Full Description
Worker organizing has long been a cornerstone of efforts to secure fair pay, decent working conditions, and protection against the insecurities of market economies. By acting collectively, workers have historically been able to counterbalance employer power and win improvements to work and life. Yet such gains have always been partial and contested, and the settlements between labour and capital remain under constant pressure. In the wake of rapid social, political, technological, and environmental change which is reshaping work and challenging the institutions and practices that have underpinned worker collective action, this edited volume explores the evolving landscape and practices of worker organizing in the twenty-first century.
In the context of developments that have exposed the limits of existing models of worker representation and protection - from the erosion of union density in many countries, to the rise of precarious and platform-based work, to climate crisis and pandemic fallout - the chapters in this volume examine the innovative strategies, organizational forms, and solidarities that workers are forging in response to intensified inequalities and new modes of exploitation. The contributions draw on diverse theoretical perspectives and examine a range of empirical settings to shed light on the forms, dynamics, and outcomes of worker collective action in contemporary contexts.
Recentring worker organizing as a vital force in shaping a more equitable, sustainable, and democratic world of work, Worker Organizing is a timely and compelling volume for scholars of the sociology of work and labour, organizational studies, social movements, and beyond.
Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction - Tradition and Frontier: The Changing Landscape of Worker Organizing; Andreas Pekarek, Rick Delbridge, Markus Helfen, and Gretchen Purser
Chapter 2. The Institution's the Limit? Exploring the Influence of Institutional Conditions on English Healthcare Unions' Framing Efficacy during the Post-Pandemic Strike Wave; Nick Krachler
Chapter 3. Engage or Organize? How a Major Canadian Trade Union Approaches Technological Change; Daniel Nicholson
Chapter 4. From Industrial Citizenship to Precarious Employment? The German Experience of Co-Determination and Union Organizing in Diverse Workplaces; Torben Krings
Chapter 5. The Relationship between Labor Mobilization and Intra-Union Democracy: Evidence from a Unionization Battle in Türkiye; Hazal Göçmen
Chapter 6. A Worker-to-Worker Alternative to Staff-Heavy Unionism: The Burgerville Workers Union; Eric Blanc
Chapter 7. From Mobilizing to Organizing in a Time of COVID: Union Power Resources and the Emergency Worker Organizing Committees; Tod D. Rutherford
Spotlight on Ethnography
Chapter 8. Employees vs. Customers: Structural Scarcity and Conflict in Dollar Store Service Work; Tracy L. Vargas
Chapter 9. Checked Out: Coping and Cashiering in Retail Grocery Work; Katherine Mott
Chapter 10. Harnessing the Power of the Ethnographic Tradition in Worker Organizing: The Porous Boundaries of Theory and Practice; Melanie Simms
