Newspapers, Rallies, Strikes

This chapter focuses on the early decades of the twentieth century across the Indies, which saw major shifts in the public sphere, from experiments in fiction, publishing, and dramatic acting to unprecedented initiatives in associational activity and, in due course, revolutionary political action. It introduces the pioneering newspaperman Tirto Adhi Soerjo, who played a prominent role in the founding of the first mass movement in the Indies, the Sarekat Islam (SI), and his fellow journalist and SI activist Marco Kartodikromo. The chapter then highlights the first decades of the twentieth century, in which enterprising Europeans and Eurasian Indos, Hadhrami Arabs, and both totok and peranakan Chinese engaged in unprecedented initiatives in the realm of associational activity, founding modern schools and organizations that challenged established hierarchies of “traditional” education, authority, and identity among the small minority communities. The chapter also discusses the important consequences of reformist and revolutionary republican organizing efforts of the 1900s for the communities of the Chinese diaspora, especially in the Netherlands East Indies. Ultimately, the chapter investigates how the shift in the direction of labor mobilization, union organizing, and strike activity in the Indies in 1917–1918 coincided with developments around the world to encourage and inspire an escalation of social activism and political action by the SI in the late 1910s and early-mid 1920s.

Testing Marx. Income Inequality, Concentration, and Socialism in Late 19th Century Germany

We study the dynamics of income inequality, capital concentration, and voting outcomes before 1914. Based on new panel data for Prussian counties and districts we re-evaluate the key economic debate between Marxists and their critics before 1914. We show that the increase in inequality was strongly correlated with a rising capital share, as predicted by Marxists at the time. In contrast, rising capital concentration was not associated with increasing income inequality. Relying on new sector×county data, we show that increasing strike activity worked as an offsetting factor. Similarly, the socialists did not directly benefit from rising inequality at the polls, but from the activity of trade unions. Overall, we find evidence for a rise in the bargaining power of workers, which limited the increase in inequality before 1914. (Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality Working Paper Series)

The level playing field of Hungarian social partners before and during the COVID-19 pandemic : Case studies from the automotive industry

For numerous reasons, social dialogue in Hungary generally does not fulfil its role on the national, sectoral, or workplace level. Social dialogue as a democratic process is dysfunctional, since its institutions and mechanisms are not implemented democratically, and no real dialogue or actual debate take place. Instead, these mechanisms work in a top-down manner – the illiberal state and its central governing bodies expect certain solutions and answers, leaving no scope for transparent democratic dialogue with the relevant social partners. Against this background, in 2019 major strike activity was witnessed in the automotive sector. However, in 2020, after the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hungarian government deployed its full power by adopting the ‘Authorization Act,’ which allowed the government to introduce significant restrictions, practically without any time limits, any debate in parliament, or guarantee of swift and effective constitutional review. Our research paper investigates these recent developments in social dialogue using a case study, with the aim of understanding the forces underlying the collective action organized in the automotive sector. Our research demonstrates that, due to the lack of institutional guarantees, social dialogue is very fragile in Hungary, and the landslide victory in 2019 was a mere reflection of labour shortages. Our mixed methodology – which combines legal and sociological approaches – is suitable for examining this complex issue; interviews conducted with representatives of labour and employers provide deep insight into motives and action in a circumvented level playing field.

A Feminist Political Economy Critique of ‘the Militant Minority’

Recent growth in strike activity in the United States and Canada has motivated a broad scholarship on union organizing and labour movement revitalization. However, researchers and activists particularly concerned with the role of member mobilization in union renewal have downplayed institutional changes to labour law and regulation which might address the decline of union density and worker power. This commentary offers a feminist political economy critique of recent works on ‘the rank and file strategy’ and ‘the militant minority’ by arguing that greater focus should be devoted to how North American labour law and decentralized bargaining continue to impede union renewal. The article briefly traces the gendered legacy of ‘Wagnerism’ and the latter’s growing incompatibility with contemporary workplaces and forms of employment. It then makes the case for thinking through how organizing could also push for labour law reform, particularly towards broader-based, sectoral forms of collective bargaining and labour market regulation.

