Social Movement Unionism and the State:

The Rise of the “Worker-Led Public Sphere”

Abstract

Since the late 1990s, above all in advanced societies, social movement unionism (SMU) has been remarked as a type of the revitalization of the labor movement in the process of globalization. This paper, firstly, overviews the characteristics of SMU and stresses that SMU can put away “privateness” in industrial relations and bestow the labor movement with “publicness” again, as a static of “corporate campaign” in SMU illustrates. Secondly, this paper clarifies that the labor movement in SMU implements “forum-style movements”—in which labor NGOs keep associating labor unions with many groups such as interfaith committees and community-based organizations, and seek to alter and construct social institutions—and puts workers' interests as the “common good” in the state apparatus through obtaining hegemony among various social forces. The structure of capitalism enables such an input to be executed. Thirdly, this paper also asserts that this type of movements can construct “worker-led public sphere”.