Today's Topics:
1. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #257 (Jan) - E-work: The
Turkers against the beast e-world (fr, it, pt) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. wsm.ie: Sex Workers Say "No" To The Sexual Offences Bill by
Amadeus Harte (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. anarkismo.net: People in Diyarbakir protest Merkel visit in
Turkey by Mesopotamian Ecology Movement mehdiplo
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Indonesia, anarkis.org: Against Idols Representative: Class
Struggle in China Beyond the Great Narrative Leftists [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. BRITAIN, edinburgh anarchists: globalization and social
reproduction by Robert Lanark · (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
The ultraprécaire and ultra-fragmented digital world labor force does not promote
collective organization. Yet fighting lead and even managed to win. Illustrations. ----
Competition and insecurity do not facilitate the mobilizations, but if in addition we
consider the conditions of self-employment on the platforms of the world of the Internet,
like Uber physical work or digital as the Mechanical Turk, it is difficult to imagine how
build collective resistance, and French unions are far from worry about it. Yet few leads
have emerged recently. ---- Read two other articles on e-working: ---- The uberisation, a
new era of exploitation ---- Amazon Mechanical Turk ---- On June 17 of this year, the
Commission's work in San Francisco, California, decided to recognize the employee status
to a conductive Uber. The reason given is that the company is involved in all aspects of
the activity of its drivers, since it controls the relationship with customers, influence
the wages of drivers, excludes lower-rated drivers, etc. In France, this is due to a
decline in wages of 20% as Uber drivers come to mobilize to create the first union in the
area and impose the maintenance of wages, under threat of boycotting the platform.
Corporatist union and few policy, certainly, but nevertheless a first step towards the
construction of a power struggle. When the platforms and freelance microtasking is
including the German union IG Metall came the first effort of publicizing, by conducting a
survey on working conditions: "Faircrowdwork", for depositing testimonies , to note the
different platforms, etc., but also by a few words taken on the subject.
Resistances Turkers
Furthermore, a group of activists, researchers and the Mechanical Turk workers, created
the Dynamo Group (orbiting the website wearedynamo) to share information and allow the
self-organization of Turkers. A few hundred people were mobilized, but it did not last and
the movement fell after some pressure campaigns on Amazon. However, many mail lists,
forums, Facebook groups and other help to create the job of Turker, transmitting the
strings, the best way to use the platform or escape bad employers, and communicate
collectively suffering felt.
Finally, the most surprising is certainly the development of Turkopticon, an Internet
browser extension that is grafted onto the interface of the Mechanical Turk, and already
enables tens of thousands of Turkers noting each different employers, according to quality
its communication, the amount of wages paid, the frequency of arbitrary rejection of work
and speed of payment of wages. The will to organize seems not to be missed, but it remains
to find ways to fight effectively against this way to exploit a largely atomized
precarious proletariat.
Marco (AL northeast Paris)
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Contre-la-bete-e-monde
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Message: 2
he Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill published in November 2015 contains proposed
measures to criminalise the purchase of sex, an approach inspired by legislation
undertaken by countries such as Sweden, Norway, Iceland and in Northern Ireland which
frames itself as a “progressive” move, often referred to as the “Swedish Model”. ----
Minister of state Aodhan O Riordan claims that removing those selling sex from the 1993
criminalisation act will help vulnerable workers to report violence and misconduct and
thus stay safer at work. Yet according to sex workers themselves, only 2% agreed that
criminalising clients is a good idea (as interviewed for the Queen’s University Belfast
report, 2014). ---- Evidence from the Swedish government report which evaluated the effect
of the legislation between 1999- 2008 provided no data or evidence to prove that levels of
sex work had fluctuated, showing us that the law had failed in its stated mission.
A Swedish press release in 2010 revealed that organised crime surrounding sex work has in
fact increased, and information from the Norwegian ministry of Justice shows that the
Swedish model leaves sex workers exposed to more dangerous clients, violence, and STDs
such as AIDS and HIV because safer clients are deterred by the prospect of criminalisation.
Kate McGrew, co-ordinator from Sex Workers Alliance Ireland (SWAI) asks “Do the Government
and TDs and Senators actually think they know more about the impact and effect of
criminalisation on the rights of sex workers than sex workers themselves? .Let’s be clear,
this Bill does nothing to decriminalise workers. If these changes so blatantly target sex
workers, then who is this legislation for?”
In order to target the client, garda will need either need testimony from sex workers,
reports from others or to catch a couple in the act. In countries which support the
Swedish model, sex workers have reported that they have been subject to police raids aimed
to target the client, which involve sex workers being harassed, intimidated, refused to be
allowed to dress, having video footage recorded of them and having their names and IDs taken.
