Worker Militancy Research Articles

The Cockroaches of Paterson: A Study of Labor Conflict and Technological Change

A technological innovation based on a revival of the seventeenth century putting-out system dominated the Paterson broad-silk weaving industry during the 1920s and 1930s in the form of the family shop. It was introduced because Paterson capitalists - confronted with a militant work force - were unable to maintain control over the labor process in conventional central mills. The search for improved managerial efficiency resulted in the family shop that turned weavers into petty capitalists. This study demonstrates that capitalists' need to control the production process shapes technological innovation even to the point of reviving an antiquated system of industrial organization. It also concludes that working men and women persist in their concerted actions against such forces.

The Militant Worker: Class and Radicalism in France and America.

This is a consummately polemical yet ultimately plausible endeavor to recast our theoretical, empirical, and historical understanding of social class. The author demonstrates that neither technology, nor skill, nor wage level is the prime determinant of militancy. Instead it is ideological and organizational forms.

Worker Militancy in South Africa: A Sociospatial Analysis of Trade Union Activism in the Manufacturing Sector

The independent trade union movement has become increasingly significant in the popular struggle against racial capitalism in South Africa, yet it has so far attracted comparatively little attention from geographers in the region. One of the concerns of this paper, then, is to consider ways in which the spatial configuration of South African industry affects workers' organisations. In this context, the focus centres upon strike activity in the manufacturing sector. From an analysis of the changing composition, fortunes, and strategics of the trade union movement since the 1950s—substantially reviewed here—it can be seen how such activity is influenced by factors at work within the state apparatus and within the unions themselves, and is indicative of the everchanging relationship that exists between these two. Our major objective here, though, is to demonstrate how certain spatial and temporal variations in strike action may also be related to particular developments in the structure of South African capitalism. The forces underpinning the emergence of a spatial/sectoral division of labour and the contradictory imperatives driving industry towards the centralisation and decentralisation of capital are the developments under review.

Book reviews

Biographical Dictionary of American Labor. Edited by Gary M. Fink. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1985. xvii, 767 pp. $49.95. What Do Unions Do? By Richard B. Freeman and James L. Medoff. New York: Basic Books, 1984. viii, 293 pp. $22.95. Working Class Hero: A New Strategy for Labor. By Stanley Aronowitz. New York: Adama Books, 1984. vii, 229 pp. $12.95 America's Working Man: Work, Home, and Politics among Blue‐Collar Property Owners. By David Halle. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. xviii, 399 pp. $24.95. The Critical Vision: A History of Social and Political Art in the United States. By Paul Von Blum. Boston: South End Press, 1982. xviii, 169 pp. $9.50 Corporate Liberalism: The Origins of Modern American Political Theory, 1890–1920. By R. Jeffrey Lustig. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. xiii, 357pp. $25.00 High Hopes: The Rise and Decline of Buffalo, New York. By Mark Goldman. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983. 324 pp. $17.95. Those Who Stayed Behind: Rural Society in Nineteenth‐Century New England. By Hal S. Barron. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984. xiii, 184 pp. $24.95. History and Class: Essential Readings in Theory and Interpretation. Edited by R. S. Neale. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983. x, 318 pp. $27.00. Connecticut Workers and Technological Change. By Robert Asher. Storrs: University of Connecticut, Center for Oral History, Project on Connecticut Workers and A Half Century of Technological Change, 1930–1980. 1983. 100 pp. $8.95. The Haymarket Tragedy. By Paul Avrich. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. xv. 535 pp. $29.50. Labor Immigration Under Capitalism: Asian Workers in the United States Before World War II. Edited by Lucie Cheng and Edna Bonacich. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. xiv, 634 pp. $32.50. China and the Overseas Chinese in the United States, 1868–1911. By Shih‐shan Henry Tsai. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1983. ix, 166. $17.50. The Fight Against Shutdowns: Youngstown's Steel Mill Closings. By Staughton Lynd. San Pedro. CA: Singlejack Books, 1982. xx + 244pp. $9.95. Energy Transition and the Local Community: A theory of Society applied to Hazleton, Pennsylvania. By Dan Rose. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981. xx, 189pp. $21.95. “An Impartial Umpire”: Industrial Relations and the Canadian State, 1900–1911. By Paul Craven. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981, 386 pp. C. $21.95 John Ludlow: The Autobiography of a Christian Socialist. Edited and introduced by Alan D. Murray. Totowa, NJ: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd, 1981. xxxii, 334 pp. $30.00. The Great Paternalistic: Titus Salt and the Growth of 19th Century Bradford. By Jack Reynolds. New York: St. Martin's Press. 1983. 382 pp.”; $25.00. Industrial Politics. By Robert Currie. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980, viii, 294 pp. $26.00. The Militant Worker: Class and Radicalism in France and America. By Scott Lash. Rutherford, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1984. vii. 264 pp. $29.50. The French Workers’ Movement: Economic Crisis and Political Change. Edited by Mark Kesselman. London: George Allen and Unwin. 1984. viii. 350 pp. $35.00. New Patterns of Work Reform: The Case of Norway. By Bjorn Gustavsen and Gerry Hunnius. Oslo‐Bergen‐Tromsoe: Universitetsforlaget. 1981. 207 pp. $15.00. Industry and Inequality: The Social Anthropology of Indian Labour. By Mark Holmström. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1984. 342 pp. $44.50. The Crisis in Marxism. By Jack Lindsay. Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble Books, 1981. 183 pp. $22.50.

