Over the past 50 years the global labour market is transforming from reliable employment to low-wage and unstable informal and precarious jobs. This ineluctable shift is a consequence of the concentrated application of neoliberalism since the 1980s, as capitalism is converting standardised labour markets in the developed Global North into contingent and informal labour. Platform Labour and Global Logistics: A Research Companion examines the most important developments and features of global logistics and the emergence of the platform economy through historical comparative chapters and case studies. Part I surveys the logistics revolution and its impact on labour in key sectors of the global economy and probes the viability of the platform as a generator of economic and financial growth and innovation. The chapters of Part 1 offer a fulsome analysis and critique of the economic and technical reconfiguration brought on by neoliberal capitalism and the diffusion of the platform and logistics as a feasible model into the future. Part II examines labour restructuring from standardized to informal work through the platform and information technology, and the political and environmental challenges to labour. Part III provides global case studies on the informal economy through case studies of crucial economies where the platform has become dominant, and Part IV examines how the platform has contributed to geographic mobility and labour migration, and the consequences on workers. Platform Labour and Global Logistics: A Research Companion presents a unique contribution to the political economy literature through highlighting the significance of the impact of the platform and logistics on the working class and potential challenges from labour across the world. This book is intended for academics, researchers and students studying technological innovation, global supply chains, labour restructuring, and worker resistance.

Written by the leading and most respected experts, academics, and scholars working in the field of global political economy, the book provides detailed studies of the gig economy's roots, goals, methods, and impact around the world. Addresses and analyses the fundamental debates around precarious labour and the gig economy that are emerging within the social sciences. A significant feature of the book is an examination of the gig economy and labour in major world territories, which will provide a comparative investigation of the transformation of labour and the gig economy in key global regions, continents and countries. This volume will become a classic and state-of-the-art text on the subject of the gig economy and neoliberalism for many years to come.

Over the past 50 years the global labour market is transforming from reliable employment to low-wage and unstable informal and precarious jobs. This ineluctable shift is a consequence of the concentrated application of neoliberalism since the 1980s, as capitalism is converting standardised labour markets in the developed Global North into contingent and informal labour. Platform Labour and Global Logistics: A Research Companion examines the most important developments and features of global logistics and the emergence of the platform economy through historical comparative chapters and case studies. Part I surveys the logistics revolution and its impact on labour in key sectors of the global economy and probes the viability of the platform as a generator of economic and financial growth and innovation. The chapters of Part 1 offer a fulsome analysis and critique of the economic and technical reconfiguration brought on by neoliberal capitalism and the diffusion of the platform and logistics as a feasible model into the future. Part II examines labour restructuring from standardized to informal work through the platform and information technology, and the political and environmental challenges to labour. Part III provides global case studies on the informal economy through case studies of crucial economies where the platform has become dominant, and Part IV examines how the platform has contributed to geographic mobility and labour migration, and the consequences on workers. Platform Labour and Global Logistics: A Research Companion presents a unique contribution to the political economy literature through highlighting the significance of the impact of the platform and logistics on the working class and potential challenges from labour across the world. This book is intended for academics, researchers and students studying technological innovation, global supply chains, labour restructuring, and worker resistance.

For several decades, wealthy states, international development agencies and multinational corporations have encouraged labour migration from the Global South to the Global North. As well as providing essential workers to support the transformation of advanced economies, the remittances that migrants send home have been touted as the most promising means of national development for poor and undeveloped countries. As Immanuel Ness argues in this sharp corrective to conventional wisdom, temporary labour migration represents the most recent form of economic imperialism and global domination. A closer look at the economic and social evidence demonstrates that remittances deepen economic exploitation, unravel societal stability and significantly expand economic inequality between poor and rich societies. The book exposes the damaging political, economic and social effects of migration on origin countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and how border and security mechanisms control and marginalize low-wage migrant workers, especially women and youth. Ness asserts that remittances do not bring growth to poor countries but extend national dependence on the export of migrant workers, leading to warped and unequal development on the global periphery. This expert take will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of migration and development across the social sciences.

The site of industrial struggle is shifting. Across the Global South, peasant communities are forced off the land to live and work in harsh and impoverished conditions. Inevitably, new methods of combating the spread of industrial capitalism are evolving in ambitious, militant and creative ways. This is the first book to theorise and examine the present and future shape of global class struggles. Immanuel Ness looks at three key countries: China, India and South Africa. In each case he considers the broader historical forces at play - the effects of imperialism, the decline of the trade union movement, the class struggle and the effects of the growing reserve army of labour. For each case study, he narrows his focus to reveal the specifics of each grassroots insurgency: export promotion and the rise of worker insurgency in China, the new labour organisations in India, and the militancy of the miners in South Africa. This is a study about the nature of the new industrial worker in the Global South; about people living a terrifying, precarious existence - but also one of experimentation, solidarity and struggle.

