The State and 'Globalization'

This collection of country studies explores changing relationships between the state, employers and labour in an increasingly internationalized world economy. It covers ten countries and examines the tensions and contradictions caused by neo-liberal market agendas. The authors express concern at the potentially ravaging effects of market deregulation on organized labour and present a critical account of state efforts to emulate desired models of national economic development. While the central core of the book concerns itself with changing labour relations, this is placed within the wider context of state and employer strategy, and covers issues such as labour market segmentation, welfare and taxation regimes and varying approaches to corporatism.

Martin Upchurch is Senior Lecturer in International Employment Relations at  the University of the West of England, Bristol. He has written a number of  articles on the transformation of industrial relations in eastern Germany since  Unification and has worked for a year in East Berlin as a secondary school  teacher. He is currently researching the effectiveness of trade union renewal  strategies in the UK. For a number of years prior to lecturing he worked as a  research officer for a public sector trade union in Britain.

Part 1 Globalization and the limits of reform: social democracy after the long boom - economic restructuring under Australian Labor, 1893-1996, Tom Bramble. Part 2 Advanced industrial nations: the rise and fall of "Modell Deutschland"?, Martin Upchurch; union identity and strategy in Spain - negotiating traditions of struggle, Miguel Martinez Lucio; union resilience in a cold climate - the case of the UK banking industry, Gregor Gall. Part 3 Economies in transformation: global restructuring, local firms, working lives - restructuring of Polish state owned enterprises, Al Rainnie and Jane Hardy; labour versus state and capital in China's "socialist market economy", Raymond W.K. Lau and Trini W.V. Leung; "Democratic corporatism" in the new South Africa - advance or retreat?, Eddy Donnelly. Part 4 The search for modernity?: trade unions in a context of economic adjustment in Brazil, Jose Ricardo Ramalho; unions, corporatism and the industrial relations systems in Mexico, Enrique de la Garza, Javier Melgoza and Marcia Campillo; ethnicity, state, labour and capital in Malaysia, Mhinder Bhopal.