Social Movement Unionism

This article argues that militancy, union democracy, and rank-and-file intensive tactics play a crucial role in collective bargaining, and that by embracing these tactics unions achieve better collective bargaining agreements than they otherwise would have attained. I do this by examining the Teamsters for a Democratic Union, its efforts to democratize the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and the effects these have had on collective bargaining. I compare the Teamsters before and after Ron Carey's reforms, and under James Hoffa, Jr.'s presidency. I analyze the Teamsters negotiations/collective bargaining agreements with United Parcel Service (UPS), as this is the Teamsters' highest profile campaign and the U.S.' largest collective bargaining agreement. I focus on the 1997 and 2002 negotiations/agreements, but I provide a brief overview of the 1990 and 1993 agreements to put the 1997 agreement in context. In addition to demonstrating the benefits of militancy, union democracy, and rank-and-file intensive tactics in collective bargaining, I argue that the 1997 UPS campaign is a model for unions on how to effectively create a bottom–up contract campaign.

Abstract

This article focuses on the Supply Chain Law Initiative in Germany (SCLI)/Initiative Lieferkettengesetz as a case of global justice advocacy. The SCLI was a campaign by German civil society organizations that advocated for a law that would make it mandatory for corporations active in Germany to respect human, labor, and environmental rights along their supply chains. This research explores the strategies for advocacy used by the SCLI in the process of effective law-making. It also investigates the role of the SCLI in the context of global labor solidarity. The research results show that although this new law has some shortcomings in terms of international human rights standards, it has achieved partial progress as one of the most successful examples of alliance building between unions and civil society organizations in Germany. The SCLI has brought about a paradigm shift from voluntary towards mandatory due diligence. This experience can be carried one step further to accomplish a supply chain law at the European Union level. The authors argue that the SCLI experience opens up a new stage for rethinking the structural dilemma of unions in Germany in choosing between global solidarity and national corporatist social partnership.
Keywords: global justice; advocacy strategies; trade unions; Germany; supply chains; social movement unionism; social partnership

co-author: Simon Norbert Schmid

鈴木大裕（２０１６）『崩壊するアメリカの公教育　〜日本への警告〜』第９章、岩波書店

鈴木大裕　『シカゴ教員組合スト：組合改革から公教育の「公」を取り戻す社会運動へ』　人間と教育、民主教育研究所。２０１５年、第８６号、pp. 100-109.
Suzuki, D. (2015). Chicago Teacher Union strike: From a union reform to a civic movement to put “public” back into public education. Ningen to Kyoiku (Research Institute of Democracy and Education), 86 (Summer, 2015).

２０１２年、全米第三の学校区であるシカゴで教員組合が四半世紀ぶりに決行したストライキが、学生、親、市民らの支持を受けて勝利を勝ち取ったというニュースが全米に衝撃を与えた。ストに至るまでの教員たちの４年間の活動と声の記録からは、４つの重要なポイントが見えてくる。第一に、シカゴ教員組合ストは、従来の「労働組合」から教育的正義を求める教育者の集団への変容を図った教員組合改革の結晶であったこと。第二に、市政府への権力の集中と非民主的な教育運営を可視化する運動を展開することで、政治や社会の在り方そのものが問われたこと。第三に、シカゴ教員組合が教育問題をきっかけに、教育の市場化と民営化の弊害に対する人々の意識を高め、市民運動を起こし、世論を動かしたこと。そして、最後に、失われつつあった公教育の「公」とは何か、「教育」とは何かを問い直すことで、公教育の再定義を行ったことだ。それは、子どもの教育を介して人々が団結し、大人たちの主権者としての意識を覚醒させ、社会の潮流を変えるという一つの新しい教育改革の形を示している。

¿Cómo fue el proceso de sindicalización de los y las trabajadoras de la economía popular? ¿Por qué y para qué se dieron la tarea de constituir un sindicato propio? ¿Qué respuestas tuvieron de parte del Estado? ¿Qué vínculos tuvieron con el sindicalismo tradicional en la búsqueda por ser representados y reconocidos? Son algunas de las preguntas troncales que atraviesan esta tesina. Si bien el arco temporal que prioriza esta investigación se comprende entre el año 2011 y 2020, coincidente con la fundación de la CTEP y la UTEP, la indagación sobre sus orígenes hará referencia a los años finales de la década del 90 y los críticos años del inicio del siglo XXI. Esa reconstrucción histórica adoptará un carácter procesual, en el que se buscará reconstruir la trama de luchas, de actores y de debates en torno a las reivindicaciones de este sector.

Since the 1970s, autonomist feminists have critiqued Karl Marx for failing to appreciate the sphere of reproduction as a key driver of capitalism. They have shown how unpaid reproductive work contributes to the production of surplus-value-something orthodox Marxism has refused to reckon with. This is in part because of a fetishisation of categories such as productive and unproductive labour as the theoretical building blocks of Marxism. However, if we understand Marx's critique of political economy as a method for understanding capitalism in terms of process, we are forced to rethink our understanding of categories such as surplus-value. Within current debates around the production of value under capitalism, it is useful to make an explicit conceptual distinction between where surplus-value is produced and where it is extracted. In doing so, we are foregrounding the sphere of reproduction and the key role it plays in upholding capitalist social relations.

This contrast, then, can inform the struggle against capitalism in the following ways. Firstly, it advocates for social movement unionism that transcend boundaries of production and reproduction. Secondly, it provides theoretical justification for withdrawing and disrupting reproductive labour, supporting a decentred politics of resistance outside the factory. Finally, it speaks to the importance of building autonomous movements for the production of "the commons". This paper uses examples from recent struggles in South Africa and South America to theoretically valorise the diversity of struggles that have emerged since the 1960s.

