The Re-Emergence of Workplace-Based Organization as the New Expression of Conflict in Argentina

This article contributes to the debates over the development of solidarity among a fragmented workforce by discussing the case of a strike in which the technicians and contractors at Movistar in Spain were involved. The strike involved employees and self-employed workers working for different contractors. The results highlight that ‘spontaneous’ mobilizations can help to develop a collective identity in fragmented employment systems. More concretely, they show that the lack of involvement of unions at the beginning of the strike helped to generate an identity involving all workers that was not based on occupational or contractual status. However, the findings also highlight that the later involvement of independent unions, which respected the assembling of workers as a space of decision, was key to the sustainment of the collective identity. Furthermore, the results show that mobilizing can be a strong organizing tool in contexts characterized by weak institutional regulation, fragmentation and precarious working conditions.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Developing a Collective Identitymentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Mobilizing Organizing and The Development Of A Collective Imentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Breaking Fragmentation through Mobilization: The Development of a Collective Identity during Movistar’s Contractors’ and Technicians’ Strike in Spain

López‐Andreu

2019

“…ASIMM was affiliated to CGT ( Confederación General del Trabajo ), the most important trade union confederation, traditionally identified with Peronism, and which was supporting the government at that time. ASIMM official recognition was arguably part of a political deal between the government and the CGT aimed at reducing the power and relevance of independent unions (Atzeni and Ghigliani, 2013). The formal recognition granted to ASIMM implied the illegality of any other existing organization attempting to take action in defence of ASIMM members.…”

Section: Workers’ ‘Associational Power’ and The Political Context Of mentioning

confidence: 99%

Workers’ Power in Resisting Precarity: Comparing Transport Workers in Buenos Aires and Dar es Salaam

Rizzo

Atzeni

2020

Self Cite

The growing precariousness of employment across the world has radically altered the conditions upon which the representation of workers’ interests has traditionally been built, as it has posed challenges for established trade unions: individualized employment and fragmented identities have displaced the centrality of the workplace and the employee–employer relationship in framing collective issues of representation. In this article, we compare the processes of collective organization of two groups of precarious workers in the transport and delivery sector of Buenos Aires and Dar es Salaam. Through this comparison we investigate how existing trade union structures, industrial relations frameworks, socio-political contexts and labour processes interact with the processes of workers’ organization that take place even in the harsher conditions of informal work, critically engaging with the argument that the growing precariousness of work represents the end of trade unionism as we know it.

“…Studies of conflict, control and cooperation in the labour process inspired by Burawoy’s (1979, 1985) work; of trade unions’ sociology using Hyman’s (1975, 2001) framework together with Kelly’s (1998) mobilization theory; and Silver’s (2003) longue dur é e comparative analysis of working classes mobilization, have influenced some of the most relevant book monographs of recent years (Ghigliani, 2010; Marticorena, 2014; Santella, 2016; Soul, 2014; Varela, 2015). The debate on union revitalization or renewal has also been used as a general frame of reference in various studies and edited books looking into institutional aspects of industrial relations (Etchemendy and Collier, 2007; Montes Cató and Delfini, 2015; Palomino and Trajtemberg, 2006; Senen Gonzalez and Del Bono, 2013; among others), as well as for studies investigating grassroots processes of workers’ organization and action (Atzeni and Ghigliani, 2013; D’Urso and Longo, 2017; Lenguita, 2011; Varela, 2015; Ventrici and Montes Cató, 2011). The latter studies fit closely with what can be considered a left approach to the revitalization debate concerned with the dynamics and factors influencing the construction of workplace power and the role of politics in this (Cohen, 2006; Darlington, 2009; Gall, 2013; Ness, 2014) and with unions’ democracy and identity (see the Capital and Class special issue on Hyman’s work, Gall and Darlington, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Revival of Labour Movement Studies in Argentina: Old and Lost Agendas

Atzeni

Grigera

2018

Self Cite

In recent years sociological research on labour in Argentina has re-flourished. This revival has seen a turn towards the Anglo-Saxon and international traditions of workplace and trade union studies, but it has been generally one-sided, focusing on the relatively successful experiences of trade unions’ organized workers in formal sector workplaces. This has represented a considerable departure from the pre-2001 crisis research’s agenda that focused on unemployment, poverty and the new forms of community based organizations generated by workers in non-work situations. The return to the institutionalized sphere in the analysis of work issues can be partially explained by the changes in the economic and political environment alongside the return to ‘normality’ of the capital–labour relationship. However, it also signals a tendency in labour studies, in Argentina and beyond, of using the union form as the main organizational frame of reference in the analyses of conflict and workers’ representation.