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Abstract
The global financial crisis has led to a new shop-floor militancy. Radical forms of protest and new workers’ takeovers have sprung up all over the globe. In the US, Republic Windows and Doors started production under worker control in January 2013. Later that year workers in Greece took over and managed a hotel, a hospital, a newspaper, a TV channel and a factory.
The dominant revolutionary left has viewed workers' control as part of a system necessary during a transition to socialism. Yet most socialist and communist parties have neglected to promote workers' control as it challenges the centrality of parties and it is in this spirit that trade unions, operating through the institutional frameworks of government, have held a monopoly over labor history.
Tracing Marx’s writings on the Paris Commune through council communism, anarcho-syndicalism, Italian operaismo, and other "heretical" left currents, An Alternative Labour History uncovers the practices and intentions of historical and contemporary autonomous workers’ movements that until now have been largely obscured. It shows that by bringing permanence and predictability to their workplaces, workers can stabilize their communities through expressions of participatory democracy. And, as history has repeatedly shown, workers have always had the capacity to run their enterprises on their own.
'Dario Azzellini has emerged as arguably the most important contemporary analyst of worker self-management. Casting a critical eye toward non-revolutionary forms of workers' control, Azzellini and the contributors to this volume enrich our understanding while pressing us ever more toward the radical and transformative experiences in workplace management that have become a resurgent hallmark of our moment.'
George Ciccariello-Maher, Drexel University
'Challenging radical fuzziness and conservative dogma, this book is a resource for comprehending the past and conceptualizing the future.'
Professor Paul Le Blanc, La Roche College, and author of Work and Struggle and A Freedom Budget for All Americans
'An Alternative Labour History is a hugely important contribution to that old socialist question: how can ordinary people exercise self-government in the matters that matter most to their daily lives? The essays here update the vision of workers' councils in response to the ecological crisis and to the prospects raised by popular uprisings. Get this book!'
Paul Buhle, Brown University, and Founder of Radical America
'An Alternative Labour History is a must-read for those seeking fresh ways out of the current global morass. Azzellini and his contributors present a real and possible alternative to the twin corporate traps of monopoly capitalism and state socialism. There are lessons here for all who hold tight to the possibility for a future based on equality and social good.'
Susan Moir, University of Massachusetts Boston
Dario Azzellini is assistant professor of sociology at the Johannes Kepler University. His research and writing focuses on social transformation, self-administration, workers’ control, democracy and social movements. Azzellini has published several books, including They Can’t Represent Us (co-authored with Marina Sitrin, 2014), Ours to Master and to Own (co-edited with Immanuel Ness, 2011) and The Business of War (2002). He serves as associate editor for Cuadernos de Marte and is co-founder of workerscontrol.net. He served as associate editor for The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present (2009) and was primary editor for Latin America, the Spanish Caribbean and the new left in Italy. Azzellini is also a documentary filmmaker, co-directing, among other films, Comuna under Construction (2010) and 5 Factories - Workers Control in Venezuela (2007).
www.azzellini.net
Table of Contents
Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
---|---|---|---|
Front cover | Front cover | ||
About the editor | ii | ||
Title page | iii | ||
Copyright page | iv | ||
Contents | v | ||
Foreword by Jeremy Brecher | vii | ||
Acknowledgments | ix | ||
Notes on contributors | x | ||
Introduction | 1 | ||
Workers’ control and self-administration as emancipatory and anti-capitalist praxis | 4 | ||
Limits and contradictions of the cooperative model | 6 | ||
Workers’ autonomy versus unions | 11 | ||
Workers’ control in revolution and state socialism | 13 | ||
Workers’ control and the emancipation of humanity | 16 | ||
Building a workers’ economy | 18 | ||