Since the 1980s the locus of manufacturing and some services have moved to countries of the Global South. Liberalization of trade and investment has added two billion people to world labour supply and brought workers everywhere into intense competition with each other. Under orthodox neoliberal and neoclassical approaches free trade and open investment should benefit all countries and lead to convergence. However considerable differences in wages and working hours exist between workers of the Global North and those of the Global South. The organising question for the thesis is why workers in different countries but the same industries get different wages. Empirical evidence reviewed in the thesis shows that productivity does not explain these wage differences and that workers in some parts of the South are more productive than workers in the North. Part of the thesis examines the usefulness of explanations drawn from Marxist, institutionalist and global commodity chain approaches.

There is a long established argument in Marxist and neo-Marxist writings that differences between North and South result from imperialism and the exercise of power. This is the starting point to review ways of understanding divisions between workers as the outcome of a global class structure. In turn, a fault line is postulated between productive and unproductive labour that largely replicates the division between the Global North and the Global South.

Workers and their organizations need shared actions if they are to resist global competition and wage disparities. Solidarity has been the clarion of progressive movements from the Internationals of the early C19th through to the current Global Unions and International Confederation of Trade Unions (ICTU). The thesis examines how nationalism and particular interests have undermined solidarity and reviews the major implications for current efforts to establish and advance a global labour position.
Key agents discussed are the more established agencies of the ICTU and International Labour Organization and the provisional groupings built around social movement unionism and the World Social Forum.

For more than three years, including well over 100 strike days, the employees at Amazon continue to fight for a collective agreement. Although the labour dispute has still not been won, it exemplifies the struggle of employees in the low-wage sector against a global corporation.

The conflict at Amazon has become a ‘laboratory of resistance’. Important lessons have been learned, not only with respect to resistance against low wages and precarious employment in Germany, but also in terms of the conflict with the corporation at its other sites in Europe. Amazon takes an extremely anti-union stance at those sites too, but trade union resistance is likewise forming there. Transnational networking of the employees – which, as the first step, should be Europewide at the minimum – and dialogue about experiences in the various countries are a vital precondition for a successful, cross-border fight.

This study is the result of intensive research by the journalists Jörn Boewe and Johannes Schulten on the structures of the Amazon corporate group and about both the experiences of trade union resistance in Germany and the prospects for cross-border industrial action by the Amazon employees. That research is based, among other things, on a series of interviews with Amazon strike activists and participation in a number of trade union meetings as well as the Amazon event held by the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung in
March 2016. Since then, more than 6,000 copies of the German-language, first edition of the "The
Long Struggle of the Amazon Employees" ["Der lange Kampf der AmazonBeschäftigten"] pamphlet, which was published in December 2015, have been distributed. The publication has been discussed at various events accompanying the strike action at the Amazon sites in Germany and its findings have been discussed with the employees.

With this revised and updated English-language version, we hope to make these findings accessible to trade unionists in other European countries and to contribute to the development of transnational trade union perspectives. Corporations like Amazon may be ‘global players’, but the employees and their trade unions are seeking to counter the power of transnational companies through international solidarity movements and by not allowing themselves to be played off against each other. The movement is still young, but it is gaining in strength across Europe. From their concrete experiences, much can be learned about transnational trade union organisation.

The age of global neoliberalism has created a crisis for traditional unionism, yet the belief that labour movements have been fundamentally undermined is spurious. Neoliberal globalisation has created a new operating context for labour, yet scholarship has commonly either emphasised the vast challenges this new context has created for labour movements or posited new social movements as the standard bearers of anti-neoliberal struggles-setting aside labour movements as the remnants of a bygone era. This action note questions such perspectives by evidencing the extent to which labour movements in the global south remain prominent forces in anti-neoliberal struggles, exploring how they have adapted to the challenges of informalisation and the rise of new social movements engaging in progressive causes beyond traditional union concerns. In doing so, this note outlines some general principles for southern union engagement with informal workers, new social movements and actors in the global north, which create opportunities for mutual benefits and the strengthening of shared struggles against neoliberal globalisation.

Joint political mobilisation between trade unions and community groups, often referred to as ‘social movement unionism’, has been upheld as a way forward for organised labour in a neoliberalworld economy. Analysing the interaction between unions and communities is critical for understanding the potential and actual roles played by trade unions in voicing the concerns of marginalized workers and poor communities. This article examines the efforts of organised municipal workers and urban social movements trying to unite their forces in post-apartheid South Africa, by looking at the politics of the Cape Town Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF). While the participants of the APF have in common their opposition to commercialisation and privatisation of service delivery, their political unity is fragile. By contrasting the ‘ideal-type’ social movement unionism depicted in the contemporary literature on labour and globalisation with the findings of this particular case, we uncover some main dimensions along which this organisational cooperation is challenged. In contrast to the political unity experienced during the anti-apartheid struggle, the APF initiative operates in a restructuring post-apartheid economy where bridging internal organisational differences and confronting the hegemonic position of the African National Congress (ANC) in civil society have proved particularly challenging.

Social movement unionism is becoming the strategy/ideology that North American unions should adopt. The most influential account of social movement unionism is that by Kim Moody. However, there has been very few systematic analysis of his work. This article analyses Moody's account of social movement unionism by examining three crucial aspects of his argument: the importance of union democracy, union alliances with social movements, and the role of the rank-and-file. Furthermore, by analysing the Canadian Auto Workers (a social movement union) I argue that a social movement union under Moody's account has had success in organizing proportionally more new members, and achieving a better collective bargaining agreement than business unions.

