DOCSLIB.ORG

Labor in the Global: Challenges and Prospects Ronaldo Munck Source

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Labor in the Global: Challenges and Prospects Ronaldo Munck Source Labor in the Global: Challenges and Prospects Ronaldo Munck Source: Robin Cohen and Shirin M. Ray (eds) Global Social Movements (2000) 83-100 © 2000 Continuum Publishing. In one of his recent wide-ranging and ambitious three volumes on the new capitalism, Castells (1997:354) suggests that labour's prospects in the global arena are bleak indeed: 'Torn by internationalization of finance and production, unable to adapt to networking of firms and individualization of work, and challenged by the degendering of employment, the labour movement fades away as a major source of social cohesion and workers' representation'. This negative prognosis is a powerful and persuasive one but I would argue one that is already dated. Labour has been written off in the past as a social force and a political actor only to come back on the scene in some form. It is interesting in this regard to find the Danish General Workers' Union organizing a 'global labour summit' at the same time Castells' book appeared, which declared that: The time has come for the trade unions to use the positive sides of globalization to the advantage of workers and poor people all over the world' (Global Labour Summit, 1997). It is the apparent contradiction between these two statements that we need to explore. GLOBALIZATION: NEW TERRAIN? When the International Congress of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) met at its 16th World Congress in 1996, the key document before delegates was aptly entitled 'Globalization — the greatest challenge for unions in the 21st Century'. The ICFTU, as the major transnational representative of labour understands well that: The position of workers has changed as a result of the globalization of the economy and changes in the organization of production' (ICFTU, 1997: 4), The huge structural transformations of the labour market and labour process over the last 20 years have had a dramatic impact on labour worldwide. Globalization, a convoluted discursive terrain to be sure, now sets the parameters for labour activity across the globe. It would also appear to act as the spearhead of an ideological offensive against autonomous labour and, indeed, other social practices. Yet these are processes that are fluid, perhaps even contradictory and they certainly need to be deconstructed. We cannot work on the basis of a simple determinism whereby labour's role in the new global arena is always already determined. After all, even the remote ICFTU now declares that 'one of the main purposes of the international trade union movement is the international solidarity of workers ...' (ICFTU, 1997: 5). It is certainly possible to draw a direct unilinear correlation between the process of globalization and decreasing labour rights across the world. Thus, Tilly argues that globalization has undermined the nation state which in turn means that the state cannot now fulfil its historical role in guaranteeing workers' rights. For Tilly (1995:21): 'No individual state will have the power to enforce workers' rights in the fluid world that is emerging'. All rights embedded in nation states are necessarily under threat by economic globalization. Tilly (p 1) argues bluntly that: 'As states decline, so do workers' rights'. While not wishing to deny a certain reality to this scenario it does seem too deterministic and `necessitarian'. Tilly's (welcome) call for workers' organization to develop new strategies at international level then seems purely voluntaristic. The logic of his position is actually to call for a defence and strengthening of the nation state if that is seen as the only way for workers' across the globe to retain or gain social, economic and political rights. Indeed, we now find the 'Monthly Review school' arguing precisely this in a recent collection examining labour's 'Rising from the Ashes' (Monthly Review, 1997). The logic here is that globalization is but the latest of noxious ideologies, from 'Western Marxism', through post- Marxism to postmodernism designed to subvert the historical agency role of 'the working lass'. They reject any appeals to an 'abstract internationalism', in favour of focusing on the state 'as a target in an anti-capitalist struggle', 'the focus of local and national struggles' and 'a unifying force ... within the working class' (Monthly Review, 1977: 16). From this perspective, internationalism can only mean solidarity between different national struggles and no credence is given to such notions as international civil society. What is noticeable is the parallel with Tilly's determinism, even if on the assumption that globalization is basically a myth. To advocate an unreconstructed nation-statist workerism seems an inadequate riposte to the admitted excesses of the globalization discourse. As with Tilly we find globalization treated as a homogeneous, irreversible, all-encompassing process and labour seen simply as victim, 'done to' by the powerful, abstract, economic forces it unleashes. It now seems clear that globalization is a term which has undergone a conceptual inflation in recent years and has now been devalued. It can mean anything, everything or nothing. It has, as Louise Amoure and co-authors point out, become firmly established as the key to the 'brave new world' we are entering whether from a Panglossian or a demonization perspective but its guiding principles are being accepted across the board as the new common sense for the era. Globalization is seen as obvious, inexorable and, at the end of the day, simply 'out there'. Yet the concept can be understood as both amorphous and labile in the extreme. For example, as Kim Moody (1997: 37) puts it, it is `an all-encompassing analytical device that frequently concealed more than it explained'. The temptation to abandon the whole terrain of the globalization debate is there, but I think we should resist it. For the ICFTU (1997: 4) globalization is quite simply 'the biggest challenge to the free trade