The Durban Ricksha Pullers' ‘Strikes’ of 1918 and 1930

The Durban ricksha pullers' strikes of 1918 and 19302 have thus far not been the subject of detailed investigation. It is true, of course, that they were part of the larger phenomenon of African resistance in Durban during that period, and it is in that context that they have been dealt with en passant in two studies in particular, on Durban's history.' While the militancy of workers at that time carmot be doubted, it is argued in this paper that, in the light ofthe pullers' marginal class position, it is a mistake to see their strikes as being cut from that same cloth of working class activity, as do Hemson (1979) and la Hausse (1984). Considered in their own right, the parameters within which the pullers' strikes occurred will be clarified. But in order to deal with the obvious questions of why the strikes occurred and what the outcome was in each case, it will not be sufficient simply to focus on their immediate antecedents. For what must be borne in mind is the anomalous position ricksha pullers occupied within Durban's labour market. While, from the turn of the century, the Durban Corporation struggled to cope with the consequences of ever-increasing African urbanisation in the face of growing impoverishment by attempting 'to keep the growing African population diligent and docile by day, and invisible by night'? ricksha men enjoyed a relative freedom from control. Employed neither by the ricksha owners, from whom vehicles were hired on a weekly basis, nor by the Corporation, ricksha pullers were however liable for monthly registration fees. And as transport operators they enjoyed considerable freedom of movement as well as exemption from the curfew regulation^.^ The rickshas* growingpopularity, which ensured their integral place within Durban's transport system. at least during the first few decades after their introduction, had as its concomitant the profitability of that business both for the Corporation and the rickshaawning companies. These gains tended sometimes to mitigate against the rigour with which the system of traffic controls imposed by the authorities to regulate ricksha pulling was enforced. As the volume of motorised traffic increased, the Corporation was obliged for some time to perpetuate a mode of transport which constituted a severe hazard to a smooth traffic flow. But schemes to limit and/or abolish rickshas from all or some of Durban's streets had to be weighed against the vested interests of the ricksha companies.' From the pullers* point of view, the popularity of pulling was due, in part, to the relative autonomy that that type of work offered.' The opportunity for profit was also there, at least for some pullers, although changes in the pullers* working conditions rendered them vulnerable, as was the case in 1918 and 1930. The popularity of ricksha

The Formation and Fragmentation of the Canadian Working Class: 1820–1920

Three periods of labour-market formation determined the making of the Canadian working class. The first occurred in the early 1830s with the building of the Rideau and Lachine canal systems, a development that created an unprecedented demand for wage labour. This labour market set in motion events leading to the exclusion of Quebec's peasantry, and profoundly affected subsequent relations between English Canadian and Quebec working classes. The second period came in the late 189Os.With the appearance of small factories in central Canada and the massive inflow of displaced workers from the Maritimes, the market for both skilled artisans and workers strengthened. Under the leadership of the militant craft workers, the Trades and Labour Congress (TLC), Canada's fledgling labour centre, was founded.

