second, through their choices of which strategy to pursue, workers are clearly shaping the very process of globalization itself and the new global geographies which globalization is auguring.     

Labour in 'lean' times: geography, scale and the national trajectories of workplace change

In this paper we argue that far from being surpassed by globalization, the nation-state remains a key space for organized labour. However, labour geographers' focus on patterns of union organization and strategies of 'internationalism' underplays the enduring role of national institutions. Moreover, while labour geographers have recognized the significance of new forms of work organization, such as just in time and lean production, with some exceptions they have not examined how unions both formally and informally determine the trajectory of workplace change. Based on case studies of unions in the Canadian and German auto industries, we stress that the linkage between national and workplace scales remains critical to understanding how unions are responding to the challenges being presented by lean and just in time production. Finally, while there is a re-scaling of bargaining in the automobile industry to the firm or enterprise scale, the outcomes of decentralization depend largely on the national regulatory context.     

Scales and networks of neoliberal climate governance: the regulatory and territorial logics of European Union emissions trading

The growing influence of neoliberal approaches to environmental governance has significantly increased the involvement of industry non-state actors in international and national climate governance. However, the implications of this neoliberalisation and hybridisation of climate governance, and particularly state–industry relations during these processes, remain under-integrated with wider geographical debates on the scalar and network politics of environmental governance. In this paper, we probe these issues by examining the regulatory and territorial logics underpinning the negotiation and implementation of the European Union emissions trading scheme (EU ETS). We argue that overlapping interpretations of the regulatory logic of emissions trading (as a cost-effective means of meeting climate objectives) by EU, state and industry actors provided the driving force for the creation of a Europeanised climate governance space and the consolidation of the EU's governing authority in respect of the formal rule-making elements of the EU ETS. However, alliances between state and industry actors, based around intersecting interpretations of their territorial interests in relation to emissions trading, strongly influenced the scheme's design. Moreover, speculative behaviour within the EU ETS market indicates the continued ability of market networks to disrupt territorially-based climate governance regimes. We argue that critical exploration of the territorial logics and practices of EU emissions trading from regime creation to operation provides new insights into the emerging spatial politics of neoliberal environmental governance and its implications for climate protection.     

Women Workers and the Promise of Ethical Trade in the Globalised Garment Industry: A Serious Beginning?

The paper gives an overview of the recent development within the Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI), especially the development of corporate codes of conduct, and considers the prospects they offer for improving labour conditions for workers in the international garments industry. It argues that two specific features of the industry—competitive production systems based on international subcontracting and the use of predominantly female production workers—are likely to undermine the effective development of a codes-based strategy. Nevertheless, the labour rights agenda at the centre of ETI does provide a space for labour activists, whether operating in or out of formal union structures, to build campaigns and connections around global production networks.     

The Genesis of the 1906 Trades Disputes Act: Liberalism, Trade Unions, and the Law

The Trades Disputes Act of 1906 occupies an important positionin the history of trade unionism, industrial relations, andlabour politics. Far less attention has been devoted to itsplace in the development of Liberal politics. Historians ofliberalism tend to portray the act as an uninteresting reversionto the pre-Taff Vale position and symptomatic merely of theparty's desire to placate labour. This article suggests thatexisting accounts of the Act's genesis place insufficient emphasison its Liberal origins and that arguments about trade unionlaw provide important insights into the character of the partyand its creed. The argument is in three parts. The first considersthe constraints on liberal legislators. The second investigatesthe meaning of the debates surrounding the Act's passage. Itrestores the Act to its proper intellectual context by recoveringthe variety of views about trade union law present in Edwardianliberalism. The last section uses these arguments to demonstrateboth the resilience of radicalism within the party and the emergenceof a novel social democratic progressivism. Only thus, it isclaimed, is it possible to understand the passage and meaningof the Act. * A number of people have helped in the preparation of thisarticle. I would like to thank David Armutage, Eugeruo Biagiru,Elizabeth Emens, Jon Lawrence, Nomi Levy, Alastair Reid, EmmaRothschild, Lisa Tiersen and Philip Waller I benefited greatlyfrom the comments of the anonymous referees and the assistanceof the editors of Twentieth Century British History. I owe aspecial debt of gratitude to David Cannadine, Peter Clarke andVictoria de Grazia.     

西方现代劳动力地理学研究进展及对中国研究的意义

劳动力地理学研究有助于理解全球化背景下劳动力作为当前国际国内经济转型和产业区位的一个重要因素及其发生作用的内在机制,对指导劳动力市场调节、促进地方劳动力市场发展具有重要意义。本文总结了国外劳动力地理学理论研究的起源,认为其理论演变经历了由新古典经济地理学区位理论,到马克思主义新经济地理理论,到近年来"文化、制度转向"的劳动力市场地理发展历程。介绍了近年来地方化劳动力市场地理理论和实证研究领域,及其对产业空间组织的影响等方面所取得的最新进展。在对当前的研究进行评述的基础上,指出不足和未来方向。与西方学术界相比,我国相关理论研究较为欠缺,尤其是文化、制度等因素对我国劳动力市场影响的研究有待进一步加强。     

Spaces of labour control: comparative perspectives from Southeast Asia

This paper seeks to identify the spatialized dimensions of labour control in sites of rapid and recent industrialization in Southeast Asia. Using a comparative analysis of locations in Penang (Malaysia), Batam (Indonesia) and Cavite/Laguna (the Philippines), it is argued that the construction and control of space has been used to enhance control over the working body, and, in particular, to contain labour organization, unionization and collective bargaining. Three broader arguments are made. First, that labour geographies need to be cognizant of the spatialized politics of labour beyond a narrow focus on the trade union movement. Second, that space is a potent tool in labour control and must be explicitly considered alongside the identity–based control strategies and institutional structures that have usually informed studies of labour regimes in newly industrializing contexts. Finally, a comparative perspective on local labour markets, and control regimes in particular, shows that the ways in which space is constructed and controlled differs between contexts, implying that universal judgements on the relevance or importance of particular arenas or spaces for labour politics should be reserved.     