union movement in its long struggle on behalf of working women and men around the world'. That is because of the cumulative effects of neo-liberal economic policies, structural adjustment programmes and privatization, financial deregulation and the growing mobility of the transnational corporations. The end of the Cold War is seen to offer a unique opportunity for the once divided international trade union movement to develop common objectives and joint action faced with a hostile climate for labour worldwide. One of the largest ITSs (International Trade Secretariats), now working more closely with the ICFTU, the ICEM (International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions), has also launched a new global strategy, declaring that 'Action has to be planned on an international basis right from the start' (ICEM, 1996: 55). The dramatically increased level of internationalization over the last decade has created the conditions and the need for a new international labour strategy. As Doreen Massey (1995: 58) has suggested, a new 'global sense of place' has brought home the very real points of interconnection between people across the globe. This goes far beyond the communications revolution —e-mail making contact between labour leaders and activists easier for example — to create a new objective and subjective sense of commonality amongst workers worldwide and, at least, the possibility of a global strategy for labour. Exploring its current contours and possible prospects is the main purpose of this chapter. There has now been a backlash against the early globalization theories and now most talk is about its 'limits' (e.g. Boyer and Drache, 1995). In some cases this revisionist case has led to a 'business as usual' attitude prevailing. Hirst and Thompson (1996) have articulated this case most clearly and with the explicit political intent of countering the idea that 'there is no alternative' to globalization. Their attempt to relativize the dominating role of the transnational corporations (TNCs) is well taken but there is a danger of quantitative reasoning obscuring the qualitative changes which have undoubtedly occurred in the world economy over recent decades. David Held has quite rightly, to my mind, reminded us that there is a fundamental difference between ... the development of particular trade routes ... or even the global reach of nineteenth- century empires, and, ... an international order involving ... dense networks of regional and global economic relations which stretch beyond the control of any single state ... (Held, 1995:20). There is, furthermore, a view of globalization in Hirst and Thompson which is somewhat reductionist and economistic and, seemingly, with little awareness, for example, of the burgeoning literature on cultural globalization (e.g. Featherstone, 1995; Friedman, 1994). At times it seems that globalization acts as simple surrogate for neo-liberalism in relation to which many of their analytical points and political 'line' make more sense. Ultimately, however useful it may be to reject the Manichean view of globalization as a deus ex machina, the implicit political message of 'business as usual' in the nation state leaves social groups such as labour ill-prepared to consider how the local, the national and the global are today interrelated. While maintaining all the caution that is due, it is still possible to detect something different or distinct in this new phase of world history we are calling `globalization'. Jan Scholte (1997: 3-4) takes up the sensible (to me) stance that globalization can 'when developed with care, precision, consistency and suitable qualifications — be more than intellectual gimmick'. That is arguably now being done across a range of disciplines and applied to a host of specific topics in a more concrete manner than the first-generation literature on globalization. We do not need to become either propagandists for globalization or demonize it, a binary opposition if ever there was one. Nor is dismissing it as simply a new-fangled way of describing internationalization really adequate. One of the simplifications to overcome is the early idea of the global as dynamic and fluid as against the local as embedded, static and tradition bound.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Walkouts Teach U.S. Labor a New Grammar for Struggle
    Walkouts teach U.S. labor a new grammar for struggle This article will appear in the Summer 2018 issue of New Politics. Like the Arab Spring, the U.S. “education Spring,” was an explosive wave of protests. State-wide teacher walkouts seemed to arise out of nowhere, organized in Facebook groups, with demands for increased school funding and political voice for teachers. Though the walkouts confounded national media outlets, which had little idea how to explain or report on the movements, for parent and teacher activists who have been organizing against reforms in public education in the past four decades, the protests were both unexpected and understandable. What was surprising was their breadth of support (state-wide), their organizing strategy (Facebook), and their breathtakingly rapid spread. For most of the far-Right, the West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona, and North Carolina walkouts showed greedy public employees exploiting their job security to get pay and benefits better than hard-working taxpayers have. However, teachers won wide popular support, even from Republicans, forcing the media-savvier elements of the Right to alter their tone. The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) posted a blog with a sympathetic tone pushing the same stance. “While teachers are justly frustrated by take-home pay, their total compensation is typically a lot higher than many teachers realize. That’s because teacher retirement and health-care systems are much more expensive than those of the taxpayers who pay for them — whether those taxpayers work in the private or public sector.” Shedding crocodile teachers for teachers who are underpaid and retirees without adequate pensions, AEI rejects the idea more school funding would help.
