Scaling Up? On the Possibilities and Limits of Transnational Labour Organising in Globalised Production

Abstract

This article provides an overview of theoretical and empirical efforts to understand the multiple dimensions enabling and hindering (transnational) labour organising in the context of globalised production. It situates the contributions to this special issue in the broader debate on the role of labour and workers' agency in global value chains and production networks. For this, it brings together chain and network approaches with labour studies in a highly productive dialogue. Focusing on labour as a transnational actor, the article further identifies different approaches of and actors within transnational organising and provides empirical insights on the complexity of the politics of scale in organising efforts. Four key issues are identified as complicating labour organising along global value chains: (i) asymmetrical power relations within organising, particularly between the global North and South, (ii) the continued importance of the local and national scale, (iii) difference and dividing lines between workers, and (iv) the red-green divide. The article argues for the importance of a multi-scalar and intersectional perspective on transnational organising beyond binaries. Such an approach recognises the key role of local alliances as well as the possibilities and limits arising from transnational organising initiatives to confront globalised capital.

Frayed social safety: Social networks, stigma, and COVID-19 – The case of Sri Lankan garment workers

“…Nonetheless, women workers are also acutely conscious of how communities of care are easily disrupted, kin alliances shift and waiver to also withdraw support by disgracing them. Instead of limiting ourselves to “…difference…a fruitful starting point for rethinking workers in GVCs, worker organizing” (Fischer et al, 2022: 25), it is also important to be attentive to distinctions that hinder and constrain labour agency. Actualization of empowered workers is enmeshed in grounded politics with fluctuations that both enable and constrain women: the politics of empowerment is best understood within these slivers.…”

“…Jackfruit, which also substitutes for rice, and is high in starch was their source of nourishment, as were the olive and coconut trees. These assessments by workers highlight not just the “new…solidarities on…more interrelated views of labour and environmental issues” (Fischer et al, 2022: 27). Workers weave together mundane spheres that connect the organic to the material; a socio-ecological awareness stemming from below.…”

“…Quotidian practices reflect structural constraints that people must negotiate. Dutta (2022) captures an angle of working women’s lives when she remarks how they use their experiences to theorize power using familiar social reproductive acts – which sit along the axis of care, emotions, and empathy (see also Fischer et al, 2022). Nonetheless, women workers are also acutely conscious of how communities of care are easily disrupted, kin alliances shift and waiver to also withdraw support by disgracing them.…”

“…While these concerns echo early Marxist-Feminist thought to impel their resonance at the current juncture and highlight costs to social relations, more research is needed to be attentive to spatial factors that shape social reproduction. This focus is critical to appreciate the sociability that occurs through a “variety of collective activities” that extend beyond the community union schemes and speak to labour politics from below (Griffin, 2021: 27; see also Dutta, 2022; Fischer et al, 2022). Spatializing and grounding labour politics includes the need to be attentive to the contradictions and complexities therein (Griffin, 2023), with the spatial transformations that stemmed from COVID-19 both foreclosing and opening possibilities for collective actions, as Herod (2022) outlines.…”