Minsun Ji – författare

Workers and their organizations are facing enormous obstacles today. Corporations wield immense power, not only in the marketplace but also in politics, which has, for many years, effectively blocked the updating of antiquated laws governing labor relations. Instead, unions have been subjected to a steady onslaught of attacks at the state level and growing hostility from the US Supreme Court. They have all but lost basic protections that the legal system once provided—making organizing, bargaining, and striking increasingly difficult. Black workers continue to face a decades-long job crisis characterized by disproportionate unemployment (compared with White workers) and poor job quality. Immigrant workers of all statuses feel the threat of exclusionary immigration policies and heightened xenophobic rhetoric coming from the top echelons of the US government.Similar to worker organizing in the United States before the New Deal contract, organizations in the late 20th and early 21st centuries have been scrambling to find leverage within an increasingly hostile economic, political, and legal environment. Despite formidable obstacles, this volume shows that vibrant, creative experimentation has never ceased. In lieu of new federal regulation, public and private sector national unions and local affiliates have been actively trying out new approaches that pair organizing with mechanisms that support bargaining. They have doubled down on electoral politics and creative policy fights to raise standards and facilitate organizing, with an unprecedented focus on low-wage workers. They have forged closer, more equal partnerships with community organizations than ever before. Still much more work needs to be done.New organizational models are also emergent. These experiments, which include worker centers and what some refer to as "alt labor" groups, diverge from traditional labor unions in a number of ways. They aim to represent workers and their workplace interests but do not typically work within the New Deal collective bargaining construct regulated by the government.

This book showcases how innovative state policy in Korea transformed Seoul from one of the world’s most impoverished, polluted, and congested cities into a  global leader in green urban planning, smart city innovations, and social economy initiatives that have dramatically improved the local quality of life. Today, Seoul’s urban planning innovations are increasingly touted as replicable best practices for export to cities across the globe.This book describes how innovative state policy has made Seoul a world leader in sustainable, smart, and solidary urban initiatives. Beginning in the 1960s, Seoul led the fastest urbanization and modernization project in world history, becoming a colossal 26-million-person metropolitan region and one of the largest footprints of humanity on earth, transforming the nation from one of the world’s poorest to having the 10th largest GDP in 2020.Today, Seoul has become one of the most productive and innovative urban agglomerations onearth. Seoul’s residents enjoy the world’s highest penetration of high-speed internet, a model mass transit system, and advanced smart-city technologies. The vast city has become increasingly green and sustainable, while also recycling about 90% of all waste. Seoul has become a leader in social economy innovations like cooperative villages, mutual benefit societies, and social investment funds that advance equitable development goals amid a booming capitalist economy. To broaden our imagination of what good urbanism can achieve, this book reviews Seoul’s recent innovations in smart, sustainable, and solidary urbanism, including: green urban planning, sustainable development through recycling and reuse, well-managed mass transit, smart city design, and solidarity economy initiatives.