New Global Studies Editor’s Forum (2022): Workers’ Movements and the Global Supply Chain

New Global Studies Editor’s Forum: Workers’ Movements and the Global Supply Chain

Vol. 16, Issue 1 (2022): April

Guest-editors: Robert Ovetz and Jake Alimahomed-Wilson

Contributors: Andrew Waterman, Ben Norman, Andrea Bottalico, Nantina Vgontzas, Carlotta Benvegnù, David Gaborieau, Lucas Tranchant, Ercüment Çelik, Simon Norbert Schmid

Reportage: Gifford Hartman

Book Reviews: Bryonny Goodwin-Hawkins, Brett Bowden, Sarp Kurgan, Steven E. Harris

Volume 16 Issue 1 - Editors’ Forum: Workers’ Movements and the Global Supply Chain; Guest-editors: Robert Ovetz and Jake Alimahomed-Wilson

April 2022

Issue of New Global Studies

Global Labour Journal (May 2022) on African Trade Unions

Global Labor Journal Special Issue: African Trade Unions

Vol. 13, No. 2 (2022): May

An Update on Editorial Changes at the GLJ: Maria Lorena Cook, Alexander Gallas, Neethi P, Ben Scully

Guest-editor: Mark McQuinn

Contributors: Mark McQuinn, Samuel Andreas Admasie, F.M.K. Sallah, Lone Riisgaard, Mihaela Cojocaru

Global Issues: Mihaela Cojocaru, Mark McQuinn; Steve Crowley

Book Reviews: Andrea Muehlebach; Carlos Mejia; Maurizio Atzeni; Jörg Nowak

CURRENT ISSUE

Vol. 13 No. 2 (2022): May 2022 (Special Issue)

African Trade Unions (guest edited by Mark McQuinn)

PUBLISHED: 2022-05-31

Jörg Nowak (2022) Brazil and Bolsonaro

Nowak, Jörg. 2022. “Brazil and Bolsonaro: Political Consolidation and New Corruption Scandals.” SP (Socialist Project). 26 April. 

Brazil and Bolsonaro: Political Consolidation and New Corruption Scandals

LATIN AMERICA  •  April 26, 2022  •  Jörg Nowak

The arrangements between Brazilian political parties for the upcoming October presidential and state elections are almost complete. Until March 31 of this year, the political system permitted members of Parliament to switch between political parties. As there are 23 parties represented in Parliament, with often very loose ideological frameworks, such changes can be quite significant, and this year was not an exception.

In the first months of this year a huge influx of representatives into the Liberal Party (PL) took place, which President Jair Bolsonaro joined at the end of 2021 after remaining without party affiliation for more than two years. The number of PL delegates in the Congress grew from 43 to 75, and that party is now the largest parliamentary group.

Bolsonaro’s former party, the Social Liberal Party (PSL), was split between his followers and detractors, and it recently fused with the right-wing Democrats Party (DEM) in order to form the new Brazil Union party (União Brasil, UB). Twenty-nine of the 32 new members of the PL in Parliament come from the UB, and in this way, Bolsonaro has consolidated his power base in Congress in quite a spectacular fashion.

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Katy Fox-Hodess (2022) in Labor History

Fox-Hodess, Katy. 2022. “The ‘Iron Law of Oligarchy’ and North-South Relations in Global Union Organisations: A Case Study of the International Dockworkers Council’s Expansion in the Global South.” Labor History. Published Online: 29 April, pp. 1-20.

ABSTRACT

Global union organisations face recurrent organisational challenges concerning 1) the tendency towards bureaucratisation and oligarchy as they operate at increasing scales and 2) the tendency to reinscribe unequal relations of power between trade unions in the Global North and the Global South. This double problem is investigated through a case study of the International Dockworkers Council (IDC), an independent global union organisation, which underwent a period of rapid expansion in the Global South, particularly in Latin America, in the 2010’s. The IDC has been remarkably successful in adapting its organisational model, developed in Europe, to the Latin American context, building an effective regional-level organisation of rank-and-file activists while relying more heavily than in Europe on a regional coordinator as denser relationships within the regional network develop. At the same time, at the global level, the story is somewhat more mixed. Latin American activists have the autonomy to develop and carry out their own priorities with appropriate financial, industrial and technical support from the global organisation. Yet, the Global South’s influence on shaping the global organisation as a whole is less evident. In addition, organisational changes brought about by global expansion raise concerns about bureaucratisation and oligarchy at the global level.