The Political Economy of Class Compromise: Trade Unions,Capital–Labour Relations and Development in North East Brazil1

Abstract: This article investigates how capital–labour relations (encompassing processes of class formation, representation, struggle and compromise) impact on emerging regions’ developmental trajectories. It does so because much of development studies portray labour simply as an input (human capital) subordinate to more fundamental processes such as capital investment and accumulation. The paper draws on and extends insights gained from the “new working class studies” and global commodity chains literatures in order to examine evolving capital–labour relations—from relatively militant struggles to class compromise—in an emerging sector of North East Brazilian export horticulture. It identifies sources of workers’ structural and associational power and uses these to explain significant gains achieved by the region's rural trade union during the formation of the export horticulture sector. It then asks, why, despite continuing structural power, the region's trade union has entered into a class compromise with the leading employers via (a) reducing its militancy and its strategy of striking against employers to win concessions, and (b) shifting its objectives in terms of concessions sought. It speculates on the impacts of these changing class relations on the region's developmental trajectory.     

Labour Migration and the Swedish Labour Market Model: a case study of recruitment of Yugoslav workers to Svenska Fläktfabriken in Växjö, 1969–1970

This essay deals with active labour recruitment from Yugoslavia to Sweden at the end of the 1960s and early 1970s. It is a case study of recruitments of foreign-born workers to one particular manufacturing industry. It focuses primarily on trade-union actions and strategies in connection with the recruitments, analysed in the light of the power relations within the corporatist Swedish labour market model. This approach illuminates how the Swedish labour market model dealt with an issue involving both conflicting and coincident interests between labour and capital, with the state as an intermediary. But the recruitments are also analysed from the recruited workers' points of view. The essay reveals great union influence in the process of labour recruitment, and suggests that the national Swedish labour market authority only approved as many work permits for non-Nordic workers as the trade union concerned accepted. This power, in combination with the shortage of workers, could be used by the unions as a forceful instrument in their struggle to transform working life according to their members' interests. Accordingly, the labour recruitments to Sweden were framed by the power relations and the corporative practices within the Swedish labour market model.     

Genuine Renewal or Pyrrhic Victory? The Scale Politics of Trade Union Recognition in the UK

There is an ongoing debate within radical geography concerned with the trade union response to the hegemony of business interests apparent under neoliberal capitalism. In this paper, I contribute to this debate by exploring recent attempts to renew trade union organisation in the UK following decades of decline. I argue that, despite recent successes in stemming falling membership numbers and signing new recognition agreements, closer inspection reveals flaws in the renewal process that reflect the underlying nature of scale politics within the union movement itself. In particular, centralised strategies at the national level are failing to re‐energise local‐level union organisation leading to a rather hollow and pyrrhic renewal process. Drawing upon both macro‐level analysis and evidence from a particular industry case study, I suggest that unions rethink their organisational geographies and scalar relations if they wish to re‐connect with the grassroots and at a broader level remain a progressive force in the changing economic landscape.     

European Integration and Industrial Relations: A Case of Variable Geometry?

This contribution considers the implications for industrial relations of European economic integration, and possible trade union responses. We can understand industrial relations as institutions and processes of social regulation of work and employment, whether by law, collective bargaining or more diffuse norms and standards (often, a combination of all three). These systems of worker protection became consolidated at national level; their foundations are eroded by increasing economic internationalisation (to which the European single market was a response, but which it further reinforced). Through the dynamic of "regime competition", multinational capital can play off national governments and national trade unions against one another, while norms of worker protection are subverted by growing insistence on "shareholder value". Effective regulation of work and employment must be reconstructed transnationally; but most trade union energy has been devoted to a vain pursuit of European analogues of national legislation and collective agreements within a bureaucratic elite process of "social dialogue". What is needed is, first, effective articulation between European-level trade union action and the day-to-day realities of national and workplace trade unionism, and second, a struggle to create a European civil society within which the protection of workers' rights can win popular support and which can sustain effective collective mobilisation.     

Externalities,Learning and Governance: New Perspectives on Local Economic Development

In spite of growing mobility of production and production factors, economic development is increasingly localized in economic agglomerations. This article reviews three partially overlapping perspectives on local economic development, which derive from three factors intensifying the localized nature of economic development: externalities, learning and governance. Externalities play a central role in the new geographical economics of Krugman and in new economic geography of clusters and industrial districts. The dynamics of local economic development are increasingly associated with evolutionary economic thinking in general and with collective learning in particular. Inter‐firm and extra‐firm organization has experienced considerable innovation in the last few decades. New institutional devices are based on the notions of commodity chain, cluster and milieu. These innovations introduce new issues of economic governance both at the level of industry and of territory.