    [Show full text]
  • Apocalypse and Survival
    APOCALYPSE AND SURVIVAL FRANCESCO SANTINI JULY 1994 FOREWORD !e publication of the Opere complete [Complete Works] of Giorgio Cesa- rano, which commenced in the summer of 1993 with the publication of the "rst comprehensive edition of Critica dell’utopia capitale [Critique of the uto- pia of capital], is the fruit of the activity of a group of individuals who were directly inspired by the radical critique of which Cesarano was one of the pioneers. In 1983, a group of comrades who came from the “radical current” founded the Accademia dei Testardi [Academy of the Obstinate], which published, among other things, three issues of the journal, Maelström. !is core group, which still exists, drew up a balance sheet of its own revolution- ary experience (which has only been partially completed), thus elaborating a preliminary dra# of our activity, with the republication of the work of Gior- gio Cesarano in addition to the discussion stimulated by the interventions collected in this text.$ In this work we shall seek to situate Cesarano’s activity within its his- torical context, contributing to a critical delimitation of the collective envi- ronment of which he formed a part. We shall do this for the purpose of more e%ectively situating ourselves in the present by clarifying our relation with the revolutionary experience of the immediate past. !is is a necessary theoret- ical weapon for confronting the situation in which we "nd ourselves today, which requires the ability to resist and endure in totally hostile conditions, similar in some respects to those that revolutionaries had to face at the begin- ning of the seventies.
    [Show full text]
  • Trade-Union Policy Between the Wars the Case of Holidays with Pay in Britain*
    STEPHEN G. JONES TRADE-UNION POLICY BETWEEN THE WARS THE CASE OF HOLIDAYS WITH PAY IN BRITAIN* Most standard histories of Britain between the wars refer to the develop- ment of holidays with pay, albeit briefly. It is widely acknowledged that by the end of the 1930's the majority of the British working population benefited from a paid holiday. The crucial initiative, so it is claimed, was the Holidays with Pay Act of 1938, which gave Parliamentary approval to the principle of payment of wages during holidays.1 Clearly the growth of paid holidays is seen as yet another instance of a more affluent Britain, an integral element of the growth of leisure.2 However, there has been very little detailed discussion of the paid-holiday-policy option and the precise reasons for the formulation and implementation of that policy. This neglect is rather surprising given the popular support for this "fringe benefit", which was perceived as providing a certain degree of financial security during the annual break from the rigours of work. It is true that there has been more specialised treatment, but even this is of a general nature, with little reference to the industrial and political struggle for holidays with pay.3 * I would like to thank Dr M. E. Rose, Professor A. E. Musson and members of the Editorial Board for their helpful comments. 1 See C. L. Mowat, Britain Between the Wars 1918-1940 (London, 1955), p. 501; D. H. Aldcroft, The Inter-War Economy: Britain, 1919-1939 (London, 1970), p. 366; N. Branson and M.
    [Show full text]
  • Shop Steward Glossary
    The Shop Steward Glossary Canadian Labour Congress CanadianLabour.CA The Shop Steward Glossary Across-the-board adjustment Change in pay rates made for all employees in a workplace or particular group. Adjudication The equivalent to grievance arbitration; a method under the Public Service Employee Relations Act of providing a settlement of disputes arising out of the terms of any Agreement. Affiliated union A union which is a member of a group of unions. Affirmative action Affirmative action is a comprehensive strategy whose aim is to establish the same percentage of minority group members and women at all levels of the workplaces and unions as there are in the general population. Agency shop A clause in a collective agreement similar to the Rand Formula. Agreement, collective A contract (agreement and contract are interchangeable terms) between one or more unions, acting as bargaining agent, and one or more employee covering wages, hours, working conditions, fringe benefits, rights of workers and union, and procedures to be followed in settling disputes and grievances. Arbitration A method of settling disputes through the intervention of a third party whose decision is final and binding. Such a third party can be either a single arbitrator, or a board consisting of a chairperson and one or more representatives. Arbitration is often used to settle major grievances and for settling contract interpretation disputes. Voluntary arbitration is that agreed to by the parties without statutory compulsion. Compulsory arbitration is that imposed by law. Governments sometimes impose it to avoid a strike or end one. Assessments Special charges levied by unions to meet particular financial needs.
