This special issue of International Labor and Working-Class History focuses on how the phenomenon known as globalization has transformed work in Latin America in recent decades. The term “globalization” became widely used in history and the social sciences beginning in the 1990s, and globalization has become a popular buzzword in the media in recent years, an accepted (if controversial) part of the frame of our era. The roots of this historical process, however, go back several centuries, as does the impact of globalization on workers and work.

Is globalization good for workers? Many scholars have surprisingly clear-cut answers. “Globalization is good for workers,” say most economists. “Globalization is bad for workers,” say most sociologists, anthropologists, and historians. This article takes a more cautious approach, defining first the different dimensions of employment quality which can be measured in order to track changes (Section 2). In a second step, it reviews some of the mechanisms through which globalization could either benefit or harm workers, both through changes in labor demand and new patterns of work organization in response to globalization (Section 3). Thirdly, the paper presents summaries of statistical data and existing studies of Latin-American countries (Section 4). Finally, in order to understand some of the more qualitative aspects of the impact of globalization on labor, Section 5 presents evidence from sectoral case studies for one Latin-American country, Chile. Section 6 concludes.

This article examines recent Brazilian rural labor and agricultural history. It identifies three broad periods for analysis in the postwar era: the 1940s to 1960s, the 1960s to 1980s, and a third period that dates roughly from the promulgation of Brazil's new constitution in 1988 to the present. Using primary and secondary sources the article analyzes recent agrarian transformations associated with globalization, including the organized response of workers and farmers to the loss of millions farm livelihoods. It explains the rise of an autonomous peasant movement in the late twentieth century and describes the recent development of a polemic between a peasant vision of expanded family farming and the agricultural capitalist model promoted by powerful agribusiness interests.

Globalization and modernization transformed the Mexican retail sector over the last two decades. One result is that Wal-Mart has become Mexico's dominant retailer. Another is the poor quality of jobs in the Mexican retail sector. Drawing on a variety of data sources, we review changes and current patterns in the characteristics and quality of retail jobs in Mexico. Retail jobs are worse than the Mexican average. Union coverage is widespread but offers little benefit to workers. Unlike the case in the United States, Wal-Mart offers unionized jobs very similar in quality to those of other retailers; indeed, in general we find little difference between the jobs of global and domestic Mexican retailers. Globalization and modernization have left Mexican retail workers with lousy jobs and invisible unions.

In this paper I address an important aspect of the link between the larger process of globalization and work. I focus on how globalization has affected the lives of Guatemalan women of different class backgrounds and ethnicities in Guatemala and in Los Angeles, through an examination of the link between paid work and household work. Data for this article come from eighty-six in-depth interviews with indigenous and ladina women and from ethnographic field work I conducted in Los Angeles and in two regions of Guatemala. There are certain aspects of earning an income among the women in this study that emerge in both contexts, perhaps due to the demands of contemporary capitalism on workers around the world. My observations indicate that whereas the experiences of women and femininities are played out in the context of global economic relations, they are experienced differently in diverse sites and within the same context by individuals of different class and ethnic backgrounds. Thus, experiences of globalization through work are very much localized; they are historically and culturally situated and interact with broader processes in dissimilar fashion.

In contrast to the mid-twentieth century era of transnational commerce, in which the US or European manufacturing multinationals played the leading role, twenty-first century globalization is increasingly structured by a set of retail-dominated supply chains, that of Wal-Mart first among them. This strategic shift in the locus of corporate power has arisen out of two conjoined phenomena: first, the logistical integration made possible and necessary by the revolution in information/transportation technology (bar codes, data storage, containerization, global communications), and second, the neoliberal transformation of the worldwide political economy, which in the US has facilitated the massive expansion of a low-wage, import dependent retail sector, while in coastal China it has generated a huge export-manufacturing boom. But the global supply chain linking Guangdong Province to Bentonville, Arkansas may well be an increasingly fragile one, because the proletarianization of tens of millions of Chinese peasants is unlikely to go smoothly, especially under conditions of authoritarian governance.

Since 9/11 an enormous amount of literature and media coverage has been devoted to anti-Americanism in France. Yet the American model seems to be overwhelmingly present in French life and culture. There is a fascination for it among all classes, from disadvantaged suburban youths who try to imitate African Americans, follow American clothing fashions, and have Power Rangers as heroes, to political elites who never tire of recommending to us the American model (pension funds, the two-party system, education, etc.) and propose adapting it to the French setting. Nothing illustrates this paradox better than the controversial and popular institution of McDonald's in France, which is loved and hated to the point of occasionally provoking a national crisis as well as a number of social conflicts in recent years. After retracing briefly the expansion of McDonald's in France, I will examine the opposition it has aroused, making a distinction between political opposition and opposition in the workplace, which takes the form of a struggle against working conditions, the conception of Mcwork and McManagement. I will look at the people who carry on this struggle and what it all means in terms of resistance to “Americanization.”

Every fall ILWCH publishes this register of readers' current research in labor and working-class history, provided we receive a sufficient number of responses. Readers are encouraged to report their current research by filling out the questionnaire enclosed with this issue or by sending us the following information: your name, institutional affiliation, and email address; your research interests; and complete bibliographic citations of your recent publications and works in progress. Please supply as much bibliographic information as possible (including the first names of authors and editors and the page numbers of articles) and exclude publications appearing before than 2005. Please also feel free to distribute copies of the questionnaire or of this appeal to other labor historians. The next Current Research register is planned to appear in ILWCH 72, Fall 2007. In order to be included we must receive your responses by May 1, 2007. Thank you for letting us know about your work!