Mobilising operaismo in the digital age: Continuities and ruptures with the 1960s ‘mass worker’ struggles

This chapter introduces the book’s main topics and analytical frame. With the development of societal meta-processes of change such as digitalization, individualization and globalization, the condition of collective action are under transformation. The main question, addressed by this book, is whether a new form of collective action – connective action – can be empirically identified when looking at the late developments in Norway. The need for formal organizations and selective incentives has been emphasized as a solution to the “collective action problem”. Digitalization, by enabling “organizing without organizations” is expected to enhance new forms of collective action that are more individualized and do not require formal organizations. Additionally, since digital networks cross territorial boundaries, collective action is expected to take a transnational character. With such a backdrop, the contributions assembled in this book, based on extensive empirical investigations, examine the extent to which digitalization transforms civic engagement, whether the boundary between volunteerism and political activism are becoming increasingly blurred, whether new organizing forms are emerging in the wake of digitalization, and whether it is possible to identify new forms of transnational collective action. Taken together, the contributions to this book do not support the emergence of a new form of collective action. On the contrary, in spite of the transformations affecting the forms of collective action and civic engagement, the empirical evidence emphasize the continued importance of the infrastructure constituted of civil society organizations for supporting collective action.

This article maps important trends that mark a new stage in neoliberal capitalism since 2008, with a focus on class struggle and resistance in the advanced industrial democracies. New forms of collective action have arisen in response to austerity which has been imposed, in different forms, across most of the advanced industrial democracies, in a context in which established solidaristic institutions – trade unions, social democratic parties, welfare states – have already been eroded as a result of the preceding twenty five years of neoliberal reform. The article presents an overview of these trends, highlighting austerity policies and anti-austerity responses. The article accounts for the rise of new forms of resistance and collective action as they have emerged differently in different national contexts, focusing on developments in the UK, US, Spain, Japan and Germany.

Post-Truth Protest: How 4chan Cooked Up the Pizzagate Bullshit

Eusebi Colàs-Neila considers trade union participation and new forms of collective action in Spain, using recent pension reforms as a case study. There are several factors that weaken the influence and traditional position of Spanish trade unions as relevant political and socio-economic actors. Despite this, their efforts to adapt to the new context must be emphasised, as they have explored and implemented new strategies and instruments, thus promoting solidarity through the creation of new networked alliances with other stakeholders. This contribution is focused on the democratic mechanisms of participation in regulatory processes used by unions and how they have adapted their approaches and tools of collective action to continue having an influence in this field. In particular, the role that unions have played in the reforms of Spain’s public pension system is analysed as a case study, using a diachronic perspective as it helps to combine tradition and innovation as regards the actors involved and instruments used. The unions’ participation has traditionally been articulated through the so-called Toledo Pact system of corporatist decision-making. Although the government departed from this mechanism, disrupting the unions’ capacity to mobilise influence, organised labour has been able to create new alliances with NGOs and other associations, thus collectively exploring the use of alternative legislative procedures, such as the popular legislative initiative. Additionally, the rise of new grassroots movements of pensioners in response to the discontent generated with pension reforms and the role of the most representative trade unions in this regard are also considered as new manifestations of solidarity and influence on the part of organised labour in Spain.

This essay focuses on the new forms of collective action and the rules of the 'strategic game of actors' in a territorial planning context. Looking for answers to these questions, I link three kinds of empirical materials: the evolution of electoral participation and associational involvement of the Portuguese; the different forms of intervention of stakeholders, organizations in strategic planning processes; and, finally, I present a typology that seeks to interrogate the different logics of social action of the different kinds of actors. The essay concludes that the 'new planning' calls for new forms of collective action, but these new forms can give rise, simultaneously, to forms of alienation, manipulation or emancipation.

The evolution of Web 2.0 user‐generated content has opened the door to new forms of collective action and social movement building. In asking if the benefits outweigh the risks, this paper brings Gramsci's theorization of activism into the twenty‐first century, where the newspaper has been replaced by social medial tools and the Organic Intellectual has gone virtual. Through the examples of #BlackLivesMatter, #IdleNoMore, and #MarchForOurLives, this paper argues that the digital age, despite limitations, has created unique opportunities for unprecedented social movement building. Activists are identified as key educators and passionate persuaders in these nonformal sites of learning, demonstrating how, through #hashtag activism, these virtual organic intellectuals are emerging to disrupt and challenge power in the digital age.

Digital networking technology has helped to bring about the platform economy, in which online networking sites mediate between individual freelance workers and their temporary employers. However, the digital platform economy undermines traditional forms of collective action, particularly trade unions. Following reflections on 15 years of trade union software quality assurance initiatives, particularly the Swedish UserAward program, we realize that there are potential benefits in combining aspects of cooperative, guild, and trade union models in the context of the platform economy. We examine the role that these models could play in enabling new forms of collective action and we bring them together in the form of a conceptual model which we have called the Platform Review Alliance Board. We articulate the Platform Review Alliance model as a set of design patterns, which we invite stakeholders to comment on, refine, and ultimately subscribe to. We then apply these design patterns in the domain of transport. In this domain, we show how software producers, users of the software, and other stakeholders, including individual transport providers, can participate in a Review Alliance Board for the commissioning, production, and review of software platforms for transport systems. The contribution we make is to propose how membership in a Review Alliance Board can be an alternative strategy for both software producers and trade union representatives in taking collective action to assure the quality of workplace software in the context of the growing platform economy.

