Labour and trade union action in global production networks

Abstract

In this paper, we aim to review the incorporation of labor, union and collective action into the global production networks (gpns) approach, highlighting their limits and potential for developing a multi-actor and multi-scale, sociological conception of labor. From the network-based corporate strategies and their impacts on industrial relations and working conditions, the discussion argues for a deeper understanding of: (1) the formation of geographically dispersed, however functionally integrated, labor networks; (2) their impact on workers' individual agency according to their variegated age, ethnic, gender and geographic segmentations; and (3) the constraints and opportunities for the emergence of transnational forms of collective action and power, in order to affect the economic and political agency, and the concrete shape of these networks.