The Italian Communists, the Women’s Question, and the Challenge of Feminism

The period from 1968 to 1970, in so many respects a social and political watershed throughout Europe, marked the emergence of a women's movement in Italy. The Italian movement was patterned initially on the model of the American and, to a lesser extent, the British, French, and West German women's movements. However, feminism in Italy was always conditioned by its development in a country with, a long and vigorous tradition of left-wing politics, a militant mass workers' movement, and Communist and Socialist parties which, together, regularly won over a third of the votes cast in national elections.

The ideologies of despair: a symbolic interpretation of punks and skinheads' usage of barbiturates.

In this paper a symbolic approach will be used to explain the high rate of barbiturate misuse among two modern youth movements namely punks and skinheads. It will be argued that punks and skinheads are youth social protest movements which have channelled their social protest through subcultural 'style' and symbolism. Neither group has developed an articulate coherent philosophy at the self-conscious level, rather both groups express their 'style' symbolically by dress, attitudes and behaviour. Both movements are working class in ethic, but whilst punks embody a total alienation from and rejection of conventional society, the skinheads identify with a militant working class ethic. Like many people in modern society, both groups have turned to bodily symbolism as a means of expressing themselves and their position in society. The punks and skinheads interviewed came from extremely disrupted and delinquent backgrounds which may be a general tendency amongst members of these movements. It is suggested that as a result of many of their members' disrupted backgrounds, these groups have developed negative and disturbed attitudes in their ideologies which they express symbolically through the medium of their bodies in a number of ways, including through the use of drugs. Barbiturates are amongst the most self-destructive and negative of drugs and bodily behaviour induced by them provides those punks and skinheads who use drugs with an ideal vehicle for symbolically expressing their frustration and discontent.

Liberalism and the Progressive Alliance in the Constituencies, 1900–1914: Three Case Studies

The reasons for the decline of the Liberal party in Britain, and its replacement by the Labour party as the representative of the left, continue to be the subject of debate among historians of twentieth-century British politics. An important point at issue has been whether or not the Liberal decline had irreversibly set in prior to World War I; or if the war itself with the strains it placed on liberal ideology and the relationship among the party's most prominent leaders, and with the stimulus it provided for a more militant working class, was the catalyst for decline. There can be no question that the Liberal party was critically dependent upon the support of working-class voters for its viability as an alternative party of government.1 Thus, a major issue of contention among historians of Liberal politics has been the party's success or failure before August 1914 in retaining the allegiance of this crucial electoral base.

Origins of the sit‐down era: Worker militancy and innovation in the rubber industry, 1934–38

Origins of the sit‐down era: Worker militancy and innovation in the rubber industry, 1934–38

Power and Conflict in the Mining Industry

Interviews by the author and on-site investigations conducted over the past four years show that, far from being exploitive, the mining companies have established excellent working and living conditions attuned to the environments in which they operate and have attempted to develop positive employee attitudes. Mining companies are confronted by a number of factors which weaken their capacity to cope with unions. Isolation of work sites and the difficulties associated with maintaining a high quality work force, militant work groups with power to stop operations, ineffectiveness of industrial tribunals, delivery commitments and cash flow problems are some of the factors that force managements to concede to worker and union demands.

Auto Worker Militancy and the Structure of Factory Life, 1937-1955

In June 1944 the army's Industrial Services Division flew Major A. H. Raskin to Detroit for hurried investigation of the industrial unrest that plagued the very heart of wartime America's arsenal of democracy. Raskin spoke with community, labor, and business leaders, visited the giant production facilities at Ford and Chrysler, and reviewed the records of the War Labor Board and the War Manpower Commission. War workers were unquestionably patriotic, reported Raskin, labor journalist in civilian life, but perplexing, defiant mood of rebellion and irrationality seemed to be sweeping through the million-strong work force of southeastern Michigan. The leadership of the United Automobile Workers (UAW) has found it impossible to adjust the thinking of its rank and file membership to the changed situation created by the war. As wildcat strikes and shop-floor job actions became more frequent, a breakdown of discipline threatened to shatter the usual pattern of factory administration and union authority. ' Militancy of the sort that so puzzled Raskin has increasingly attracted the interest of scholars concerned with the changing pattern of consciousness and activity exhibited by ordinary workers. Much research has been directed at understanding the complex relationship between rank-and-file workers and the production process in factory, mill, and office, especially in the early twentieth century when managers adopted policies of close supervision and rationalized work flow to win greater control of the factory work environment. The rearguard battle waged by skilled workers against this process has received much attention; the resistance or accommodation of the unskilled, relatively less.2 While historians have recently begun to probe the unionization process