KEYWORDS: 

DockworkersGlobal unionismtrade union bureaucracyNorth/South divideLatin America

 

Ercüment Çelik and Simon Norbert Schmid (2022) in New Global Studies

Çelik, Ercüment and Simon Norbert Schmid. 2022. “Global Justice Advocacy, Trade Unions and the Supply Chain Law Initiative in Germany.” New Global Studies 16 (1): 91-111. https://doi.org/10.1515/ngs-2022-0005

Abstract

This article focuses on the Supply Chain Law Initiative in Germany (SCLI)/Initiative Lieferkettengesetz as a case of global justice advocacy. The SCLI was a campaign by German civil society organizations that advocated for a law that would make it mandatory for corporations active in Germany to respect human, labor, and environmental rights along their supply chains. This research explores the strategies for advocacy used by the SCLI in the process of effective law-making. It also investigates the role of the SCLI in the context of global labor solidarity. The research results show that although this new law has some shortcomings in terms of international human rights standards, it has achieved partial progress as one of the most successful examples of alliance building between unions and civil society organizations in Germany. The SCLI has brought about a paradigm shift from voluntary towards mandatory due diligence. This experience can be carried one step further to accomplish a supply chain law at the European Union level. The authors argue that the SCLI experience opens up a new stage for rethinking the structural dilemma of unions in Germany in choosing between global solidarity and national corporatist social partnership.

Keywords: global justice; advocacy strategies; trade unions; Germany; supply chains; social movement unionism; social partnership

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Corresponding author: Ercüment Çelik, University of Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, E-mail: Ercuement.Celik@soziologie.uni-freiburg.de

Jonathan Pattenden (2022) The Patriarchy of Accumulation

Pattenden, Jonathan. 2022. “The Patriarchy of Accumulation: Homework, Fieldwork and the Production-Reproduction Nexus in Rural Indonesia.” Canadian Journal of Development Studies, pp. 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/02255189.2022.2054784  

ABSTRACT

This article argues that patriarchy expands capitalist accumulation by increasing surplus labour-time, lowering production costs, and dividing and controlling workers. Consequently, patriarchy increases profits, manages intra-capitalist competition, and impedes labour’s capacity to organise. Analysing how it does so can inform counter-strategies. Based on fieldwork in two West Java villages, the article analyses four forms of patriarchal accumulation: (i) reproductive labour underpinned by the ideology of housewifeization; (ii) the gendered production of cheap foodgrains; (iii) the production of street-food that reduces reproduction time and costs; and (iv) the extension of labour-time through low-waged homework squeezed into the rhythms of reproductive labour.

RÉSUMÉ

Dans le présent article, nous soutenons que le patriarcat favorise l’accumulation capitaliste, en augmentant le surplus de temps de travail, en diminuant les coûts de production, et en divisant les travailleurs pour mieux les contrôler. En conséquence, le patriarcat accroît les profits, régule la compétition intra-capitaliste, et limite la capacité des travailleurs à s’organiser. C’est l’analyse de ce processus qui nous permet d’élaborer des contre-stratégies. Cet article se base sur des recherches sur le terrain, menées dans deux villages situés dans l’est de Java, pour analyser quatre formes d’accumulation patriarcale : (i) le travail reproductif sous-tendu par l’idéologie de housewifeization ; (ii) la production genrée de céréales à bas prix ; (iii) la production de street-food qui réduit le temps et le coût de production ; (iii) l’extension du temps de travail par le biais de travail à la maison peu rémunéré et intégré de force dans les rythmes de travail reproductif.

KEYWORDS: 

Patriarchyaccumulationsocial reproductionclassIndonesia

 

Kim Scipes (2022) The only commonality is uncommonality

Scipes, Kim. 2022. “The Only Commonality is Uncommonality.” Class, Race and Corporate Power 10(1). https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/classracecorporatepower/vol10/iss1/4/

 

Abstract

Noting the extensive number of progressive protests, mobilizations, and social disruption from below since the mid-1980s, not just in the US but around the world, this article suggests that what is going on is the expansion of the global economic and social justice movement, a bottom-up form of globalization. It suggests that this is, ultimately, a rejection of industrial civilization itself. And it points out, through an examination of the effects of climate change, that the continued existence of industrial civilization is imposing a burden on the peoples of the world that far outweighs its benefits, and suggests that protests will expand as more and more people understand the costs of industrial civilization.