    [Show full text]
  • A Brief Introduction to the Saga of the Labor Movement for Emerging Militants
    A Brief Introduction to the Saga of the Labor Movement for Emerging Militants This piece is the text of a talk given to the Democratic Socialists of America Lower Manhattan Branch’s Political Education Working Group on December 4, 2019, serving as introduction to “Bernie and Labor” part of its series “Why Bernie?” The picture on the right represents the Haymarket Riot, Chicago, May 4, 1886, when police attacked a labor demonstration demanding the eight-hour day and protesting the May 1 disruption of an earlier protest march. The massacre was one of many attacks by police against labor initiatives. I have ten minutes to present the briefest of introductions on some few salient points pertaining to a history of workers’ struggles in the U.S. Good luck to that! Offering a systemic view of the nearly 200 years of domestic labor struggles, triumphs, tragedies and legacies in just one sixth of an hour is akin to tackling the briefest histories of the Roman Conquests, resurrection in the fractured Holy Roman Empire and its homicidal if not its farcical reiteration in the Nazi Thousand Year Reich that mercifully lasted just 12 years. But like a centurion, I shall soldier on. What follows are some basic if necessarily sketchy assumptions. First, we need to understand that most if not all of labor’s key breakthroughs, including the huge industrial union upsurges that followed immediately after World War I and then repeated so magnificently in the 1930s, were not primarily the product of either progressive politicians such as FDR and his brain trust or even talented, foresighted labor leaders like John L.
    [Show full text]
  • Where Did Braverman Go Wrong? a Marxist Response to the Politicist Critiques
    Where did Braverman go wrong? A Marxist response to the politicist critiques Onde está errado Braverman? A resposta marxista às críticas politicistas Eduardo Sartelli1 Marina Kabat2 Abstract Braverman is considered an unquestionable reference of Marxist labour process. The objective of this paper is to show that despite Braverman’s undeniable achievements he forsakes the classical Marxist notions related to work organization, i. e. simple cooperation, manufacture and large-scale industry and replaces them with the notion of Taylorism. We also intend to show that because of this abandonment, Braverman cannot explain properly how the deskilling tendency operates in different historical periods, and in distinct industry branches. Finally, we try to demonstrate that those Marxist concepts neglected by Braverman are especially useful to understand labor unrest related to job organization. Braverman overvalues the incidence of labor fragmentation and direct forms of control and disregards the impact of mechanization achieved with the emergence of Large-scale industry and the new forms of control associated with it. Whereas Braverman’s allegedly Marxist orthodoxy is considered responsible for this, in fact, exactly the opposite can be asserted: the weaknesses of the otherwise noteworthy work of Harry Braverman are grounded in his relinquishment of some crucial Marxist concepts. We state that labor processes conventionally considered Taylorist or Fordist can be reconceptualized in Marxist classic terms allowing a better understanding of the dynamic of conflicts regarding labor process. Keywords: Labor process. Politics. Marxism. Regulationism. Workers’ Struggles. Resumo Braverman é considerado uma referência inquestionável do processo de trabalho marxista. O objetivo deste artigo é mostrar que, apesar das contribuições inegáveis de Braverman ele abandona as noções marxistas clássicas relacionadas à organização do trabalho, a saber, cooperação simples, manufatura e grande-indústria e substituí-las com a noção do taylorismo.
