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Labor Power and Governance: Theorizing a New Terrain of Struggle

Mon, August 18, 8:30 to 10:10am, TBA

Abstract

A new spirit of labor movement activity has emerged in the last three decades. Whereas traditional union strategies seek to exert pressure on management or the state to increase wages or benefits packages, or to respect a panoply of rights, new strategies I call governance struggles target the corporation at a level removed from the workplace in the hope of creating a new rules of engagement that will enable workers to exercise power. In other words, the dominant forms of labor organizing have changed dramatically, reflecting a new analysis of power resources in the global political economy. Governance struggles are typically associated with processes of globalization, and constitute the heart of labor transnationalism since the late 1960s, but are also emblematic of domestic movements too. I argue that this new paradigm represents a significant development based on a revised understanding of the role of workers and states in today’s global economy. This paper theorizes this perspective through an analysis of different campaign strategies—neutrality campaigns in healthcare, corporate campaigns with janitors, and global framework agreements with large multinational corporations.

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