Many have generally shared the assumption that women"s entry into the labour market or the sphere of non-household activities is an important route to their development and empowerment. In case of India and other South Asian countries, such a prognosis is argued to be very much valid as social norms and patriarchal value structure constrain women's access to economic resources and their participation in social spheres. It is also true that their employment activity is governed by ideological and gender considerations. The myth of man as breadwinners has also affected state policies and actions. The "social invisibility" of women has contributed to the limited perception of their role. This is despite the fact that women are making inroads into new occupations including those earlier dominated by man. Yet, it is found to be a misnomer that women"s entry into the labour market automatically contributes to their wellbeing. This is because, women, on the whole, constitute a separate category in the labour market, concentrated in certain specific degraded occupations and under particular type of organization and working conditions commonly known as the "unorganized" or "informal" sector.

The traditional industrial relations approach – focused on the state, employers and unions as main actors – faces severe limits in its capacity to analyse labour conflict in the face of the specific forms of labour regulation in the Global South. This contribution argues that a solid theoretical framework for Global Labour Studies requires a critique of its forerunner, the industrial relations approach. A globally relevant understanding of labour conflict in the twenty-first century requires to abandon the main assumptions of this forerunner. A new theoretical framework for the analysis of labour conflict can build on the debates around social movement unionism and the research agenda of labour geography that include other places and spaces of labour mobilization than the workplace and the trade union into their epistemological perspective. Such a conception allows to analyse labour conflict at the level of the social formation, and not just as something relegated to or emanating from the economic sphere.

In Andalusia, as in other parts of Spain, it has been built a political and union space of leftist organisations which opposed the strategy of the Communist Party, especially after the Moncloa Pacts. This article examines the ideas, strategies and evolution of radical trade unionism in Andalusía from 1976 to 2012, using the different theoretical approaches on collective action. In particular it provides a map of those alternative unions influenced by activists, organisations and ideas of the radical left. Firstly, it describes the main anarcho-syndicalist unions. Secondly, it analyses the wide range of Marxist and/or ethno-nationalist trade unions. The history of such organisations is a succession of lost battles, splits, mergers, coordination efforts, struggles and small victories. Andalusian radical unionism has not achieved to develop agglutinating agents, shared identities and organisational structures capable of challenging the hegemony of the two majority unions. Nevertheless, it has reached a meaningful social influence and projection in certain territories and moments. Finally, the article suggests the main eight factors which explain the maintenance of the Andalusian radical trade unionism. In doing so it uses a synthetic approach on social movements which includes political, organisational and cultural factors.

Cet article examine les mutations du travail, de l’emploi et du syndicalisme au sein et autour du géant de la grande distribution Walmart, aux Etats-Unis. Alors que l’entreprise connaît d’importantes transformations techniques et organisationnelles depuis le milieu des années 2000, la montée de la critique sociale autour de cette dernière invite à interroger conjointement la nature des mutations du travail au sein des magasins et les registres de contestation dans cette multinationale dont la main d’œuvre est essentiellement peu rémunérée et féminine. L’auteur s’appuie sur une série d’entretiens réalisés avec des salariés des magasins et des syndicalistes du secteur ainsi que sur des observations de réunions et de manifestations menées par ces derniers. Il souligne les dimensions organisationnelles et institutionnelles ayant favorisé l’émergence des contestations dans une entreprise qui en un demi siècle d’existence est parvenue à tenir en échec toutes les tentatives de syndicalisation de la main d’œuvre. Paradoxalement, la crise économique de 2008 et le développement de formes de flexibilité dans le travail et dans l’emploi apparaissent comme des facteurs favorables à la contestation via l’arrivée de nouveaux profils de travailleurs et la relance de campagnes offensives de syndicalisation se nourrissant du mécontentement social envers les multinationales et la finance.

This article is based on the analysis of ongoing mutations of work, employment and trade unionism in and around the US Walmart stores. While the global corporation has been experiencing significant technical and organizational transformations since the middle of the 2000s, rising criticism leads the author to question both the nature of mutations of work in the stores and the different types of protest in a global service firm whose workforce is mainly made up of low paid women. Interviews conducted with employees, organizers, activists and union members as well as in situ observations of meetings and walkouts organized by unions and associations emphasize the organizational and institutional dimensions of the difficult emergence of protests in a firm that for over half a century has managed to thwart all the attempts at unionization of its workforce. Paradoxically, the 2008 economic downturn and the new forms of flexibility of work and employment in the store appear to have contributed to employee mobilization through the introduction of new worker profiles and a series of new offensive organizing campaigns fuelled by social discontent against finance and corporations.

This paper examines two contemporary movements in assessing the current state of affairs of workers' rights in the apparel manufacturing industry, specifically within Adidas-Solomon’s supply chain, to investigate the validity of the idea that—though daunting—structural impediments posed to worker organization constructed by the global economic order can be overcome through the effective use of social media.

The main goal of this paper is to assess the explanatory power of Valenzuela’s theoretical framework for the analysis of the role of labour movements in political transitions. After showing that it does not apply satisfactorily to the specific cases of South Africa and Nigeria, an integration of the scheme is proposed by introducing more variables, such as the relationship between labour and social movements and the dynamics of institutionalization of the labour movement. In South Africa, the intense collaboration between labour and democratic movements took the form of “social movement unionism” as a successful model of union organization in developing societies. In Nigeria, only the overlap with the struggles of ethnic minorities has allowed the development of a political consciousness such as to induce workers to mobilize against the regime.

Vor einigen Jahren weckten einige AutorInnen der Global Labour Studies die Erwartung, dass die Globalisierung des Kapitals und die neuen Möglichkeiten der elektronischen Kommunikation bald zur Hegemonie der Arbeiterklasse führen könnten. Dafür übersahen sie großzügig die politischen Hindernisse, veränderte technische und ökonomische Bedingungen wurden als hinreichend angesehen. Diese optimistische Sicht provozierte den harschen Widerspruch von Michael Burawoy, der statt einer heraufziehenden Hegemonie des Proletariats nur vereinzelte partikulare Widerstände sah, was eine erbitterte Debatte zwischen beiden Seiten hervorrief.

