M O N T H L Y R E V I E W
presents:
A Special Double Issue
Summer 1997
RISING FROM THE ASHES?
LABOR IN THE AGE OF "GLOBAL CAPITALISM"
edited by Ellen Meiksins Wood and guest editors Peter Meiksins and Michael Yates
to order:
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C O N T E N T S :
Zapatismo and the Workers Movement in Mexico at the End of the Century
by Edur Velasco Arregui, and Richard Roman
Organizing the Unorganized: Will Promises Become Practices?
by Fernando Gapasin and Michael Yates
Notes on Labor at the End of the Century: Starting Over?
by Sam Gindin
Race and Labor Organization in the United States
by Michael Goldfield
Talking About Work
by Doug Henwood
Same As It Ever Was? The Structure of the Working Class
by Peter Meiksins
American Labor: A Movement Again?
by Kim Moody
The French Winter of Discontent
by Daniel Singer
The "Late Blooming" of the South Korean Labor Movement
by Hochul Sonn
Labor, The State, and Class Struggle
by Ellen Meiksins Wood
After a long period of sustained attack by governments of various stripes, a
steady deterioration of working and living standards, and declines in
memberhip and militancy, there are encouraging signs that organized labor is
on the move again. This may come as a surprise to many, on the left as well
as the right, who have long since written off the labor movement as an
oppositional force.
Although it is, of course, too early to make big claims about this trend, it
does seem a good moment to take a close look not only at these new signs of
activism but also at the nature of labor today and at the environment in
which the labor movement now has to navigate.
This special issue of MONTHLY REVIEW explores and challenges some of the
assumptions about labor that have been the common sense of our historical
moment---assumptions about various social, economic, and technological
changes, like "globalization" and "the end of work"---which supposedly make
labor organization and class politics impossible and/or irrelevant today.
RISING FROM THE ASHES? LABOR IN THE AGE OF "GLOBAL" CAPITALISM explores the
general economic and social context in which labor now has to operate, looks
at recent developments in the labor movement and examples of renewed labor
militancy in various parts of the world, examines what's changed and what
hasn't in the composition and prospects of the working class, and proposes
organizational and political strategies.