The US labour movement and the audacity of hope

At the 21st SASE Conference in Paris, in July 2009, a group of political economy and industrial relations scholars discussed whether the current legitimation crisis of financial capitalism could be viewed as a turning point for labour internationally. Following are an introduction by the panel organizer, Lucio Baccaro, and revised versions of presentations by Robert Boyer, Colin Crouch, Marino Regini, Paul Marginson, Richard Hyman and Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick, and Ruth Milkman.Given the depth of the world crisis generated by the collapse of the subprime speculative bubble, the loss of credibility of financial laisser-faire and the cynicism of Wall Street and the City, conventional wisdom is prone to conclude that the comeback of the State will also be that of labour. For the time being-summer 2009-such a prognosis is far from being supported by any clear evidence. De facto, many reasons oppose the emergence of offensive strategies from labour.