    [Show full text]
  • Collective Agreement Between Toronto & York
    COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT BETWEEN TORONTO & YORK REGJON LABOUR COUNCIL AND CANADIAN OFFICE & PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYEES UNION LOCAL343 JANUARY 1, 2016 TO DECEMBER 31,2018 cope 343 INDEX ARTICLE# TITLE PAGE# 1 Recognition 3 2 Union Security 3 3 Seniority 3 4 Wages 4 5 Hours of Work, Overtime and Mileage Allowance 4/5 6 Paid Holidays 5 7 Vacations 5/6 8 Grievance and Arbitration 6 9 Discharge and Disciplinary Action 6 10 Severance Pay 7 11 Registered Retirement Savings Plan 7 12 Sick Leave 7 13 Leave of Absence - General 8 14 Leave of Absence - Maternal/Paternal 9 15 No Strikes or Lockouts 10 16 Discrimination 10 17 Health and Safety 10 18 Welfare 10/11 19 Retirement Benefits 11 20 Skills Development 12 21 Union Label 12 22 Savings Clause 12 23 Rights and Privileges 12 24 Contracting Out 12 25 Technological Change 12/13 26 Acting Pay 13 27 Negotiating Committee 14 28 Termination 14 AGREEMENT BETWEEN TORONTO & YORK REGION LABOUR COUNCIL (hereinafter referred to as "the Employer") AND CANADIAN OFFICE & PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYEES UNION, LOCAL 343 (hereinafter referred to as "the Union") ARTICLE 1 - RECOGNITION 1.01 The Employer recognizes the Union as the sole collective bargaining agent for all its clerical employees. ARTICLE 2 - UNION SECURITY 2.01 Any person hereafter employed shall be required to join the Union immediately. All present employees who are members of the Union on the effective date of this Agreement, or who subsequently become members, shall remain members in good standing in the Union during the term of this Agreement. All employees who are not members of the union shall become members of the Union as of the effective date of this Agreement and shall remain members in good standing in the Union of the month following such deduction.
    [Show full text]
  • “Bifo” Berardi Marco Deseriis Theory & Event, Volume 1
    Irony and the Politics of Composition in the Philosophy of Franco “Bifo” Berardi Marco Deseriis Theory & Event, Volume 15, Issue 4, 2012. Abstract By analyzing Franco Berardi’s reflections on irony as an extension of his political praxis, the article first examines the multifaceted functions of this rhetorical device in the contexts of the late-1960s social struggles against factory work in Italy, the communication experiments of the Autonomia movement, and the information overload of the contemporary mediascape. In the second part, the text addresses Berardi’s attempt to reconcile Jean Baudrillard’s theory of simulacra with Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s theory of desire to end with a reflection on how his distinction between irony and cynicism may offer a counterpoint to Slavoj Žižek’s critique of ideology. Keywords Irony; class composition; Italian workerism; social movements; subjectivity; autonomy. Born in Bologna in 1949, Franco “Bifo” Berardi has participated in four major anti-capitalist movements in the past four decades: the 1968 as a member of the Marxist revolutionary group Potere Operaio (Workers’ Power); the movement of Autonomia in 1977; the alter-globalization movement in the late 1990s-early 2000s; and the current European movement against austerity measures, the precarization of labor conditions, and the budget cuts to public education. Berardi has combined this personal engagement with an ongoing experimentation with social movement media such as the magazine A/Traverso, the experimental community radio Radio Alice, both founded in Bologna in the mid-1970s. In the late 1990s, he launched the e-mail list Rekombinant and, in the early 2000s, the community TV Orfeo TV.
    [Show full text]
  • Glossary of Labour Terms
    Glossary of Labour Terms Available online at: http://prairies.psac.com/stewards-dictionary ADJUDICATION: Process for settling grievances by a third party when they arise out of the interpretation or application of a collective agreement or arbitral award, or out of disciplinary action resulting in financial loss or penalty (i.e., discharge, suspension ). Normally used for Public Service units covered by the Public Service Staff Relations Act. See Arbitration. AGREEMENT, COLLECTIVE: A contract (‘Collective Agreement’ and ‘Contract’ are used interchangeably) between the union acting as the bargaining agent and the employer, covering wages, hours of work, working conditions, benefits, rights of workers and union, and procedures to be followed in settling disputes and grievances. APPEAL: Procedure for seeking redress from Public Service Commission against: appointments to a job made by closed competition or job appointments made without competition. Applies only to Public Service units covered by the Public Service Employment Act. ARBITRATION: A method of settling negotiating disputes through the intervention of a third party whose decision is final and binding. Such a third party can be either a single arbitrator, or a board consisting of a chairman and one or more representatives. Voluntary Arbitration is that agreed to by the parties without statutory compulsion. Compulsory Arbitration is that imposed by law. Governments sometimes impose it to avoid a strike or to end one. Arbitration (same as adjudication) terminology is used in the Canada Labour Code, Part I, the Northwest Territories Ordinances, and most Provincial Labour Codes and Acts. BARGAINING AGENT: Union designated by a labour relations board or similar government agency e.g.