The site of industrial struggle is shifting. Across the Global South, peasant communities are forced off the land to live and work in harsh and impoverished conditions. Inevitably, new methods of combating the spread of industrial capitalism are evolving in ambitious, militant and creative ways. This is the first book to theorise and examine the present and future shape of global class struggles. Immanuel Ness looks at three key countries: China, India and South Africa. In each case he considers the broader historical forces at play - the effects of imperialism, the decline of the trade union movement, the class struggle and the effects of the growing reserve army of labour. For each case study, he narrows his focus to reveal the specifics of each grassroots insurgency: export promotion and the rise of worker insurgency in China, the new labour organisations in India, and the militancy of the miners in South Africa. This is a study about the nature of the new industrial worker in the Global South; about people living a terrifying, precarious existence - but also one of experimentation, solidarity and struggle.

'A breath of fresh air' - Norman Finklestein Workers in the Global South are doomed through economic imperialism to carry the burden of the entire world. While these workers appear isolated from the Global North, they are in fact deeply integrated into global commodity chains and essential to the maintenance of global capitalism. Looking at contemporary case studies in India, the Philippines and South Africa, this book affirms the significance of political and economic representation to the struggles of workers against deepening levels of poverty and inequality that oppress the majority of people on the planet. Immanuel Ness shows that workers are eager to mobilise to improve their conditions, and can achieve lasting gains if they have sustenance and support from political organisations. From the Dickensian industrial zones of Delhi to the agrarian oligarchy on the island of Mindanao, a common element remains - when workers organise they move closer to the realisation of socialism, solidarity and equality.

This ground-breaking look at contemporary immigrant labor organizing and mobilization draws on participant observation, ethnographic interviews, historical documents, and new case studies. The expert contributors provide tangible evidence of immigrants' eagerness for collective action and organizing, and argue lucidly that this propensity to organize stems from the immigrants' social isolation. Thus the book parts company with mainstream thinking that recommends building an array of social networks to aid in organizing efforts. Many of the contributors highlight a specific ethnic group and special labor niches, such as the dominance of Punjabi in the New York City taxi industry. Each case study examines efforts beyond the conventional unions to organize the immigrants, including independent syndicalism on the job and worker centers such as the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York, created to support displaced workers and victims' families of Windows on the World, the restaurant on top of the World Trade Center. into account the latest debates in the fields of labor studies, urban studies, sociology, and political science.

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

For several decades, wealthy states, international development agencies and multinational corporations have encouraged labour migration from the Global South to the Global North. As well as providing essential workers to support the transformation of advanced economies, the remittances that migrants send home have been touted as the most promising means of national development for poor and undeveloped countries. As Immanuel Ness argues in this sharp corrective to conventional wisdom, temporary labour migration represents the most recent form of economic imperialism and global domination. A closer look at the economic and social evidence demonstrates that remittances deepen economic exploitation, unravel societal stability and significantly expand economic inequality between poor and rich societies. The book exposes the damaging political, economic and social effects of migration on origin countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and how border and security mechanisms control and marginalize low-wage migrant workers, especially women and youth. Ness asserts that remittances do not bring growth to poor countries but extend national dependence on the export of migrant workers, leading to warped and unequal development on the global periphery. This expert take will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of migration and development across the social sciences.

Strikes have been part of American labor relations from colonial days to the present, reflecting the widespread class conflict that has run throughout the nation's history. Against employers and their goons, against the police, the National Guard, local, state, and national officials, against racist vigilantes, against their union leaders, and against each other, American workers have walked off the job for higher wages, better benefits, bargaining rights, legislation, job control, and just plain dignity. At times, their actions have motivated groundbreaking legislation, defining new rights for all citizens; at other times they have led to loss of workers' lives. This comprehensive encyclopedia is the first detailed collection of historical research on strikes in America. To provide the analytical tools for understanding strikes, the volume includes two types of essays - those focused on an industry or economic sector, and those focused on a theme. Each industry essay introduces a group of workers and their employers and places them in their economic, political, and community contexts. The essay then describes the industry's various strikes, including the main issues involved and outcomes achieved, and assesses the impact of the strikes on the industry over time. Thematic essays address questions that can only be answered by looking at a variety of strikes across industries, groups of workers, and time, such as, why the number of strikes has declined since the 1970s, or why there was a strike wave in 1946. The contributors include historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and philosophers, as well as current and past activists from unions and other social movement organizations. Photos, a Topic Finder, a bibliography, and name and subject indexes add to the works appeal.

How do individuals and organisations move beyond the boundaries of constitutional or legal constructs to challenge neoliberalism and capitalism? As major urban areas have become the principal sites of poor and working-class social upheaval in the early twenty-first century, the chapters in this book explore key cities in the Global South. Through detailed case studies, Urban Revolt unravels the potential and limitations of urban social movements on an international level.

