As the U.S. economy has increasingly become "globalized," both the U.S. labor movement and labor-oriented academics have paid greater attention to trade policy, international labor rights, and even crossborder solidarity issues (Brecher and Costello 1994; Frundt 1998; Nissen 1999). The main stimuli for the new attitudes have been growing import penetration in highly unionized industries (garment, auto, steel, etc.) and the export of jobs abroad as companies closed U.S. plants and reopened in foreign countries, often at much lower wages (Browne and Sims 1993).
