Big Pharma, social movements, international labour and the internet: critical perspectives on coordination

Little, Stephen and Grieco, Margaret (2010). Big Pharma, social movements, international labour and the internet: critical perspectives on coordination. Labor History, 51(1) pp. 71–86.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00236561003654750

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.