Alliance Of Workers Research Articles

C-frame thinking: Embedding behavioral economics into ecological economics

This paper aims to explore opportunities for integrating Behavioral Economics (BE) into Ecological Economics (EE). By examining the frames of analysis for both disciplines, this study categorizes BE as operating at the individual level (i-frame), while EE addresses systemic aspects of society (s-frame) and extends its considerations to the biosphere (n-frame), advocating for collective action through bottom-up intermediate-level interventions (c-frame).The study posits that EE can benefit from BE’s rich insights into human behavior and decision-making, especially for c-frame action strategies. However, integrating these disciplines requires finding common ontological and epistemological ground to avoid eclecticism and methodological flaws. The integration is approached in two steps: first, adapting BE epistemology to the systems thinking approach of EE, and second, addressing the ontological gap in BE regarding the world surrounding the individual. This paper argues that embedding BE within EE’s ontology points to the necessity of c-frame thinking for human decision-making.A case study of the ex-GKN factory in Italy demonstrates the practical benefits of c-frame thinking in a complex decision process. An alliance of workers, researchers, and civil society movements collaboratively developed a future plan that considered the needs of all stakeholders, showcasing the effectiveness of collective action.

On Kosík's Criticism of Pseudosubject

The purpose of this article is to shed light on the criticism that Czech Marxist philosopher Karel Kosík contributed to pseudosubject in his important work entitled The Crisis of Modernity. Pseudosubject in Kosík’s terminology, refers to the mystified pseudosubject hidden behind the two systems of free competition and bureaucratic rule. This pseudosubject not only governs the two systems but also develops into a kind of limitless subjectivism. The pseudosubject based on the principles of manipulability and calculability reduces man to pure tools for the operation of the system. Kosík holds that humanistic socialism can make people a real subject because it is the establishment of a revolutionary alliance of workers and intellectuals in practice and theoretically destroy the mystique and derivation of pseudosubjects in light of dialectics of concrete.

Agrarian movements and rural populism in Indonesia

AbstractIn this article, we reflect on the changing trajectories of agrarian movements in Indonesia. In the two decades after independence, a left‐populist alliance of peasants, plantation workers, and other affiliate organizations achieved a mass following and were embraced by President Sukarno. In the aftermath of their violent destruction, the Suharto regime reordered agrarian movements into a single corporatist model. Suharto's downfall opened the way for the re‐emergence of agrarian organizations and movements. But two decades later, they remain small and fragmented, with little influence at the national level. In the changing conditions of rural life, and the increasingly authoritarian political context, progressive rural movements face dilemmas on questions both of their focus and goals and of tactical alliances with other progressive movements and political elites. A broader, more inclusive progressive populist alliance is a possibility, but with the continuing danger of co‐optation by forces of the populist right.

Samir Amin and the Changing of the World

ABSTRACT This article examines the answers that Samir Amin, a well-known theorist of the Third World, gave to three questions: why, how and by whom the global capitalist system must be changed. Among other topics, the article outlines Amin’s theory of unequal development, the generalized monopolies, the five privileges of the global centre, Eurocentrism, “delinking,” “long transition,” progressive nationalism, and the global class structure. Amin’s participation in the fight for the emancipation of developing countries and of all of the world’s oppressed social classes will also be addressed, as will his last call for a global alliance of workers and the people.

The Democratic Limits of Populist Politics

The Democratic Limits of Populist Politics

Algorithmic Integration and Precarious (Dis)Obedience: On the Co-Constitution of Migration Regime and Workplace Regime in Digitalised Manufacturing and Logistics

This article analyses the interaction of the algorithmic workplace regime and the migration regime in manual work in platform logistics and manufacturing in Germany. Based on ethnographic case studies, the article reconstructs how companies integrate migrant workers by using systems of algorithmic work control. These simplify the labour process and direct workers without relying on a certain language. Algorithmic work control, however, does not realise its intended disciplining effects on its own but is dependent on external factors. A precarious residence status is such an external disciplining factor as it can create an implicit alliance of migrant workers with their employers in the hope for permanent residence. Nonetheless, the interaction of the two regimes also produced new forms of solidarity between the workers, which in some cases led to new forms of self-organisation. Thus, workplace regime and migration regime co-constitute each other.

