This article focuses on the process of workers' self-management brought about by a wave of factory occupations, which has taken place in Argentina in the last few years, with the support of preliminary evidence from qualitative fieldwork conducted in four factories.The aim of the article is to explore the dynamics of the decision-making and the re-organization of the labour process in the light of the constraints imposed on self-management by market mediations. The act of occupying a factory gives room to workers' control of the labour process and to a more democratic, collective decision-making, but workers' need to compete in the market reduces the sphere of collective decision, leading to centralization of power and divisions between directive and productive workers, hampering the possibility for workers to enrich their job and avoid self-exploitation.
In recent years, scholars and activists have identified the development of an emerging new labour internationalism (NLI), and pointed to its impact upon the structures and practices of international trade unionism (ITU). This article addresses this issue through a case study of an international action opposing the labour practices of McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast-food retailer. The evidence reveals a complex picture. Even though many of the features of the allegedly new labour internationalism are present, they seem to be more a matter of form than substance.
IntroductionThe study of employment relations in Chile and Argentina has been the outcome of research in various disciplines particularly sociology, political science, law, and history. This broadly defined scholarship has followed similar lines of analysis in both countries, reflecting their parallel socio-economic transformations and corresponding changes in employment relations actors and institutions. From the rise of import substituting industrialisation and developmentalist populist regimes in the 1930s, which provided the base upon which 'classic' employment relations systems began to take shape, to the crises and replacement of such regimes by military dictatorships and the introduction of neoliberalism in the 1970s, which redefined the relationship between capital and labour.A review of the literature has identified two main foci of study that roughly overlap with these two socio-economic eras. A more traditional line of enquiry has focused on the centrality of labour movements in the making of history, politics and socio-economic development of each country and has been particularly concerned with examining the shifting relations between trade unions, the state, and political parties. A more contemporary focus of study has concentrated on the imposition of neoliberalism, transitions to democracy, labour reform as well as on the implications of new managerial practices on the dynamics of employment relations.With regard to the first focus, the literature on Chilean employment relations can be traced back to historians working from a classic Marxist tradition (Barría, 1971; Jobet, 1951; Ramírez Necochea, 1956; Segall, 1953). 1 They centred on organised workers -particularly the industrial and mining proletariat-whose social 1 The citations included within this section are for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to provide an exhaustive overview of the literatures in question.
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