Abstract
This chapter looks at the conflictual relationship between capital and labour. It shows how historically there have been strong tendencies for workers to organise collectively to strengthen their bargaining position with capital, but also points to contradictions within these organising processes, whereby some workers (sometimes termed the ‘reserve army’) are excluded. It explores some of the tensions among workers that this leads to and looks at how these were addressed politically in the 20th century.
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Notes
- 1.
Black, A. (2017) Guild and State: European Political Thought from the Twelfth Century to the Present, London: Transaction Publishers.
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Published in New York by Vintage Books.
- 3.
Op. cit.: 246–247.
- 4.
Op. cit.: 256.
- 5.
Op. cit.: 248.
- 6.
I have written more extensively about the problematic character of occupational identity under capitalism in Huws, U. (2006) ‘What Will We Do? The Destruction of Occupational Identities in the “Knowledge-Based Economy”’, Monthly Review, 57 (8).
- 7.
For one example among very many, see Liddington, J. & J. Norris (1978) One Hand Tied Behind Us: The Rise of the Women’s Suffrage Movement, London: Virago.
- 8.
See Huws, U. (1984) The New Homeworkers: New Technology and the Changing Location of White-Collar Work, London: Low Pay Unit.
- 9.
See, for example, Huws, U. (2017) ‘Where Did Online Platforms Come From? The Virtualization of Work Organization and the New Policy Challenges it Raises’ in P. Meil & V. Kirov (eds) The Policy Implications of Virtual Work, London: Palgrave Macmillan: 29–48.
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Jessop, B. (1990) State Theory: Putting the Capitalist State in Its Place, Cambridge: Polity.
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Marglin, S. A. & J. B. Schor (1992) The Golden Age of Capitalism: Reinterpreting the Postwar Experience, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Fourastie, J. (1979) Les Trente Glorieuses, ou la révolution invisible de 1946 à 1975, Paris: Fayard.
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In the French Regulation School approach (see Aglietta M. [1976] Crises et régulation du capitalisme, Paris: Calmann-Lévy; Lipietz, A. & D. Macey [1987] Mirages and Miracles: Crisis in Global Fordism, London: Verso.) the term ‘Fordism’ does not just mean a particular form of work organisation, using production lines as pioneered by the Ford Motor Company, but denotes a hegemonic mode of production and accumulation that characterised a whole era and was reflected in a particular type of government regime.
- 14.
Panitch, L. (2004) ‘Globalization and the State’ in L. Panitch, C. Leys, A. Zuege, & M. Konings (eds) The Globalization Decade, London: Merlin: 9–43.
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Cox, R. (1992) ‘Global Perestroika’, Socialist Register, 28: 26–43.
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Coates D. (2000) Models of Capitalism: Growth and Stagnation in the Modern Era, Cambridge: Polity Press.
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Esping-Andersen, G. (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Cambridge: Polity Press.
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Ibid.
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Coates D. (2000) Models of Capitalism: Growth and Stagnation in the Modern Era, Cambridge: Polity Press.
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Hall, P. A. & D. Soskice (2001) Varieties of Capitalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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See, for example, Sainsbury (1994) Gendering Welfare States, London: Sage; Lewis, J. (193) Women and Social Policies, London: Edward Elgar; and Ostner, I. (2008) Family Policies in the Context of Family Change: The Nordic Countries in Comparative Perspective, VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer.
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Famously commemorated in the 2010 film Made in Dagenham, directed by Nigel Cole.
- 23.
Equal Pay Act: An Act to prevent discrimination, as regards terms and conditions of employment, between men and women, 1970, Parliament of the United Kingdom.
- 24.
Race Relations Act, 1968: An Act to make fresh provision with respect to discrimination on racial grounds, and to make provision with respect to relations between people of different racial origins, 1968, Parliament of the United Kingdom.
- 25.
Doeringer, P. B. & M. J. Piore (1971) Internal Labor Markets and Manpower Analysis, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
- 26.
This rather simple dual model was later refined to suggest that labour markets were segmented in more complex ways. See for example Wilkinson, F. (1981) The Dynamics of Labour Market Segregation, London, New York, Toronto, Sydney, and San Francisco: Academic Press.
- 27.
Toosi, M. (2002) ‘A Century of Change: The U.S. Labor Force, 1950–2050’, Monthly Labor Review, May.
- 28.
Walsh, M. (2001) ‘Womanpower: The Transformation of the Labour Force in the UK and the USA Since 1945’, Recent Findings of Research in Economic and Social History, Summer.
- 29.
I have been unable to trace the origin of this term. It has been widely used by many bodies, including the European Commission, to group together forms of employment that are not permanent and full time. See, for instance, http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/areas/industrialrelations/dictionary/definitions/atypicalwork.htm.
- 30.
A right which existed in many sectors in Japan, discussed in Huws, U. (2003) The Making of a Cybertariat: Virtual Work in A Real World, New York: Monthly Review Press: 78–79.
