'Free trade' strategies have increasingly become a problem for the international labour movement. While trade unions in the North especially in manufacturing have supported free trade agreements to secure export markets for their companies, trade unions in the Global South oppose these agreements, since they often imply deindustrialisation. Especially the expansion of the free trade agenda into services, public procurement, investment, intellectual property rights as well as investor to state dispute settlement provisions are considered to be problematic.

The purpose of this volume is to understand better these dynamics underlying 'free trade' policy-making in order to explore possibilities for transnational labour solidarity. Bringing together labour academics with trade union researchers and social movement activists, this volume moves from conceptual reflections about the impact of 'free trade' via the analysis of struggles around free trade agreements to considerations of concrete alternatives.

This book was published as a special issue of Globalizations.

About the Author
Andreas Bieler is Professor of Political Economy and Fellow of the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham, UK. Bruno Ciccaglione is the European Co-ordinator of the Seattle to Brussels Network. John Hilary is the Executive Director of the British NGO War on Want. Ingemar Lindberg is a former researcher and social policy adviser to the Confederation of Swedish Trade Unions (LO).

Reviews

"[A] remarkable contribution to the debate regarding the role of trade union and transnational
solidarity as a strategy to challenge such agreements...Free Trade and Transnational Labourprovides the basis for action and concrete examples that can be used in a variety of contexts,
supplemented by a number of key theoretical interventions that place those struggles in context." - Global Labour Journal

''... challenges the divide that presupposes diverting strategies for workers' according to their location. Even though more utopian ideas have been put forward in recent years, this final conclusion is a remarkable contribution, and it is also a challenge for labour to rethink itself on the basis of the areas in which it is stronger.'' - Bruno Dobrusin, Global Labour Studies

Book Information
ISBN 9781138932548
Author Andreas Bieler
Format Paperback
Page Count 174
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 340g