Neoliberal Capitalism and Precarious Work: Ethnographies of Accommodation and Resistance

349 Pages·2016·2.09 MB·English

by  Rob Lambert

Neoliberal Capitalism and Precarious Work

Neoliberal Capitalism
and Precarious Work
Ethnographies of Accommodation and
Resistance

Edited by

Rob Lambert
Winthrop Professor, University ofWesternAustralia, Perth,
Australia

Andrew Herod
Distinguished Research Professor of Geography and
Adjunct Professor of International Affairs and of Anthropology,
University of Georgia, Athens, USA

luul Edward Elgar
PUBLISHING

Cheltenham, UK• Northampton, MA, USA
© Rob Lambert and Andrew Herod 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical
or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the
publisher.

Published by
Edward Elgar Publishing Limited
The Lypiatts
15 Lansdown Road
Cheltenham
Glos GL50 2JA
UK

Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc.
William Pratt House
9 Dewey Court
Northampton
Massachusetts 01060
USA

A catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015957863

This book is available electronically in the IEigaronline I
Social and Political Science subject collection
DOI 10.4337/9781781954959

ISBN 978 1 78195 494 2 (cased)
ISBN 978 1 78195 495 9 (eBook)

Typeset by Columns Design XML Ltd, Reading
Contents
List of figures vii
List of tables viii
List of contributors 1x
1 Neoliberalism, precarious work and remaking the geography of
global capitalism 1
Andrew Herod and Rob Lambert

PART I EXPERIENCES OF PRECARIOUS WORK
Andrew Herod and Rob Lambert

2 The growth and organization of a precariat: working in the
clothing industry in Johannesburg's inner city 43
Katherine Joynt and Edward Webster
3 Bounded mobilizations: informal unionism and secondary
shaming amongst immigrant temp workers in Chicago 72
Sebastien Chauvin
4 Home-based work and new ways of organizing in the era of
globalization 96
Dilek Hattatoglu and Jane Tate
5 Constructing violence and resistance: the political economy of the
construction industry and labour subcontracting system in
post-socialist China 125
Pun Ngai and Lu Huilin
6 Nature and insecurity in South Africa 148
Jacklyn Cock and Rob Lambert
7 At the cutting edge: precarious work in Brazil's sugar and ethanol
industry 166
Brian Garvey and Maria Joseli Barreto

V
vi Neoliberal capitalism and precarious work

PART II CHALLENGING PRECARIOUS WORK
Andrew Herod and Rob Lambert

8 Organizing across a fragmented labour force: trade union
responses to precarious work in Korean auto companies 201
AelimYun
9 Closures and openings: the politics of place and space in resisting
corporate restructuring 226
Michael Gillan and Rob Lambert
10 Sweatshop citizenship, precariousness and organizing building
cleaners 255
Luis L.M. Aguiar
11 Global unions, global framework agreements and the
transnational regulation oflabour standards 277
Mark Thomas
Conclusion: towards a movement of the dispossessed? 303
Rob Lambert andAndrew Herod
Index 323
Figures
7.1 Location of municipalities and distilleries in Middle
Paranapanema and the Pontal of Paranapanema 169
8.1 Disposition of workers on the main assembly lines at Hyundai
Motors's Ulsanplant 210
8.2 Disposition of workers on the assembly line of Kia Motors's
Hwasung plant 215
9.1 'Jobkiller'logo 238

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Tables
1.1 Typology of contingent workers 6
2.1 Profile of clothing enterprises in inner-city Johannesburg 52
2.2 Union awareness and representation of non-standard workers 63
2.3 Typology of power 66
8.1 Union responses to subcontracted workers 219

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Contributors
Luis L.M. Aguiar is Associate Professor of Sociology in the Ike Barber
School of Arts and Sciences at the University of British Columbia. He
edited (with Andrew Herod) The Dirty Work of Neoliberalism: Cleaners
in the Global Economy (Blackwell 2006) and co-edited Researching
amongst Elites: Challenges and Opportunities in Studying Up (Ashgate
2012).
Maria Joseli Barreto completed her bachelor's and master's degrees in
Geography from the Universidade Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita
Filho (UNESP), Presidente Prudente, Sao Paulo. She contributes to the
Center for Labour Geography Studies and the Research Center for
Labour, Environment and Health at UNESP.
Sebastien Chauvin is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University
of Amsterdam and a researcher at the Amsterdam Institute for Social
Science Research. His research has focused on labour, immigration and
citizenship in the United States and France. In the US he adopted a
participant observation research strategy focused on day labour and the
undocumented migrant labour force.
Jacklyn Cock is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology at
the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and is an honorary
research professor in the Society, Work and Development Institute
(SWOP). She has written extensively on militarization, gender and
environmentalism in Southern Africa. Her best-known book is Maids and
Madams: A Study in the Politics of Exploitation (Ravan Press 1981). Her
latest book is The War against Ourselves: Nature, Power and Justice
(Wits University Press 2007).
Brian Garvey is a Research Fellow at the University of Strathclyde's
Business School investigating work, labour organization and primary
commodity production in the context of global environmental change. He
is co-founder of the Work, Labour and Globalisation research group at
the University of Strathclyde.
Michael Gillan teaches and researches employment relations at the
University of Western Australia. He has published in a wide range of

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