mars 1, 2021

If Not Us, Who?

Dario Azzellini

Global workers against authoritarianism, fascism, and dictatorships – en anglais !


Dario Azzellini (editor)

If Not Us, Who?
Global workers against authoritarianism, fascism, and dictatorships

224 pages | July 2021 | EUR 16.80
ISBN 978-3-96488-088-8

A publication by the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Geneva office.

Cover photo: Activists demonstrating at Kilusang Mayo Uno in the Philippines.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivs 3.0 Germany License. You may reproduce, distribute, and make the work publicly available for non-commercial purposes provided you display the name of the author, book, and publisher, do not edit or otherwise modify the content, and that you include this notice in full. All other rights that do not fall under this Creative Commons license or copyright are reserved.


Encouraging insights in the face of global turmoil: case studies from five continents illustrate the central role of organized workers in struggles against authoritarianism, fascism, and dictatorships.

Across the world, authoritarianism is on the rise, as a look at Donald Trump, Recep Erdoğan, Jair Bolsonaro, Viktor Orbán, and a host of other heads of government makes clear. In Latin America, coups are becoming commonplace again and finding international acceptance, just like in Egypt too.

In multiple countries throughout the Arab world, protest movements in response to the post-2008 crisis have been suppressed with brutal violence. However, heavy-handed state violence is also being used against protestors in countries such as France and the USA.

The effects of the crisis trickle down repressively to the most vulnerable, while the redistribution of wealth flows increasingly towards those at the top.

In struggles for democratization, workers continue to play a central role: from the new, class-conscious feminism to the mass protests that have erupted in countries such as Chile, Lebanon, and France. How have workers historically fought against fascism, dictatorships, authoritarian regimes, and repressive tendencies in society, and how are they doing so today? And how do they organize themselves within and outside of trade unions?

Featuring contributions from some 30 authors on the new class-conscious feminism and labour struggles during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as stories from France, the USA, Germany, Japan, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, the Philippines, Russia, Argentina, Spain, Indonesia, South Korea, the former East Germany, Tunisia, Egypt, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.


Contents

  • Preface (Dario Azzellini)
  • Democracy or Capitalism. On the Contradictory Societalization of Politics (Klaus Dörre)
  • What Are We Fighting For? Women Workers’ Struggles (Paula Varela)
  • The Pandemic and Class Struggle (Dario Azzellini)

Argentina

  • Workers’ Resistance to Macrist Neoliberalism (Andrés Ruggeri and Elisa Gigliarelli)

Chile

  • Anti-Neoliberal Revolt and General Strike 2019 (Domingo Pérez and Sebastián Osorio)

Colombia

  • Unions Operating Under an Authoritarian Regime (Gearóid Ó Loingsigh)
  • Brazil
  • Unions and the Struggle Against the Entrepreneurial-Military Dictatorship (1964–1985) (Henrique Tahan Novaes and Maurício Sardá de Faria)
  • Confronting Conservatism and Authoritarianism in Contemporary Brazil. Union Resistance and Popular Struggles Against Bolsonaro’s Government (Flávia Braga Vieira)

USA

  • Unions Respond to the Rise of Trump’s Authoritarianism (Patrick Young)

South Africa

  • “The Wheel is Turning”. Fighting Apartheid with Workers’ Democracy, 1950–1990 (Nicole Ulrich)

Tunisia

  • The UGTT and Precarious Workers in the 2011 Uprising (Lorenzo Feltrin)

Egypt

  • Workers and the Revolution (Anne Alexander)

Portugal and its former African colonies

  • The Last Empire. The Struggle for Independence in African Colonies and its Connection to the Portuguese Revolution (1974–1975) (João Carlos Louçã and Raquel Varela)

South Korea

  • Workers in the 1980 Gwangju Uprising (Youngsu Won)

Japan

  • Labour Union Resistance to Neoliberal Labour Market Deregulation (Hiroaki Richard Watanabe)

India

  • Trade Union Mobilization Against the Modi Regime (Charvaak Pati)

Indonesia

  • Unions and Workers Against the Suharto Regime (Verna Dinah Q. Viajar)

Philippines

  • Long Live Kilusang Mayo Uno. Organized Labour in the Age of Imperialism (Sarah Raymundo)

Iran

  • Impasse: Workers Versus Authoritarian Neoliberalism (Peyman Jafari)

Israel

  • Trade Union Movement: Between Organizing and Silence (Jules El-Khatib)

Lebanon

  • Labour Mobilization for the Consolidation of the October Revolution (Lea Bou Khater)

Iraq

  • Burdens of the Past and Crises of the Present (Omar al-Jaffal)

Bosnie-Herzegovina

  • Workers’ Organization at the Root of the 2014 Social Uprising (Anna Calori)

Russia

  • Neo-Authoritarianism, Co-optation and Resistance. Workers and Alternative Unions (Sarah Hinz and Jeremy Morris)

Spain

  • Rebuilding Trade Unionism During the Transition to Democracy (Victor Peña González, Eva Bermúdez-Figueroa, and Beltrán Roca)

United Kingdom

  • Coal Not Dole! The Great Strike Against Thatcher (Peter North)

France

  • No End to the Resistance. Social Movements and Emmanuel Macron (Sebastian Chwala)

German Democratic Republic

  • Between the Times. A Brief Moment of Self-Empowerment – Workers in 1989 and 1990 (Renate Hürtgen)

Federal Republic of Germany

  • From Symbolism to Practice. German Unions Need to Support Anti-Racism in the Fight Against the Dangers of the Right (Romin Khan)
Dario Azzellini is Professor of Development Studies at the Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas in Mexico, and visiting scholar at Cornell University in the USA. He has conducted research into social transformation processes for more than 25 years. His primary research interests are industrial sociology and the sociology of labour, local and workers’ self-management, and social movements and protest, with a focus on South America and Europe. He has published more than 20 books, 11 films, and a multitude of academic articles, many of which have been translated into a variety of languages. Among them are Vom Protest zum sozialen Prozess: Betriebsbesetzungen und Arbeiten in Selbstverwaltung (VSA 2018) and The Class Strikes Back: Self-Organised Workers’ Struggles in the Twenty-First Century (Haymarket 2019). Further information can be found at www.azzellini.net.