The same laws that claim not to target sex workers are responsible for the imposition of
structural violence through the crudely named “Operation Homeless” in Norway, where police
are known to target landlords of sex workers in order to forcibly displace them from their
homes. Police are lying when they say they don’t target sex workers, and the state
sponsored harassment of workers highlights this falsity.
In Sweden, the tenancy rights of sex workers are subjected to revocation if payment for
sexual services has been recorded. Where sex workers have been identified by police, they
have been barred from hotels which makes it more difficult to find safe places to work,
thus putting themselves at a higher risk of unsafe clientele due to laws which criminalise
the buyer.
It is clear that these laws make it more difficult for sex workers to report violence and
they disproportionately effect the most marginalised of sex workers such as street
workers. Racist ideologies are also exposed when migrant sex workers risk getting deported
if they present a claim to police, whilst workers with children become targets for social
services intervention leading to loss of custody.
Most pertinently, politicians who claim that this bill will decriminalise sex work have
shrouded the current state of affairs in a veil of disguise: claims of the decriminalising
the sale of sex are in fact false according to an amendment of the criminal justice public
order act 1994, which allows garda to arrest anyone whom they deem to be acting in
accordance with paragraph c): “[who] is acting in a manner which consists of loitering in
a public place for the purpose of offering his or her services as a prostitute.” The risk
of a criminal charge thus acts as an inhibitor to sex workers in reporting crimes
committed against them.
Kate Mc Grew speaking at the Fine Gael ard fheis claims, “Our government keeps telling us
that they want to protect the most vulnerable women by criminalising the men that buy sex
from them, but under this new legislation a client will not face a prison sentence but a
worker will. The government has now doubled the fine and doubled the prison sentence for
sex workers caught working together in an apartment or house. If this is the governments
aim to stop prostitution by ending the demand, then why are they increasing the penalties
and further criminalising workers?”
The Dail is also refusing a 2 year review of the bill which would evaluate its
effectiveness with recourse to the experiences of the sex workers who are implicated in
it. Pursuing this legislation without consulting those who are effected by it, the voices
of sex workers themselves, echoes a state of affairs in which governmental legitimacy is
conferred on its own terms rather than on the terms of the people. Political consensus on
the matter is hence confirmed by silencing discursive opposition.
The ideological motivation which underlies this stance on sex work is one of abolitionism,
in which sex work is situated in a world where patriarchal social relations leads it to be
considered a social ill that must be eradicated.
Accordingly, sex workers are constructed as victims whose choices regarding their bodily
autonomy do not signify genuine consent, and rather the financial incentive involved is
said to exemplify a form of coercion in which sex workers are constructed as a passive
objects of patriarchal violence. Whilst this view claims to be genuinely concerned with
the welfare of women, it erases the voices and agency of sex workers whose choices are
seen as misguided manifestations of “false consciousness”.
The Swedish model thus masks the real impact of criminalising the client and legitimises
this condescending construction of sex workers whilst also erasing the fact that people
who operate as sex workers are also other genders.
WORDS: Amadeus Harte
http://www.wsm.ie/c/sex-workers-no-sexual-offences-bill-ireland
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Message: 3
"Are you ready to accept additional hundreds of thousand Kurdish refugees from Turkey?"
---- Today (8.2.2016) a group has gathered in the Sümerpark area in the city of Diyarbakir
in order to protest the German chancellor Mrs. Angela Merkel who is visiting Turkey. The
protestors criticized Merkel for her double faced policy on the refugee crisis and
particularly the deal of the EU with Turkey. ---- In their speech the following statement
has been done: ---- The EU has signed a deal with the Turkish government in October 2015
which has the aim to hold millions of refugees in Turkey with different means and actions
and not to let them to go to Europe. However, this has the effect that the EU has become
dependent from the Turkish government more than ever which has for the people of the
Kurdish regions in Turkey grave impacts. Because of this deal the Turkish government has
got a free hand in its war against the Kurds which has been started in July 2015 and led
to the death of 250 civilians and the destruction of four cities. The EU and the European
governments do not criticize any more the human rights violations and crimes of the
Turkish state against the Kurdish population. They have even opened new chapters in the EU
accession process of Turkey.
Merkel and EU are only interested that refugees do not come in large numbers to Europe.
Here at first we would like to state that the policies of the EU and USA have a certain
responsibility for the continuation of the wars in Syria, Iraq and other countries. They
still do not enough to stop the wars, especially their partner Turkey is supporting IS and
other jihadists in Syria. Thus they have the responsibility to take an important part of
the refugees.
