The impacts of economic "globalization" on important "labor" variables, including international worker migration patterns; worker rights, compensation, and working conditions, and the goals, strategies, and power of organized labor.
The implications of changes in these labor variables for the character of our societies (e.g., quality and stability of democracy, distribution of income, life chances, and power), and the dynamics of the global economy.
The likely consequences of policy innovations (e.g., worker rights clauses in trade agreements, corporate codes of conduct) that aim to ameliorate what reform proponents see as undesirable trends in labor, societal, and/or economic variables (e.g., growing wage inequality).
The LGC Research Network seeks to advance its objectives in two basic ways. First, we are collecting contact information and statements of future plans from leading researchers on these issues. We hope that improved access to this information will facilitate communication and collaboration among researchers, particularly across disciplinary and national boundaries
Second, we are building a web-based, full-text-searchable database, the heart of which will be an author-annotated bibliography, regularly updated. This database will provide researchers with an easy means to make the results of their work widely available to other scholars and the interested public. It will also be an efficient way for researchers to learn what those who fall outside of their existing networks are doing on questions of interest. If it is easier to extend research networks beyond existing national, disciplinary, and theoretical boundaries, the result may well be better research.