Wage Labor, Capital Accumulation, and the Crisis: 1968-1982

1983 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-162
Author(s):  
Robert Boyer
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Wage Labor ◽  
Lively Discussion

The deepening of the economic crisis in recent years has not failed to arouse lively discussion of the origins of the problem and the stakes involved. Against this background many analyses have been proposed of the labor movement, union strategies, and industrial relations. This is hardly surprising, given the fact that the effects of the crisis have been felt in almost every sphere of society.

Renewed Activism for the Labor Movement: The Urgency of Young Worker Engagement

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 391-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maite Tapia ◽  
Lowell Turner
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Development ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Labor Movements ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Young Workers ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Movement Building

In this article, the authors consider the findings of a multi-year, case study-based research project on young workers and the labor movement in four countries: France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The authors examine the conditions under which young workers actively engage in contemporary labor movements. Although the industrial relations context matters, the authors find the most persuasive explanations to be agency-based. Especially important are the relative openness and active encouragement of unions to the leadership development of young workers, and the persistence and creativity of groups of young workers in promoting their own engagement. Embodying labor’s potential for movement building and resistance to authoritarianism and right-wing populism, young workers offer hope for the future if unions can bring them aboard.

Organized Labor and Social Conflict in Japan

2020 ◽  
pp. 40-53
Author(s):  
Saori Shibata
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Social Conflict ◽  
Labor Relations ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Classic Model

This chapter analyzes the development of the Japanese labor movement throughout the postwar period. With some exceptions, workers in Japan have been predominantly organized in unions that have had a commitment to a relatively non-confrontational approach toward industrial relations. This organization has come to be challenged in more recent years, however, since the classic model of Japanese labor relations has faced increasing strain as part of the wider changes to the Japanese model of capitalism. Alongside this historical overview of organized labor, the chapter also considers the development of other (non-labor) social movements. This includes those movements that have emerged to promote the interests of social groups whose interests overlap with those of labor but who might not immediately identify themselves as part of the labor movement, such as the homeless, unemployed, and students. The trajectory of social conflict in Japan during the past thirty years has seen a move away from the classic model of social compromise. Various types of social conflict—both inside and outside of the workplace, and involving either workers or those less typically identified with organized labor—have become increasingly common.

Profitability and Distribution: The Origin of the Brazilian Economic and Political Crisis

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-133
Author(s):  
Adalmir Antonio Marquetti ◽  
Cecilia Hoff ◽  
Alessandro Miebach
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Real Wage ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Political Support ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Private Capital ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
The Government ◽  
Negative Growth

The PT governments combined elements of developmentalism and neoliberalism in a contradictory construction, organizing a large political coalition of workers and capitalists that allowed expanding the real wage and reducing poverty and inequality while maintaining the gains of productive and financing capitals. The decline of profitability after the 2008 crisis broke the class coalition constructed during Lula’s administration. The Dilma Rousseff government adopted a series of fiscal stimuli for private capital accumulation with meager economic growth. After her reelection, the government implemented an austerity program that resulted in negative growth rates. With the deepening economic crisis and without political support, Rousseff was removed from power. Os governos do PT combinaram elementos de desenvolvimentismo e neoliberalismo em uma construção contraditória, organizando uma grande coalizão política de trabalhadores e capitalistas que permitiu expandir o salário real e reduzir a pobreza e a desigualdade, mantendo os ganhos dos capitais produtivos e financeiros. O declínio da lucratividade após a crise de 2008 quebrou a coalizão de classes construída durante o governo Lula. O governo Dilma Rousseff adotou uma série de estímulos fiscais para a acumulação de capital privado com escasso crescimento econômico. Após sua reeleição, o governo implementou um programa de austeridade que resultou em taxas de crescimento negativas. Com o aprofundamento da crise econômica e sem apoio político, Dilma foi afastada do poder.

