Labor

CHILD LABOR

by Azhar Sario

child labor

Globally Segmented Labor Markets: The Coming of the Greatest Boom and Bust, Without the Boom

by John Asimakopoulos

Critical Sociology, 35(2): 175-198, 2009

A world social structure of accumulation (SSA) is forming based on global segmentation of labor, financialization, and... more A world social structure of accumulation (SSA) is forming based on global segmentation of labor, financialization, and a neoliberal trade regime. Unlike its Fordist era counterpart, this SSA lacks a corresponding regime for consumption because it has outsourced production to low-wage authoritarian regions. This is resulting in inadequate purchasing power within developed nations for whom global production is intended, raising the potential of global crisis. In fact, these emerging structures may implode before any significant accumulation occurs when the US consumer debt bubble that has been fueling consumption bursts. The article concludes that the emerging system is intensifying class contradictions embedded in private property relations that will lead to intensified downturns. Therefore, the only structural solution is not reform but fundamental reorganization of socioeconomic relations. However, this requires a new transnational labor-activist movement willing to challenge the legitimacy of capitalism with radical counter-ideology and militant direct action.

The Civil Rights-Black Power Era, Direct Action, and Defensive Violence: Lessons for the Working-Class Today.

by John Asimakopoulos

Theory in Action 3(3): 42-62, 2010

The Civil Rights Movement (CRM) is re-examined to provide lessons for a renewed labor movement in this age of... more The Civil Rights Movement (CRM) is re-examined to provide lessons for a renewed labor movement in this age of globalization and the accompanying obliteration of both labor and basic human rights. It is argued that the CRM was successful not because of non-violent civil disobedience. Instead, radical counter-ideology, violent self-defense, societal education, independent movement media, and even rebellion supplemented and made possible all other protests. In fact, it was through direct action that rights were finally wrestled from government. Therefore, it is proposed a new social movement be formed to promote both labor and human rights in the United States based on the tactics of the CRM which have been historically proven to be effective.

Idleness, Leisure, and Virtuous Activity in Shakespearean Drama

by Unhae Langis

Labor Chief Rallies at'Corporate Pirates.'

by Dan Morrison

Crushing Capitalism with Dr. Asimakopoulos

by John Asimakopoulos

June, 2010–present. Video e-journal, ISSN: 2155-8086.

Crushing Capitalism with Dr. Asimakopoulos is an interdisciplinary video e-journal. It analyzes current events and... more Crushing Capitalism with Dr. Asimakopoulos is an interdisciplinary video e-journal. It analyzes current events and scholarly topics such as imperialism, censorship, propaganda, political corruption, and corporate power. The journal combines multiple theoretical perspectives including anarchism, Marxism, classical economics, Socialism, and the progressive Left in general. Its purpose is to counter the dominant ideology of capitalism and expose the contradictions and inherent injustice of the system. It seeks to inform of alternatives to capitalism, and means through which these can be implemented as with direct action, to promote economic, racial, ethnic, and gender equality, create democratic political structures, and resistance to all forms of injustice.

RELATIONAL GOODS, MONITORING AND NON‐PECUNIARY COMPENSATIONS IN THE NONPROFIT SECTOR: THE CASE OF THE ITALIAN SOCIAL SERVICES

by Francesco Pastore

Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, 78(1): 57-86 (also available as: IZA DP, n. 2254, August).

This paper investigates the nonprofit wage gap suggesting a theoretical framework where, like inAkerlof (1984), effort... more This paper investigates the nonprofit wage gap suggesting a theoretical framework where, like inAkerlof (1984), effort correlates not only with wages, but also with non-monetary compensations. These take the form of relational goods by-produced in the delivery of particular services. By paying higher non-pecuniary compensations, the nonprofit sector attracts intrinsically similarly skilled, but more motivated workers, able to provide in fact a similar (or potentially higher) level of effort than their counterparts in the forprofit sector. On an empirical ground, the paper provides a number of econometric tests that confirm the main predictions of the model in Italy's case. It adds to the available empirical literature by introducing in the analysis direct measures of non-pecuniary compensations and job satisfaction.