The content of the collection | 22 | ||
Note | 27 | ||
References | 28 | ||
1 Council Democracy, or the End of the Political | 31 | ||
The failure of liberal democracy | 33 | ||
Marx’s understanding of the political and his assessment of the commune | 35 | ||
Some aspects of the debate around council democracy | 49 | ||
Final comments | 61 | ||
References | 64 | ||
2 Contemporary Crisis and Workers’ Control | 67 | ||
Recuperated factories in France | 70 | ||
Italy: Officine Zero and Ri-Maflow | 75 | ||
Greece: Vio.Me. – from industrial glue to organic cleaners | 80 | ||
Turkey: Kazova Tekstil – high-quality sweaters for the people | 82 | ||
Egypt: steel and ceramics | 85 | ||
Chicago: New Era Windows | 87 | ||
Common challenges for workers’ recuperations | 91 | ||
Common features of workers’ recuperations | 92 | ||
Notes | 97 | ||
References | 97 | ||
3 Workers’ Assemblies: New Formations in the Organization of Labor and the Struggle against Capitalism | 100 | ||
Notes | 117 | ||
References | 118 | ||
4 The Austrian Revolution of 1918–1919 and Working Class Autonomy | 120 | ||
12 November 1918 | 121 | ||
World War I and the labor movement | 122 | ||
World War I and the movement of workers | 124 | ||
From workers’ committees to the first councils: the January General Strike of 1918 | 126 | ||
On the councils that the January General Strike produced | 133 | ||
From establishment of a bourgeois democracy to the social revolutionary phase | 136 | ||
The soldiers’ councils | 137 | ||
The FRSI and the council question | 139 | ||
Social Democracy and the Austrian Revolution | 142 | ||
Spring and summer 1919: once again, the revolution is just around the corner | 144 | ||
An evolving dual power | 147 | ||
Swan song | 150 | ||
Notes | 153 | ||
References | 155 | ||
5 Chile: Worker Self-organization and Cordones Industriales under the Allende Government (1970–1973) | 157 | ||
1000 days that shook the world | 158 | ||
The Chilean Red October: worker self-organization and popular constituent power | 163 | ||
The cordones industriales and the fate of the left | 171 | ||
Towards the coup: “the workers were demanding weapons” | 176 | ||
Notes | 178 | ||
Acknowledgements | 179 | ||
References | 179 | ||
6 “Production Control” or “Factory Soviet”? Workers’ Control in Japan | 182 | ||
Introduction | 182 | ||
The rise of post-war labor movement | 184 | ||
General conditions of production control | 190 | ||
Consolidation of workers’ control | 194 | ||
The people’s court: the struggle of Mitsubishi Bibai Coal Mine Union | 199 | ||
The limits and possibilities of production control: communists, labor union and worker control | 204 | ||
Notes | 212 | ||
References | 213 | ||
7 The Factory Commissions in Brazil and the 1964 Coup d’État | 215 | ||
Introduction | 215 | ||
Rise of the workers’ and intellectuals’ struggles | 216 | ||
Rural struggles | 222 | ||
Reforms, coup and repression | 222 | ||
The formation of the Brazilian working class and the factory commissions | 224 | ||
The factory commissions (1968–1978) during the military-civilian dictatorship | 231 | ||
Final considerations | 235 | ||
Notes | 237 | ||
References | 239 | ||
Films | 241 | ||
8 Self-management, Workers’ Control and Resistance against Crisis and Neoliberal Counterreformsin Mexico | 242 | ||
Mexico 2012–2014: neoliberal counter-reforms and social resistance | 245 | ||
Euzkadi-TRADOC: 1100 days of resistance to recuperate a factory | 248 | ||
Pascual Boing: “Kill them, break this up” | 254 | ||
Ruta 100: a self-managed public transport network repressed by corrupt neoliberalism | 257 | ||
Self-managed cooperativism in the Zapatista autonomous municipalities in Chiapas | 262 | ||
Conclusion: the limitations of cooperativism and economic self-management in Mexico | 267 | ||
Notes | 270 | ||
References | 271 | ||
9 Collective Self-management and Social Classes: The Case of Enterprises Recovered by Their Workers in Uruguay | 273 | ||
Introduction | 273 | ||
Profile of workers and characteristics of recovery processes | 276 | ||
Collective self-management: class struggle versus social mobility | 280 | ||
“Toned down” collective actions and renovation of the social fabric | 286 | ||
Final reflections | 290 | ||
Notes | 293 | ||
References | 296 | ||
10 Self-managing the Commons in Contemporary Greece | 298 | ||
Coops and producers’ control: the story so far | 300 | ||
Fresh starts in an emerging economy of solidarity | 307 | ||
(In)conclusive thoughts | 322 | ||
References | 325 | ||
Index | 329 | ||
Back cover | Back cover |