Synopses & Reviews
Exploring globalization from a labor history perspective, Aviva Chomsky provides historically grounded analyses of migration, labor-management collaboration, and the mobility of capital. She illuminates the dynamics of these movements through case studies set mostly in New England and Colombia. Taken together, the case studies offer an intricate portrait of two regions, their industries and workers, and the myriad links between them over the long twentieth century, as well as a new way to conceptualize globalization as a long-term process.
Chomsky examines labor and management at two early-twentieth-century Massachusetts factories: one that transformed the global textile industry by exporting looms around the world, and another that was the site of a model program of labor-management collaboration in the 1920s. She follows the path of the textile industry from New England, first to the U.S. South, and then to Puerto Rico, Japan, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and Colombia. She considers how towns in Rhode Island and Massachusetts began to import Colombian workers as they struggled to keep their remaining textile factories going. Most of the workers eventually landed in service jobs: cleaning houses, caring for elders, washing dishes.
Focusing on Colombia between the 1960s and the present, Chomsky looks at the Urabandaacute; banana export region, where violence against organized labor has been particularly acute, and, through a discussion of the AFL-CIOandrsquo;s activities in Colombia, she explores the thorny question of U.S. union involvement in foreign policy. In the 1980s, two U.S. coal mining companies began to shift their operations to Colombia, where they opened two of the largest open-pit coal mines in the world. Chomsky assesses how different groups, especially labor unions in both countries, were affected. Linked Labor Histories suggests that economic integration among regions often exacerbates regional inequalities rather than ameliorating them.
Review
andldquo;By looking at globalization from the perspective of labor history, and labor history through the lens of globalization, Aviva Chomsky transforms our understanding of both. In Chomskyandrsquo;s hands, global labor history becomes a compelling tool for understanding and challenging the social inequalities that capitalism creates and depends on. The result is not only a wonderfully rich and detailed look at particular places and times, but a pathbreaking study that forces us to rethink how we understand the Americas as a whole. Students, scholars, labor leaders, and activists should all read this magnificent book.andrdquo;andmdash;Steve Striffler, author of In the Shadows of State and Capital: The United Fruit Company, Popular Struggle, and Agrarian Restructuring in Ecuador, 1900andndash;1995
Review
andldquo;The early-twentieth-century export of Draper looms from Hopedale, Massachusetts, to Medellinandrsquo;s domestic textile industry sets the stage for a remarkably creative transnational study, documenting the eerie connection between the fates of both American and Colombian working people. Aviva Chomsky jumps skillfully across time and space to link capital flight and the early globalization of the New England textile industry to patterns of low-wage international immigration, even as she dissects the role of the United States (at times aided by American trade unions) in the suppression of Colombian labor radicalism.andrdquo;andmdash;Leon Fink, author of The Maya of Morganton: Work and Community in the Nuevo New South
Review
andldquo;Linked Labor Histories clearly establishes Chomsky as one of the foremost innovative labour historians of Amandeacute;ricaandmdash;North and South.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Linked Labor Histories is a book with a story that scholars can certainly learn from, but it has an even more important message to concerned citizens and labour activists about the necessity of building a movement that confronts globalisation with global strategies.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;[A] valuable contribution in the movement to revive (and revise) analytical tools that shed light on the past in order to illuminate the paths we walk today.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;What in many text books easily turns into a dry account becomes in Chomskyandrsquo;s skilful narrative a fascinating and lively story, where the personal is never far from the general. In particular, I like the way in which each of the seven chapters ends with snippets of life histories from workers and unionists, whose personal experiences reflect the more abstract development of global capitalism. It is this putting flesh on social history that makes Linked Labor Histories such a captivating read. . . . Linked Labor Histories is a tremendous achievement and a fascinating read.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Chomsky challenges readers to rethink their assumptions about regional and global power relations, as well as the parts played by governments, workers, and their unions in capitalandrsquo;s continual search for cheap, controllable labor. . . . Aviva Chomsky has written an exciting book about globalization and how the creation and maintenance of global inequalities over time have empowered capital over labor. . . . Chomskyandrsquo;s work explores new avenues of inquiry. She pushes readers to engage with the long history of the global South, and consider the strategies workers, unions, corporations, consumers, and governments have used to shape its development in the past, and the ways they could do so in the future.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Linked Labor Histories is an informative, thought-provoking explanation of how workersandrsquo; struggles within the imperialist centers are linked to those in countries dominated by imperialism.andrdquo;
Synopsis
Moves beyond comparative history to study the complex interweaving of transnational historical flows (material, cultural, and ideological) that have shaped two regions: New England and northern Colombia.
Synopsis
An analysis of migration, labor-management collaboration, and the mobility of capital based on case studies in New England and Colombia.
About the Author
“By looking at globalization from the perspective of labor history, and labor history through the lens of globalization, Aviva Chomsky transforms our understanding of both. In Chomsky’s hands, global labor history becomes a compelling tool for understanding and challenging the social inequalities that capitalism creates and depends on. The result is not only a wonderfully rich and detailed look at particular places and times, but a pathbreaking study that forces us to rethink how we understand the Americas as a whole. Students, scholars, labor leaders, and activists should all read this magnificent book.”—Steve Striffler, author of In the Shadows of State and Capital: The United Fruit Company, Popular Struggle, and Agrarian Restructuring in Ecuador, 1900–1995“The early-twentieth-century export of Draper looms from Hopedale, Massachusetts, to Medellin’s domestic textile industry sets the stage for a remarkably creative transnational study, documenting the eerie connection between the fates of both American and Colombian working people. Aviva Chomsky jumps skillfully across time and space to link capital flight and the early globalization of the New England textile industry to patterns of low-wage international immigration, even as she dissects the role of the United States (at times aided by American trade unions) in the suppression of Colombian labor radicalism.”—Leon Fink, author of The Maya of Morganton: Work and Community in the Nuevo New South
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Abbreviations ix
Introduction 1
Part I. New England
1. The Draper Company: From Hopedale to Medellandiacute;n and Back 15
2. The Naumkeag Steam Cotton Company: Labor-Management Collaboration and Its Discontents 48
3. Guns, Butter, and the New (Old) International Division of Labor 93
4. Invisible Workers in a Dying Industry: Latino Immigrants in New England Textile Towns 142
Part II. Colombia
5. The Cutting Edge of Globalization: Neoliberalism and Violence in Colombia's Banana Zone 181
6. Taking Care of Business in Colombia: U.S. Multinationals, the U.S. Government, and the AFL-CIO 222
7. Mining the Connections: Where Does Your Coal Come From? 264
Conclusion 294
Notes 305
Bibliography 357
Index 373