IN U.S. LABOR in Trouble and Transition, Kim Moody focuses on why the organized labor movement went into decline and points to potential signs of revival. The author’s explanation begins with the worsening economic situation in the 1970s and a harsher anti-union climate, both politically and in the workplace, as “business refined its ability to act as a class.”
Moody describes in detail the economic drivers of the “Great Transformation,” a fall in the rate of profit leading to intensified competition, the acceleration of global economic integration, the use of outsourcing, new technologies, and lean reorganization of production. While the “worldwide economic crisis of the mid-1970s sparked the acceleration of global economic integration,” its most striking characteristic was foreign direct investment. Except during the slow growth periods of 2001-04 and 1990-91, “the flow of investment into U.S. manufacturing outstripped outward-bound capital by 43%.”
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