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This paper points to spatial foundations of trade union power in a re-urbanizing economy. Globalization has not simply undermined the power of organized labour, but, in addition, has shifted the opportunities of it exercising power to the urban level. Thus we may be seeing the emergence of a new geography of working class organization in which industrial sectors of the labour movement have been disorganized by capital and the state while other sectors have retained structural power due to the importance of union members' labour to the urban process. This is particularly the case in 'global cities' where centralization of capital and agglomeration of functions remains a necessity for capital and where competitive city building entails re-direction of capital investment in the 'fixed environment for production' (Harvey, 1985). Developed abstractly, the argument is made concrete in a discussion of transit planning and transit strikes in New York (2005) and Toronto (2008). The paper concludes on a strategic register with an argument for an urbanization of trade union consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]