New movements are taking place at the local, national and transnational level, signalling the on-going transformation of workers’ struggle all over the world. As capitalism reorganises, expands and reinvents, so too does resistance to it.
Exerts from the journal it came from and can be downloaded fully from the Interface Journal.
Editorial - For the global emancipation of labour: new movements and struggles around work, workers and Precarity
Once, the labour movement was seen as the international social movement for the left (and it was the spectre haunting capitalism). Over the last century, however, labour movements have been transformed. In most of the world membership rates have dwindled, and many act in defence of, or simply provide services to, their members in the spirit of interest or lobbying groups. Labour was once a broad social movement including cooperatives, socialist parties, women’s and youth wings, press and publications, cultural production and sporting clubs. Often it was at the core of movements for democracy or national independence, even of social revolution.
Today, however, despite the rhetoric of “socialism”, “class and mass trade unionism” or, alternatively, technocratic “organising strategies”, most union movements internationally operate strictly within the parameters of capitalism and the ideology of “social partnership” (i.e. with and under capital and / or the state). Hence new labour organising efforts increasingly take other forms, as we shall see below.
These changes relate to the neoliberalisation and “globalisation” of capitalism, and its result in restructured industry and employment. And while neoliberalism is often associated with the efforts of the Right, in some countries it was the political parties of social democracy and labour that implemented radical restructuring. In some notable cases, such as in Australia, this was done with the active consent of the official trade unions. These changes have led to a disorientation of the left.
Transformations at the political and economic level have not, however, meant the disappearance of labour movements and neoliberalism has seen reaction from below. In considering the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, trade unionist and democracy activist Sasha Simic concluded “that Egypt’s revolution...was a response to years of neoliberalism which have made a tiny elite there obscenely wealthy but which have impoverished the vast majority of its 85 million-strong population” (2012: 3). Multiple new expressions of labour discontent arise from the bases and the margins of the world of work.
Actors in the workers’ movements of the 21st century
If at the level of formal organisation trade unions remain unchallenged as the leading actors of the labour movement, today we see many other movement forms emerging from the bases and the margins of labour, often with far more active participation. The relationship between “old” and “new” labour movements varies hugely from country to country and industry to industry; here what we want to stress is that a simple identification of “the labour movement” with “trade unions” is both politically and intellectually unhelpful.
Firstly, from the bases we find movements of workers, often in alliance with local communities or other social movements. They are to be found not only in advanced industrial and “post-industrial” economies, but also — more dramatically — at the capitalist periphery. Labour movements were important in the recent Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings (2010-2011). In the world’s second biggest economy, China, labour has been flexing its muscles in the most repressive of circumstances. Labour struggle has also begun to revive in the United States, and in the most dramatic fashion with the occupation of the legislature in Wisconsin (2011) and the strikes of Chicago teachers (2012).
Secondly, we see those who are situated at the margins of labour markets and who experience continuous uncertainty. Increasingly addressed as the “precariat”, this includes both high- and low-skilled workers in the old metropoles of the global North as well as in the slums and fields of the global South. The precarious are often younger people, women and migrants, but increasingly those previously full-time workers whose rights and conditions are under attack due to the current economic crisis. The margins also include the un- and under-employed. Since the end of the long boom, orthodox economics accepts a higher rate of unemployment in the global North as “full” employment. Meanwhile, the reserve army of labour in the majority world also lays the basis for precarious and marginal work.
As Shaikhputs it,
Finally, as capitalism develops, so too does its level of mechanisation, so that it is progressively less able to absorb labour. In the developed countries, this manifests itself as a growing mass of unemployed people at any given “natural “rate of unemployment. In the Third World, as the incursion of capitalist relations lays waste to earlier social forms, the mechanised processes which replace then are able to pick up only a fraction of the huge numbers previously “set free”. Thus the rising productivity of capitalist production is accompanied by a growing pool of redundant labour all across the globe. The presence of starving masses in the Third World, as well as of floating populations of unemployed in the developed capitalist world, are bitter reminders of these inherent tendencies. (1990: 77)
New movements are taking place at the local, national and transnational level, signalling the on-going transformation of workers’ struggle all over the world. As capitalism reorganises, expands and reinvents, so too does resistance to its
Source; academia.edu
Source; Interface Journal
Exerts from the journal it came from and can be downloaded fully from the Interface Journal.
