Paper short abstract:

In this paper, based on anthropological fieldwork and having briefly sketched the background of Greek Unionized movement, I will explore the workers' representations on the matter, the content of the notion of solidarity as well as the role Unions may play in the so called post-industrial era.

Paper long abstract:

Within a neo-liberally oriented framework favouring adverse social incorporation, deregulated labour relations and massive layoffs, contemporary workers experience the gradual disappearance of standard employment and the advent of its casual and insecure forms as well as the emergence of vulnerable social relationships, threatening not just their material survival but also their identity and whole life. In this connection nowadays the notion of organized collectivity as the expression of a common claim aiming at getting basic and fundamental rights is at a serious crossroad. This is because unions, especially in the Greek case, have to make a decision on the way they will choose to represent workers' rights, that is, either they will manage the current humanitarian crisis due to economic recession or they will put an effort to become more democratic and socially sensitive succeeding thus in mobilizing more workers to organize struggle. In this paper, based on anthropological fieldwork and after having briefly sketched the background of Greek Unionized movement, I will explore the workers' representations on the matter, the content of the notion of solidarity as well as the role Unions may play in the so called post-industrial era.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the organizational strategies and barriers of indigenous unions to address the labor and civil rights demands of farmworkers in Northern Mexico. This study contributes to the anthropology of precarious labor and new forms of union organization in the Global South.

Paper long abstract:

The Mexican government treats farmworkers as temporal migrants with limited access to labor benefits and protections. It also support company unions to avoid labor strikes, maintain "social peace", and attract foreign investment. This paper examines the effects of this political framework for farmworkers in northern Mexico's export-oriented agriculture. Specialized in the production and export of fresh fruits and vegetables to the United States and Canada, Baja California combines capital-intensive production technologies with indigenous labor from Southern Mexico. While growers have business partnerships with transnational companies in the United States, labor unions are frozen in old patron-client relations with a provincial flavor. Defying this inequity, independent indigenous organizations have emerged to fight for their labor and civil rights. In the process, they use transnational connections with ethnic organizations in the United States, and social media as a weapon for social communication, resistance, and collective organization. These changes, I argue, speak of a social movement unionism with a holistic agenda of labor and community demands to address the needs and aspirations of a new class of rural proletarians along the Mexico-US border. I use this ethnographic case study to reflect about the anthropology of precarious labor and new forms of union organization.

Paper short abstract:

Based on a case study of two units in the Histadrut - Israel's main labor organization - the analysis will demonstrate two opposite strategies to face the liquidation of labor: A radical labor movement approach, and a blurred and moderate version of socialism.

Paper long abstract:

Based on the case study of two units of the Histadrut - Israel's largest Labor organization -- this lecture addresses two strategic responses to broad labor market's trends: the entry of new groups of vulnerable laborers and the influence of outsourcing on the workforce. It demonstrates how the Histadrut employs inconsistent strategies due to opposed expectations by different groups it represents.

One strategy can be found at the Social Workers Union. Outsourcing of the welfare services generated new precariat of social workers. Disillusioned from their initial expectation to secure their employment and influenced by critical approach endorsed in some academic circles, these social workers formed a new movement that supports radical class-war approach and managed to take over the union leadership.

Another strategy was of blurring socialism. The Histadrut's Religious Division represents ultra-orthodox Jewish workers. Historically, these Jews have been striving to dedicate themselves to religious learning and used their political power to receive allowances from the government. However, the economic crisis and the ambition to improve standards of life have been pushing them to join the labor market. The attempt to appeal to those workers led the Histadrut to stress the compatibility of socialist values with Jewish principles, while emphasizing the superiority of Judaism over any secular ideology including socialism. It also promoted compromising approach towards the employers.

These opposed cases put under question the Histadrut's ability to engage macro-policy that would increase its wide-ranging political impact.

