Social movements in times of inequalities: Struggling against austerity in Europe

Abstract

This article focuses on changing patterns in labor mobilization in the shadow of the Great Recession. While the Great Recession has produced a return of the movements in the streets and the squares of many European countries, labor has mobilized in very different forms in different countries and circumstances. During the crisis, protests took forms resonant with Polanyi-like countermovements but also with Wallerstein-like antisystemic movements, with the latter spreading especially where the disruption of the quotidian was stronger. The article addresses anti-austerity protests, with particular attention to the development of the labor movements in light of the 2008 financial crisis, looking at some quantitative indicators of unions’ strength/weakness and industrial conflict in European countries, but also at qualitative evidence on the role unions have played in the struggles against austerity and increasing inequalities, particularly in the European periphery that suffered the recession's consequences.