Editorial - For the global emancipation of labour: new movements and struggles around work, workers and Precarity
Once, the labour movement was seen as the international social movement for the left (and it was the spectre haunting capitalism). Over the last century, however, labour movements have been transformed. In most of the world membership rates have dwindled, and many act in defence of, or simply provide services to, their members in the spirit of interest or lobbying groups. Labour was once a broad social movement including cooperatives, socialist parties, women’s and youth wings, press and publications, cultural production and sporting clubs. Often it was at the core of movements for democracy or national independence, even of social revolution.
Today, however, despite the rhetoric of “socialism”, “class and mass trade unionism” or, alternatively, technocratic “organising strategies”, most union movements internationally operate strictly within the parameters of capitalism and the ideology of “social partnership” (i.e. with and under capital and / or the state). Hence new labour organising efforts increasingly take other forms, as we shall see below.
These changes relate to the neoliberalisation and “globalisation” of capitalism, and its result in restructured industry and employment. And while neoliberalism is often associated with the efforts of the Right, in some countries it was the political parties of social democracy and labour that implemented radical restructuring. In some notable cases, such as in Australia, this was done with the active consent of the official trade unions. These changes have led to a disorientation of the left.
Transformations at the political and economic level have not, however, meant the disappearance of labour movements and neoliberalism has seen reaction from below. In considering the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, trade unionist and democracy activist Sasha Simic concluded “that Egypt’s revolution...was a response to years of neoliberalism which have made a tiny elite there obscenely wealthy but which have impoverished the vast majority of its 85 million-strong population” (2012: 3). Multiple new expressions of labour discontent arise from the bases and the margins of the world of work.
Actors in the workers’ movements of the 21st century
If at the level of formal organisation trade unions remain unchallenged as the leading actors of the labour movement, today we see many other movement forms emerging from the bases and the margins of labour, often with far more active participation. The relationship between “old” and “new” labour movements varies hugely from country to country and industry to industry; here what we want to stress is that a simple identification of “the labour movement” with “trade unions” is both politically and intellectually unhelpful.
Firstly, from the bases we find movements of workers, often in alliance with local communities or other social movements. They are to be found not only in advanced industrial and “post-industrial” economies, but also — more dramatically — at the capitalist periphery. Labour movements were important in the recent Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings (2010-2011). In the world’s second biggest economy, China, labour has been flexing its muscles in the most repressive of circumstances. Labour struggle has also begun to revive in the United States, and in the most dramatic fashion with the occupation of the legislature in Wisconsin (2011) and the strikes of Chicago teachers (2012).
Secondly, we see those who are situated at the margins of labour markets and who experience continuous uncertainty. Increasingly addressed as the “precariat”, this includes both high- and low-skilled workers in the old metropoles of the global North as well as in the slums and fields of the global South. The precarious are often younger people, women and migrants, but increasingly those previously full-time workers whose rights and conditions are under attack due to the current economic crisis. The margins also include the un- and under-employed. Since the end of the long boom, orthodox economics accepts a higher rate of unemployment in the global North as “full” employment. Meanwhile, the reserve army of labour in the majority world also lays the basis for precarious and marginal work.
As Shaikhputs it,
Finally, as capitalism develops, so too does its level of mechanisation, so that it is progressively less able to absorb labour. In the developed countries, this manifests itself as a growing mass of unemployed people at any given “natural “rate of unemployment. In the Third World, as the incursion of capitalist relations lays waste to earlier social forms, the mechanised processes which replace then are able to pick up only a fraction of the huge numbers previously “set free”. Thus the rising productivity of capitalist production is accompanied by a growing pool of redundant labour all across the globe. The presence of starving masses in the Third World, as well as of floating populations of unemployed in the developed capitalist world, are bitter reminders of these inherent tendencies. (1990: 77)
New movements are taking place at the local, national and transnational level, signalling the on-going transformation of workers’ struggle all over the world. As capitalism reorganises, expands and reinvents, so too does resistance to its
Source; academia.edu
Source; Interface Journal