Addressing socio-ecological development challenges in the digital age: Exploring the potential of Environmental Virtual Observatories for Connective Action (EVOCA)

ABSTRACTThe classical conceptualization of the working class, of workers’ collective action and, especially, of trade unionism, was implicitly or explicitly based on the Standard Employment Relationship that, for a few decades, has been dominant in North America, Europe, Japan and Australasia. The ‘classical’ model of collective bargaining, which has shaped the world's traditional labour movements, was based on this conceptualization. However, it is now increasingly undermined by the rapid spread of ‘informal’ or ‘precarious’ labour in the global North. It is our contention that the ‘classical’ view of the working class and workers’ collective action is fundamentally biased and takes as a norm or standard what was in fact an historical exception. The real norm or standard in global capitalism is insecurity, informality or precariousness, and the Standard Employment Relationship is an historical phenomenon which had a deep impact in a limited part of the world for a relatively short period of time. If, as we argue, the ‘Rest’ is not now becoming like the ‘West’, but the other way round, then the ‘traditional’ forms of collective action that have developed in the North Atlantic region during the last two centuries are gradually losing much of their impact. New forms of collective action are emerging, though these are often still at an embryonic stage. It is, therefore, high time to rethink the concept of the working class and the ways in which it can further its interests.

This book addresses the different forms of austerity, contestation and resistance, in order to understand how they relate to one another and the impact they have on the democratic quality of public debates, the trust in public institutions and the legitimacy of law. Contestation of austerity includes not only traditional activism strategies such as human rights litigation and direct democracy instruments, but also new forms of collective action and collaborative resistance. Most importantly, many of the new anti-austerity initiatives also aim to renovate existing modes of democratic decision-making on the European, national, regional and local levels. The book focuses on different types of measures to contest austerity and the interaction between institutional and civil society actors. With 17 chapters written by contributors from Spain, Germany, Greece, Portugal and the UK, the book approaches three crucial areas of austerity policies: cuts in payment and pensions, labour law reform, and old and

This paper emphasizes the political and institutional dimensions of a different possible world, one that conjoins the desires of progressive social movements everywhere and gestures towards a hopeful vision of new forms of collective action. Thus, it tries to outline the politics and institutions that would be most compatible with meeting humanity's complex and manifold goals, even as other social, technological, and economic changes take place. Its primary focus is the institutional arrangements that would facilitate a democratic global politics in the future, but it also lays out some current trends that show promise towards realizing such a future.

ABSTRACTThis article sets out a framework for analysing the globalizing labour process, arguing that the old dualisms of ‘capital’ versus ‘labour’ and ‘formal sector’ versus ‘informal sector’ are inadequate and unhelpful. It begins by making conceptual distinctions between work and labour and between labour and labour power, and goes on to identify a globalizing class structure in which a ‘precariat’ is emerging as a potentially transformative new mass class. Denied so‐called ‘labour rights’ and social entitlements that went with twentieth century industrial citizenship, the growing precariat needs new systems of regulation, social protection and redistribution. These should be based on work and occupation rather than subordinated labour, will require new forms of collective action and representation, and should seek to redistribute the key assets of twenty‐first century tertiary societies, including income security, control of time, financial capital and the commons.

Background: Given several bottlenecks in Brazil in distribution logistics, mainly in transport and warehouse activities, some new forms of collective action have appeared. The Condominiums of Rural Warehouses was conceived of to overcome these bottlenecks and provide better income and competitiveness to small producers in agribusiness. This article aims to analyse aspects of collective action with the focus of Rural Condominiums in the context of Brazilian agribusiness. Methods: We conducted exploratory, descriptive and qualitative research under the Theory of Logic of Collective Action lens for this purpose. Besides conducting a literature review, we conducted a semi-structured interview with the managers of the Rural Warehouse Condominiums. We analysed the data through a Categorial Content Analysis. Results: The main results show an approximation of the rural model of the Condominiums of Rural Warehouses with the Theory of Logic of Collective Action, mainly for small producers. Conclusions: We highlight the feasibility of the warehouse structure collectively, as it strengthens and provides greater efficiency to rural business and producers, inserts and integrates the industry into a competitive market environment, provides economic and social benefits, leads to cost reduction, and increased profit. The economic, social and logistical determinants show the product’s commercialisation, logistical gains, and the producers’ association regarding the development and growth of rural collective action. This paper can be helpful for practitioners and researchers interested in this field.

La recherche sur la responsabilite sociale des entreprises (RSE) fait generalement l’hypothese qu’un comportement responsable est compatible avec le cadre legal et l’approche strategique standard de l’entreprise. Mais cette hypothese n’est-elle pas trop restrictive ? Cet article* montre que de recentes innovations « par la pratique » aux Etats-Unis, bien que constructives en matiere d’impact social et environnemental, ont du s’extraire du cadre de recherche de la RSE. Il s’agit de nouvelles options juridiques qui revisent la mission et le cadre legal de l’entreprise. De telles innovations suggerent que, pour penser de nouvelles formes d’action collective, la recherche en gestion devra mieux articuler les dynamiques du contractuel legal et de « l’attentionnel strategique ».

Since 2011 new social organizations emerged in Madrid whose main objective was the fight against increasing poverty and inequality produced by the implementation of structural adjustment policies. The chapter analyses a series of citizen initiatives along three axes (employment, citizen participation and provision of resources), focusing on their capacity to generate new ways of relating to institutions, in a context characterized by a neoliberal urban governance model. After the May 2015 local elections, the citizen platform Ahora Madrid took over the city government and remained until 2019. Given the strong link between Ahora Madrid and the 15-M movement and its government programme, a major expectation for change was created. However, after four years, the urban governance model did not change significantly. Government action adopted a depoliticising approach, meaning a break with the Ahora Madrid roots born from a democratising and re-politicising boots.