Worker-Recovered Enterprises as Workers' Cooperatives: The Conjunctures, Challenges, and Innovations of Self-Management in Argentina

by Marcelo Vieta

Co-authored with Andrés Ruggeri. (2007). In Darryl Reed & JJ McMurtry (Eds.), Co-operatives in a Global Economy: The Challenges and Innovations of Co-operation Across Borders (pp. 178-225). Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

This chapter examines this phenomenon of ERTs in Latin American countries, with a special emphasis on the case of... more This chapter examines this phenomenon of ERTs in Latin American countries, with a special emphasis on the case of Argentina. Based on our ongoing quantitative and qualitative political economic and ethnographic work over the past five years with over 70 ERTs across all economic sectors and regions, we highlight two particular characteristics that are often overlooked or downplayed by studies that examine worker-recovered enterprises in Argentina. First, workers’ initial actions involving the seizure of control of their deteriorating or failed companies from former owners, their occupation of them for weeks or months, and eventually their putting them into operation once again under autogestión (self-management), arise out of fear and anger rather than a preconceived predilection for workers’ control or working-class revolt. That is, most ERTs originate as direct responses to their worker-protagonists’ deep worries about becoming structurally unemployed. To begin to understand these two characteristics, we first briefly look to the historical and political conjunctures from which ERTs emerge and in which they find themselves. We then explore some of the distinguishing features of Argentina’s ERTs as workers’ co-operatives. To illustrate how these features play out in practice, we map out some of the innovations impelled by ERT workers’ desire to self-manage that they adopt in order to defend their jobs and workspaces, as well as several of the challenges faced by these experiments in self-management. Lastly, we examine some of the connections with the wider ERT phenomenon in South America. As we emphasize throughout, ERT’s innovations and challenges shape their very organizational structures and co-operative practices and in some ways distinguish them from other workers’ co-operatives in other conjunctures.

Autogestión and the Worker-Recuperated Enterprises in Argentina: The Potential for Reconstituting Work and Recomposing Life

by Marcelo Vieta

Paper presented at the 2008 Anarchist Studies Network conference, "Re-imagining Revolution," in the panel: “‘¡Autogestión ya!’ The promises and challenges of self-management in Argentina’s worker-recuperated enterprises,” Saturday, Sept. 6, 2008.

The Argentine worker-recuperated enterprises (empresas recuperdas por sus trabajadores, or ERT) are direct, diverse,... more The Argentine worker-recuperated enterprises (empresas recuperdas por sus trabajadores, or ERT) are direct, diverse, and mostly non-union aligned responses by roughly 10,000 urban-based workers to recent socio-economic crises. Over ten years since the first workplace occupations and their recoveries as self-managed workers' cooperatives, this latest wave of workers’ struggle in Argentina has shown promising alternatives to capital-labour relations and the neoliberal enclosures of life.

But why were almost 200 failing, closed, or bankrupted small- and medium-sized businesses spanning the entire urban economic base subsequently occupied and reopened as self-managed workplaces by former employees in Argentina since at least 1997? Why do most ERTs decide to reorganize themselves as workers’ cooperatives? Why do many of them also decide to open up the shop floor to the diverse communities surrounding them, symbolically and practically tearing down factory walls by sharing their workplaces with community centres and dining halls, free clinics, popular education programmes, alternative radio and media centres, and art studios? Finally, why Argentina?

To begin to answer these questions, I first explore some of Argentina’s key socio-economic and historical conjunctures motivating workspace occupations and the formation of self-managed workers’ cooperatives. Second, I begin to theorize the concept of autogestión (self-management) as it tends to be practiced by Argentina’s ERTs. Third, I sketch out some of the ERTs’ most common micro-economic and organizational successes and challenges, exploring how the struggle to reconstitute a once capitalist workplace as a self-managed workers’ coop interplays with an ERT’s reconstituted labour processes. I conclude by appraising the future possibilities of ERTs for social transformation in Argentina by mapping out four “social innovations” being spearheaded by the phenomenon.

The 'New Cooperativism' in Latin America: Worker-Recuperated Enterprises and Socialist Production Units

by Marcelo Vieta

Co-authored with Manuel Larrabure & Daniel Schugurensky. (2011, Autumn). In a special issue of Studies in the Education of Adults entitled "Social Movement Learning: A Contemporary Re-examination," 43(2), pp. 181-196.