We further believe that Turkey abuse the refugee issue to make pressure on the West on
different subjects (like an intervention into Syria) and to make silence on its brutal war
in our regions. And do not forget that through the support of IS and other jihadists in
Syria by Turkey (in cooperation with Saudi Arabia) the refugee crisis has been deepened.
While these are the realities, how the EU wants to act with Turkey in the sense of peace,
democracy and stability?
The most crucial thing is: The refugee deal with the Turkish government allows the Turkish
state to suppress the Kurds who are the main actor for democracy in Turkey. The war of the
state against the Kurds has started to produce refugees in our region. Already half
million people have changed their homes. They are still in our region. But if the war
continues more people will be displaced. Then they will go to West-Turkey and probably
further to Europe where they have many relatives who fled in the 90’ies when their
villages had been destroyed by the Turkish Army.
The dirty deal between Turkey and the EU brings us to a point where we do not ask whether
Turkey will meet EU accession criteria. As we understand the EU accession criteria are
valid as long as core political-economic interests are not touched.
Finally we want to ask Merkel two questions:
1) Are you aware which results has your policy towards Turkey here in our region?
2) Are you ready to accept hundreds of thousand Kurdish refugees in the EU in the coming
months and years?
Related Link: http://www.mezopotamyaekolojihareketi.org
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/29077
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Message: 4
This article is an overview of the impact and causes of labor strikes and riots in China
over the last 10 years, and how it is supported by a number of leftists and NGOs was not
enough to advance the class struggle in the country. ---- Introduction ---- P erjuangan
social in the workplace and elsewhere in China has increased in recent years. Because it
is limited by state repression and capitalist, this struggle takes place without an
effective trade union representation. Because the face of the crisis and the specter of
social unrest, the state capital and reorganize unmatchable repressive strategy and
introduced a form of mediation to regain control class recomposition process. Meanwhile,
trade unionists and left-wing academics who support the struggle of workers in China to
push for the formation of unions' independent ', which follows the grand narrative of the
left , which is an increase of class forces through the workers' representatives in a
capitalist state.
That way, NGOs and leftists have to take risks: to legitimize the capitalist structure
(reformed). To understand the potential of social struggle and the parties involved in
strategic decisions, we must look at the historical dynamics of social change, in
particular, the role of elected representatives (trade unions) and the forces of
capitalism that serve to integrate and mempasifkan struggle in the country. This paper
argues that the forms of labor organizing autonomous in China can use its potential to
create profound social change while avoiding the mistakes made by movements elsewhere.
global conditions
As a result of the global struggle in the 1960s and 1970s and the economic crisis, capital
change Keynesiannya worldwide strategy and launched a counter attack, for example, through
a policy of austerity, cuts in wages and industrial relocation. This led to industrial
relocation processes and areas of new industrialization, rural-urban migration is massive,
and proletarization in some parts of the world, particularly in East Asia. In the
countries of parents who are 'core' capitalist countries once the socialist countries in
Eastern Europe, as well as some developing countries, classes of the old workers who have
employment contracts and benefits are relatively safe now attacked [1] and class the new
workers are relatively difficult labor conditions was established. However, neither the
attack on the class composition of the old and the establishment of industries and new
global production chains still can not solve the problem of capital.
In this case, the crisis in the late 2000s is an extension of the crisis of the 1970s.
Only two years after the outbreak of the global crisis in 2008, we have witnessed a wave
of uprisings, strikes and other forms of resistance worldwide. Overall, there was more
violence today than in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which is the last phase of a wave
of social rebellion global sort of thing. [2] In many struggles that occurred recently,
the activity of the grass roots, swaorganisasi and social anger encourage the creation of
social processes more participatory and egalitarian, for example, in 2011 during the Arab
uprising, Spanish movement M15, the Greek uprising, and the Occupy movement. At the same
time, the "left" institutionalized-that often want to get the function and role in the
state apparatus-continued to show interest and potential to re-legitimize the state were
reformed and reorganized the capitalist structure. The response of the all negarawi adds
organizational and structural weaknesses in the struggle, and narrow the space to build
the future in the present: the social revolution.
Recomposition in China
In China, the crisis of a system of 'socialist' peaked in the 1970s. Reply wave of
struggle and capitalist attacks worldwide in the same period the previous encourage
coalition is unlikely to occur between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with private
capital and state. Reforms that began in 1970 made China become a 'factory of the world'
in the late 1990s. The working class parents to decompose through restructuring and
downsizing industries of the country and the destruction of the 'rice bowl besi'-set of
social security for urban workers. Meanwhile, industrialization and rural-urban migration
form the labor market is segmented and the class of migrant workers is substantial, ie 200
to 300 million, which is exploited by foreign capital and Chinese and controlled and
repressed by the state through the control measures of political and social tight.
