ABSTRACT
In facing the 1990s, labor must come to terms with nearly two decades of declining organization and declining jobs—especially manufacturing jobs. The 1980s, particularly, represented the beginning of an ongoing worldwide decline in living standards. Much of the literature on labor discussing these problems treat these issues as if they could be resolved by more effective management and more clever marketing techniques within the borders of the nation-states concerned. To the extent that the global dimension of these problems is recognized at all, it is generally confined to the difficulty of coping with competition in a narrow sense, capitalizing on the entry of foreign firms into the international markets. Policy instruments such as tax abatements, loans with below-market interest rates, planned manufacturing districts, tax increment financing, infrastructure improvements, research and development in specified sectors, and various flexible manufacturing arrangements and employee ownership are often supported by the labor-oriented organizations. Such policy instruments and proposals have common origin in the view that the problems faced by labor can be resolved through better planning and management and, more importantly, within the borders of the nations concerned.