Resistance and hidden forms of consciousness amongst African workers

A major weakness in the interpretations proffered by many ‘radical’ commentators on African labour protest and worker consciousness has resulted from their efforts to define the characteristics of the African proletariat by the use of traditional ‘formula dichotomies’ — the theoretical bases of which have not been elaborated upon adequately for application within an African context. The methodological limitations imposed by these formulas (examples of which are ‘false versus true consciousness’, ‘economistic versus revolutionary consciousness’, ‘a class in itself or a class for itself etc), have led to an over‐emphasis on data which has been easily accessible to measurement, and which has also been familiar and comprehensible within the framework of accepted marxist theory. Consequently there has been too much reliance on data relating to strikes, unionisation and overt political militance, and for the most part a failure to discover and evaluate the silent, unorganised, covert responses of African workers. An imbalance caused by analysing overt worker militancy without paying adequate attention to the covert type could result in an overall false conception of labour consciousness. It is therefore necessary to widen the range of resources to include more data illustrative of how local cultural influences and social pressures can shape the workers’ perceptions of their own exploitation. These individualistic forms of protest within specific work situations might not be immediately familiar to the observer; neither might they lend themselves easily to categorisation. Nevertheless they will contribute decisively to the overall process of determining worker consciousness at both an economistic and political level.

The Politics of Proletarianization: A Review Article

The process of proletarianization and its role in the shaping of working class consciousness has captured the attention of French social historians over the last ten years. Until recently, works on French labor history generally neglected the formation of the working class to concentrate on the origins of national working-class parties or trade unions; thus, general histories of the political ‘workers’ movement' abound, to the detriment of occupational or regional studies. As early as 1971, Rolande Trempé's thèse asserted that the transition from godfearing peasant to socialistic proletarian had only just begun when a man put down his hoe and took up a pickaxe. In Les mineurs de Carmaux, Trempé showed the evolving social and political conditions which led coalminers in southwestern France to espouse trade unionism and socialism. The recently published thése of Yves Lequin, Les ouvriers de la region lyonnaise, provides another benchmark in the study of nineteenth-century working class history. Lequin reveals that, for the pre-1914 period in the Lyonnais region of France, the dynamics of proletarianization were more important in promoting worker militancy than its end result, the appearance of an industrial proletariat.

Rural-Urban Migration and Working-Class Consciousness: The Spanish Case

It is proposed that cross-national differences in the pattern of social and economic change will be linked to different effects of migration. In the case of the Spanish industrial working class, the concentration of native and migrant workers in new industrial suburbs appears to be one source of class consciousness. There is also an indication that migrants themselves become increasingly class conscious as they remain longer in the city. This result is interpreted in terms of their initial high aspirations for mobility within the city, which are frustrated by an increasingly rigid urban class structure and the special obstacles to mobility among workers of rural origin. For the Catalan workers were, at all events since 1920, the most highly paid workmen in Spain outside the Basque country. They had no better reason than any other body of workers in Europe to aim at revolution. But they were recruited to a great extent from the half-starving and embittered agricultural laborers of the south and east and penned up in the most unruly and excitable city in Europe (Brenan, 185). The rapid industrialization of Spain since 1960 has again brought significant numbers of migrants into the major urban centers of Catalunya, Madrid, the Basque region, and the Levante (about 1-1/2 million between 1960 and 1970; FOESSA, 580). The working class of those regions has revived politically after its defeat in the Civil War, and is again in open and militant opposition to the regime. My purpose here is to identify the relationship between these two phenomena, rural-urban and worker militancy, as they are found in the 1970s. The problem cannot be treated as. simply as in the 1930s, when Andalusian migrants brought to the city an anarchist tradition of revolutionary conflict (cf. the application of a theory of political migration in Hamilton). Today's migrants are a *This research was supported by NSF Dissertation Research Grant GS 32-343. The author is indebted for useful comments to Arthur Stinchcombe, Juan Linz, David Phillips, Ruben Katzman, and several anonymous referees.

