Globalization and Precarious Forms of Production and Employment

Book excerpt: This book makes a unique and invaluable contribution to our understanding of the changing nature of employment and its consequences for industrialized societies. It combines industry case studies, company case studies, and specific country case studies to paint a multi-dimensional picture of the spread of precarious employment and the responses by trade unions and other worker mobilizations. In addition, the astute theoretical chapters demonstrate how the trend toward precarization is reshaping power relationships in ways that have significant implications for individual security and wellbeing, collective agency and empowerment, societal equality and stability, and the vitality of democracy itself. Together these essays provide an exceptionally rich picture and insightful analysis of these important trends in contemporary industrialized societies.