The labour movement in Lebanon

The labour movement in Lebanon
Author: Lea Bou Khater
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2022-02-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1526159422

The labour movement in Lebanon: Power on hold narrates the history of the Lebanese labour movement from the early twentieth century to today. Bou Khater demonstrates that trade unionism in the country has largely been a failure, for reasons including state interference, tactical co-optation, and the strategic use of sectarianism by an oligarchic elite, together with the structural weakness of a service-based laissez-faire economy. Drawing on a vast body of Arabic-language primary sources and difficult-to-access archives, the book’s conclusions are significant not only for trade unionism, but also for new forms of workers’ organisations and social movements in Lebanon and beyond. The Lebanese case study presented here holds significant implications for the wider Arab world and for comparative studies of labour. This authoritative history of the labour movement in Lebanon is vital reading for scholars of trade unionism, Lebanese politics, and political economy.

Labor Movement in Postwar Lebanon

Labor Movement in Postwar Lebanon
Author: Dima Khalil Sader
Publisher:
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2004
Genre:
ISBN:

This study aims at assessing the effectiveness and adaptability of labor movemen t in face of the constraining environments in postwar Lebanon. Labor movement in Lebanon is represented by the General Confederation of Labor known as CGTL (Con federation Generale du Travail au Liban). Since its inception, this organization had its own dysfunctions such as low union density, unrepresentative internal s tructure and periodical internal divisions that accompanied it through different historical periods. Despite these anomalies, the CGTL was able throughout its h istory to preserve certain autonomy from the state and to achieve tangible gains for workers. Yet, this effectiveness was drained gradually in postwar period an d this ironically coincided with the rebuilding and consolidation of the State. Compared with both prewar and war times, the CGTL in postwar period suffered fro m unprecedented problems emanating to a large extent from the practices of the p ostwar political establishment and to a lesser extent from the economic context. This thesis addresses this interaction between the political consisting of the quasi-authoritarian practices of the state which aimed at containing the labor m ovement and the economic consisting of a neo liberal economic project which does not accept labor organizations as partners in development. The thesis also trie s to study the reaction of the CGTL to this constraining environment. For this a im, a historical comparative method will be adopted. A comparative overview of t he changing roles of unions in developed and developing countries will guide our study on the changing roles and effectiveness of labor movement in postwar Leba non compared to war and prewar times.

From Mission to Microchip

From Mission to Microchip
Author: Fred Glass
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 542
Release: 2016-06-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520288408

There is no better time than now to consider the labor history of the Golden State. While other states face declining union enrollment rates and the rollback of workersÕ rights, California unions are embracing working immigrants, and voters are protecting core worker rights. WhatÕs the difference? California has held an exceptional place in the imagination of Americans and immigrants since the Gold Rush, which saw the first of many waves of working people moving to the state to find work. From Mission to Microchip unearths the hidden stories of these people throughout CaliforniaÕs history. The difficult task of the stateÕs labor movement has been to overcome perceived barriers such as race, national origin, and language to unite newcomers and natives in their shared interest. As chronicled in this comprehensive history, workers have creatively used collective bargaining, politics, strikes, and varied organizing strategies to find common ground among CaliforniaÕs diverse communities and achieve a measure of economic fairness and social justice. This is an indispensible book for students and scholars of labor history and history of the West, as well as labor activists and organizers.Ê

Atlas of Lebanon

Atlas of Lebanon
Author: Eric Verdeil
Publisher: Presses de l’Ifpo
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2019-10-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 2351595491

After fifteen years of reconstruction in a relatively peaceful environment spanning the years 1990 to 2004, Lebanon has experienced successive violent political events resulting from complex entangled internal and external struggles. The Syrian crisis and its political, economic and demographic consequences on Lebanon have increased these tensions. This atlas sheds light on these new challenges and adds new data that complete the analyses already published in the Atlas du Liban. Territoires et société (Atlas of Lebanon. Territories and Society) released in 2007 by the same research team. Some of its components are included in this edition. Beyond the international regional crisis and the population movements, it takes into account Lebanon’s socio-economic dimensions, the environmental issues linked to uncontrolled urbanization and to natural risks, as well as conflicts due to local territorial management. This atlas is the result of a collaborative endeavor between French and Lebanese researchers. It uses a geographical approach that puts in the foreground a spatial analysis of social and natural phenomena. Public sources are scarce in Lebanon, especially at the local scale. They are sometimes less reliable and difficult to access. It is particularly the case for the Lebanese census data, conversely data are abundantly available on the refugees population, which is less known than the population of refugees. International data help compare Lebanon to its neighbors. Thematic data produced by some ministries are helpful to provide a detailed view regarding specific domains. Analyses processed on aerial and satellite images have produced essential data on urbanization and environment. Local thematic fieldwork surveys have provided additional data. The book consists of seven chapters. The first one deals with the territorial state-building seen in the light of regional geopolitics, and emphasizes internal violence and the reemergence of militias and armed groups that fight each other and the state army. Lebanon is once again perceived as a territory divided between multiple allegiances. The second chapter is devoted to the analysis of population dynamics, despite the lack of reliable data whose sources are subject to discussion. It includes analyses of internal population flows, the Lebanese diaspora, and the assessment of Syrian refugees’ influx. The third chapter shows the fragility of the Lebanese economic model. Its dependency on foreign investments and on...

City of Workers, City of Struggle

City of Workers, City of Struggle
Author: Joshua B. Freeman
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 560
Release: 2019-04-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 023154958X

From the founding of New Amsterdam until today, working people have helped create and re-create the City of New York through their struggles. Starting with artisans and slaves in colonial New York and ranging all the way to twenty-first-century gig-economy workers, this book tells the story of New York’s labor history anew. City of Workers, City of Struggle brings together essays by leading historians of New York and a wealth of illustrations, offering rich descriptions of work, daily life, and political struggle. It recounts how workers have developed formal and informal groups not only to advance their own interests but also to pursue a vision of what the city should be like and whom it should be for. The book goes beyond the largely white, male wage workers in mainstream labor organizations who have dominated the history of labor movements to look at enslaved people, indentured servants, domestic workers, sex workers, day laborers, and others who have had to fight not only their masters and employers but also labor groups that often excluded them. Through their stories—how they fought for inclusion or developed their own ways to advance—it recenters labor history for contemporary struggles. City of Workers, City of Struggle offers the definitive account of the four-hundred-year history of efforts by New York workers to improve their lives and their communities. In association with the exhibition City of Workers, City of Struggle: How Labor Movements Changed New York at the Museum of the City of New York

Solidarity Under Siege

Solidarity Under Siege
Author: Jeffrey L. Gould
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2019-05-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1108419194

Depicts the rise and fall of the militant labor movement in modern El Salvador.

Organizing the Unorganized: Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon

Organizing the Unorganized: Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon
Author: Farah Kobaissy
Publisher: American University in Cairo Press
Total Pages: 139
Release: 2017-03-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1617978531

This study examines the process of unionizing domestic workers in Lebanon, highlighting the potentialities as well as the obstacles confronting it, and looks at the multiple power relations involved through axes of class, gender, race, and nationality. The author situates this struggle within the larger scene of the labor union 'movement' in the country, and discusses the contribution of women's rights organizations in rendering visible cases of abuse against migrant domestic workers. She argues that the 'death' of class politics has made women's rights organizations address migrant domestic worker issues as a separate labor category, further contributing to their production as an 'exception' under neoliberalism.