Grounding Globalization

Claims have been made on the emergence of a new labour internationalism in response to the growing insecurity created by globalization. However, when persons face conditions of insecurity they often turn inwards. The book contains a warning and a sign of hope. Some workers become fatalistic, even xenophobic. Others are attempting to globalize their own struggles. This work: examines the claim that a new labour internationalism is emerging by grounding the book in evidence, rather than assertion; analyzes three distinct places - Orange, Australia; Changwon, South Korea; and, Ezakheni, South Africa - and how they dealt with manufacturing plants undergoing restructuring; explores worker responses to rising levels of insecurity and examines preconditions for the emergence of counter-movements to such insecurity; and, highlights the significance of 'place' and 'scale', and demonstrates how the restructuring of multi-national corporations, and worker responses to this, connect the two concepts.