This ground-breaking look at contemporary immigrant labor organizing and mobilization draws on participant observation, ethnographic interviews, historical documents, and new case studies of three organizing drives. The expert contributors provide tangible evidence of immigrants' eagerness for collective action and organizing. Parting company with mainstream thinking, they argue lucidly that immigrants' propensity to organize stems from social isolation. Many of the contributors highlight a specific ethnic group and special labor niches, such as the dominance of Punjabi in the New York City taxi industry. Each case study examines efforts beyond the conventional unions to organize the immigrants, such as worker centers and independent syndicalism on the job. An essential text for courses in labor-relations and immigrant studies, the book takes into account the latest debates in the fields of labor studies, urban studies, sociology, and political science.

Central Labor Councils are the local arm of the labor movement responsible for coordinating collective activities among different unions in a region. Once quite powerful organizations with important political roles at local and regional levels, CLCs waned significantly during the 1940s and 50s. This work examines the recent re-emergence of Central Labor Councils and how they are being utilized as effective bodies to help rejuvenate the labor movement. It combines comprehensive history of the CLCs in America since the early 19th century and case studies by CLC leaders in Atlanta, Milwaukee, San Jose, and Seattle -- the regions where CLCs have re-emerged as important players in advancing the labor movement.

Central Labor Councils are the local arm of the labor movement responsible for coordinating collective activities among different unions in a region. Once quite powerful organizations with important political roles at local and regional levels, CLCs waned significantly during the 1940s and 50s.

This work examines the recent re-emergence of Central Labor Councils and how they are being utilized as effective bodies to help rejuvenate the labor movement. It combines comprehensive history of the CLCs in America since the early 19th century and case studies by CLC leaders in Atlanta, Milwaukee, San Jose, and Seattle -- the regions where CLCs have re-emerged as important players in advancing the labor movement.

This book broadens the research on the underworld of precarious and not-represented workers, through a selection of original case studies from across the globe written by leading experts. The book unveils the working conditions affecting this vast labour force that is so important to capital accumulation in the global age. It also helps us to understand the forms and processes of organization that these groups of workers, almost on an everyday basis, put in place to improve their working conditions and lived experiences.

This book broadens the research on the underworld of precarious and not-represented workers, through a selection of original case studies from across the globe written by leading experts. The book unveils the working conditions affecting this vast labour force that is so important to capital accumulation in the global age. It also helps us to understand the forms and processes of organization that these groups of workers, almost on an everyday basis, put in place to improve their working conditions and lived experiences.

As bureaucratic labor unions are currently under assault throughout the world, most have surrendered the achievements of the mid-20th century, when the working class was a militant force for change. As unions implode and weaken, workers are independently forming their own unions, rooted in the tradition of syndicalism and autonomism--and unions rooted in the tradition of self-directed action are auguring a new period of class struggle throughout the world. In Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe, workers are rejecting leaders and forming authentic class-struggle unions rooted in sabotage, direct action, and striking to achieve concrete gains. This is the first book to compile workers struggles on a global basis, examining the formation and expansion of radical unions in the Global South and Global North. The tangible evidence marshaled in this book serves as a handbook for understanding the formidable obstacles and concrete opportunities for workers challenging neoliberal capitalism, even as the unions of the old decline and disappear. Contributors include Au Loong-Yu, Bai Ruixue, Arup K. Sen, Shawn Hattingh, Piotr Bizyukov and Irina Olimpieva, Genese M. Sodikoff, Aviva Chomsky, Dario Bursztyn, Gabriel Kuhn, Erik Forman, Steven Manicastri, and Jack Kirkpatrick.

From the dawning of the industrial epoch, wage earners have organized themselves into unions, fought bitter strikes, and gone so far as to challenge the very premises of the system by creating institutions of democratic self-management aimed at controlling production without bosses. With specific examples drawn from every corner of the globe and every period of modern history, this pathbreaking volume comprehensively traces this often underappreciated historical tradition. Ripe with lessons drawn from historical and contemporary struggles for workers' control, Ours to Master and to Own is essential reading for those struggling to create a new world from the ashes of the old.

Immanuel Ness is professor of political science at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and edits "WorkingUSA."

Dario Azzellini is a writer, documentary director, and political scientist at Johannes Kepler University in Linz.

In recent years, New Yorkers have been surprised to see workers they had taken for granted-Mexicans in greengroceries, West African supermarket deliverymen and South Asian limousine drivers-striking, picketing, and seeking support for better working conditions. Suddenly, businesses in New York and the nation had changed and were now dependent upon low-paid immigrants to fill the entry-level jobs that few native-born Americans would take. Immigrants, Unions, and the New U.S. Labor Market tells the story of these workers' struggle for living wages, humane working conditions, and the respect due to all people. It describes how they found the courage to organize labor actions at a time when most laborers have become quiescent and while most labor unions were ignoring them. Showing how unions can learn from the example of these laborers, and demonstrating the importance of solidarity beyond the workplace, Immanuel Ness offers a telling look into the lives of some of America's newest immigrants.