Until now, the process of proletarianization of migrants has not been completed, because
the statute of household registration ( hukou ) does not allow migrants to settle in the
city. 'The acquisition of land' which caused farmers around the world have lost their land
and had to migrate and sell their labor at workplaces, the new capitalist China is not
repeated in the same way. In contrast, the majority of migrant workers in China, the
process of their return to the village and land plots were confronted by the reality of
rural low income, unemployment, lack of opportunities, and subjective choice to choose the
city life 'modern'. [3]
New struggles
Industrialization, migration, and proletarization have changed the social landscape in
China. As elsewhere, the migration is the process of mobility forced toward the goal of
capitalist (to perform paid work or without pay if capital needs), but migration also
include elements of labor mobility which is autonomous to escape from misery,
exploitation, and patriarchy in the area of origin. In China, the migration has triggered
a battle field that is still taking place in all social relations based on gender,
generation, and classes are struggling to get more social freedom and control over their
lives. [4] The majority of social struggle that occurred in China in the last two decades
centered around labor issues, corruption, land seizures, or environmental issues, and
social struggle was led by the urban and migrant workers, farmers, and even the 'middle
class'. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the old working class to build the great
struggle against layoffs and deteriorating living conditions. However, it can only delay
the process, not prevent it. In the same period, farmers fought against the corrupt state
and party officials, land theft, and high taxes, thus forcing countries to reduce taxes,
but still remains a serious problem in rural areas.
The struggles of the new migrant workers demanding economic improvements increased
throughout the 2000s and peaked in 2010. [5] It is described as "the class struggle
without class organization" [6] because he is a class-based, but the organized
autonomously, ie without labor organizations institutionalized. Riots includes forms of
struggle such illegal wildcat strikes by industrial workers in workplaces, medium-sized or
large, major riots involving proletariat migrant (wage and non-wage), demonstrations,
sit-ins, and roadblocks, as well as various forms of resistance daily in the workplace as
a slowdown in job purpose, the number of workers who are absent work, or sabotage. [7]
more recently, workers fight the larger bustling industrial centers of major new along the
east coast of China (Pearl River Delta, Yangtze Delta, and Beijing / Tianjin), and also
flooded industrial relocation path towards a new inland zones such as Chongqing, Zhengzhou
and Chengdu.
changing patterns
With the increasing number of struggles, content, pattern, and shape of the organization
was changed. In the first half of the 2000s, most of these struggles do to maintain basic
standards or against human rights violations, and is based on a form of kinship between
social organization. This struggle is usually limited to a single company (one village,
the environment, etc.), And this limitation is called "activism mobile". [8] In the second
half of the 2000s, more struggles to lift the demands of the offensive on the economic
recovery, using the organization social outside kinship, and proved to be contagious,
which encourages action imitation, strikes that spread like a domino effect, participation
is more, the forms of democracy from the bottom up and coordinated by a growing number of
workers militant and activist networks are experienced. [9] the workplace as well as
dormitories and villages outside the zone of migrant workers in factories and construction
sites into sites for the social organization of this struggle. Skilled workers, foremen
male and female supervisors play an important role in many struggle to use your skills and
position to organize a protest. In certain cases, they are known as lawyers and
journalists 'citizens', often the (former) migrant workers, obtaining legal and other
skills to support the workers in their struggle against the company and help disseminate
information and experience. [10]
New generations
Workers today are more able to cope with the problem alone, confident and competent to
hold protests and strikes. It is connected with the sustainability of the social
generation of migrant workers is different. Generation first migrated to urban zone in the
1980s and 1990s, have no industrial work experience and life of the city, and plan to
return to the village. This generation was launched only isolated incidents of labor
unrest. Generation second , migrated in the late 1990s and 2000s, have known the
experience of others in the city. This generation has not learned to farm, wants to settle
in the city, and is able to use the internet and mobile phones for social organization.
Like the case of industrialization and the migration of others around the world, are the
second generation began to protest and strike. [11] We now see generations of the third
who do not want to do industrial work again but get white-collar jobs. They dream of
owning your own business, being able to buy cars and electronic gadgets, and have time for
family and recreation. Some of them managed to carry out their dreams, while the majority
remained impoverished by low-wage jobs in factories, on construction sites, in shops,
restaurants, as domestic servants or security guards. This experience led to
disappointment, dissatisfaction and anger. Today, many migrant workers from second and
third generation saw social mobilization, including a strike, as a legitimate form of
resistance. Knowledge of organizing the protests have spread in their environment through
labor groups and militant activists. This does not mean that they are all overcome the
social fragmentation that they experience and engage in collective struggle - but a lot of
things done successfully than ever before.