Der Optimismus im Hinblick auf international koordinierten Arbeiterwiderstand angesichts der fortlaufenden Internationalisierung des Kapitals und die ihm folgende Ernüchterung angesichts der Schwierigkeiten einer effektiven transnationalen Vernetzung bilden einen Zyklus im Diskurs, der sich regelmäßig wiederholt. Bereits in den 1970er Jahren gab es eine ähnliche Debatte aus Anlass der Einrichtung der ersten weltweiten Betriebsratsstrukturen in einigen multinationalen Konzernen.

Neben den offiziellen weltweiten Strukturen der Branchenföderationen und der verschiedenen globalen Gewerkschaftsverbände entstanden in den letzten Jahrzenhnten zahlreiche Formen der Kooperation von Arbeitenden über Kontinente hinweg. In dieser Studie werden anhand von vier Beispielen die Organisierungsformen von Arbeiter/innen in Deutschland mit Arbeiter/innen in anderen Ländern vorgestellt. Dies kann keine repräsentative Darstellung sein, da es weniger noch als in anderen Bereichen keine einheitlichen Modelle der transnationalen Organisierung von Arbeiter/innen gibt.

Die Auswahl repräsentiert nichtsdestotrotz «typische» Modelle: Als solche sind die Organisierung innerhalb eines Weltkonzerns (Bayer, Coca-Cola) und die Organisierung in Bezug auf das Produkt (Textilien, Eisenbahn) anzusehen. Bei der konzernbezogenen Organisierung wurde sowohl eine durch oppositionelle Betriebsratslisten (Bayer) als auch eine über einen globalen Gewerkschaftsverband (Coca-Cola) ausgewählt. Die Organisierung bei H&M, Zara und Esprit geht über die Grenzen der traditionellen Branchengewerkschaften hinaus (Textilindustrie und Einzelhandel), orientiert sich aber an den Lieferketten der Konzerne, die die Textilien verkaufen. Der Zusammenschluss von Bahngewerkschaften orientiert sich dagegen an der Bereitstellung derselben Dienstleistung in verschiedenen Ländern: Transport durch Schienenverkehr.

In der Studie werden die mit den jeweils entstandenen  Modellen der Organisierung verbundenen Widersprüche herausgearbeitet, die oft auch in der Branchenstruktur begründet liegen. Anhand der Beispiele wird die Diskussion um einen social movement unionism und um die Organisierung von Arbeiter/innen entlang von Lieferketten sowie um die widersprüchliche Position von Gewerkschaften aufgegriffen und weiter entwickelt.

Between 1991 and 2002 the international anti-sweatshop movement experienced significant growth. A series of interconnecting international networks developed, involving trade unions and non-government organisations in campaigns to persuade particular Transnational Corporations to ensure that labour rights are respected in the production of their goods. While the loose, networked form of organisation that characterises the movement has helped it to grow and progress despite its diverse constituency, arguably a lack of coordination has undermined its ability to achieve policy change. There is a need to develop new forms of global cooperation in order to avoid the movement fracturing and losing impetus.

"Vancouver’s Ethical Purchasing Policy: A Participatory Public Policy Process

Highlights and Key Findings:

• This chapter is an analytic narrative of how Vancouver’s Ethical Purchasing Policy was written. This empirically grounded policy story offers a practical example for others to follow.
• A municipal Ethical Purchasing Policy is one way local communities can contribute to ethical trade efforts aimed at avoiding tragedies like the 24 April 2013 garment factory collapse in Savar, Bangladesh, that killed 1,129 workers.
• Vancouver’s Ethical Purchasing Policy was written by a city task force comprising two city councilors, two city managers, and representatives of several businesses, unions, and civil society organizations with expertise on international labour standards, Fair Trade certification, and ethical purchasing of global commodities.
• Participation by city managers was key because policies solely crafted by city council might not take into account the practicalities of implementing a new policy while still following existing policies. Including city managers led to successful implementation and ensured the policy saved the city money.
• Participation by community members lent legitimacy to the city’s policy and helped ensure that the policy met international ethical trade norms for union-made garments and Fair Trade certified agricultural commodities including coffee, tea, and chocolate.

On 17 February 2005, Vancouver became the first Canadian municipality to adopt an Ethical Purchasing Policy (EPP) pertaining to union-made garments and Fair Trade certified coffee, tea, and chocolate. The EPP was crafted with a high level of participation by businesses, unions, and civil society organizations. The policy’s social justice ethos stands out in an ongoing era of neoliberal retrenchment of progressive public policies. Other Canadian cities, such as Calgary, Alberta, have since followed Vancouver’s lead in ethical purchasing. Vancouver’s EPP was written by a city task force that included two city councilors, two city managers, and representatives of several businesses, unions, and civil society organizations with expertise on international labour standards, Fair Trade certification, and ethical procurement through global commodity chains. This chapter is an institutional ethnography that focuses on the policy writing process and the standardized processes that comprise public participation, public decision-making, and public administration.

The chapter is empirically grounded in seven semi-structured interviews of 30 to 150 minutes in length with the two city councilors that chaired the policy writing process, two city managers (interviewed a second time together) that oversaw the implementation of the process, one of which participated in writing the policy, and a Fair Trade activist and a union organizer that participated in the writing process. These interviews were complemented with participant observation and textual analysis. Participant observation was conducted both in real-time in activist meetings and in city council meetings and reflexively from my experience as a Canadian Fair Trade activist-researcher. The interviews and observational work helped identify key texts for analysis, including the EPP and the connected Supplier Code of Conduct (SCC), council meeting minutes, minutes of standing committees of council, reports to council by city managers, and a critical analysis of the policy written by the Maquila Solidarity Network, a Toronto-based anti-sweatshop advocacy group. The research took place from January 2006 to August 2007 as part of a larger study in which I was involved alongside sociologist Dorothy E. Smith for a community-university research alliance called "Rural Women Making Change."

