Description

The growth of informal and precarious work has led many to conclude that labor organizing and collective worker power face severe obstacles. However, reflecting another instance of Polanyi’s much-cited double movement, even workers who are both informal and precarious have successfully organized and won victories, and are doing so in increasing numbers. The greatest successes in this regard are not found in Canada or the United States, but in the global South. The global distribution of these movements and their varied and uneven outcomes across nations point to the usefulness of comparative research. This talk summarizes two recent comparisons in this vein, one comparing US day laborers with Mexican street vendors, and one comparing subcontracted textile and apparel workers in Brazil, China, India, and South Africa. Results point to how precarious informal worker organizing can win, and how social and institutional context can shape informal worker organizing possibilities, strategies, and outcomes. This talk conclude by discussing evolving plans for a global study examining informal and precarious worker organizing in 8 countries: Canada, China, India, Mexico, South Korea, South Africa, and the U.S.

Chris Tilly is a professor of Urban Planning and Director of the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at UCLA. He has a Joint Ph.D. in Economics and Urban Studies and Planning from MIT. His research specializes in labor markets, with interests in inequality, urban and regional development, public policy, and organizing strategies directed towards better jobs. His current research projects focus on retail jobs and informal worker organizing in a global comparative context. Tilly has published numerous books on labor markets, including Half a Job: Bad and Good Part-Time Jobs in a Changing Labor Market (1996) and Stories Employers Tell: Race, Skill, and Hiring in America (2001). His most recent work includes editing How Global Migration Changes the Workforce Diversity Equation (forthcoming).

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