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An Alternative Labour History

An Alternative Labour History

Assistant Professor Dario Azzellini

(2015)

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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