lecture 11: silver - labor movements

Question 1

what is a labor movement

Answer 1

set of political actions that people take to improve the form of work they are subjected to.

labor movement resistance:
- different examples exedus, sparticus, peasant revolts wtc.

they are organanized by proletarian people (who need a job to survive):
- include formal wage workers, as well as informal workers

Actions at multiple levels:
* workplace (where it begins)
* labor market and industry
* political sphere (community, national, international)

various organizational forms:
* wildcat strikes
* worker centers - rep some particular identity of workers: ethnicity, race etc.
* unions
* political parties

Question 2

making and unmaking of labor movements (reading) the dynamic by which the labor movement rises and falls

Answer 2

ww2: increase in people going on strikes

then decline during thr golden age (agreements on compromising civil rights movement etc. - collective bargaining, rationalized way)

spike increase in 1970s: increase in strikes; gen of people whp have issues with the problems (?); also factory relocation to south and west, Latin america, and asia… generated protests

but after the 70s, very big drop till now even

the making refers to the entering as a political actor to hold employees accountable and make change.(1940s -ww2) 1970s

unmakingrefers to after 1970s till now even

silver and the other guy say that the process of deindustrialization in the USA is mirrored by the process of reindustrialization in othercountries (eg; China, 2011 big increase in strikes happeningnthere, same in vietnam)

shows labor unrest is endemic to capital

Question 3

belief that what happens in the workplace is connected to what is happening outside

Answer 3

business unionism vs social unionism

business unionism says that u should restrict yourself to whats happening in workplace but not politics outside workplace
(wages, treatments) not outside ussyes

social unionism says that u should consider workplace politics but also broader concerns with social issues, political proble,s

the proposition of bus unionism becomes increasingly difficult when the constitution of your workforce is constantly changing (migrants entering workforce from middle east, africa, etc.) the idea of ignoring social issues becomes more and more difficult to change. (origin not in us but sa - ko satu imp in fighting apartheid; insolidarity movement in poland)

Question 4

so why labor movements demand democratization?

Answer 4

to make these changes for ur labor rights oyu need democratization systems

• more pressing issue for workers than employers

(have more access to state power)

Question 5

The labor movement beyond “the working
class

Answer 5

• Paradigmatic Fordist labor movement (recent historians have been arguing that this was the exception, recent is more normal)
• Exclusion of much of the world from formal employment
• Expansion of non-wage workers globally
• Informal workers in the South
• Informal/undocumented/gig workers in the North
• Demands beyond collective bargaining for social protection (insurance, could be that going forward more of attention movement issues could take center stage)