Book Review: Globalisation and Labor: The New Great Transformation.(paperback) By Ronaldo Munck. Madhyam Books, 2003.

216 pages, price: 238 Rs.

Ronlado Munck describes the situation on organized and globalization after Seattle in order to show that organized working people will create global social movement, that will challenge the global development of capitalism. Munck presents strong theoretical and empirical evidence to Karl Polanyis framework to create regulation of the market by nation state and civil society, what

Polanyi calls a counter movement. To fully embed the market in society, it needs more than rules, laws and other kinds of regulation working people need to go beyond previous limits of activism to restructure policies. Muncks brings together different issues that can be noticeable even in era of globalization through the theory of great transformation. In chapter three Munck describes the social clause in global trade agreement, flexibility, related with feminization and then informalization of work, drawback of this implementation not only in equity terms but also in terms of efficiency (page no. 73). Munck book is use full for newcomers to know and enhance the knowledge with control of working people over the world with the unionization. Munck offers us a detailed and well-founded analysis and issues that can be valued till now for current world of through breadth literature review. According to Munck theory of the great transformation is helpful to understand the disruption happening in society since centuries but in globalization era internationalization making new jobs like processing to integrate workers in internationalization from every country. Munck in chapter six and seven provides and image native vision of a global workers integration that can be re-embedded in society to stabilized political, economic and social patterns in present. Muncks book deals with the realization of economic and social justice based on working people and how to achieve this through building a strategy to reach the next step. What is missing in Muncks book is how to empower workers themselves. Munck doesnt tell about informalizatoin as a whole, that is very essential for developing countries to grow not for the economy but from bottom to top in society. The process that trade union dead or dying (page no. 190), in capitalist way to build cross-border links in depth to create automatically informalization but Munks describes it in only favor of formalization. The real situation of informal workers is missing in book, Munck gives us no insight to their everyday life experience. His argument around the informal economy remains theoretical. Ethnographic evidence would have supported his argument. Another problem is that Munck talked about ` glocalisation` that is can be very effective in the globalized era and till date but focused only on the global growth of capitalist instead focusing on different issues like deprivation of representation itself. The focuses on

International Confederation of Trade Unions, The International Trade Secretariats (now Global Unions),and the AFL-CO which represent specific industry sectors. The key questions still remained unanswered in the book:- the fact about the workers around the world and country vize maz have different conflicts, problems? Munck doesnt find the single representator for all the workers but could see the leading transational corporation is a part of society(page no. 170). He does not indentify possible source of power for the working class. Neither he deals with the powerful interests of the opposing class, the capitalist and how to deal with them, he still lacks a theory of power. The question remains which actor will lead the working calls in time of globalization. Munck has accurately assessed the situation of labor in the age of globalization. For Munck vision to come to fruitition is certainly needs more than the concept of social movement unionism that he ignores many thing which will affect labor group. The global war of movement is already going on world wide, what is need to be done is to embed with realm of working people in the economy. Now we need to go beyond that and look at the future. The global countermovement against the unregulated market has already started its struggle, increasingly since Seattle. Identifying the actors that are actively involved in social movment unionism (like trade union or NGOs) is the task ahead of us. Globalization and labor does not do this which is why we need to go beyond Munck. Webster explains what is nedded: critique, alternative, strategy to reach this alternative (Webster). The Critic of the current situation undertaken by Munck is thoroughly well flexible alternative given by Standing Guy in 2009 book he argues the work after globalization where he provides vision of global economic is reembeded in society. Kate Bronfenbrenner has described different strategies in her book Global Unions and Ronaldo Munck himself later went beyond his own analysis. In his latest article Globalisation and the Labor Movement, Challenges and Responses published in the Global Labor Journal {vol. 1(2)} he deals with movement strategies to re embed the market in society.
Amar Kharate 2010GL006 Tata Institute of Social Science

References
Bronfenbrenner, Kate (ed.) (2006): Global Unions. Challenging Transnational Capital through Cross-Border Campaigns, Chapter 1, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Ronaldo Munck, Globalization and the Labor Movement: Challenges and Responses, Global Labor Journal, Vol. 1, Issue 2, 2010.

Standing G. (2009): Work After Globlization. Building Occupational Citizenship, Cheltenham & Northhampton: Edward ELGAR. Webster, E. Lambert, R. and Bezuidenhout, A. (2008): Grounding Globalization: Labour in the Age of Insecurity. London: Blackwell.