Description
Book SynopsisThe 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
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
Note on Contributors
1 Introduction: A Return to the Shop Floor or How to Confront Neoliberal Capitalism
Dario Azzellini and Michael G. Kraft
Workers’ Self-Organisation beyond and against Corporative Unions and the State
2 Workers’ Struggles and Autonomy: Strategic and Tactical Considerations
Mithilesh Kumar and Ranabir Samaddar
3 Autonomous Worker Committees in Marikana, South Africa: Journey to the Mountain
Luke Sinwell
4 Greece: Grassroots Labour Struggles in a Crisis-Ridden Country
Antonios Broumas, Elias Ioakimoglou and Kostas Haritakis
5 Fighting Against Capitalist Ownership and State Bureaucracy – Labour Struggles in Venezuela
Dario Azzellini
Non-Corporate Unionism and Social Movements
6 Revolts on Goose Island: A Long Fight Pays Off for Chicago Window Factory Workers
Kari Lydersen
7 The Egyptian Workers’ Movement: Revolt, Revolution and Counter-Revolution
Anne Alexander and Mostafa Bassiouny
8 Bosnia and Herzegovina: From Workers’ Strike to Social Uprising
Chiara Milan
9 Sinaltrainal: Transforming the Workers’ Movement in Colombia
Carlos Olaya
10 A Fistful of Dollars? The Labour Dispute in the Babylon Cinema
Hansi Oostinga
Renewed Forms of Struggle and Workers’ Self-Management
11 New Workers’ Struggles in Turkey since the 2000s: Possibilities and Limits
Demet Ş. Dinler
12 Recovered Imaginaries: Workers’ Self-Organisation and Radical Unionism in Indonesia
Felix Hauf
13 The Revolution in Logistics
Anna Curcio
14 Sweat and Detergent not Bread and Roses: Behind the Shiny Surface of London’s Financial Industry, Latin Cleaners Struggle for Dignity
Elmar Wigand
References
Index