State and capital strategy
The new struggle is a threat both to the regime and the global division of labor. Model
worker's as explosive profit engine of China and the backbone of the global production of
cheap consumer products for other world regions and enables the core countries to press
ahead with austerity programs and cuts in wages. Now it may end. The main strategy of the
state and capital to face the scourge of the working class struggle has been fruitful
'improvements' space' to run away from the fighting, and that is the relocation of
factories to inland China (or countries such as Vietnam). This strategy was only partially
successful because there is an increasing struggle of the workers in the new industrial
centers in recent years. The state also launched an attack on workers to weaken their
struggle through (1) the enforcement of the internal division of labor through migration
law and the separation of gender-based labor market; (2) repression by state agencies,
including the arrest of the people who called the leader of the group and police attacks
on protesters. At the same time, the state tried to defuse social tension through (3)
direct intervention into a conflict that could potentially destabilize the system through
various state agencies, the local authorities and the labor bureau, through tactics such
as intimidation and arrest up to the promises and cash compensation; and passing (4)
distribution of worker complaints over labor law and mediation in the workplace, which
track a ritual for the complaints and demands of workers whose function is to make the
conflict is a problem individual and weaken the workers in conflict.
The general role of unions
All these forms play a role in inhibiting the struggle of the workers but does not prevent
an uprising that occurred recently as a wave of strikes in 2010 in the automotive
industry. As a result of dealing with more protests, the state wants to build safety
valves to channel more social pressure. One focus is to make the union as a mediating
force (during and outside of collective bargaining) that can assist the management company
and the state to control the workers' discontent. Unions can not be understood as a
strategy 'from above' alone or as an organization 'from below' alone. Historically, trade
unions and workers' discontent is based on the willingness of workers to express it.
States try to represent the power of workers and use their ability to stop production or
refuse to work in the negotiations to get a good deal: higher wages, job security etc.
States serves as a mediating body between capital and labor within the framework of the
capitalist-but not beyond it-and therefore require the goodwill of the camps opposed to
comply with the agreements reached. To remain acceptable to capital, the unions must prove
its ability to control the activities of independent labor undesirable; to maintain the
confidence of the workers, unions must demonstrate their openness to the problems of
workers and produce a number of successes in the collective bargaining process. However,
during weak labor, capital may think that the representatives and the union is not
required and the cost is too expensive; but when the strong workers and workers' struggles
inhibit the production and threatening social peace, the management often require the
attendance of representatives of workers from the workplace or unions officially
recognized. [12]
Death of open space unions
Independent workers' organizations are repressed in China, and the China Federation of
Trade Unions (ACFTU) official closely associated with the ruling CCP and against labor
militancy. Because of his involvement with the state and capital, ACFTU unions are not
received by workers as their representative body, and can not effectively intervene and
mediate in the workers' struggle. Therefore, workers have limited space to organize and
fight independently. The struggle to encourage concessions such as improvement of working
conditions and wages, and has expanded the space for social activities against the
repressive state so that the CCP saw it as a 'threat to social stability' (which means a
threat to the rule of the CCP itself).
To deform the autonomous organization of workers, the CCP requires union structure
effectively controlled by the state, so the CCP began to allow a bit of reform in the
ACFTU as an experiment through collective bargaining and more participation of workers at
union level company-as happened in the struggle of the most prominent for several Last
year: in 2010 following a strike at the Honda plant in Foshan, and in 2013 after many
struggles in factories Foxconn.
However, the country faces a dilemma because there is a possibility that the government is
more tolerant attitude towards any kind of organizing workers will encourage a more
collective protests and led to more coordination and demands for political change, and it
may be difficult for the government to stop the process. Therefore, it is very doubtful at
this time whether the country would be going too far to legalize strike (led by the unions).
The larger narrative of the left
The strategy designed by the workers' struggle against the state institutions and the
capital, but when it comes to integration and attacks against the struggle, the state and
capital often rely on the power of collaboration 'leftist' from the inside and outside of
the working class.
In China, some labor activists, officials of NGOs, and academic support (1) the formation
of unions 'independent', or (2) reform of the ACFTU so as to fulfill the function as a
representative body of workers. [13] Ironically, the two proposals are being promoted by
the forces contradictory: a group that wants mempasifkan struggle, some even on behalf of
the 'harmonious society' ala CCP, and groups that want to increase the tension of the
struggle - but mistakenly interpret that trade unions are an organization that strengthens
the power of the workers.
Why is the second group to make such a mistake? In the last 150 years, capitalism as a
social relationship has proven to be very flexible in adapting to and integrating social
conflicts, so the system can be stabilized and fundamental changes can be prevented.
