ABSTRACT
Globalization is a concerted and conscious strategy on the part of capital to increase exploitation of labour on a worldwide scale. The dominant neoliberal narrative nonetheless presents globalization as an inevitable, inescapable, inexorable process occurring due to the internal momentum of capital: a natural phenomenon like the weather. Stronger welfare systems and public services, funded by much steeper progressive taxation, also contributed significantly to working-class living standards. The transition to post-Fordism in developed economies has weakened traditional union forms. Computer-mediated communication has facilitated these new ways of mobilizing. It also assists unions to organize workers in difficult industrial relations circumstances. Globalizing capitalism has taken particular advantage of workers who are vulnerable because of their sex or race or ethnicity. Labour movements have often assumed a leading role in resistance to the incessant marketization that characterizes the globalizing period. Labour's autonomy from capital also makes possible a postcapitalist future.