Paper short abstract:

Zambian trade unionists are taught to conceptualise the bargaining process as a contest among equals. By presenting their poor wages as fair and technically derived, they perform a key piece of political labour for neoliberal exaction in Zambia

Paper long abstract:

Zambian miners consistently describe collective bargaining as the most important role of their union representatives. However, over the last ten years almost all Zambian mines' wage-negotiations have either achieved below inflation wage increases or resulted in strikes. Despite the fact that these inadequate results are caused by legal and political structures designed to favour investors over workers, Zambian trade unionists are taught to conceptualise the bargaining process as a contest among equals (guided by a mine's technical specifications). Subjectivation to this aspect of union identity occurs in trainings provided by international organisations and is reinforced through the bargaining process. Union leaders begin to understand their poor wage increases to be the result of 'production', 'company costs' and 'the price of copper' and attempt to mollify miners who believe that this is not the case. Through the bargaining process, these union leaders come to present their poor wages as fair and technically derived, performing a key piece of political labour for neoliberal exaction in Zambia

Paper short abstract:

In the paper I examine some characteristics of worker organizations in the US-Mexican border. I propose that the official unions maintained a strong relationship with the Mexican State and were aligned with the interests of capital. Thus unions are not able to defend workers rights.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I examine some characteristics of worker organizations in a strategic region of maquiladora influence: the US-Mexican border. I propose that a significant majority of official maquiladora unions maintained a strong relationship with the Mexican State and were aligned with the interests of capital. Therefore, they were unable to defend workers' rights, and this explains the presence of independent trade unions and transnational organizations as alternatives. I will describe how Mexican unionism works in order to understand trade unions in maquiladoras as a complex relationship among traditional unions, independent unions, worker coalitions, and transnational solidarity networks. Then I will explain unionism in the northern border region where a struggle and fragmentation among the main maquiladora unions and grassroots organizations took place.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the ethical implications of the shift from labour rights to human rights in corporate reporting by analysing the tensions between global frameworks for corporate responsibility and the Nordic tripartite model where employee rights traditionally have been in focus of dialogue.

Paper long abstract:

This paper looks at ethical implications of the shift from labour rights to human rights in non-financial reporting in the state owned Norwegian hydropower company Statkraft. It analyses how this shift reflects tensions between global frameworks for corporate responsibility and the Nordic tripartite model for company-labour unions-state interaction, where employee rights have been in focus of dialogue. Insight into how corporate responsibility is articulated and performed is based on fieldwork at sites such as Statkraft's head office in Oslo, its country offices in Istanbul and Ankara and local communities in Osmancik affected by the hydropower plant Kargi HEP.

Statkraft relates to international standards for sustainability reporting, following the Global Reporting Initiative since 2006. Statkraft's annual reports however, exclude central tenets of the 'Nordic model' such as labour rights, which are replaced by a focus on human rights. While labour rights are group based, have a national/regional focus and are statutory, human rights address individual rights, have an international focus and are integrated into the voluntary global frameworks for responsible business. Thus, highlighting one model rather than the other has ethical implications on how the company interprets responsibility. As frameworks for 'doing good' are constantly changing, a certain degree of pragmatism drives initiatives in the non-profit area, making it easier to perform on human rights standards. Simultaneously, a corporate pragmatic attitude may empty all attempts to fill corporate responsibility with meaning, and the right to unionize could potentially be delegitimised through reporting regimes where human rights discourses are emphasised.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the attempt at exporting the Norwegian tripartite collaboration model to the Tanzanian context and the encounter between this 'travelling rationality' and the Tanzanian reality characterized by split unions and unions that were set up during the one party era.

Paper long abstract:

In 2010, multinational companies discovered large reserves of natural gas outside the Tanzanian coast. One of the companies that has entered a Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) with Tanzanian authorities is Statoil (recently renamed Equinor). Statoil is a former National Oil Company (NOC) and the Norwegian state is still the majority owner (67% of the shares). This paper explores Statoil's engagement with, and active support to, union work among their Tanzanian employees, in collaboration with the Norwegian union Industri Energi and the global organization Industry All. Envisaging having more than 3000 Tanzanian employees within in a short time, the management of Statoil Tanzania were convinced that the Norwegian model, which emphasizes the tripartite collaboration between employers, unions and government, would be beneficial to their operations. The paper explores the encounter between this 'travelling rationality' and the Tanzanian reality characterized by a situation where newly established split unions compete with the unions that were set up during the one party era. The initial idea of setting up a collective bargaining agreement withered as Statoil postponed its final investment decision, and the 'business case' for active support to union work lost momentum. The paper builds on interviews and ethnographic observations with Statoil staff and national union leadership in Norway and Tanzania in the period 2015-2018, and draws on the author's 25 years of research experience in Tanzania.