Dualism in the Labor Market : A Response to Uncertainty and Flux. The Case of France

Dualism in the labor maeket : A response to uncertainty and flux. The case of France This paper develops an argument about dualism in the French Labour Market. It is a condensed version of a more protracted argument about the origins and nature of duality in industriel economics built upon historical expérience in Italy, France and United States. The first section develops, in summary form, the argument that a tendency toward duality is inherent in the flux and uncertainty of capitalist economics and in political straggle which thèse engender over who will bear their cost. The second section uses the evolution of the Italien economy after 1959 as a paradigm, of a society in which the result of that struggle was a dual labour market structure and attemps to develop the case thaï Moi 68 France had analogous results The last section contains some concluding observations Taken togetner the caaes of United States Italy and France suggest that if is muionsi waves of worker militancy which make the inherent tendency toward duality manifest in uniform national pattern Revue économique 19 1) janvier 1978 pp 26-48

Worker Militancy and Its Consequences, 1965-75: New Directions in Western Industrial Relations.

Worker Militancy and Its Consequences, 1965-75: New Directions in Western Industrial Relations.

Trade Union Policy and the 1852 Lock-Out in the British Engineering Industry

The task of this paper is to examine trade union policy and the 1852 lock-out in the British engineering industry. The focus of attention will be upon the development of worker militancy and how this led to the lock-out. Although a history of the British engineering worker has long been extant, the causes of the 1852 dispute remain controversial. In The Story of the Engineers, J. B. Jefferys emphasizes the opposition of workers to systematic overtime and piece-work. Henry Pelling, in a more recent work, attributes the dispute to the opposition of skilled men to the employment of unskilled labour. I hope this paper throws more light on the origins of the 1852 lock-out.

The Japanese Labor Movement, 1912–1919: Suzuki Bunji and the Yūaikai

AbstractsThe Yuaikai (Friendly Society) was the only large, national labor organization in 1912–1919 Japan. Its founder, Suzuky Bunji, an intellectual and Christian humanist, believed that cooperation between labor and management was the key to developing the Yuaikai into a true labor union movement in a day when organized labor was held in suspicion. Accordingly, Suzuki organized the Yuaikai workers into potential unions and tried to persuade business and government to accept a moderate union movement. Suzuki's gradualist tactice resulted in expansion of the Yuaikai. By 1917, after two trips to the United States, Suzuki had become the symbol of Japanese organized labor at home and abroad. But Suzuki's moderate approach to reform was jolted by repression of the Yuaikai in 1917–1918 by business and government and his moderate leadership in the Yuaikai was challenged by militant workers who resented intellectual domination of their movement and by radical university graduates who sought to turn the Yuaikai into a revolutionary organization. These two groups conspired to turn the Yuaikai into the relatively militant Sodomei (General Federation) in 1919 and to reduce Suzuki's power in the movement but their revalry for power greatly undermined the capacity of the Sodomei to build further on the institutional foundations laid for organized labor by Suzuki Bunji.

The Japanese Labor Movement, 1912–1919: Suzuki Bunji and the Yūaikai

The Yuaikai (Friendly Society) was the only large, national labor organization in 1912–1919 Japan. Its founder, Suzuky Bunji, an intellectual and Christian humanist, believed that cooperation between labor and management was the key to developing the Yuaikai into a true labor union movement in a day when organized labor was held in suspicion. Accordingly, Suzuki organized the Yuaikai workers into potential unions and tried to persuade business and government to accept a moderate union movement. Suzuki's gradualist tactice resulted in expansion of the Yuaikai. By 1917, after two trips to the United States, Suzuki had become the symbol of Japanese organized labor at home and abroad. But Suzuki's moderate approach to reform was jolted by repression of the Yuaikai in 1917–1918 by business and government and his moderate leadership in the Yuaikai was challenged by militant workers who resented intellectual domination of their movement and by radical university graduates who sought to turn the Yuaikai into a revolutionary organization. These two groups conspired to turn the Yuaikai into the relatively militant Sodomei (General Federation) in 1919 and to reduce Suzuki's power in the movement but their revalry for power greatly undermined the capacity of the Sodomei to build further on the institutional foundations laid for organized labor by Suzuki Bunji.