2001 IDRF Fellow Mark S. Anner spent ten years working with
labor unions in Latin America and returned to conduct eighteen months of
field research: he found himself in the middle of violent raids, was
detained and interrogated in a Salvadoran basement prison cell, and
survived a bombing in a union cafeteria. This experience as a
participant observer informs and enlivens Solidarity Transformed,
an illustrative, nuanced, and insightful account of how labor unions in
Latin America are developing new strategies to defend the interests of
the workers they represent in dynamic global and local contexts. Anner
combines in-depth case studies of the auto and apparel industries in El
Salvador, Honduras, Brazil, and Argentina with survey analysis.
Altogether, he documents approximately seventy labor campaigns―both
successful and failed―over a period of twenty years.

Anner finds
that four labor strategies have dominated labor campaigns in recent
years: transnational activist campaigns; transnational labor networks;
radical flank mechanisms; and microcorporatist worker-employer pacts.
The choice of which strategy to pursue is shaped by the structure of
global supply chains, access to the domestic political process, and
labor identities. Anner’s multifaceted approach is both rich in anecdote
and supported by quantitative research. The result is a book in which
labor activists find new and creative ways to support their members and
protect their organizations in the midst of political change, global
restructuring, and economic crises. Buy it on Amazon.

Publication Details

Title
Solidarity Transformed: Labor Responses to Globalization and Crisis in Latin America
Authors
Anner, Mark
Publisher
Cornell University / Cornell University Press
Publish Date
March 2011
ISBN
978-0801476730
Citation
Anner, Mark, Solidarity Transformed: Labor Responses to Globalization and Crisis in Latin America (Cornell University / Cornell University Press, March 2011).
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