With the emergence of neo-liberalism in the 1980s as the dominant domestic and international political-economic orthodoxy, labour as both a social category and political movement tended to be written off or ignored by academics, politicians and commentators. However, at a time when the world's working class is growing faster than at any previous time in history and neo-liberalism is widely challenged, this orthodoxy is clearly inadequate. The spread of global production means that to ignore labour, its organisations, interests and politics, is to ignore one of the key components of that process. Labour organisations have not gone away and neither has the state: their relationship remains as significant as ever. The strategic relationship between trade unions and social movements, nationally and internationally, has also developed markedly, especially in the south. New patterns of resistance are emerging to challenge global capital and those who assert that globalisation is irresistible.
1. Introduction: labour, the state, social movements and the challenge of neo-liberal globalisation - Andrew Gamble, Steve Ludlam, Andrew J. Taylor and Stephen Wood
Theory
2. The category of labour: its continued relevance in social theory - David Coates
3. Labour in the twenty first century: state strategies - Vivien A. Schmidt
THE GLOBAL NEO-LIBERAL CHALLENGE
4. Fractured capacity in regulating international labour standards:the perils of voluntary self-regulation and competition for moral authority - Austina J. Reed and Charlotte Yates
5. Creating a labour dispensation for the 21st century: the case of South Africa - Darcy Du Toit
6. Liberalisation and trade unionism in Mozambique - Beata Mtyingizana
7. Relations between capital and labour in Turkey: from neoliberalism to democratisation - Nazim Güveloglu
8. Strange company? organised labour and the politics of liberalisation in India - Michael Gillan
PATTERNS OF RESISTENCE ACROSS THE GLOBE
9. Problems of social movement Unionism - Bill Dunn
10. Self regulating markets, restructuring and the new labour internationalism - Rob Lambert
11. Recasting the story of David and Goliath in the global economy - Anibel Ferus-Comelo
12. Sintraemcali and social movement unionism: trade union resistance to neo-liberal globalisation in Colombia - Mario Novelli
13. Canalising resistance: historical continuities and contrasts of 'alter-globalist' movements at the European Social Forums - Andreas Bieler and Adam Morton
