Class identity in times of social mobilization and labor union revitalization: Evidence from the case of Chile (2009–2019)

2021 ◽  
pp. 001139212110560
Author(s):  
Pablo Pérez Ahumada ◽  
Valentina Andrade
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Labor Union ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
Class Identity ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
The Past ◽  
Unskilled Workers ◽  
Privileged Class ◽  
International Social

Over the past decade, there has been a revival of social protest and labor union activity in Chile. In this article, we examine the effects of this phenomenon to analyze its influence on working-class identity. Using International Social Survey Programme surveys from 2009 and 2019, we investigate whether class location and union membership affect people’s subjective identification with the working class and how that effect may have changed over the decade. Our findings suggest that subjects who are situated in a ‘subordinated’ class position (unskilled workers or informal self-employed workers) are more likely to identify with the working class compared to subjects located in a privileged class position (employers, experts, or managers). However, surprisingly, our analysis does not indicate that working-class identity is reinforced by union membership. In addition, our results do not demonstrate that the effect of class or union membership has strengthened over the past decade. At the end of this article, we offer some possible explanations for these findings.

scholarly journals Deflecting Privilege: Class Identity and the Intergenerational Self

Sociology ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 003803852098222
Author(s):  
Sam Friedman ◽  
Dave O’Brien ◽  
Ian McDonald
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Long Range ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Extended Family ◽  
Class Identity ◽  
Origin Stories ◽  
Class Privilege ◽  
Privileged Class

Why do people from privileged class backgrounds often misidentify their origins as working class? We address this question by drawing on 175 interviews with those working in professional and managerial occupations, 36 of whom are from middle-class backgrounds but identify as working class or long-range upwardly mobile. Our findings indicate that this misidentification is rooted in a self-understanding built on particular ‘origin stories’ which act to downplay interviewees’ own, fairly privileged, upbringings and instead forge affinities to working-class extended family histories. Yet while this ‘intergenerational self’ partially reflects the lived experience of multigenerational upward mobility, it also acts – we argue – as a means of deflecting and obscuring class privilege. By positioning themselves as ascending from humble origins, we show how these interviewees are able to tell an upward story of career success ‘against the odds’ that simultaneously casts their progression as unusually meritocratically legitimate while erasing the structural privileges that have shaped key moments in their trajectory.

Trade unionism in Europe: Are the working class still members?

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-120
Author(s):  
Carsten Strøby Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Trade Unionism

How far does social class position influence the likelihood that employees will be members of a trade union? I use European Social Survey data to compare trade union membership of ‘working-class’ and ‘middle- and upper class’ employees in different European countries. Although the former dominate the trade unions in absolute numbers in most (but not all) countries, the likelihood that the latter will be members of a trade union is higher in most of the countries analysed.

scholarly journals A Decline in the Social Status of the Working Class? Conflicting Evidence for 8 Western Countries, 1987–2017

2021 ◽  
pp. 001041402110474
Author(s):  
Daniel Oesch ◽  
Nathalie Vigna
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Subjective Social Status ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Conflicting Evidence ◽  
The Status ◽  
Unskilled Workers

The consensus view among political scientists is that the subjective social status of low-skilled workers has declined over the last decades, and this status loss of the working class is seen as contributing to the rise of the radical right. We examine the micro-foundation of this claim by tracing the evolution of subjective status for different social classes in Europe and the US. We use all available survey rounds of the International Social Survey Programme 1987–2017 and replicate findings with the European Social Survey 2002–2016. While unskilled workers perceive their status to be lower than members of the middle class everywhere, we find no relative or absolute fall in their subjective social status over time. Unskilled workers were at the bottom of the status hierarchy in the 1990s and 2010s. Our findings throw doubt on the narrative that sees workers’ falling subjective social status as a prominent driver behind the rise of the radical right.

scholarly journals The Remains of the Socialist Legacy: The Influence of Socialist Socialization on Attitudes toward Income Inequality

Societies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zsófia S. Ignácz
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Cohort Analysis ◽  
Substantial Effect ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
The Past ◽  
Country Differences ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
International Social