The Labour Side of the Story: Informalisation and New Forms of Mobilisation of Kerala’s Women Workers

Historically, in the context of Kerala, through mobilisation, electoral and mass struggles and a broad-based alliance of poor peasants, agricultural labour and workers were forged into a political constituency. This paper locates new forms of women workers’ struggles in the post-1990 context which saw a shift in the politics of labour and in the language of class and since the People’s Planning Campaign for democratic decentralisation in Kerala, when agency moved away from trade unions to a plurality of organisations serving a range of objectives but linked with local governance. There was a shift away from exclusive collective bargaining by workers to collective social activity, for example, Kudumbashree, Ayalkootam (neighbourhood groups), public works, MNREGA forums and other forms of associational activities. Identities shifted beyond that of workers to citizens, involving a range of rights with the neighbourhood and the local as an axis. This paper focusses on women labour particularly in the context of the trajectory of development and labour in Kerala and the wider canvas in which labour movements developed post the 1980s in India.

Toward the Formation of a Transnational Alliance of Working and Oppressed Peoples

For the last thirty years, the world system has undergone an extreme centralization of power in all its dimensions—local and international, economic and military, social and cultural. Creating a new transnational alliance of workers and oppressed peoples must be the main objective for the genuine militants who are convinced of the odious nature of the world imperialist capitalist system that we have at present. It is a heavy responsibility and the task requires several years before reaping any tangible results.

El anarquismo en el Madrid de la Segunda República. Perfil social, estrategias y tácticas / Anarchism in the Madrid of the Second Republic. Social profiles, strategies and methods

Notwithstanding that anarchism in Madrid starts at the same time as the Second Republic, in a position of organizational minority, the new regime was used by the libertarian organizations to become the main actors in the development of the working movement. During this period, the Iberian Anarchist Federation revealed itself as a key body in the libertarian movement debates about the idea of an alliance of workers and the deal with the socialists.

The futures of the Singapore association of social workers: an analysis using CLA and the “Futures Triangle”

Purpose – This paper aims to study the future of the Singapore association of social workers using causal layered analysis (CLA) and the Futures Triangle. In today’s rapidly changing world, professional associations have to re-evaluate their roles to remain relevant. This paper presents an analysis of findings from a study on the level of alliance of social workers with their professional association. By critically examining underlying issues beneath common beliefs held by social workers that impede, promote or sustain change with their professional association, we can gain a deeper understanding into their level of alliance with their association. Insights toward current issues faced by the association as well as its alternative and preferred futures could be illuminated. Design/methodology/approach – Inayatullah’s “Futures Triangle” was used to deepen the findings of the study on the level of alliance of social workers with their professional association from the lens of CLA (Inayatullah, 2004). The study employed interviews with 27 social workers in Singapore, selected through purposive sampling. Findings – Alternative scenarios and preferred futures of the Singapore Association of Social Workers (SASW) that were postulated from the interviews reinforce a need for more targeted recruitment campaigns. It also calls for regionalization and globalization of SASW to maximize its potentials. Originality/value – The paper suggests how a social work association might be able to reposition its role in relation to its stakeholders to promote and sustain itself. SASW could do so through positioning itself as the “National Geographic” beacon for social workers in Singapore to reach out to the world.

Think creatively and act decisively: creating a antiracist alliance of social workers.

Each month throughout the New York City (NYC) area, more than 20 separate gatherings bring social workers and other professionals together to discuss one thing: undoing structural racism in their organization, community, university, and profession. Over 8,000 strong in 2014, the Anti-Racist Alliance (ARA) began in 2002 in the living room of one very motivated social worker and a small group of dedicated colleagues. They had all attended an Undoing Racism Workshop (URW) provided by the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond (a private, nonprofit organization headquartered in New Orleans. They have been providing Undoing Racism workshops and antiracism consultation throughout the nation for over 30 years) and left with a commitment to transform their profession. This practice update describes the movement that rose from this critical alliance of social workers, noting its impact and key points to inform similar organizing efforts. Racism is manifest in the outcomes of social systems that persistently show disproportionally negative outcomes for people of color, regardless of social class or other factors. Individual bias, embedded in history and cultural norms, and rooted in institutional structure, are the three interlocking components of racial inequity that need to be understood and addressed. Social work recognizes the need, and the NASW Call to Action explicitly addresses institutional racism (NASW, 2007). Of the many challenges involved in heeding this call, however, one central concern is finding a group of people who agree on a definition of racism that attends to all dimensions and who then commit to work together toward a common goal.

