Precarious Workers and Collective Efficacy

Abstract

Scholars of contemporary capitalism have argued that the rise of flexible accumulation and precarious employment has left workers disillusioned and adrift, experiencing an erosion of solidarities and human bonds. In contrast, this study uncovers a sense of collective efficacy where existing scholarship would lead us to least expect it: among workers who are, structurally, among the most marginal and vulnerable. The case examined is a Chicago living wage campaign, which for three long years mobilized workers laboring outside of traditional employment relationships. Why would a sense of collective efficacy emerge when participants’ ability to make change had remained in doubt for years? Why would workers who lack structural power come to feel so efficacious? Drawing on in-depth interviews with campaign participants, I argue that their understandings of power arose from their experience of collective action. The case sheds new light on our understanding of identity and subjectivity under contemporary capitalism.