This article explores differences in labour conflicts in Italy and France by focusing on the characteristics of the most prominent structures of worker mobilization: trade unions. Despite several similarities between the French and Italian industrial relations systems, and despite the fact that trade union density in Italy is more than three times greater than it is in France, France is one of the few European countries in which the average strike volume increased after the Great Recession. Protests in France also peaked in the pre-crisis period, while Italy did not show any wave of contention. We contend that the nature and level of labour conflicts observed in the two countries in the last two decades depend on alliances between trade unions and other social groups and organizations sustaining worker mobilization, specifically, social movement organizations. In particular, we argue that labour conflicts are related to the characteristics of social movement unionism. Evidence from cases studies in France and Italy suggests that the role of trade unions and their alliances has been different in the two countries. Confederal trade unions in France have been able to engage in social movement unionism within broader coalitions involving other social categories and social movement organizations. In contrast, in Italy, these dynamics have mostly involved small rank-and-file unions and self-organized workers' groups engaged in radical political unionism. This has resulted in different levels of mobilization associated with social movement unionism and radical political unionism, given the greater capacity of confederal trade unions in building nationally coordinated and sustained collective actions.

In the last decade, Portugal saw different forms of open class struggle. Since 2003, the ruling class has been attacking the tremendous achievements of the 500 days of the Portuguese Revolution of 1974-1975 (Raposo 2015: 6). Today, privatisation, wage cuts, de-industrialisation and other forms of neoliberal ‘reforms’ are being implemented. The working class, the poor and the youth did not silently stand by and watch the dismantling of the welfare state that they and their parents had gained by significant effort (Stoleroff 2015: 1). Instead, they resisted in bitter strikes, mass demonstrations and creative flash mobs against attacks on their wages, living standard and future. The aim of this paper is twofold: First, to explore and characterise how the Portuguese state changed during the last decade under a neoliberal offensive and, how the fractions of financial capitalism, supported by the Troika and the Memorandum of Understanding, particularly drove Portugal towards authoritarian statism. In this context, the state theory of the Greek Marxist Nicos Poulantzas and current progressions of his concept are employed to develop an analytical framework for that matter. Second, the paper analyses how the working class, the poor and precarious groups of the Portuguese society put up resistance, what problems occurred and the impact of the anti-austerity protest between 2010 and 2015. To frame this broad issue, the paper uses a framework of four parameters, which deal with the effects of the anti-austerity movements on an environmental, cognitive, relational and institutional level. Hereby, this concept aims to examine social movements embedded in the capitalist society and state. These four parameters will be partially borrowed from current concepts of social movement researchers, especially from Amanda Tattersall, Sidney Tarrow and Douglas McAdam; and partially developed from the ideas of the Marxists scholars E. P. Thompson and Colin Barker. The paper tries to put the state, a capitalist theory on the on hand and disruption and class struggle on the other hand alike in focus, to create a more complex understanding of the current political conjuncture.

The Central de Trabajadores de its base, especially among nonunion organizations, to construct an anti-neoliberal front. Driven by the threat of neoliberalism rather than by political opportunities, it was initially
outstanding among social movement unions in its reach and its unity. It excelled not only in building alliances with the community but in organizing the community itself. However, the structural weakness resulting from its not being located in a key industrial sector and its lack of legal privileges, which was originally compensated for by its alliances, eventually made it unable to take advantage of changing political opportunities.

La Central de Trabajadores de la Argentina, fundada en 1992, trabajó para ampliar su base, sobre todo entre las organizaciones no sindicales, para construir un frente antineoliberal. Impulsada por la amenaza del neoliberalismo más que por las oportunidades políticas, inicialmente se destacaba entre los sindicatos de los movimientos sociales en su alcance y su unidad. Se destacó no sólo en la construcción de alianzas con la comunidad,
sino en la organización de la propia comunidad. Sin embargo, la debilidad structural que resulta de su no estar ubicado en un sector industrial clave y su falta de privilegios legales, lo que se compensó originalmente por sus alianzas, finalmente lo hizo incapaz de aprovechar de las cambiantes oportunidades políticas.

Over the past 10 years, the popular media has increasingly reported upon teacher union efforts to influence educational policy through radical tactics like school walkouts and strikes. Less visible though is the behind-thescenes organizing work by social justice caucuses. Such caucuses strive to push their broader unions to take on more radical stances and tactics while advocating for traditional workplace concerns alongside broader common good issues. The United Caucuses of Rank-and-file Educators (UCORE) reports that social justice caucuses have formed in more than 40 locations in North America over the past 12 years, the vast majority in the United States. This includes caucuses in historically conservative locations, such as the "red states," as well as regions known for their progressive politics. Much of the impetus for such organizing stems from educators' desires to protect public education from privatizing and corporate influences. They seek to improve their working conditions through strengthening public investment in schools, while striving to remedy systemic racism and economic disparity through their union organizing work. In this interview, Rhiannon Maton talks with 2 founding members of Raising Educators' Voices (REV), which is a caucus that formed two years ago in Vancouver,

This article examines the labour renewal strategies implemented by Central de Los Trabajadores de la Argentina. It argues that union organizing is conditioned by historical legacies and structural constraints, while social movement unionism, which for the most part promotes building alliances with community groups, can be achieved by taking advantage of political opportunities and mobilizing resources. To maintain these alliances, trade unions and social movement organizations need to build institutionalized partnerships and compensate for their individual weaknesses. The article also argues that organizing the unorganized and building alliances with the community are not a substitute for each other. It is also argued that labour’s power derived from its location in the economic system still stands as an essential source of labour renewal.

