Globalization and precarious forms of production and employment challenges for workers and unions

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: globalization and precarious forms of production and employment: challenges for workers and unions / Carole Thornley, Steve Jefferys and Beatrice Appay -- In the age of Wal-Mart: precarious work and authoritarian management in the global supply chain / Nelson Lichtenstein -- 'Precarization' and flexibility in the labour process: a question of legitimacy and a major challenge for democracy / Beatrice Appay -- Legitimating precarious employment: aspects of the post-Fordism and lean production debates / Dan Coffey and Carole Thornley -- Global restructuring of transnational companies: negotiations in the auto industry / Isabel da Costa and Udo Rehfeldt -- Trade unions facing uncertainty in Central and Eastern Europe / Sylvie Contrepois and Steve Jeffreys -- Seasonal workers in Mediterranean agriculture: flexibility and insecurity in a sector under pressure / Béatrice Mésini -- The rise in precarious employment and union responses in Australia / Iain Campbell -- Hyper-flexibility in the IT sector: myth or reality? / Isabelle Berrebi-Hoffman, Michel Lallement, Martine Pernod-Lemattre and Franc̦ois Sarfati -- The increasing use of 'market' concepts in negotiations, and contextualizing factors / Jens Thoemmes -- Trade union responses to privatization and restructuring of production in Argentina in the 1990s: similarities and differences in two state-owned companies / Juliana Frassa, Leticia Mun̋iz Terra and Alejandro Naclerio -- Organizing and mobilizing precarious workers in France : the case of cleaners in the railways / Heather Connolly -- Growing power asymmetries, individualization and the continuing relevance of collective responses / Rachid Bouchareb -- Changing lanes or stuck in the slow lane? Employment precariousness and labour market status of MG Rover workers four years after closure / Alex de Ruyter, David Bailey, and Michelle Mahdon -- 'Politics of production', a new challenge for unionism: workers facing citizens in the French civil nuclear energy / Patrick Chaskiel.