Those with a sharp tongue might say that labor historians in contemporary Brazil operate in the shadows or, to be more accurate, the shadow cast by the success of Latin America's most famous trade unionist, who served as president from 2002–2010. The field's growth in the number and quality of practitioners, as well as the breadth of their ambitions, cannot be separated from the memorable metalworkers' strikes of 1979 and 1980, the subsequent defeat of the military dictatorship in 1985, and the construction of a militant trade unionism and the radical Workers' Party that ran Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for president in five successive elections between 1989 and 2006.

The 1980s and 1990s were decades of great creativity in Indian labor history. The study of labor moved from a long-standing institutional focus on trade unions to a study of workers themselves, as well as from the economism and determinism that had characterized many previous writings. A growing interest in labor led to the first conference devoted to Indian labor history at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam in 1995 and the founding of the Association of Indian Labour Historians the following year. The dynamism and the new intellectual horizons of Indian labor history in that period are captured in the work of three major historians: Dipesh Chakrabarty, Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, and Chitra Joshi. For the purposes of this essay, there is no need to review their contributions in detail (not least because such overviews may be found elsewhere), but it is nevertheless essential to provide a quick sketch of the arguments of each.

Southern and South African labor history has, at least since the 1970s, been as much about the future of the region as about its past. Liberal scholars saw in apartheid and segregation irrational aberrations to the color-blind logic of capitalism. They believed the apartheid state to be an instrument of racial dominance but saw it as more or less neutral in terms of class relations. Economic growth and the abolishment of racial laws would bring freedom and equality—or at least equal opportunities. On the other hand, radical historians and sociologists thought of apartheid as a system that guaranteed the exploitation of cheap black labor for the benefit of capital. For them, apartheid was functional to capitalism.2 While both the liberal and the radical positions were often more nuanced than the other side would admit, the question that divided these two camps was one about politics and strategy: Would capitalist development bring an end to racial domination, or was it part of the problem? In the latter case, challenging apartheid and colonialism would also involve challenging capitalism. The vibrancy of these debates should continue to serve as an inspiration for labor historians. I will argue that for the Left to be able to formulate viable alternatives to present policies, we should look at the history and nature of labor and inequality in the region.

During the last thirty years, market reforms have turned China into an economic behemoth as the country moves deeper and deeper into capitalist development. The study of Chinese labor owes its dynamism in recent years to this dramatic economic and social transformation. Scholars are intrigued by two parallel historical transformations: On the one hand, millions of peasant migrants have been transformed into urban industrial and service workers; on the other hand, millions of former state-owned enterprise employees have lost their lifelong “iron rice bowl” job security and other benefits that they enjoyed under the Maoist socialist system. The new directions of labor studies about China reflect the unique trajectories of these important institutional and social changes. If earlier discussions mainly focused on the harsh labor conditions in sweatshops and despotic management in all kinds of factories, recent research and writing have explored a variety of emergent questions, from the impact of the new labor laws and institutional arrangements to the formation of a new working class and its relation to Chinese workers' recently highlighted legal rights and resistance. These studies have already contributed greatly to our knowledge of what is going on with Chinese workers and their labor movements in the twenty-first century.

This essay has two aims. The first is to provide a critical overview of the nature and development of labor history in selected places during the past fifty years. The second is to offer a critical evaluation of the recent “transnational turn” in labor history and its likely future development. Although reference is made to the global context and to labor history beyond national borders, my main focus rests upon the development of labor history in parts of the Americas and the countries of Britain, Ireland, Germany, India, Japan, and Australia.

The 1970s have made something of a comeback recently–in terms of interest, if not always reputation. This is partly because it was an unfashionable, “lost” decade, possessed of a depressing image in the shadows of its immediate neighbors and because the present economic crisis has made its difficulties relevant and brought them closer. The decade is ripe for revisionism, as well as for seeking lessons. And what ultimately emerges is not just an arc towards neoliberalism but a more fragmented picture, liberating in many respects–and which demands historians come to terms with the grim decline long associated with the decade.