Cross-national Comparisons of Social Movement Unionism: Diversities of Labour Movement Revitalization in Japan, Korea and the United States

Akira Suzuki

Peter Lang, 2012 - Labor movement - 345 pages

For the past two decades efforts to halt the decline in union numbers and revitalize the labour movement have largely resided in social movement unionism (SMU). In the first English-language book to compare SMU in Japan, Korea and the United States, scholars from the three countries examine its emergence as a response to neoliberal globalization. Cross-National Comparisons of Social Movement Unionism moves beyond previous studies of SMU and union revitalization which have focussed on the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. The eleven chapters offer empirical and theoretical analyses of the impact of SMU on existing labour movements, and explain the mediating factors that account for the diversity of SMU across national boundaries, arguing that its forms and activities are mediated by different institutional, political and economic contexts.

About the author

Akira Suzuki is Professor at the Ohara Institute for Social Research, Hosei University in Tokyo. He has written numerous articles in English and in Japanese on industrial relations and labour history in Japan and on social movement unionism in Japan and the United States.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Cross-national Comparisons of Social Movement Unionism: Diversities of Labour Movement Revitalization in Japan, Korea and the United States; Volume 18 of Trade unions past, present and future
• Editor: Akira Suzuki
• Publisher: Peter Lang, 2012
• ISBN: 303430868X, 9783034308687
• Length: 345 pages