New Forms of Worker Organization

The Syndicalist and Autonomist Restoration of Class Struggle Unionism

Immanuel Ness

• Publisher: PM Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781604869569
• eBook ISBN: 9781604869934
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Labour & Industrial Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Bureaucratic labor unions are under assault. Most unions have surrendered the achievements of the mid-twentieth century, when the working class was a militant force for change throughout the world. Now trade unions seem incapable of defending, let alone advancing, workers' interests.

As unions implode and weaken, workers are independently forming their own unions, drawing on the tradition of syndicalism and autonomism—a resurgence of self-directed action that augurs a new period of class struggle throughout the world. In Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe, workers are rejecting leaders and forming authentic class-struggle unions rooted in sabotage, direct action, and striking to achieve concrete gains.

This is the first book to compile workers' struggles on a global basis, examining the formation and expansion of radical unions in the Global South and Global North. The tangible evidence marshaled in this book serves as a handbook for understanding the formidable obstacles and concrete opportunities for workers challenging neoliberal capitalism, even as the unions of the old decline and disappear.

Contributors include Au Loong-Yu, Bai Ruixue, Shawn Hattingh, Piotr Bizyukov, Irina Olimpieva, Genese M. Sodikoff, Aviva Chomsky, Dario Bursztyn, Gabriel Kuhn, Erik Forman, Steven Manicastri, Arup Kumar Sen, Verity Burgmann, Ray Jureidini, Meredith Burgmann, and Jack Kirkpatrick.

Index

“Passim” (literally “scattered”) indicates intermittent discussion of a topic over a cluster of pages.

Abrahamsson, Jan, 173–75

Abramovich, Roman, 80

absenteeism, 187, 196

accidents. See workplace accidents

ACFTU. See All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU)

ACORN, 237, 239

AFL. See American Federation of Labor (AFL)

AFL-CIO. See American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)

African American workers, 206, 207, 223, 236–37, 263, 271–74 passim

African National Congress (ANC), 108, 111

agricultural workers. See farm workers

AGTSyP. See Delegados del Subte (Argentina)

air traffic controllers, 261, 293n17

Alabama, 273

Alfonsin, Raúl, 157

All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), 14, 47–60 passim

aluminum industry, 78

AMCU. See Association of Mineworkers Union (AMCU) (South Africa)

Amendola, Giorgio, 23

American Federation of Labor (AFL), 2, 17, 235, 236, 259–63 passim, 272–77 passim

American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), 238, 267

anarchists and anarchism, 6–7, 110, 111–12;

Argentina, 147, 148; Sweden, 168, 169;

UK, 244, 246, 247

ANC. See African National Congress (ANC)

ANGAP (Association Nationale pour la Gestion des Aires Protégées) (Madagascar), 121, 122, 123, 127

Anglo American, 131, 139

anticommunism, 265, 273, 274

antiprivatization, 47, 49

apprentices, 27, 44, 85, 86, 92

Arbetaren, 169, 170, 172, 182

Argentina, 15–16, 147–66, 179, 185

Arias, José, 132, 136, 137

Aronowitz, Stanley, 264

Arregocés, Eder, 139, 142, 143

arrest of protesters, 80, 177, 213

arrest of workers and organizers, 243;

Argentina, 148; India, 15, 90, 91, 92;

South Africa, 15, 101, 103–4, 106; UK, 243; United States, 237

Asociación Gremial de Trabajadores del Subte y Premetro. See Delegados del Subte (Argenti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword Staughton Lynd
• Introduction New Forms of Worker Organization
• I. Autonomist Unions in Europe and Asia
• II. Organizing Autonomy and Radical Unionism in the Global South
• III. Organizing Autonomy and Radical Unionism in the Global North
• Editor and Contributors
• Notes
• Index
• About PM Press
• Friends PM Press