Globalization and Precarious Forms of Production and Employment

Edited by Carole Thornley, Senior Lecturer, Keele Management School, Keele University, UK, Steve Jefferys, formerly Director, Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University, UK and Beatrice Appay, Senior Research Fellow, CNRS, France

• Contents:1. Introduction: Globalization and Precarious Forms of Production and Employment: Challenges for Workers and UnionsCarole Thornley, Steve Jefferys and Beatrice Appay2. In the Age of Wal-Mart: Precarious Work and Authoritarian Management in the Global Supply ChainNelson Lichtenstein3. ‘Precarization’ and Flexibility in the Labour Process: A Question of Legitimacy and a Major Challenge for DemocracyBeatrice Appay 4. Legitimating Precarious Employment: Aspects of the Post-Fordism and Lean Production DebatesDan Coffey and Carole Thornley5. Global Restructuring of Transnational Companies: Negotiations in the Auto IndustryIsabel da Costa and Udo Rehfeldt6. Trade Unions Facing Uncertainty in Central and Eastern EuropeSylvie Contrepois and Steve Jefferys7. Seasonal Workers in Mediterranean Agriculture: Flexibility and Insecurity in a Sector Under PressureBeatrice Mésini8. The Rise in Precarious Employment and Union Responses in AustraliaIain Campbell9. Hyper-flexibility in the IT Sector: Myth or Reality?Isabelle Berrebi-Hoffmann, Michel Lallement, Martine Pernod-Lemattre and François Sarfati10. The Increasing Use of ‘Market’ Concepts in Negotiations, and Contextualizing FactorsJens Thoemmes11. Trade Union Responses to Privatization and Restructuring of Production in Argentina in the 1990s: Similarities and Differences in Two State-owned CompaniesJuliana Frassa, Leticia Muñiz Terra and Alejandro Naclerio12. Organizing and Mobilizing Precarious Workers in France: The Case of Cleaners in the RailwaysHeather Connolly13. Growing Power Asymmetries, Individualization and the Continuing Relevance of Collective ResponsesRachid Bouchareb14. Changing Lanes or Stuck in the Slow Lane? Employment Precariousness and Labour Market Status of MG Rover Workers Four Years After ClosureAlex de Ruyter, David Bailey and Michelle Mahdon15. ‘Politics of Production’, A New Challenge for Unionism: Workers Facing Citizens in the French Civil Nuclear EnergyPatrick ChaskielIndex

‘. . . the book provides some valuable and fascinating insights into the increasingly precarious nature of modern work and raises issues which should be of concern to anyone interested in the idea of a fairer and more equal society.’