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Volume I Number 2 January 2013 International Journal on Strikes and Social Conflicts Table of contents LETTER FROM THE EDITOR .............................................................................. 6 DOSSIER: WHO IS THE WORKING CLASS? .......................................................... 7 THE WORKING CLASS TODAY: THE NEW FORM OF BEING OF THE CLASS WHO LIVES FROM ITS LABOUR RICARDO ANTUNES ........................................................................................... 7 MARX’S CONCEPT OF THE WORKING CLASS AND SOME TRENDS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM NICOLÁS IÑIGO CARRERA ............................................................................... 19 THE DESTINY OF LABOUR IN CAPITAL BOOK III JORGE GRESPAN ............................................................................................. 37 WHO ARE THE WORKERS OF THE WORLD? MARX AND BEYOND MARCEL VAN DER LINDEN .............................................................................. 55 THE WORKING CLASS: A CONTEMPORARY APPROACH IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORICAL MATERIALISM MARCELO BADARÓ MATTOS ........................................................................... 77 NURSE MILITANCY AND STRIKE ACTION LINDA BRISKIN .............................................................................................. 105 ENERGY WORKERS AGAINST THATCHERITE NEOLIBERALISM. SCOTTISH COALMINERS AND NORTH SEA OFFSHORE WORKERS: REVISITING THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN THE UK IN THE 1980S TERRY BROTHERSTONE ................................................................................. 135 “LAS ANSIAS DE PARTICIPACIÓN”: THE OFFENSIVE OF URBAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN THE PROCESS OF POLITICAL CHANGE IN SPAIN (1975-77). A VIEW FROM BARCELONA'S METROPOLITAN AREA IVAN BORDETAS JIMENEZ ............................................................................. 155 L’ ORDINE NUOVO AND THE WORKERS’ COUNCILS MOVEMENT IN TURIN IN THE POSTWAR YEARS (1919-1920) ANGELO D’ORSI AND FRANCESCA CHIAROTTO ............................................. 169 A LAST DESPERATE, BUT FUTILE, ATTEMPT TO SHORE UP THE INDUSTRIAL PILLARS OF APARTHEID: THE MINERS’ STRIKE OF 1979 AND THE IMPACT OF THE WIEHAHN REFORMS ON SOUTH AFRICAN LABOUR WESSEL VISSER ............................................................................................. 195 ADAMANT AND MULTIFACETED: DIAMOND WORKERS' STRIKES IN WORLD WAR II PALESTINE DAVID DE VRIES ........................................................................................... 215 THREE CHEERS FOR DATA! INTERVIEWS WITH BEVERLY SILVER AND SJAAK VAN DER VELDEN INTERVIEWER: VILJA HULDEN ..................................................................... 231 OUR AUTHORS .............................................................................................. 248 International Journal on Strikes and Social Conflicts Editorial Board Alvaro Bianchi Andréia Galvão Arquivo Edgard Leuenroth, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas, UNICAMP UNICAMP (Campinas, Brazil) (Campinas, Brazil) Marcel van der Linden Raquel Varela International Institute of Social History Instituto de História Contemporânea, (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal) Serge Wolikow Sjaak van der Velden Maison des Sciences de l‘Homme, Independent researcher Université de Bourgogne (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) (Dijon, France) Xavier Domènech Sampere Centre d'Estudis sobre les Èpoques Franquista i Democràtica, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain) Executive Editor António Simões do Paço Instituto de História Contemporânea Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal) Contact [email protected] Website http://workersoftheworldjournal.net/ Workers of the World is the journal of the International Association Strikes and Social Conflicts, born of the International Conference Strikes and Social Conflicts, held in Lisbon, UNL, on 16-20 March 2011. The Association now has the participation of three dozen academic institutions from Europe, Africa, North and South America. Website: http://iassc- mshdijon.in2p3.fr/ Advisory Board Andrea Komlosy Universität Wien (Austria) Angelo D‘Orsi Università degli Studi di Torino (Italy) Anita Chan University of Technology, Sydney (Australia) Antony Todorov New Bulgarian University, Sofia (Bulgaria) Armando Boito UNICAMP (Campinas, Brazil) Asef Bayat University Urbana-Champaign (Illinois, USA) Asli Odman Independent researcher (Turkey) Babacar Fall University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar (Senegal) Beverly Silver Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, Maryland, USA) Bryan Palmer Trent University (Peterborough, Ontário, Canada) Christian DeVito Honorary Fellow, IISH, Amsterdam Claire