Workers in a Lean World: Unions in the International Economy.

• Author: Buell, John

In this exceptional book, Kim Moody, one of the founders of Labor Notes in Detroit, refutes the two most common, if conflicting, assumptions about the global economy. Representatives of the business class claim that the international free market is the most efficient way to allocate goods and services and to promote mass prosperity. Moody demonstrates that this is not the case. He notes widespread unemployment, poverty, and environmental degradation as proof.

But Moody also debunks the facile view that globalization is the only source of labor's ills. He argues, persuasively, that the production and consumption of most goods and services still occurs at the national level." There are logical reasons for this, he says, including the distance to market, and the time it takes to get goods there. "Capital is not as footloose as is often suggested." he writes, labeling the idea that most companies will up and leave at the drop of a hat as "globaloney."

While Moody outlines the problems with the free-trade model and shows how the IMF,. the World Bank, NAFTA, and GATT serve corporate interests, his main focus is on the labor movement. He examines why labor has not fought back harder both against these global institutions and against corporate power within national boundaries.

Moody suggests that labor has not been a mere victim in this process. Organizational and ideological limits kept it from mounting an adequate response to corporate domination. The bad news is that most workers are paying heavily for those inadequacies today. The good news is that labor now includes a strong activist element willing to learn from past mistakes and build an internationally oriented rank-and-file movement against global corporations.

In the 1970s and 1980s, U.S. companies responded to stagnation and foreign competition by emphasizing "lean production." The strategy was to make employees work longer and harder. if that meant bending union rules, so be it. Companies told unions to accept these changes, or there would be no jobs left.

So unions went along with lean production. They made concessions on wages, working conditions, and terms for hiring new employees. The results of these deals are all around us. Most large industrial corporations have downsized anyway, with huge losses in union jobs. Wages have fallen. And the companies have helped push through trade agreements that further threaten labor.

Moody explores why unions went this route. He argues that...