    [Show full text]
  • Reclaiming Syndicalism: from Spain to South Africa to Global Labour Today
    Global Issues Reclaiming Syndicalism: From Spain to South Africa to global labour today Lucien van der Walt, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa Union politics remain central to the new century. It remains central because of the ongoing importance of unions as mass movements, internationally, and because unions, like other popular movements, are confronted with the very real challenge of articulating an alternative, transformative vision. There is much to be learned from the historic and current tradition of anarcho- and revolutionary syndicalism. This is a tradition with a surprisingly substantial and impressive history, including in the former colonial world; a tradition that envisages anti-bureaucratic and bottom-up trade unions as key means of educating and mobilising workers, and of championing the economic, social and political struggles of the broad working class, independent of parliamentary politics and party tutelage; and that aims, ultimately, at transforming society through union-led workplace occupations that will institute self-management and participatory economic planning, abolishing markets, hierarchies and states. This contribution seeks, firstly, to contribute to the recovery of the historical memory of the working class by drawing attention to its multiple traditions and rich history; secondly, to make a contribution to current debates on the struggles, direction and options for the working class movement (including unions) in a period of flux in which the fixed patterns of the last forty years are slowly melting away; thirdly, it argues that many current union approaches – among them, business unionism, social movement unionism, and political unionism – have substantial failings and limitations; and finally, it points to the need for labour studies and industrial sociology to pay greater attention to labour traditions besides business unionism, social movement unionism, and political unionism.
    [Show full text]
  • The Decline of the Mining Industry and the Response of the Mining Unions
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Wits Institutional Repository on DSPACE THE DECLINE OF THE MINING INDUSTRY AND THE RESPONSE OF THE MINING UNIONS Gwede Mantashe A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Masters of Arts Johannesburg, 2008 Abstract The report examines the response of three trade unions, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), the United Associations of South Africa (UASA) and Solidarity – to the economic, political and social changes over the past decade in the mining industry. In particular the report is concerned with union responses to the decline in the gold mining industry. The report concludes that the NUM was conscious about the decline and developed coherent strategies for dealing with it, whereas both Solidarity and UASA did not pay attention to the decline. Instead their interventions were directed at countering the impact of legislative changes that accorded blacks the right to organise and join unions, and the competition that went with this opening. The NUM remains a social movement union which balances community and workplace struggles. It is the strongest and most influential union in the industry. It is the only union in the industry that is politically active and has a strategy that deploys and supports members as political activists. UASA is a business union relying on benefits and services to retain members. It is politically neutral with a minimum interest in the developments in communities around them. Solidarity, on the other hand, is a service union which is a hybrid of business and social movement unionism.
    [Show full text]
  • Workerism and Politics
    Historical Materialism 18 (2010) 186–189 brill.nl/hima Workerism and Politics Mario Tronti Centro per la Riforma dello Stato [email protected] Abstract !is is the text of Mario Tronti’s lecture at the 2006 Historical Materialism conference. It provides a brief, evocative synopsis of Tronti’s understanding of the historical experience and contemporary relevance of operaismo, a theoretical and practical attempt, embodied in journals such as Quaderni Rossi and Classe Operaia, to renew Marxist thought and politics in the Italy of the 1960s through a renewed attention to class-antagonism and the changing composition of labour. Keywords capitalism, communism, factory, Italy, labour-power, workerism First, what is ‘workerism’? It is an experience that tried to unite the thinking and practice of politics, in a determinate domain, that of the modern factory. It looked for a strong subject, the working class, capable of contesting and putting into crisis the mechanism of capitalist production. I underscore its character as an experience. Young intellectual forces were involved, encountering the new levies of workers, introduced especially into the large factories of the Taylorist and Fordist phase of capitalist industry. What had taken place in the thirties in the US was happening in the sixties in Italy. !e historical context for workerism was precisely that of the sixties of the twentieth century. In Italy, that period witnessed the take-off of an advanced capitalism, the passage from an agricultural-industrial society to an industrial- agricultural one, with the migratory displacement of labour-power from the peasant South to the industrial North. !ey called it ‘neo-capitalism’.
    [Show full text]