Social movement unionism is increasingly being seen as the strategy that US unions should adopt. However, what is often forgotten is that social movement unionism originated in the Th ird World. As part of the strategy it is argued that unions should form alliances with political parties. However, by analyzing the alliances between the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the African National Congress (ANC), and the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) and the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) I argue that union alliances with political parties have badly damaged social movement unions.

For more than a decade, widespread protests have erupted within South Africa's impoverished black townships and informal settlements. The mobilizations resembled what Sidney Tarrow refers to as a 'cycle of contention' or 'protest cycle,' as they represented a diffusion of heightened conflict across society. In contrast to Tarrow's protest cycle, however, resistance failed to converge around 'objective coalitions' and a generalized challenge, and it persisted rather than reaching exhaustion. Drawing on a case study of protest and organizing in Bekkersdal, this article argues that the fragmentation and localization of resistance reinforced this peculiar combination. Bekkersdal activists responded to democratization by seeking administrative fixes to local government. Political parties also pulled activists in different directions, yet without facilitating bridges to activism in other areas. While providing a highly visible example for activists in other areas to replicate, the Bekkersdal resistance thus failed to produce broader concessions that might have discouraged protests elsewhere. The case study shows how local containment of political incorporation processes may enable the persistence of protest cycles.

Capítulo en: Trabajo y capitalismo: relaciones y colisiones sociales / Alberto L. Bialakowsky … [et al.]; Buenos Aires: Teseo, 2019. 390 p.; ISBN 978-987-723-218-9

A inicios de 2003, la Confederación General de Trabajadores del Perú (CGTP) inicia un proceso de cambio institucional en sus estructuras orgánicas como respuesta a la crisis de la acción sindical durante los ochenta por efecto de las políticas neoliberales. Este proceso de cambio es parte de una reflexión en el sindicalismo latinoamericano que se denominó “autorreforma sindical”. En el caso peruano, el cambio institucional se inicia en 2003 cuando la CGTP conformó la Comisión Sindical Nacional de Reestructuración Organizativa. La “autorreforma sindical” es un proceso de cambio que comprende tres ámbitos específicos de la estructura sindical: los mecanismos de afiliación, los mecanismos de gestión interna y los procedimientos de representación de intereses. Alrededor de estos ejes se articulan viejos y nuevos actores organizados en diferentes sectores laborales, grupos de edad, género y orientación ideológica. De manera simultánea, los actores desarrollan estrategias para impulsar o detener el proceso de cambio institucional. Luego de más de una década, el balance resulta negativo, pues a diferencia de otros países, donde la “revitalización sindical” ha sido un elemento importante en la reconfiguración del sindicalismo, en Perú no se ha registrado un proceso de incremento sustancial de la afiliación, ni cambios en la acción colectiva de los trabajadores ni tampoco en el establecimiento de nuevos acuerdos entre empresarios, gobierno y sindicatos.

Desde el comienzo de la crisis en 2008 han sido estudiadas y analizadas muchas dimensiones de las problemáticas que han sido transversales a ésta, y el trabajo no ha sido menos. Las investigaciones que han explorado el empleo y las cuestiones laborales han determinado de manera frecuente que nos encontramos ante una nueva transformación de sus formas. Ante esto es pertinente preguntarse si, por tanto, los procesos de movilización y las organizaciones constituidas en torno al trabajo, así como los perfiles de las personas que se han movilizado en los últimos años en torno a cuestiones laborales en diferentes formas, han cambiado y cómo lo han hecho.

This chapter addresses how Italian precarious workers mobilized and elaborated different frames
about themselves and their living and working conditions in five mobilizations against precarity that occurred in the early 2000s. The chapter shows how the deep cleavages related to the way in which precarity affected their working and living conditions also had an impact at the symbolic level of discourse formation. The frames that emerged during the five relevant mobilizations, indeed, pointed out how different social, economic, and political conditions amongst precarious workers might end up fostering diverse forms of framing precarity and defining precarious workers. The chapter is organized as follows. The first section introduces frame analysis, the method employed to investigate the construction of precarious workers’ public identities. The second section compares the five case studies along three analytical categories: diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing. The conclusions summarize and discuss the main results of the analysis.

I will attempt to argue in this paper that working class consciousness remains low in Canada due to the rigid structure of organized labour and its incorporation of workers into the nationalist project, especially after World War II. I will reveal the extent of class divisions through analysis of income, wealth, educational, and occupational indicators. I will then examine the difference between class under “post-industrialism” and expressions of working-class consciousness and solidarity. Finally, I will examine Canadian unions' stance toward immigration, North American integration, and left-parties, and other issues concerning workers as formally-equal citizens. I argue that the link between labour unions and nationalism, and between labour unions, nationalism, and low class conflict is tied to a politics of state recognition and integration which limits the scope of community and solidarity under 21st century conditions. I will use this to argue for different possibilities for labour in Canadian politics than those pursued in the 20th century, based on contemporary shifts in labour force composition.