In the first decade of the 21st century, efforts to create alternatives to neoliberalism emerged in many parts of... more In the first decade of the 21st century, efforts to create alternatives to neoliberalism emerged in many parts of Latin America. Social movements across the region took to the streets, occupied abandoned factories, and started to create new democratic spaces, solidarity networks, and social economy initiatives. In one country after another, progressive governments began to take office, promising a break from the past. It was in this context that the new cooperativism emerged in Latin America. In contrast to traditional cooperativism in the region, this new movement emerged as a direct response by workers and communities to the economic and political crisis of the late 1990s, displays stronger horizontal organisation and democratic values, and has deeper connections to surrounding communities. In this paper, we present two case studies that exemplify this new cooperativism: Venezuela's Socialist Production Units and Argentina's Worker-Recuperated Enterprises. Using the framework of social movement learning, we argue that in both these cases participants learn new values and practices, and collectively create prefigurative knowledge that anticipate post-capitalist social relations. This is done through a variety of everyday activities, and in particular, through democratic participation in self-governance. However, this new cooperativism faces important challenges from both the state and market forces, suggesting that their autonomy is subjected to shifting and contested dynamics.

The Social Innovations of Autogestión in Argentina’s Worker-Recuperated Enterprises: Cooperatively Reorganizing Productive Life in Hard Times

by Marcelo Vieta

(2010, September). Labor Studies Journal, 35(3), pp. 295-321.

Argentina’s worker-recuperated enterprises (empresas recuperadas por sus trabajadores [ERTs]) have shown to be... more Argentina’s worker-recuperated enterprises (empresas recuperadas por sus trabajadores [ERTs]) have shown to be promising grassroots solutions by workers to the sociopolitical and socioeconomic crises that resulted from the country’s collapsing neoliberal model at the turn of the millennium. The author first explores the historical conjuncture in which ERTs emerged. Second, the author theoretically situates ERTs’ practices of autogestión (self-management) and workers’ cooperativism. Third, he sketches out their most common microeconomic and organizational challenges. Last, the author maps out four “social innovations” being spearheaded by ERTs, appraising the social and economic transformations that these innovations prefigure, especially during hard economic times.

The Origins of Employer Demand for Immigrants in a New Destination

by Carl L Bankston

Co-authored with Katharine Donato

The Beginnings of a Movement: Leagues of Agrarian Communities, Unions of Industrial Workers, and Their Struggles in Mexico, 1920-1929

by Miles Rodriguez

Ph.D. Doctoral Dissertation, Harvard University, 2010, 344 pages

This study is the history of a worker and peasant movement that organized in Mexico during the 1920s. At the beginning... more This study is the history of a worker and peasant movement that organized in Mexico during the 1920s. At the beginning of 1929, labor unions and agrarian leagues united into a single worker-peasant movement, with organizational components dedicated to meeting worker and peasant demands through agrarian reform, union struggle, and electoral politics. The study thus follows as closely as possible the internal and broader struggles of each separate organization, how the organizations built power, first in the period when they were separate (1920-1926), then in the period when they united (1927-1929), and finally in the period when they divided (March-July, 1929). The first chapter is dedicated to discovering the ways in which leagues of agrarian communities arose in many regions of Mexico in the early 1920s, and how the agrarian league in Veracruz then combined with other leagues on a national level. Because workers in the railroad industry made the greatest difference for the ways in which workers in the country's main, national industries, and in independent, autonomous unions, united during this decade, the second and third chapters detail the struggles of railroad transportation workers during a major class conflict. In chapters four and five, on mass struggles for worker- peasant unity, I argue that the unification of worker and peasant organizations into two different kinds of alliances, an independent union confederation and an electoral bloc, derived from earlier experiences of conflict, contemporaneous debates on worker-peasant unity, and opportunities opened by the growing national crisis. After it united on political grounds, the movement divided on military grounds, during and immediately after the Escobar Rebellion of 1929, which is the subject of the final chapter.

In Search of a Wide-Angle Lens

by Harold Braswell

Selected as one of the winners of the Hastings Center Report's
Young Scholar Essay Contest

Published in the Hastings Center Report 41, no. 3 (2011): 19-21

What issues should bioethics be looking at in the next forty years? Rather than take on new issues, I believe... more What issues should bioethics be looking at in the next forty years? Rather than take on new issues, I believe bioethicists should rethink our approach to bioethical topics more generally. Doing so will require refashioning the field itself, but such a reinvention is the only way we can help bioethics live up to its initial ideals and be relevant to our society. The problem is the way we have framed our approaches to the field’s key topics. We have been obsessed with questions of abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, and the like. But the very framing of these issues in bioethical discourse can obscure the underlying forces that create the problems.