Despite convergence processes between Western and post-socialist societies in the past three decades, there are still considerable cross-country differences in individuals’ attitudes toward income inequality. To explain these differences, studies have primarily focused on the role of macro level differences and have only theoretically acknowledged how the role of diverging socialization experiences could also be responsible. To date, little is known about the importance of socialization for attitudes toward income inequality. This article assesses whether the differences between Western and post-socialist countries are influenced by socialization effects. Applying an adapted age-period-cohort analysis on the dataset of the International Social Survey Program’s (ISSP) “Social Inequality” module in survey years 1992, 1999, and 2009, the paper shows that socialization has a substantial effect on attitudes and a socialist socialization clearly differentiates individuals from post-socialist countries from Westerners. Results underline that experiences gained in formative years are crucial for attitudes. A further finding is that both perception and preferences toward income inequality are influenced by socialization.

scholarly journals The Media’s Influence on the Government: A Case Study of Venezuela’s Media Agenda Setting with a Non-Free Press and Its Repercussions

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-287
Author(s):  
Susan M. Fredricks ◽  
Joshua D. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Media Culture ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Free Press ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Government ◽  
Citizens Attitudes ◽  
International Social

A free and open press (unincumbered by political pressures) is necessary to hold government officials accountable. When governments become entangled in the business of licensing and regulating news outlets, news outlets succumb to the pressures of only publishing stories favorable to the current regime. The temptation to publish negative stories could result in losing one’s publishing license. This scenario has been playing out in Venezuela for the past two decades and has led to a media culture of misinformation, confusion, and propaganda. This paper first analyzes the Venezuelan view on the influential forces on its government through the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). Second, it explores how the Venezuelan government vanquished the free press by affecting the Venezuelan citizens’ attitudes towards the press. Finally, it reviews how the internet and social media are creating new avenues for publishing uncensored and unregulated information in an effort to challenge current government restrictions.

The identity of class in Latin America: Objective class position and subjective class identification in Argentina and Chile (2009)

2018 ◽  
Vol 66 (5) ◽  
pp. 724-747 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodolfo Elbert ◽  
Pablo Pérez
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Service Sector ◽  
Group Formation ◽  
Class Identity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Class Identification ◽  
Privileged Class ◽  
Economic Concentration

Class identity is a key mechanism in the explanation of class-based collective action. For decades, this was particularly relevant in Latin America, where objective class inequality was persistent and there was a long history of collective action, originating in the workplace and expressed through unions and labor parties. Despite persistent inequalities in the region, since the 1990s scholars increasingly claimed that the relation between objective class position and subjective class identification weakened significantly, and that class dynamics centered on work were no longer central to explain group formation and collective action among the popular sectors. While in countries like Argentina scholars have explained these processes by focusing on the effects of the de-industrialization of the economy and the informalization of the job market, in Chile analysts have done so by emphasizing the growth of the service sector and the emergence of a middle-class society where ‘old-fashioned’ working-class identities have become irrelevant. This article questions these arguments based on a comparative analysis of the relationship between objective class position and subjective class identification in Argentina and Chile in 2009. The results show that class still matters. In both countries, people with a working-class position or a working-class trajectory are significantly more likely to uphold working-class identity than individuals with a privileged class position or trajectory. Surprisingly, the authors’ analysis also demonstrates that the overall rates of working-class identification are higher in Chile than in Argentina. The authors explain these unexpected results by looking at contemporary class-related phenomena (e.g. higher inequality and economic concentration in Chile) and longer-term class dynamics (particularly differences stemming from the ‘radical’ party–union configuration in Chile and the state-corporatist incorporation of labor in Argentina).

scholarly journals How do union membership, union density and institutionalization affect perceptions of conflict between management and workers?

2020 ◽  
pp. 095968012096354
Author(s):  
Josef Ringqvist
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Union Density ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
The Individual ◽  
International Social

This article contributes to debates about trade unions and conflict by studying how individuals’ perceptions of conflicts between management and workers relate to trade union membership, country-level trade union density and institutionalization (collective bargaining coverage, centralization and policy concertation). Hierarchical multi-level models are fitted to data from the International Social Survey Programme from 2009. The results show that union members tend to be more likely than non-members to perceive management–worker conflicts and that this appears not to vary substantially between countries. However, regardless of union membership, individuals in countries with higher trade union density and with policy concertation tend to be significantly less likely to perceive conflicts. These findings highlight the risk of atomic fallacies in research limited to the individual-level effects of union membership. Contrary to an argument often raised by pluralists, neither bargaining coverage nor centralization has significant effects. Overall, the results question depictions of trade unions as divisive organizations.