Dossier débat: enquêter "à chaud" sur les mouvements sociaux coordonné par Serge Paugam et Sandrine Rui

Cet article propose un retour réflexif sur une série de recherches menées entre 2012 et 2018 autour de l’émergence de Our Walmart et Fight for $15, deux mobilisations majeures amorcées par des syndicats autour des salarié.e.s des services aux Etats-Unis. Visant notamment deux des plus grands employeurs privés au monde connus pour leurs pratiques antisyndicales, le distributeur Walmart et l’enseigne de fast-food McDonald’s, ces mobilisations sont menées depuis 8 ans autour de deux revendications majeures, le doublement du salaire minimum fédéral et le droit à la représentation des salarié.e.s dans leur entreprise. Leur succès inédit (plus de 20 millions de salarié.e.s ont bénéficié d’une revalorisation de leur salaire) est ici interrogé en articulant sociologie du travail et des mobilisations autour de conflits du travail à grande échelle touchant les principales industries de main d'œuvre à bas salaire suite à la crise économique de 2008. La triple entrée ainsi opérée s’appuie sur autant d’angles morts : une analyse des restructurations discrètes du travail et de l’emploi non qualifié dans ces industries, une analyse des mobilisations et du travail d’organisation d’une main d’œuvre longtemps délaissée par les syndicats, ainsi qu’une analyse du hors travail, des trajectoires des salariés, au rôle des associations, des communautés et des autres parties prenantes de ces mobilisations.
L’article revient tout particulièrement sur l’usage et les apports de ces circonvolutions autour de terrains peu accessibles car sensibles, fermés, à l’accès contrôlé, dans des secteurs et entreprises particulièrement marqués par des configurations spécifiques rendant la conflictualité peu saisissables par la seule étude synchronique de l’« atelier ». En mobilisant une diversité d’échelles, de points de vue et de temporalités, cette ethnographie des conflits du travail et de ses « à côtés » tels que le travail syndical et para-syndical de mobilisation en présence de nouveaux acteurs des mobilisations au revendications dépassant le travail (autour des thèmes du logement, de l’éducation, de la santé, des inégalités économiques, de genre et raciales) est ici considérée au regard de l’histoire plurielle de l’approche ethnographique et des contributions des recherches en sociologie du travail et des mouvements sociaux de longue durée sur les transformations du travail et des solidarités ouvrières. Ainsi, cet article insiste sur les apports d’une ethnographie des conflits du travail (et non seulement au travail) décentrée afin d’appréhender dans toute leur épaisseur les rapports sociaux qui traversent aujourd’hui le travail et l’emploi à bas salaire.
Par ailleurs, cet article souligne les apports de l’enquête ethnographique dans des temporalités longues et fragmentées comme réflexion permanente sur ses modalités d’usage et, plus particulièrement, sur ses apports, ses limites, ses ajustements à chaud et sa complémentarité avec d’autres outils, l’accès aux terrains et les modes d’observation, la relation d’enquête et les diverses contraintes intrinsèques à la démarche ethnographique dans un contexte « lointain » et autour de mobilisations à grande échelle. Il s’inscrit ainsi dans une perspective critique-analytique qui, d’une part, place la situation d’enquête et ses effets au centre de l’analyse des matériaux et, d’autre part, prête attention aux relations d’interdépendance entre les enquêtés, ainsi qu’aux scènes sociales sur lesquelles ces derniers agissent et s’expriment en revenant sur l’expérience d’insertion personnelle du chercheur dans le milieu étudié, les situations observées et les discours collectés.
Nous verrons alors qu’enquêter « à chaud » sur de telles mobilisations lointaines et à grande échelles autour d’emplois à bas salaire au sein d’entreprises multinationales invite à une approche ethnographique :
- Prenant en compte les conditions de vie, trajectoires et expériences des salarié.e.s impliqué.e.s dans ces mobilisations au-delà de leur trajectoires professionnelles et conditions de travail (diversité des lieux d’enquête, rapports sociaux de classe, genre, race et sexualité).
- Entrecroisant temps court et temps long, dans des mobilisations articulant actions spectaculaires et suivi du travail de formation et d’auto-organisation des salarié.e.s (Labor organizing ; articulation des temporalités).
- Impliquant des allers-retours réflexifs entre lointain et familier (distance et proximité : se faire et se défaire d’une altérité de fait, négocier l’observation voire la participation).
- Nécessitant d’articuler local et global par une enquête multi-située (dans différents pays, aires géographiques et villes, communautés, antennes syndicales, associations).
- Le tout traversé par des ajustements et expérimentations méthodologiques (complémentarité des méthodes de recueil de données, usage de la photographie) à la fois liés aux obstacles empiriques et aux conditions même d’exercice de la recherche (ressources limitées, multiplication des terrains courts, possibilités de suivi des enquêtés dans le temps).