New Perspectives on Rosa Luxemburg’s Critique of Global Capitalism

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Hudis
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Trade ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Internal Dynamic ◽  
Capitalist Development ◽  
The One ◽  
Better Than

AbstractThe global economic-financial downturn has given new impetus to a re-examination of Rosa Luxemburg’s writings on capitalist accumulation and economic crisis, which pinpointed the central contradiction of capitalism in its drive for global expansion. In this article I critically engage Luxemburg’s theory of capital accumulation and crisis by evaluating it in comparison with the central categories of Volumes One and Two of Marx’sCapitalon the one hand, and the quest for an alternative to capitalism in the twenty-first century on the other. I argue that Marx’s procedure in Volume Two ofCapital, in which he abstracts from realization crises and foreign trade in order to discern the “law of motion” of capital freed from secondary and tertiary considerations, captures the internal dynamic of capitalist development and crises far better than its Keynesian and neo-Keynesian alternatives.

Trade Union Orientation and Macro-Economic Management

2003 ◽  
Vol 06 (03) ◽  
pp. 381-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalind Chew ◽  
Soon Beng Chew
Keyword(s):  
Labor Movement ◽  
Full Employment ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Free Rider ◽  
Exchange Rate Policy ◽  
Economic Management ◽  
Strategic Partner ◽  
Free Rider Problem ◽  
Rate Policy ◽  
The Government

This paper makes the distinction between micro-focused unions and macro-focused unions, with the latter emphasizing full employment and competitiveness for the economy. It examines the micro-foundation of the macro-focused labor movement, which calls for certain conditions or arrangements conducive to, and the instruments needed for, the establishment and survival of macro-focused unions. The consequences and outcomes in an industrial relations regime in which macro-focused unions prevail are also examined, and measures for countering the free rider problem suggested. The main conclusion is that a macro-focused labor movement is a strategic partner with the government in enhancing international competitiveness, an option which is superior to an exchange rate policy.

Business Unionism and Rank-and-File Unionism at the Turn of the Millennium

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana L. Cloud
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Turn Of The Millennium ◽  
Similar Transformation ◽  
Congress Of Industrial Organizations ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Industrial Organizations ◽  
Union Leadership ◽  
Labor Institutions ◽  
American Union

This chapter introduces the arguments of the book in the context of a summary of the critique of traditional American union leadership as pro-business and dangerously invested in partnerships with management. First, it chronicles the two waves of the American union movement, telling the story of the rise of democratic unionism with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and its subsequent decline in the postwar years. It then provides some examples from the 1990s and 2000s of instances in which conservative unions led workers to defeats, primarily because of the failure to prioritize rank-and-file action in favor of more administrative, legalistic, and consumer-oriented strategies. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the changing situation of labor today. It argues that that the story of the rise of the CIO provides an inspiring model of the birth of a fighting labor movement out of a period of fragmentation, exclusivity, and weakness in existing labor institutions. It further suggests that present conditions of economic crisis and the stirrings of a new militancy are ripe for a similar transformation.

scholarly journals Gig Economy, Austerty and “Uberization” of Labor in Brazil (2014 – 2019)

Argumentum ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 237-255
Author(s):  
Guilherme Nunes Pires ◽  
José Paulo Guedes Pinto
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Exponential Growth ◽  
Rapid Growth ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Labor Relations ◽  
The Other ◽  
Labor Rights ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Gig Economy ◽  
Global Trend

The aim of the present paper is to understand the exponential growth of “Uberization” of labor in Brazil by analyzing the economic crisis and the austerity program putted in practice from 2014. The emergence of Gig Economy and the “Uberization” of labor is a global trend in digital age and Brazil has experienced the exponential growth of these type of labor relations in recent years. Millions of Brazilian workers now have their entire income exclusively from digital platforms without labor rights. However, its only possible to understand this process considering the economic crisis and, as a response of it, the austerity program. The offensive of capital over labor as a response of the profitability crisis penalized the working class and provided the rapid growth of the “Uberization” of labor in Brazil and an alternative for the capital accumulation on the other side.

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