About Global Unions, Global Business
Global Unions, Global Business looks at a little understood aspect of globalization: the role of the Global Union Federations. The book outlines the way that they relate to multinational companies through agreements and structured collaboration, and uses detailed examples of their activities including an in-depth case study of one of the GUF’s dealings with a major multinational company. Throughout the book the authors explore the previously unknown internal lives of the Global Union Federations and propose ideas about how they can strengthen their position internationally, including their resource base.
Global Unions, Global Business is a unique contribution to existing literature on globalization, and throws new light both on the international trade union movement and its relations with multinational companies. The book will be of interest to all those interested in the future of trade unionism, multinational companies and corporate social responsibility.
Praise in print for Richard Croucher and Elizabeth Cotton: Global Unions, Global Business (Middlesex University Press, 2009).
‘An exciting read.....the authors are well placed to analyse the position of these historic labour institutions....their book makes a valuable contribution to the vast body of literature on globalization and labour by engaging insightfully with subjects rarely touched upon.......Croucher and Cotton put forward a well structured argument... a number of sound recommendations .......Written in a very accessible style.... Global Unions Global Business throws down the gauntlet to economic geographers......’
(Journal of Economic Geography August 2009. Doi:10.1093/jeg/lbp041)
‘A unique contribution....throwing new light both on the international trade union movement and its relations with multinational companies’
(Political Sociology, American Sociological Association Summer 2009: 17.)
‘This fine study……an important and valuable book that redresses a major gap in the contemporary literature on the operations and the strategic and policy options open to international organized labour. As such, it will be of great interest to both academics and activists.’
(Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations; 64-4, 2009)
‘For the first time for many years, the attention of those interested in sectoral trade union organization beyond the nation state is drawn to the world level, and from a perspective that avoids as far as possible the ‘Eurocentric’ position....This timely book is aimed at a wide audience....makes a refreshing addition to the literature....excellent discussion of the little known structure and organization of the GUFs.’
(Historical Studies in Industrial Relations 25/6 : 289-92)
‘Without in any way idealizing GUFs Croucher and Cotton demonstrate very convincingly the ability GUFs have to monitor the activities of multinational companies across continents and to negotiate binding agreements on behalf of employees.... ‘
(LO Aktuelt 02/09)
‘This new book makes important reading for all those interested in social justice in Africa and indeed the world. Brief, concentrated, clearly written, authoritative and well-documented, it is the first book for a generation to look in detail at the workings of a little-known and therefore widely misunderstood level of trade union activity, the Global Union Federations (GUFs), and their relations with activists on the one hand and the corporate world on the other. It is all the more valuable for building on the authors’ practical experience of working with them for many years....
Pambazuka News 2009-10-07 Issue 451.
‘It is very rare to find a work with this sort of dual nature, as the authors have been able to create an uncommonly empirically rich and approachable book: as academic experts in industrial relations they can both at the same time use their extensive practical experience of union development and educational work in different countries...... Global Unions, Global Business makes available a fund of empirical material from countries that remain terrae incognitae even for experts, in a lively form and integrated into a coherent argument.’
Gewerkschaftsforum, Sozialismus 11/2009.