Neue Kampfformen: Im Einzelhandel steht ein entscheidender Tarifkonflikt bevor. Ein Gespräch mit Rüdiger Wolff (ver.di) Seite 2 Permanentes Dilemma: Passivität kann aufgebrochen werden -durch eine Revitalisierung der gewerkschaftlichen Basis Seite 3 Mehr Zeit: Mohssen Massarrat, Jörg Wiedemuth und Steffen Lehndorff streiten über die 30-Stunden-Woche Seiten 4/5 Beschränkte Freiheit: Juristische Hürden erschweren Neugründung von Gewerkschaften. Von Rolf Geffken Seiten 8/9 jungeWelt Die Tageszeitung Ü berall in der Euro-Zone quietscht und kracht es, das europäische Sozialmodell gerät aus den Fugen, nur die deutsche Wirtschaft kann vor Kraft nicht laufen. Deutschland setzt auf Export und schafft es, einen Großteil des in Berlin angezettelten sozialen Desasters in andere Länder auszulagern. Krise war gestern, in der Bundesrepublik kehrt Systemvertrauen zurück. Meinungsforscher liefern die Beweise. Immer mehr verschwimmen die Grenzen von Krise und Prosperität: Die Finanzkrise von 2007/2008 wurde erfolgreich in eine Staatsschuldenkrise transformiert. Die »Märkte« sind aus dem Schneider und die öffentlichen Kassen leer. Die kommunalen Sachinvestitionen gingen 2012 um elf Prozent zurück, sie lagen bei nur noch 21,0 Milliarden Euro. Das sind ungefähr zwei Drittel der Summe, die der deutsche Staat fürs Militär ausgibt. »Bei Schulen, Straßen und öffentlichen Gebäuden wird seit Jahren eher geflickt als grundlegend renoviert«, heißt es beim Deutschen Städte-und Gemeindebund. Der Investitionsrückstand liegt bei rund 100 Milliarden Euro. Das ist eine Summe, die man sich kaum vorstellen kann, aber sie wird noch übertroffen vom Schuldenberg der 133 Milliarden Euro, den die Kommunen vor sich herschieben. Man kann es aber auch anders sehen: »Noch nie hatten die staatlichen Haushalte soviel Geld zur Verfügung wie heute«, heißt es in einem aktuellen Thesenpapier des Hamburger Weltwirtschaftsinstituts (HWWI), das, wir ahnen es, im Auftrag der Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft erstellt wurde. »Die Steuerquellen sprudeln, die Sozialkassen sind reichlich gefüllt. Eine Notwendigkeit für höhere Steuern besteht nicht.« Das ist die Sprache von Kreisen, die keine öffentliche Infrastruktur brauchen, weil sie in einer privat finanzierten Parallelwelt angekommen sind oder das zumindest glauben. Für ihre Geschäfte haftet im Zweifelsfall die Allgemeinheit, schließlich sind sie »systemrelevant«. Wenn sich die Armen einen Sozialstaat wünschen, können sie ihn doch selbst finanzieren. Und wenn sie kein Brot mehr haben, sollen sie eben Kuchen essen. Und so ist die Prosperität der einen die Krise der anderen. Bankenrettung und Staatsschulden, deutscher Exportboom und Massenarbeitslosigkeit in Südeuropa, Jobwunder der Kanzlerin und sozialer Abstieg Hunderttausender in schlecht bezahlte Hire&fire-Jobs. Tatsächlich ist für einen Großteil der Bevöl-kerung längst ein Zustand permanenter Krise erreicht: In der Rezession droht der Verlust des Arbeitsplatzes, im Aufschwung der Burnout, und jedes Jahr wird es schwieriger, mit dem Geld hinzukommen. So geht es schon lang, viel zu lang. Die spanischen Indignados sind als Wirtschaftsflüchtlinge nach Deutschland emigriert, aber wo bleiben die deutschen Indignados? Ticken wir anders? »Wenn in Frankreich eine Regierung Maßnahmen gegen die Interessen der Mehrheit durchsetzen will, muß sie sich gute Argumente überlegen«, sagt mein Freund Hamani Amadou, Inspektor der Internationalen Transportarbeiterföderation ITF im Überseehafen Rostock. »In Deutschland müssen sie das nicht tun -die öffentliche Meinung macht es selbst, die Medien, die Bevölkerung. Das ist sehr seltsam.« Festgezurrt erscheinen die Verhältnisse. Die letzten ihrer Art: Ja, es gibt sie noch, Kohleöfen in Berlins Altbauwohnungen, auch in Zeiten von Luxus sanierungen und Verdrängung. Henry Schulz sorgt dafür, daß die Briketts ins Haus kommen. Er ist Kohlelieferant in der Hauptstadt. Die Bilder in unserer Beilage zeigen ihn bei seiner Arbeit (Fotos: Thomas Peter/Reuters)

In this paper, I argue that community unionism has become an increasingly relevant tactic in a labour movement, in response to the fragmenting effects of neoliberal globalization. Community unionism  has responded to the weakened industrial relations position of organized labour by organizing across workplace-based identities in the communities of different exploited workers, providing what Camfield (2011) calls ‘infrastructures of dissent.’. While tensions in CU concern how such local organizing responds to the need for internationalism, the inclusion of migrant workers in CU’s suggests a revitalized form of ‘internationalism from below.’ Ultimately, the labour movement must distinguish between community-based and coalition (or social movement) unionism if it hopes to utilize CU to its advantage. The latter is more clearly ‘self-valorizing,’ according to the autonomist logic of singularity, as opposed to the decontextualized flows of information characteristic of civil society. I argue that it provides the better alternative to capital’s rule, noting the expansion of workers’ centres and the potential for anti-sectionalist solidarity.

Claims as to the emergence of a new phase of unionism – social movement unionism – returning to its original ‘counter-cultural roots’, are closely allied with the claims as to a ‘new labour internationalism’ that is a significant break from the influential postwar trend of nation-statist unionism. This article interrogates these two popular paradigms from the perspective of the Swedish labour movement. The analysis is based on qualitative interviews with union officials, as well as quantitative analysis of union homepage content and responses to surveys among May Day demonstrators. The general conclusion as regards social movement unionism in Sweden is that the major unions, although increasingly interested in cooperation with social movement organizations, are still far from changing the repertoire of action that has been predominant in the postwar period. International solidarity – among both union officials and grassroots activists – is strongly ambivalent, and attitudes to inter...

The School District of Philadelphia announced that district schools would officially reopen their doors on February 8, 2021, despite a widely-touted lack of adequate ventilation systems and PPE. In response, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT) made national news by refusing to enter district schools on the official day of reopening. The work action forced the district to negotiate with the union, and they were later able to mutually agree upon a plan that would provide safer working and learning conditions in schools.
Throughout this contentious time, the Caucus of Working Educators, a social justice caucus seeking to push its union toward stronger member engagement and assertive resistance to austerity and school privatization, has done much of the behind-the-scenes work to support union members and advocate for safe and healthy schools.
In this interview, Rhiannon Maton, an assistant professor at SUNY Cortland and former active supporting member of the Caucus, interviews Daniel Symonds, a high school social studies teacher in the district and active Caucus of Working Educators member. The interview took place on Sunday, March 14, and discusses what teaching has looked like during Covid-19, union response and organizing in the face of school reopening, and the complex relationship between the union and a caucus vying for power.