Rule making through governance struggles : the case of G4S.

Can global unions build local power? If so, how? McCallum’s central thesis is that effective global unionism requires reciprocity with local actors. In Global Unions, Local Power, the author strikes a middle ground between the optimism about the prospects for authentic labour internationalism and the pessimism of its demise, by carefully investigating and dissecting the overlapping and complex mechanisms of the ‘governance struggles’ that lie at the heart of transnational unionism. To illustrate his argument McCallum researches the case of a global campaign targeted at a private security firm called Group for Securitor (G4S)—the world’s largest employer after Walmart—by the Union Network International (UNI), a global union federation, and its relationship with the North American trade union Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The analysis is enriched by two cases studies, in South Africa and India, where private security guards are workers in a precarious industry, and their struggles to improve their conditions have been marked