ABSTRACT
This chapter paints a nuanced picture of the ways that labour organising is changing across the world in response to the informalisation and precaritisation of labour. Driven by the same dynamics of global capital accumulation but manifesting in various ways that are shaped by local histories and particular constellations of class consciousness, ideology and social relations, there is a broad shift from traditional national and sectoral trade unions towards a growing number of innovative and informal methods of labour organising. These new forms expand both the understanding of ‘worker’ as they seek to include informal workers, gig workers and other types of previously unorganised workers, and also the understanding of ‘work’ as they increasingly organise to promote and protect all the activities which people undertake to provision themselves, their households and their communities in order to produce life. The grassroots struggle is shifting from a more limited struggle for labour rights towards a much broader struggle for ‘life itself’. The chapter does not tell the story of a consciously global labour movement but instead advocates for a fuller consideration of labour action and how it might relate to our conception of contemporary global lefts.