Capitalism often successfully integrate the left forces that entered the mobilization of
the working class in the forms of bourgeois rule and capitalist ideology of progress and
modernity. These forces often follow the larger narrative of the left who expressed the
need for a bourgeois revolution before the proletarian revolution, the formation of
'working-class organizations' like the union (for "economic struggle") and the party of
workers (for "political struggle"), which seized power in the country and establish a
workers' state during the transition phase.
The narrative is based on a particular class composition, especially in Germany in the
late 19th century and early 20th century, which form the main doctrines of the left, the
Social Democrats and the Marxist-Leninist (no matter how different the main doctrines of
this). In essence, this narrative serves as the ideology of capitalist development through
industrialization, proletarization (Tayloris), the rule of less is more 'democratic' or
authoritarian. [14] Today, after the collapse of socialism of the 20th century that is
based on a class system of bureaucratic and repression political and social-democratic
participation in democratic governance western capitalists, both looked worn as a
political framework that is useful for social change, but the narrative is still very much
alive as a political strategy among leftists today and lobby groups.
In China, the larger narrative of the left or variations are promoted not only by a
minority of 'left' in the CCP who want to revitalize the state workers' Maoists are, but
also by a number of 'left' opposition to support the mobilization and labor strikes, such
as academics NGO specific remunerated groups (neo) Maoist, left academia etc.
Practical criticism in the struggle
Many rebellions and movements since the 1960s into a practical critique on the larger
narrative of the left , the top of the 'socialism really exist' and the Social Democrats.
This movement encourages rebellion and other forms of collectivity and self-empowerment
that managed to resist the inability of the union or party officials, and have prompted
initiatives to combat egalitarian division of labor that include gender, 'race', or skill.
Moreover, these movements reject attachment to the power of the state and nationalism
'left' and choose a global perspective on social change.
It is the element of life of many struggles, recently during the movements of people's
assembly in the town square in Spain and Greece and the Occupy movement. However, these
elements do not prevent recovery of the system after the fight happen and stabilization of
this exploitative system. For example, despite the massive mobilization of the working
class, the uprising in Greece repeatedly channeled into formal organizations and the
elections 'democratic'.
Activists have played a role in the failure of reformist tactics because they promote and
uphold the representative idol shaped large formal organizations, although there is no
historical evidence to support the idea that the formal organization of workers is a
prerequisite for effective worker resistance. Unions or workers' parties usually
established after a period of militancy. They embody channeling conflict into
organizations, which often leads to loss of practical solidarity rather than gains.
Conflicts are separated from those who are directly affected and involved, deprived of the
workplace and on the streets, and 'settled' in the tables of negotiations and through the
ballot box. [15]
However, criticism of the repression or channeling the struggle through the 'repair the
capitalist' or weaken as a result of the strategy of the left is not enough. The struggle
does not necessarily lead to a revolution if there is no intervention 'left'. State
repression and the country's strategy to divide and distribute the movement had an impact,
and, of course, the internal weakness plays a role, which is contradictory problems that
exist inside / outside: the struggle for the improvement of social conditions within the
capitalist framework, namely the use of union and collective bargaining or other similar
form to negotiate with the enemy class vs. the struggle to abolish capitalism are
constantly changing and reproduce the conditions of exploitation and oppression. As long
as capitalism exists, all these elements will play a role in the struggle. Whether this
leads to a revolutionary situation is highly dependent on the strength of those who
rebelled and understanding of this power.
Therefore, any form of organizing workers according depends on the ability of workers to
organize themselves in a way that enables them to empower themselves against capital,
develop a perspective that goes beyond capitalist exploitation, and reject the forms of
mediation and reintegration into capitalist development.
The strength of the workers
In analyzing the fundamental social change opportunities in China, we need to assess the
strength of the workplace and the organization [16] of groups of different workers and
investigate the disposition and action of workers in concrete struggles that are the basis
for the recomposition of a working-class movement. Here is just a sketch on the matter:
Strength work (the ability to promote the interests of a person in the workplace through
the cessation of production etc.) Among the working class in China has increased along
with the development of industrial clusters, integration of workplace China in the global
production chain, and the reorganization of work and production just-in-time , Most wave
of strikes in 2010 centered on companies that have certain conditions. Circles other
workers have a work force that is much less because of individualization, repression and
control, such as the Domestic Workers. This reflects the technical composition of the
working class of China is fragmented and various production regime creates a separate
place for workers. This is an important obstacle to the spread and the growing struggle of
the working class. Strength organizational has risen as far as many workers have learned
how to organize the resistance and struggle (see above), but is still limited because of
repressed by the government and weakened by government mediation tactics.
