Big Pharma, social movements, international labor, and the Internet: critical perspectives on coordination

Little, Stephen; Grieco, Margaret

Abstract

There is a new political space within the dynamics of global organization. The technological needs of
globalised capitalism have spawned a new information communication technology which has the
capacity to enable and enhance the globalising of labour and social movements. The all-encompassing
attribute of web infrastructure permits the ready clustering of similarly placed marginal or vulnerable
groups into globally organised labour and social movements. Social movements of health product
consumers are now visible with web technology enabling such consumers to readily research and
interrogate scientific, medical and commercial product data bases. The challenge to Big Pharma has
gained a critical edge from these dynamics. The labour movement has an important role to play in
relaying and working with the messages of the vulnerable and oppressed in the area of health and in
the challenge to Big Pharma – and the evidence is that labour has already begun to embrace this role.
This article discusses this new ground of the development of solidarity through new relations of
communication in the arena of the battle between global health and corporate profit.

Citation

Little, S., & Grieco, M. (2010). Big Pharma, social movements, international labor, and the Internet: critical perspectives on coordination. Labor History, 51(1), 71-86. https://doi.org/10.1080/00236561003654750

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 2010-02
• Deposit Date: Apr 18, 2012
• Journal: Labor History
• Print ISSN: 0023-656X
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-9702
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 51
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 71-86
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00236561003654750
• Keywords: Pharmaceutical industry; trade unions; economic growth; organisational change; labour movement; societal change
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/5205