Project Information
Labour in the Third Wave of Globalization: The Development of New Ideas, Interests and Institutions of Collective Action
Project and objectives
The DFG-funded project focused on innovations in the mobilization and organizational techniques that workers use when they attempt to exercise political power. Although trade unions and social democratic parties in many countries were extremely successful in developing welfare state institutions during the 20th century, their ability to build on old achievements has declined in the context of current economic processes of delimitation and individualization.
The aim of the project was to strengthen a transatlantic university research network between the Institute for Work, Skills and Training at the University of Duisburg-Essen on the one hand and Ruttgers University, USA, on the other. To this end, the exchange of personnel was promoted and topic-centred joint workshops were organized.
Results
Two workshops were held as part of the research network: a workshop in the context of the conference: "The Global Transformation of Work: Market Integration, China's Rise, and Labor Adaptation Conference" at the Ruttgers University on 17-18 March 2016 in New Brunswick (USA), in which global challenges for workers' representatives were discussed, and a workshop on "Rethinking German Political Economy: Lessons for Comparative Theorizing after the Social Democratic Century" in San Francisco (USA) on 30 August 2017, which focused on current problems of the German political economy in the context of globalization. Several researchers from Germany and the USA were brought together.
In addition, contributions from these events were published in two peer-reviewed journals:
Schulze-Cleven, Tobias and Mingwei Liu, eds. 2017. Collective Action: Engaging Ideas, Interests and Institutions. Special issue of the Journal of Industrial Relations 59(4).
Tobias Schulze-Cleven and Sidney A. Rothstein, eds. German Political Economy after the Social Democratic Century. Special issue of German Politics. (forthcoming)
Finally, Prof. Dr. Tobias Schulze-Cleven from the University of Stuttgart visited the IAQ for several weeks for joint research activities.
Lectures
Dr. Steffen Lehndorff: Contrasting parallels: European Trade Unions in a Time of Crises. The search for security under disruptive technologies and deconstructed labour markets. 40th International Working Party on Labour Market Segmentation (IWPLMS). In Kooperation mit: Forschungsinstitut für gesellschaftliche Weiterbildung (FGW) und Netzwerk Arbeitsforschung NRW, Düsseldorf, 07.09.2018 Weitere Informationen
Dr. Steffen Lehndorff: I sindacati europei in acque agitate: una prospettiva comparata. Fra marginalizzazione e rilancio: i sindacati in Europa 10 anni dopo lo scoppio della crisi. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Fondazione Di Vittorio, Rome, 13.04.2018
Dr. Steffen Lehndorff: Il caso tedesco. Fra marginalizzazione e rilancio: i sindacati in Europa 10 anni dopo lo scoppio della crisi. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Fondazione Di Vittorio, Rome, 13.04.2018
Dr. Steffen Lehndorff: Two worlds of unionism? German manufacturing and service unions since the Great Recession. IWPLMS 2017 - 38th Annual Conference of the International Working Party on Labour Market Segmentation, 13th to 15th September 2017. Manchester, UK, European Work and Employment Research Centre, Manchester Business School of The University of Manchester, 14.09.2017
Dr. Steffen Lehndorff: Interactions in the Ongoing Process of Crises in Europe — The Role of Germany. Rethinking German Political Economy: Lessons for Comparative Theorizing after the Social Democratic Century. San Francisco, Goethe-Institut, Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations and University of Duisburg-Essen, 30.08.2017
Dr. Steffen Lehndorff: A rough landscape – European trade unions in times of crises. Precariousness in European Post-Growth Societies. Jena, Friedrich Schiller Universität, 09.12.2016