'A breath of fresh air' - Norman Finklestein Workers in the Global South are doomed through economic imperialism to carry the burden of the entire world. While these workers appear isolated from the Global North, they are in fact deeply integrated into global commodity chains and essential to the maintenance of global capitalism. Looking at contemporary case studies in India, the Philippines and South Africa, this book affirms the significance of political and economic representation to the struggles of workers against deepening levels of poverty and inequality that oppress the majority of people on the planet. Immanuel Ness shows that workers are eager to mobilise to improve their conditions, and can achieve lasting gains if they have sustenance and support from political organisations. From the Dickensian industrial zones of Delhi to the agrarian oligarchy on the island of Mindanao, a common element remains - when workers organise they move closer to the realisation of socialism, solidarity and equality.

The urban poor and working class now make up the majority of the world's population, which is expected to expand to 10 billion by midcentury. Much of the growth results from the displacement of rural peasants to the urban cores, resulting in the vast expansion of megacities with populations of up to 20 million people in the global South. The proliferation of informal settlements and slums has resulted in urban areas becoming the principal sites of social upheaval as people seek to improve their living conditions. Drawing on case studies from Africa, Latin America, and Asia, the various chapters in this book map and analyze the conditions in which the majority of the world exists and struggles in the contemporary urban context. Advancing beyond a liberal perspective, the book unpacks the ways in which Urban Social Movements in the global South have challenged or transformed how the city is organized and created possibilities for a revolutionary alternative to the capitalist hegemonic framework.

This definitive 8-volume reference is a comprehensive print resource covering the history of protest and revolution over the past 500 years - throughout the modern era of mass movements. For more information see www.revolutionprotestencyclopedia.com.
Definitive reference work on the role of popular agency in transforming the world in which we live
First historical encyclopedia to provide scholars and teachers and students with the information they need to understand the role and significance and origin of protest and revolution from 1500 to the present
8-volume major reference in A-Z format, with entries ranging from 500 to 14,000 words
Provides clear, concise explanations of events and larger social movements, and biographies of key people
Presents major uprisings and protest movements, and the ideas, ideologies and activists that propelled them, chronicles the manner in which they unfolded, traces their roots, goals, tactics, and influence, and evaluates their successes and failures
Internationally diverse editorial board and contributors
Includes over 150 photographs, figures, and maps

An online electronic version is also available (ISBN 978-1-4051-9807-3). In addition to the features of the print version, the online version provides: Regular revisions and new entries - updated once a year
Links to comprehensive collection through Blackwell Reference online
Links to other resources available on the web
Powerful searching, browsing, and cross-referencing capabilities, including Open URL linking

Global capitalism is a precarious system. Relying on the steady flow of goods across the world, trans-national companies such as Wal-Mart and Amazon depend on the work of millions in docks, warehouses and logistics centres to keep their goods moving. This is the global supply chain, and, if the chain is broken, capitalism grinds to a halt. This book looks at case studies across the world to uncover a network of resistance by these workers who, despite their importance, often face vast exploitation and economic violence. Experiencing first hand wildcat strikes, organised blockades and boycotts, the authors explore a diverse range of case studies, from South China dockworkers to the transformation of the port of Piraeus in Greece, and from the Southern California logistics sector, to dock and logistical workers in Chile and unions in Turkey.

The objective of The Oxford Handbook of Migration Crises is to deconstruct, question, and redefine through a critical lens what is commonly understood as "migration crises." The volume covers a wide range of historical, economic, social, political, and environmental conditions that generate migration crises around the globe. At the same time, it illuminates how the media and public officials play a major role in framing migratory flows as crises. The volume brings together an exceptional group of scholars from around the world to critically examine migration crises and to revisit the notion of crisis through the context in which permanent and non-permanent migration flows occur. The Oxford Handbook of Migration Crises offers an understanding of individuals in societies, socio-economic structures, and group processes. Focusing on migrants' departures and arrivals in all continents, this comprehensive handbook explores the social dynamics of migration crises, with an emphasis on factors that propel these flows as well as the actors that play a role in classifying them and in addressing them. The volume is organized into nine sections. The first section provides a historical overview of the link between migration and crises. The second looks at how migration crises are constructed, while the third section contextualizes the causes and effects of protracted conflicts in producing crises. The fourth focuses on the role of climate and the environment in generating migration crises, while the fifth section examines these migratory flows in migration corridors and transit countries. The sixth section looks at policy responses to migratory flows, The last three sections look at the role media and visual culture, gender, and immigrant incorporation play in migration crises.