‘Crops for the State!’ Agriculture and the Countryside in 1950s Propaganda Posters of Central and Eastern Europe

The paper discusses an international exhibition of propaganda posters from the 1950s showing agriculture in the light of socialist propaganda. The aim and the major value of the exhibition was to showcase the similarity of propaganda posters in many countries of Central and Eastern Europe, while simultaneously exploring each country’s specificities. The posters show propaganda view of ‘progressive’ socialist agriculture, whereas the reality was quite different. It is interesting to see how propaganda posters reflected all elements of ‘successful’ socialist agriculture: collective farms, mandatory supplies, agriculture plans, an alliance of workers and peasants, work leadership, People’s authorities, elections, friendship with the USSR, mechanization of agriculture and electrification of rural areas, prosperity and peace, harvest festivals, fighting the Colorado beetle, fighting the kulak, and others. The exhibition organizers were also keen to observe and make comments on reactions of museum visitors to a display on such a controversial topic.

Building a City For “The People”: The Politics of Alliance‐Building in the Sydney Green Ban Movement

AbstractHow can we act to contest urban injustice? This article grapples with this question through an analysis of the green ban movement that emerged in Sydney in the 1970s. For a time, this unruly alliance of construction workers, resident activists, and progressive professionals powerfully enacted a radical right to the city, blocking a range of unjust and destructive “developments” worth billions of dollars and proposing alternative development plans in their place. Drawing on archival research, I demonstrate how the figure of “the people” was crucial to their action. The article examines the rights and the authority that was invested in “the people” by green ban activists, and traces the work of political subjectification through which “the people” was constructed. “The people” was not invoked as a simple majority or as a universal subject whose unity glossed over differences. Rather, in acting as/for “the people”, green ban activists produced a political subject able to challenge the claims of elected politicians, bureaucrats and developers to represent the interests of the city. The article concludes with reflections on the implications of this construction of “the people” for urban politics today.

A suicide survivor: the life of aChinese worker

In 2010, 18 employees working forFoxconn inChina attempted suicide. These shocking events focused the world's attention on the manufacturing supply chains ofChina's export industry and the experience of working within them. What had driven these young, migrant, assembly line workers to commit such a desperate act? This article provides a first‐hand account of the experiences of one of those who survived a suicide attempt, 17‐year‐oldTianYu. Her personal narrative is embedded within the broader context of labour process, work organisation and managerial practice atFoxconn, theTaiwanese‐owned multinational that provides products and components forApple and others. The factory conditions are further shaped by the company trade union and Chinese government policies. The paper concludes with additional contextualisation indicating the emergence of an alliance of workers, students, scholars and transnational labour movement activists who are campaigning for Chinese workers' rights.

Producer-centric versus participation-centric: On the shaping of mobile media

News media are forming omnipresence strategies to become accessible anytime, anywhere and through any device. Mobile news services and mobile applications play an increasingly influential role in contemporary newspapers. This is an in-depth study of a newspaper organization contemplating the challenges coupled with mobile media. It shows how heterogeneous sensemaking processes emerge among media workers from editorial, business and IT departments. Most importantly, it shows two polarized constellations within the newspaper organization when it comes to the shaping of its mobile application. Several arguments were used in their respective rhetoric, and at the loci of their attention was the negotiation of a producer- versus a participation-centric design. An alliance of media workers from the editorial and IT departments won ground for their producer-centric proposal, enacting an iPhone application primarily based on auto-directed flows of traditional news reporting. They produced a self-fulfilling prophecy, creating cues for other newspapers in a newspaper industry characterized by isomorphism.

What's left?

With the victory of capitalism and the end of the Cold War, almost all countries in the global south, including those still calling themselves “communist,” have become “transition” countries, competing to attract foreign direct investment and reform according to the strictures of global capitalism. Particularly interesting cases of “transition” are those states that explicitly legitimize their rule in terms of communist ideals, the general alliance of peasants and workers toward an egalitarian society, and whose ideological pillars historically include a pro-poor re- distributive land reform.

Becoming King: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Making of a National Leader (review)