- 31.
I have discussed this at greater length, inter alia, in Huws, U. (2016) ‘Logged Labour: A New Paradigm of Work Organisation?’ Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation 10 (1): 7–26.
- 32.
Huws, U. (2006) ‘Fixed, Footloose or Fractured: Work, Identity and the Spatial Division of Labour’, Monthly Review, 57 (10), March.
- 33.
I have discussed the way that work and welfare are presented on British daytime TV at greater length in Huws, U. (2015) ‘Saints and Sinners: Lessons About Work from Daytime TV’, International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, 11 (2): 143–163.
- 34.
Miller, H. & T. Pope (2016) The Changing Composition of UK Tax Revenues, London: Institute for Fiscal Studies: 4.
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Murphy, R. (2010) ‘Is VAT Regressive and If So Why Do the IFS Deny It?’ Tax Research UK: 4.
- 36.
Full Fact (n.d.) Accessed on February 11, 2019 from: https://fullfact.org/economy/tax-credits-how-much-has-spending-increased-16-years/.
- 37.
Beiler, A., I. Lindberg & D. Pillay (2008) Labour and the Challenges of Globalization: What Prospects for Transnational Solidarity? London: Pluto Press.
- 38.
Woods. E. M. (1998) ‘Labor, Class and State in Global Capitalism’, in E. M. Woods, P. Meiksins, & M. Yates (eds) Rising from the Ashes: Labor in the Age of ‘Global Capitalism’, New York: Monthly Review Press: 3–16 (15).
- 39.
Tristan, F. ([1843] 1983) The Workers Union. Translated by Beverly Livingston. Chicago: University of Illinois Press: 77–78.
- 40.
Press, M. (1989) ‘The People’s Movement’ in M. Press & U. Huws (eds) Solidarity for Survival: The Don Thompson Reader, Nottingham: Spokesman: 26–47.
- 41.
Ibid.: 28.
- 42.
See, for example, McKinsey Global Institute (2004), Offshoring: Is It a Win-Win Game? Accessed on November, 2004 from: http://www.McKinsey.com.
- 43.
See, for example, Department of Trade and Industry (2004) Trade and Investment White Paper: Making Globalisation a Force for Good, London, DTI, November 10.
- 44.
For a discussion of the mechanics of the way in which accumulation leads to the search for new sites for further investment an accumulation, see Harvey, David (2003) The New Imperialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- 45.
Altvater, E. & B. Mahnkopf (2002) Globalisierung der Unsicherheit – Arbeit im Schatten, schmutziges Geld und informelle Politik, Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot.
- 46.
Belghazi, S. (2006) in U. Huws, A. Dhudwar, & S. Dahlmann, The Transformation of Work in a Global Knowledge Economy: Towards a Conceptual Framework, Proceedings of Conference held in Chania, Greece, 21–22 September, Leuven: Higher Institute of Labour Studies: 247–251.
- 47.
Huws, U. (2006) ‘What Will We Do? The Destruction of Occupational Identities in the “Knowledge-Based Economy”’, Monthly Review, 57 (8), January.
- 48.
Huws, U. & S. Dahlmann (2007) ‘Global Restructuring of Value Chains and Class Issues’, in Proceedings of ISA Conference: Work and Employment: New Challenges, Montreal, August 28–30.
- 49.
Cohen, R. (2006) Migration and Its Enemies: Global Capital, Migrant Labour and the Nation State, Aldershot: Ashgate.
- 50.
See, for example, Chan, C. (2016) ‘Labor Rights Movements Gaining Momentum in China’ dw.com, January 5. Accessed on August 24, 2018 from: https://www.dw.com/en/labor-rights-movements-gaining-momentum-in-china/a-18959557.
- 51.
Caraway, B. (2018) ‘Collective Action Frames and the Developing Role of Discursive Practice in Worker Organisation: The Case of OUR Walmart’, Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation 12 (1): 7–24.
- 52.
Reuters Staff (2018) ‘Amazon Workers Strike in Germany, Joining Action in Spain and Poland’ Reuters Business News, July 16. Accessed on August 24, 2018 from: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-germany-strike/amazon-workers-strike-in-germany-joining-action-in-spain-and-poland-idUSKBN1K61OY.
- 53.
Kollowe, J. & N. Slawson (2017) ‘McDonald’s Workers to Go on Strike in Britain for First Time’, The Guardian, September 4. Accessed on August 24, 2018 from: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/04/mcdonalds-workers-strike-cambridge-crayford.
- 54.
- 55.
Matthews, D. (1991) ‘1889 and All That: New Views on the New Unionism’, International Review of Social History 36 (1): 24–58.
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Huws, U. (2019). Combination, Inclusion and Exclusion: Contradictory Forces in Worker Organisation Under Capitalism. In: Labour in Contemporary Capitalism. Dynamics of Virtual Work. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52042-5_4
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