ABSTRACT
Our book began with the basic premise that the contemporary phase of capitalism requires a sophisticated set of counter-strategies to redress the egregious violations of human rights in the workplace and beyond. Radical, movement-building action needs a nuanced understanding of the ways in which global restructuring processes are refracted through the prism of capital-state-labour relations at various scales on workers’ lives. Such understanding, we have argued, emerges from collective analyses of the networks and modalities of power that succeed in exploiting workers and dictating social and economic policies in different ways in the global North and the global South, as well as within. This final chapter of this book draws together the theoretical and empirical
insights of the case studies, which illuminate instances of knowledge production in the service of people and justice, rather than productivity and profits. It is divided into three sections. The first summarizes the case studies while outlining their implications about knowledge production and strategy development in labour movements. The second relates them to wider debates about globalization and the role of labour organizations as one section of social movements in the making of a robust civil society. And drawing from the empirical insights, the third finally outlines some areas for further research and makes recommendations for policy and practice.