Reviewed by: Becoming King: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Making of a National Leader Michael Honey Becoming King: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Making of a National Leader. By Troy Jackson. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. 2008. Academic and other writers have produced a number of books about the Montgomery bus boycott and many more about the life and times of Martin Luther King, Jr. Troy Jackson provides a handy bibliography and a fine narrative of the civil rights movement in Montgomery, Alabama. Once the capital of the southern Confederacy, Montgomery's Jim Crow system inflicted bodily harm and daily indignity on the city's black citizens, especially on city buses. Prevented from voting and subjected to police violence on a regular basis, African Americans revolted. Their boycott of segregated buses lasted from December 5, 1955, when African Americans stopped riding the buses and King gave his first electrifying speech to a mass audience, to December 20, 1956, when a U.S. Supreme Court decision reached Montgomery and affirmed a lower court ruling overturning the city's bus segregation law. In between those dates, for 381 days, the black community created a seminal moment that forever changed the life of King and many other people. King called the struggle in Montgomery the "daybreak of freedom and justice" (144) after generations had suffered through the desolate midnight of life under Jim Crow. Jackson is not a professor, but a senior pastor at University Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, with a Ph.D. in history from the University of Kentucky and a Master's of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary. With the help of his religious insights and the experience of editing volume four of The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., at Stanford University under the direction of Senior Editor Clayborne Carson, Jackson has crafted a fine narrative showing how local activists, including E.D. Nixon, Rosa Parks, Joanne Gibson Robinson, and many others, prepared the way for change. Their organizing and the galvanizing movement of resistance touched off by seamstress Rosa Parks led to a remarkable cross-class alliance of workers, poor people, professionals and preachers, against Jim Crow. King never intended to be and never claimed to be the leader or the organizer of the Montgomery movement. He became the President of the Montgomery Improvement Association, an organization set up to carry through the boycott, because he was new to town, the city leaders had not placed controls on him, and because he was, as it turned out, a formidable speaker. Through bombings, arrests, brutal treatment and assassination attempts, court trials and other attempts to defame him, King moved from an idealistic young preacher with a gift for words to an able tactician and moral leader capable of moving people to mass action. Jackson shows how King went step by step through the process of "becoming King" as the result of his experiences in Montgomery. He thereby also became America's most potent spokesperson for freedom and equality, [End Page 300] a national and international leader for transforming society into a place of peace, justice, and dignity for every person. Jackson shows how the local movement and his six years of leadership in Montgomery made King a "transformed person" (179). This is a fine study for students and scholars in any discipline or field. It helps us to grasp the power of organizing, to better understand King, to see him not as a mythical "great man" of history but as someone who struggled and learned and deepened and changed due to his dialectical interaction with ordinary people doing extraordinary things. This is a book ripe with lessons for our own age that helps us to see that leaders are made, not born, and that we are all capable of changing our world. Michael Honey University of Washington, Tacoma Copyright © 2010 Mid-America American Studies Association

Czechoslovakia 1968: Revolt or Reform? 1968—A Year of Hope and Non-Understanding1

By the end of 1967 the cooperation between students, writers and communist reformist groups acted as a catalyst to a party coup d'etat in January 1968. By March 1968 the de facto abolishment of censorship led to revelations of corruption, past communist crimes and Soviet domination, and in turn, to the emergence of spontaneous public meetings and a rudimentary civil society. The Party reform movement acquired revolutionary aspects and the reformists were forced to respond to the people. Discussions with Western students and the New Left revealed a great deal of misunderstanding created by different historical experience and social systems. Common denominators were rejection of authoritarianism and support for peace and social justice. Following the Soviet invasion of August 1968, the reformists capitulated and the reforms were defended by alliance of students and workers. The 1968 experience led to closer cooperation across East–East frontiers and with Western groups freed from illusions about the Soviet empire.

Crisis and Social Change in Mexico's Political Economy

Cordera and Tello's Mexico: la disputa por la nacion (1983) is one of the most influential analyses of the crisis in Mexico. Rolando Cordera, a leader of the Partido Socialista Unificado de Mexico (PSUM), and Carlos Tello, a leader of the leftwing of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), argue that the crisis is a consequence of state policies that created dependence upon the United States by departing from the national revolutionary of development that emerged from the 19 1 0 Revolution. They urge the Mexican people and state to revive the project, which reached its zenith during the Cardenas administration (19341940), by pursuing antimonopoly and income-distribution policies and strengthening the state and ejido sectors of the economy. Failure to revive the project, they warn, will permit monopoly and international firms to force the state to eliminate its controls on private property and the market; this would strengthen monopoly and international firms and lower the living standards of Mexican people while creating further dependence upon the United States. This article uses political economy and a long-wave perspective to develop an alternative understanding of Mexico's crisis. It argues that the crisis is a consequence of the model of capital accumulation that the Mexican Revolution engendered rather than an abandonment of the revolutionary project, and that an alliance of workers, peasants, and the state to revive the project is not viable because the state is forging a new model of capital accumulation on behalf of the capitalist class.

Soweto and its aftermath

The student revolt that flared up in Soweto in June 1976 was a clear indication of the extent of mass resistance to oppression and exploitation under apartheid. Yet the revolt posed a number of important questions for a revolutionary strategy in South Africa, especially in terms of its implications for an alliance of workers and students and for its relation with the liberation movements. This article assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the strategy adopted by the student movement inside the country and raises questions about the relevance of the current strategies of the various exiled liberation movements to the changing conditions in the country.