Global labour studies

The increased integration of the world economy - even with the stumbling blocks of financial and political crises or of pandemics - have had profound implications for work organisation and working conditions. The reshaping of production in global production networks have brought to the fore the issue of regulating labour rights in an increasingly transnational economy, as employment relations and working conditions are increasingly shaped by transnational production systems and overlapping supranational public and private regulatory regimes. This course addresses these transformations through an integrated approach to work, power and governance in global production. Its central aim is to reconnect debates that in the academic literature are often treated separately: the political economy of global restructuring; the institutions of labour governance; labour agency and collective organisation across borders; the labour process and labour regimes in specific sectors; and the growing interdependence of labour and environmental regulation.