Strike Ballots, Democracy, and Law

The purpose of the research upon which this book is based was empirically to investigate whether the ballot requirements in the Fair Work Act do indeed impose a significant obstacle to the taking of industrial action, and whether those provisions are indeed impelled by a legitimate ‘democratic imperative’. The book starts from the proposition that virtually all national legal systems, and international law, recognise the right to strike as a fundamental human right. It acknowledges, however, that in no case is this recognition without qualification. Amongst the most common qualifications is a requirement that to be lawful strike action must first be approved by a ballot of workers concerned. Often, these requirements are said to be necessary to protect the democratic rights of the workers concerned: this is the so-called ‘democratic imperative’. In order to evaluate the true purpose and effect of ballot requirements the book draws upon the detailed empirical study of the operation of the Australian legislative provisions noted above; a comparative analysis of law and practice in a broad range of countries, with special reference to Canada, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States; and the jurisprudence of the supervisory bodies of the International Labour Organisation. It finds that in many instances ballot requirements – especially those relating to quorum – are more concerned with curtailing strike activity than with constructively responding to the democratic imperative. Frequently, they also proceed from a distorted perception of what ‘democracy’ could and should entail in an industrial context. Paradoxically, the study also finds that in some contexts ballot requirements can provide additional bargaining leverage for unions. Overall, however, the study confirms our hypothesis that the principal purpose of ballot requirements – especially in Australia and the United Kingdom – is to curtail strike activity rather than to vindicate the democratic imperative, other than on the basis of a highly attenuated reading of that term. We believe that the end-result constitutes an important study of the practical operation of a complex set of legal rules, and one which exposes the dichotomy between the ostensible and real objectives underpinning the adoption of those rules. It also furnishes a worked example of multi-methods empirical, comparative and doctrinal legal research in law, which we hope will inspire similar approaches to other areas of labour law.

Trade and Strike Activity in the Postwar United States

This paper examines the effect of international trade on strike activity within the United States since World War II. Globalization may influence strike activity through its effects on the bargaining position of labor. Alternatively, if labor and management take their changed bargaining positions into account, the rate of change in openness could create greater uncertainty in negotiations between them and lead to more strikes as a result. Empirical analysis of strike activity in the 50 states over this period supports the argument concerning uncertainty in the bargaining process. Import competition may also indirectly reduce strike activity by decreasing union density.

Time and Global Capitalism

This article cross-relates four epistemes of time (epochality, time reckoning, temporality, and coevalness) with four materializations of time (hegemony, conflict, crisis, and rupture). Understanding the terms within this framework allows us to depict global capitalism as epochally distinctive, riven by time conflicts, prone to recurring financial crises, and vulnerable to collective opposition. Time conflicts materialize across the areas of financialization and capital realization, worker exploitation and transnational supply chains, and the political economies of national and transnational state governance. Initially, these critical insights about the historicity and instability of global capitalism were obscured by the perpetual now-ness of corporate brand culture, 24/7 global television, and digital communication networks. Worldwide structural exclusions of the poor and their experiences of time were also obscured, a process the article defines as a “denial of coevalness.” With the 2008 financial crisis, the time conflicts of financialized capitalism became obviously unmanageable. National and transnational attempts to resolve the crisis simply reproduced the time conflicts of financialization. And structural exclusions of the global poor were further entrenched. However, these developments triggered a confluence of occupation movements, riots, protests, strike activity, and anti-austerity activism, raising the prospect of a sustained collective challenge to global capitalism.

The struggle for a new labor regime: The US

This essay examines the American labor movement since the 2008 economic crisis. I begin with a brief review of the structural, institutional, and organizational conditions for labor before the crisis, including changes in employment and the labor force, the conflict between New Deal and anti-union labor regimes, and the emergence of new repertoires in the labor movement. These form the context for the financial crash, and the failure of policy to challenge corporate power. I then discuss the conservative political offensive against unions and movement initiatives at state and local levels. The conflicts have intensified under the Trump administration, with a resurgence of strike activity and the polarization of institutions governing labor and civic life.