Nothing but His Labor

2020 ◽  
pp. 69-97
Author(s):  
Jarod Roll
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Government Regulation ◽  
Labor Union ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Wage Labor ◽  
Fundamental Nature ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Future ◽  
Zinc Production

The working miners who turned to zinc production in the 1870s transformed the fundamental nature of the district in the 1880s. This chapter explores how their zinc producing operations encouraged gradual increases in the scale of mining that used more machines and a new reliance on wage labor. Although these changes threatened the continuation of the poor man’s camp, most working miners continued to expect the future to be like the past, to expect that they too could succeed in capitalism like the miners before them. These expectations frustrated organizers from the era’s biggest labor union, the Knights of Labor. Miners rejected the solidarity of the Knights, which included calls for government regulation of the mines, particularly regarding health and safety, and instead continued to pursue risk as the best chance at working-class prosperity.

Harold, Marg, and the Boys: The Relevance of Class in Canadian History

2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-56
Author(s):  
Craig Heron
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Fluid Dynamic ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
Class Identity ◽  
Canadian History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The World ◽  
Means Of Production

Abstract Class has been a controversial category of historical analysis. Historians and social theorists have often attacked its relevance, but even those who find it a helpful way of understanding the past (and present) have had to deal with challenges from new theoretical perspectives, especially from those sensitive to gender and race. They have also had to recognize that there is no direct link between the material situation of members of a social class and their consciousness of their social situation. Diverse discourses emerge to give meaning to social experience, and are adopted, adapted, or rejected to varying degrees. This paper suggests that, after three decades of debate, we should now consider class formation as a fluid, dynamic process of social differentiation through which people’s lives are shaped by the pressures, constraints, and opportunities of their situation in relation to the means of production, the divisions of labour within patriarchy, and the racial distinctions in particular societies; but also one in which people negotiate their own understandings of the world and act on them. To illustrate this process at work, the paper discusses the lives of one working-class family in suburban Toronto from the 1940s to the 1970s and their engagement with new postwar social developments. They not only shaped distinctively working-class forms of gender, suburbanism, religion, ethnicity, citizenship, popular culture, meritocracy, and consumerism; but also wove all of those into a distinctively working-class identity.

What’s Good for George Sánchez Is Good for Boyle Heights: Regenerative Scholarship, Urban Racism, Gentrification, and East LA Interchange

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilbert Estrada
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Urban Pollution ◽  
Metropolitan Regions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Award Winning ◽  
Boyle Heights ◽  
Good For ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Deed Restrictions ◽  
Class Community

The inclusive ideals of George Sánchez have helped shape a new generation of academics who have promoted connections with nonacademic organizations. This article discusses how Sánchez has continued these efforts through his pivotal contributions to an award-winning documentary focusing on the multiethnic, working-class community of Boyle Heights: Betsy Kalin’s film East LA Interchange (2015). East LA Interchange’s greatest contribution to the generative scholarship Sánchez emphasizes is its critical analysis of modern urban problems, utilizing history as a tool for social change. The story of Boyle Heights is not just a history of a single working-class community with a diverse culture. It is also a tale of a neighborhood trying to solve real world problems such as gentrification, unaffordable housing, community displacement, and urban pollution. The film portrays these difficulties in the present while showing that they originated decades ago. Sánchez and East LA Interchange are at their best when they provide the historical contexts of contemporary problems, emphasizing that history is not only the study of the past. Rather, history is the unending dialogue between the past, present, and future, and any significant discourse on today’s urban ills must be rooted in the past. For students and others interested in the diverse communities common in many US metropolitan regions, East LA Interchange has much to offer regarding the issues of immigration, redlining, deed restrictions, political activism, freeway construction, living with racially and ethnically diverse community members, and the nationwide problem of gentrification. These themes, especially gentrification, are the primary focus of this article.

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