Contenu du sommaire : Travail et mondialisations

World Migration in the Age of Industrial Globalization, 1840-1940The first wave of mass migration from the 1840s to 1930s was a global phenomenon, embedded in a globalizing industrial economy. Except for the transatlantic migrations, however, much of that mobility has been forgotten. More attention to the global scope of mobility can help to understand the many forms of labor migration and diverse effects of industrial globalization. We can also better understand the genealogy of concepts that continue to erase certain forms of labor mobility and legitimize others.

Labour, Rights and Immigration. A Comparison between Mauritius and Réunion Islands, 1840-1880This paper compares the definitions, practices and legal constraints in Mauritius and Réunion Islands in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It seeks to overcome conventional interpretations that stress either the major historical break made by the abolition of slavery and the role of free contract or, at the opposite, their purely formal value with no real impact on economy and society. Between these extremes, we use local and colonial archives to measure how concretely indentured immigrants could defend (or not) their rights, why and with which implications for social hierarchies and historical economic dynamics. We compare the issues in Réunion and Mauritius Islands and relate them to different meanings and implementations of rules in both French and British Empires.

Indian Seafarers and their Worlds, c. 1870s-1940s
From the 1870s a growing number of Indian seafarers went to work on foreign vessels, the large majority (over two thirds) on British ships. These sailors inhabited a world deeply marked by race which determined what they would do, how much they would be paid, and how they could be treated. Yet until recently Indian seafarers have languished as a historically invisible underclass. This paper contextualizes the development of the Indian sailors' recruitment and working conditions, and describes the campaigns organized by British trade unions against Asian crews.

Diamonds from Mine to Finger: Doing Global Labour History by Way of a Luxury Commodity
This paper surveys the lengthy history of globalization which the diamond business experienced, with its continually shifting international centers of production, trade and consumption. In these shifts, many different factors have played a role, ranging from geological discoveries to labor costs and transport costs, and changing consumer preferences. The paper reveals the nature of the labor relations which were involved in these relocations, and how they kept changing from the 17th century onward.

Dealing with Global Sex Traffic and Work at the League of Nations
This paper aims to provide an overview of the information on human trafficking and prostitution gathered by the League of Nations during the 1920s and ‘30s. The organization's rich archives in Geneva contain a wealth of information on e.g., the working conditions of prostitutes active in more than hundred cities worldwide, and prostitutes' backgrounds and motivations to enter into prostitution. They thus provide a unique instrument for the comparative study of human traffic and commercial sex worldwide. The paper gives a short historical overview of the origins of anti-trafficking and the League's initial activism during the early 1920s; reviews the organization's enquiries on traffic in women and children between the mid-1920s and early 1930s; and gives an account of the League's initiatives for the rehabilitation of prostitutes and prevention of prostitution.

Military recruitment and employment in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, 1500-2000This paper features an occupational group which was traditionally never studied by labor historians. It is argued that army activities are also a type of work, and therefore that the military ought to be regarded as workers – albeit a special category of workers. Based on the research project “Fighting for a Living”, the paper tries to discover regularities in the different systems of recruiting and employing soldiers which were practised across the last five centuries by state-directed land armies in Europe, the Middle East, India and China. The broad spectrum of possible labor relations is sketched, and the most important determinants of military employment are explored.

The Labor of Capitalism. Industrial Revolution and the Transformation of the Global Cotton Growing Countryside. The vast labor done outside of North America and Europe was not marginal but central to the history of the grand narrative of the rise of capitalism. It comprised a great diversity of tightly linked labor regimes. We are thus facing a puzzle: How are we to explain the diversity of labor systems in different parts of the world in the face of what might seem like the universal logic of capital and state power? This is the core question faced by labor historians committed to global perspectives. The paper explores this fundamental issue through the history of one important commodity: cotton. It involved slavery, share-cropping, and “free” wage labor in ever-changing combinations, shaped by employers, states and the struggles of rural cultivators.

Labour Conditions 1800-2000: Global Configurations and Uneven Development in the Textile Industry
This paper discusses the uneven development of labour relations across the globe during the last two centuries. Focusing on three sample years (1800, 1880, and 1980) and on three regional textile industries (Lower Austria, Syria/Lebanon, and Gujarat/Maharashtra), the combined and uneven development of the spatial division of labour is reconstructed, with separate locations having different organizational business forms, labour relations, patterns of political regulation, and techniques. It becomes clear that economic “globalisation” is not a recent phenomenon, but started around 1800 at the latest.

VIH-AIDS: a New Field of Intervention for International Transport Trade Unions
This pandemic directly connected to the globalization process has brought about numerous publications in human and social sciences. It has outlined both its outward signs and its socio-political stakes regarding public policies or community mobilizations. However, its relation to labour has not been really approached up to now. This gap is surprising given the wealth of initiatives undertaken by both the ILO and the international union movement. This article (which is the starting point of a research to be continued) examines how the powerful International transport federation – a sector in the front row of globalization – has come to consider VIH-AIDS as “probably the most serious challenge that trade unions have to take up”. Indeed truck drivers, seafarers, port workers, but also civil aviation employees have been and still are the victims and vectors of an infection which has the characteristics of a quasi industrial disease in several regions of the world. Initially perceived through classic lens: hiring discrimination, improper lay-offs or social protection, the problems created by the pandemic brought about the development of reflections, practices and demands which, at various scales and in interaction with those of those of official organisations, trade associations and NGOs, are part and parcel of the current renewal in the horizons and modes of intervention of trade unionism in the age of globalization.