Cerruti University of Johannesburg (South Africa) Cristina Borderias Universitat de Barcelona (Spain) Deborah Bernstein Haifa University (Israel) Elizabeth Faue Wayne State University (Detroit, Michigan, USA) Fernando Rosas Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal) François Jarrige Université de Bourgogne (France) Gregory S. Kealey University of New Brunswick (Canada) Jean Vigreux Université de Besançon (France) Javier Tébar Universidad Rovira i Virgili (Spain) John Kelly Birkbeck College, University of London (UK) Kevin Murphy University of Massachusetts (Boston, USA) Manuel Peréz Ledesma Universidad Autonoma Madrid (Spain) Marcelo Badaró Matos Universidade Federal Fluminense (Brazil) Martí Marin Universidad Autonoma Barcelona (Spain) Michael Hall UNICAMP (Campinas, Brazil) Michael Seidman University of North Carolina Wilmington (USA) Mirta Lobato Universidad Buenos Aires (Argentina) Nitin Varma Humboldt Universität, Berlin (Germany) Nicole Mayer-Ahuja Universität Göttingen (Germany) Nicolás Iñigo Carrera PIMSA (Argentina) Paula Godinho Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal) Peter Birke Koordinierender Redakteur von sozial.geschichte online Procopis Papastratis Pantheion University (Athens, Greece) Ratna Saptari Leiden University, (Netherlands) Ricardo Antunes UNICAMP (Campinas, Brazil) Ruben Vega Universidad Oviedo (Spain) Ruy Braga Universidade São Paulo (Brazil) Silke Neunsinger Arbark (Sweden) Verity Burgmann University of Melbourne (Australia) Wendy Goldman Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA, USA) Xavier Vigna Université de Bourgogne, France Letter from the editor ou are looking at the second issue of Workers of the World – International Y Journal on Strikes and Social Conflicts. Workers of the World is the journal of the International Association Strikes and Social Conflicts (http://iassc- mshdijon.in2p3.fr/), born of the International Conference Strikes and Social Conflicts, held in Lisbon, UNL, on 16-20 March 2011. During the last year the Association kept growing and has now the participation of three dozen academic institutions from Europe, Africa, North and South America. The dossier of this second issue discusses Who is the Working Class?, with articles by Ricardo Antunes, Nicolás Iñigo Carrera, Jorge Grespan, Marcel van der Linden and Marcelo Badaró Mattos. We also have articles by Linda Briskin on nurses‘ strikes; Terry Brotherstone revisiting two important British workers‘ struggles of the 80s: the coalminers‘ strike of 1984-5 and the offshore oil workers‘ industrial actions of 1989-90; Ivan Bordetas Jimenez on urban social movements in the process of political change in Spain (1975-77); Angelo d‘Orsi and Francesca Chiarotto on Gramsci‘s L‟Ordine Nuovo and the workers‘ councils movement in Turin (1919-1920); Wessel Visser discusses the miners‘ strike of 1979 and the impact of the Wiehahn reforms on South African labour; and David De Vries writes about the diamond workers‘ strikes in World War II Palestine. This issue closes with two interviews by Vilja Hulden to Beverly Silver and Sjaak van der Velden where they address different aspects of the problem of accurate, global-level data on labour conflict according to their experiences. Workers of the World is an academic journal with peer review published in English, for which original manuscripts may be submitted in Spanish, French, English, Italian and Portuguese. It publishes original articles, interviews and book reviews in the field of labour history and social conflicts in an interdisciplinary, global, long term historical and non Eurocentric perspective. Articles should be sent, according to the Editorial and publishing rules that you may find in our site (http://workersoftheworldjournal.net/), to the executive editor at [email protected]. António Simões do Paço Executive Editor DOSSIER: WHO IS THE WORKING CLASS? The working class today: the new form of being of the class who lives from its labour1 Ricardo Antunes ho constitutes the working class today? Does it still maintain its position of W centrality in social transformations? These are not simple questions and for decades they have been subject to an avalanche of deconstructions. The central thesis we seek here to develop is that the centre of social transformation, in the amplified destructive logic of contemporary capitalism, is still principally rooted in the whole of the working class. From the beginning, we will refute two equivocal theories: that nothing has changed within the workers‘ universe and, its opposite, that the working class is not capable of radically transforming capitalist society. It is curious that, as the number of workers who live by selling their labour-power has increased on a global scale, so many authors have waved farewell to the proletariat and have defended the notion of the loss of centrality of the category of labour, or the end of human emancipation