The Class Strikes Back examines a number of radical, twenty-first-century workers’ struggles. These struggles are characterised by a different kind of unionism and solidarity, arising out of new kinds of labour conditions and responsive to new kinds of social and economic marginalisation. The essays in the collection demonstrate the dramatic growth of syndicalist and autonomist formations and argue for their historical necessity. They show how workers seek to form and join democratic and independent unions that are fundamentally opposed to bureaucratic leadership, compromise, and concessions.
Specific case studies dealing with both the Global South and Global North assess the context of local histories and the spatially and temporally located balance of power, while embedding the struggle in a broader picture of resistance and the fight for emancipation.
Contributors are: Anne Alexander, Dario Azzellini, Mostafa Bassiouny, Antonios Broumas, Anna Curcio, Demet S. Dinler, Kostas Haritakis, Felix Hauf, Elias Ioakimoglou, Mithilesh Kumar, Kari Lydersen, Chiara Milan, Carlos Olaya, Hansi Oostinga, Ranabir Samaddar, Luke Sinwell, Elmar Wigand.
Author(s): Dario Azzellini, Michael G. Kranft (eds.)
Publisher: Brill
Year: 2018
Language: English
Pages: 333
City: Leiden
Tags: Labour, crisis, social movements, labour history, unions
Contents......Page 5
Acknowledgements......Page 7
Note on Contributors......Page 8
Chapter 1. Introduction: A Return to the Shop-Floor or How to Confront Neoliberal Capitalism (Azzellini and Kraft)......Page 13
Part 1. Workers’ Self-Organisation beyond and against Corporative Unions and the State......Page 29
Chapter 2. Workers’ Struggles and Autonomy: Strategic and Tactical Considerations (Kumar and Samaddar)......Page 31
Chapter 3. Autonomous Worker Committees in Marikana, South Africa: Journey to the Mountain (Sinwell)......Page 49
Chapter 4. Greece: Grassroots Labour Struggles in a Crisis-Ridden Country (Broumas, Ioakimoglou and Charitakis)......Page 68
Chapter 5. Fighting Against Capitalist Ownership and State Bureaucracy – Labour Struggles in Venezuela (Azzellini)......Page 94
Part 2. Non-Corporate Unionism and Social Movements......Page 121
Chapter 6. Revolts on Goose Island: A Long Fight Pays Off for Chicago Window Factory Workers (Lydersen)......Page 123
Chapter 7. The Egyptian Workers’ Movement: Revolt, Revolution and Counter-Revolution (Alexander and Bassiouny)......Page 147
Chapter 8. Bosnia and Herzegovina: From Workers’ Strike to Social Uprising (Milan)......Page 167
Chapter 9. Sinaltrainal: Transforming the Workers’ Movement in Colombia (Olaya)......Page 188
Chapter 10. A Fistful of Dollars? The Labour Dispute in the Babylon Cinema (Oostinga)......Page 207
Part 3. Renewed Forms of Struggle and Workers’ Self-Management......Page 227
Chapter 11. New Workers’ Struggles in Turkey since the 2000s: Possibilities and Limits (Dinler)......Page 229
Chapter 12. Recovered Imaginaries: Workers’ Self-Organisation and Radical Unionism in Indonesia (Hauf)......Page 250
Chapter 13. Italy: The Revolution in Logistics (Curcio)......Page 271
Chapter 14. Sweat and Detergent not Bread and Roses: Behind the Shiny Surface of London’s Financial Industry, Latin Cleaners Struggle for Dignity (Wigand)......Page 288
References......Page 309
Index......Page 331