Workers outside the factory during the strike in 2014 in Guangdong province
Questions for change
Questions regarding the disposition and action of workers in the struggle that concrete
can show recomposition political movement of the working class, but the questions have to
go beyond analysis simply discuss political warfare, economic and ideological launched by
the state and capital against the working class and the reaction of the against workers.
The struggle of migrant workers in particular still has the character of a somewhat
temporary in China because of employment volatility and mobility of workers themselves.
There are also some struggle that unites the urban workers, migrant workers, farmers and
students. The increasing number of protests has undermined the legitimacy of the state of
the CCP, but many workers still see the central state as the only institution that can
increase living or working conditions when capitalist unlawful and treated them badly. The
social movements have not managed to unite most of the workers and destroying the
exploitative and repressive structures completely, and also has not been able to produce
an open discourse on the power of the working class and the class perspective beyond
capitalism.
However, we see the strengthening of the Chinese working through these struggles and
development interests, aspirations and actions based classes. This development has a
direction (more struggle, more coordination, and more power), but the future is, of
course, remains uncertain. The struggles can be (1) indicates a change in the balance of
power that is temporary in the class struggle that will turn around if the crisis and
repression occur, and (2) indicates increasing strength of the working class within the
capitalist framework that continues to be perpetuated and adaptation reformers against
political structure like is happening now, and (3) indicates a possible social revolution
is already underway and remove structures structures exploitative capitalist in China (and
elsewhere).
The questions cover
Considering the crisis of capitalism and the possibility of social change globally, what
impetus will come from China? After a long period of economic growth lush, massive social
change, the economic crisis is 'delayed' and the continuation of authoritarian rule of the
CCP and the "harmonious society", China may become the core capitalist and the new
hegemonic power. The new working class struggle has disrupted the accumulation of capital
and make China become the center of global labor unrest, but so far the state capital and
successfully manage the pressure and continue the policy of splitting, repression and
diversion against the resistance of workers. Economic and political system is still
functioning, the ruling power still sitting in their seats.
Capital and the country has managed to isolate and destroy the old working class, and the
question now is whether the new class of migrant workers will be able to further expand
the struggle and produces not only economic but also political change. Migration and the
struggle has led to an increase in wages and improvement of living conditions, but the
overall development resulted in the income gap continues to grow, deepening friction
villages and towns, the discrimination that continues to happen against migrants, poverty,
and the process of commodification (eg education and health), which causes more much
suffering and hardship.
Capitalist crisis and workers' struggles as interconnected processes may lead
delegitimation crisis-ridden capitalist order and the state, and the instability of the
capitalist system today - in China and around the world. The effects of the crisis and the
struggle may cause people to question the capitalistic power relations, racism and gender
bias and seek other forms of sociality new. Are China and workers' struggles can serve as
a laboratory of social change beyond the trap of social partnership depends on (1) in the
space of social mobilization that is created when a clash between the state / capital and
the working class occurred, (2) the success or failure of political groups left trying to
encourage representation and institutionalization of social struggle and (3) on the
dynamics of capitalist crisis and social struggles throughout the world.
We need to address weaknesses class organizations who mediated, and their role in
stabilizing the capitalist exploitative relationship. Limits of "class struggle without
class organization '- namely the social struggles and forms of organization in China today
- it was clear, but the absence or dysfunction representatives of institutions' left' in
China turned out to be helpful in encouraging more room for efforts to strengthen self
workers themselves, who strangled by the mediators left in the same historical context. In
other words, consolidation of the power of workers, including the defense and expansion of
the field that has been won is only possible through the forms of organizing effective
trade. However, to avoid deadlock created larger narrative of the left is referred to in
this paper, it opens up more space for other forms of organization that goes beyond the
representative idol. []
[1] Of course, all of these countries also have the old working class who do not have
secure employment contracts, and also especially includes women and migrants.
[2] According to Alain Bertho in the documentary "Les Raisons de la Colere", Arte, France,
2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QpIqcfsDlQ, no more rebellion in 2009 (540) than
1968. During 2010, he counted 1250 uprising:
http://www.regards.fr/societe/alain-bertho-les-mobilisations,5008
[3] For a more detailed reference, see: Pun Ngai, Lu Huilin (2010): Unfinished
Proletarianization: Self, Anger, and Class Action Among the Second Generation of
Peasant-Workers in Present-Day China . Modern China, September 2010, 36: 493-519.
[4] This includes the struggle of the ideological basis of Chinese society, for example
Confusian patriarchal regimes.
[5] A recent example in: Au Loongyu / Bai Ruixue (2012): New Signs of Hope. Resistance in
China Today . China Labour Net http://worldlabour.org/eng/node/515 See also: Butollo,
Florian / Tobias ten Brink (2012): Challenging the Automization of Discontent , Critical
Asian Studies, 44: 3, 419-440 http: / /dx.doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2012.711978 and China
Labour Bulletin (2012): A Decade of Change. The Workers' Movement in China 2000-2010
http://www.clb.org.hk/en/node/110030.
[6] Chan, Chris King-Chi (2010): The Challenge of Labor in China. Strikes and labor regime
in the changing global factories . London / New York.
[7] For an event of strikes and riots by workers in different parallel in the history of
the capitalist, see Mason, Paul (2007), Live Working or Die Fighting: How the Working
Class Went Global . London. London. For an example of massive riots in 2011 in China, see
the description of Guxiang (Chaozhou) and Zengcheng (Guangzhou) in Buttolo / ten Brink
(see above).
[8] See Lee, Ching Kwan (2007): Against the Law. Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and
Sunbelt . Berkeley.
[9] This element can be, for example, seen in the wave of strikes in the car industry in
the summer of 2010 and breaking down various taxi driver since 2008. It describes the
trends and do not represent all the struggle in all areas. For a similar assessment, see
Friedman, Eli (2012): China in Revolt . Jacobin, Double Issue 7/8,
http://jacobinmag.com/2012/08/china-in-revolt, and Buttolo / ten Brink, China Labour
Bulletin, and Au / Bai (see above).
[10] See, eg, Wang Kan (2011): Collective Awakening and Action of Chinese Workers: The
2010 Auto Workers' Strike and its Effects . Online Sozial.Geschichte 6, S. 9-27,
[11] See Silver, Beverly (2003): Forces of Labor. Workers' Movements and Globalization
since 1870 , Cambridge.
[12] This pattern can often be seen in China, where management is often "ask" the striking
workers to elect representatives to the talks - also hoped that the representatives to be
bribed, threatened, and dismissed after the conflict is resolved.
[13] One of the leading proponents of the second group is the China Labour Bulletin (
http://www.clb.org.hk/en/ ), besides being a source of information about the conditions
and the exploitation of the workers' struggle.
[14] A detailed critique of the larger narrative of the left should include a thorough
analysis of the artificial dichotomy used in this ideology - the public / state, the
economic struggle / political struggle, union / party - effort this narrative to cure
errors and irrationality of capitalist through an economy planned to run the accumulation
of capital, and includes a critique of the distorted image of the capitalist class is
strong that exploit workers on the one hand and the state / party / union as an
institution that is necessary to defend the "rights" of workers on the other side - who
reject or ignoring the essence of the working class as part of the capital relationship
and the power to destroy this relationship.
[15] See Piven, Cloward F./Richard Francis (1977): Poor People's Movements - Why They
Succeed, How They Fail . New York
[16] See Silver (see above). The third form of the proposed Silver strength, market
strength (ability to sell themselves in the labor market at a good price), plays a less
important role for the development of power as a class. In China, this force increases
with the lack of manpower in the industry and offer new job after the relocation of
industries to remote locations, but this power is still quite low in disadvantaged areas
and for unskilled workers in low-wage industrial consumers. Separation of the labor market
through legislation and discriminatory hukou still undermine the market power of many workers.
This article was first published on the website Gongchao . Gongchao (meaning "strike", or
"wave resistance" in Mandarin) is a collective that was established in September 2008 as a
project to research and document the labor unrest and social movements in China from the
perspective of class struggle, migration and gender. The collective's website offers a
selection of analytical texts and stories of the workers themselves in several languages.
Translation by Yab Sarpote.
http://anarkis.org/melawan-berhala-perwakilan-perjuangan-kelas-di-cina-melampaui-narasi-besar-kaum-kiri/
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Message: 5
What better way to spend your Valentine’s day than discussing war, globalisation and
social reproduction! On February 14th, at 2PM we’ll be meeting with a group of friends in
the Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh to read two chapters from Silvia Federici’s collection
of essays Revolution at Point Zero which discuss globalization and social reproduction.
---- Reproduction and Feminist Struggle in the New International ---- Division of Labor
---- War, Globalization, and Reproduction ---- This reading group is intended to
collectively develop a better understanding of feminism, materialism, and revolutionary
politics. ---- Free and all welcome. ---- Please come along even if you have not had time
to read both texts. Meetings will be flexible and we will aim to summarise texts, read out
passages and define points of interest as we go.
We ask that all people who attend read and abide by the following safer spaces policy.
https://edinburghanarchists.noflag.org.uk/2016/02/globalization-and-social-reproduction/
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