2/24 New book: global political economy of work, just transition and more

Newsletter:

D. Azzellini, Eng

http://www.azzellini.net - facebook: Dario Azzellini February 2024, Dario Azzellini's newsletter in English - approx. 3-4 times a year

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0. Before

1. New Books and research reports (English, German, Portuguese):

Atzeni, Maurizio; Azzellini, Dario; Mezzadri, Alessandra; Moore, Phoebe; Apitzsch, Ursula (Eds.). 2023. Handbook of Research on the Global Political Economy of Work. Cheltenham, UK / Northampton, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Azzellini, Dario. 2023. Sustainable Work and Just Transition: Policies and labour movement actors in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Spain, Poland, Colombia, Mexico and the Philippines. Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Geneva. 121 pp.

Azzellini, Dario und Carina Crenshaw. 2023. Arbeitskämpfe gegen Rechts: Serie von bebilderten Texten. Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung-Projekt L!NX.

Azzellini, Dario. 2023. O movimento autogestionário mundial: uma perspectiva marxista. Brasil: Lutas Anticapital.

2. Academic articles: Book chapters and journal articles (English, German)

3. Videos/Audios (English)

4. Interviews and press articles (English, German)

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0. Before

Dear all!

The world is a mess... and I thought last year it couldn't become much worse...

Here is my newsletter

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It's out!!!

Atzeni, Maurizio; Azzellini, Dario; Mezzadri, Alessandra; Moore, Phoebe; Apitzsch, Ursula (Eds.). 2023. Handbook of Research on the Global Political Economy of Work. Cheltenham, UK / Northampton, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. 702 pp.

‘This is a much needed Handbook that adds value to the growing literature on the global political economy of work. Its strength lies in the collection of works that, using critical perspectives, puts labor at the center of various interdisciplinary analyses. Offering a comprehensive view—theoretically, geographically, and in terms of work sectors—this bookcollection challenges Eurocentrism in labor studies and highlights how the workings of the world economy can have significant negative impacts on the peoples in the Global South.’

– Intan Suwandi, Illinois State University, US

https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/usd/handbook-of-research-on-the-global-political-economy-of-work-9781839106576.html

Suggestion: Look me up in researchgate.net

see point 1

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Talks and conference

Interested in organizing a talk in the US? I am available (tavel costs from upstate NY).

Possible subjects:

- Presentation "Handbook of Research on the Global Political Economy of Work"

- Sustainable Work and Just Transition

- Recuperated Enterprises under Workers Control (globally or Latina America or Europe)

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Labour Transfer Summer School in Sardinia!

From 15 to 20 June 2024, we will hold the third edition of the “Labour Transfer Summer School: Establishing links between research and labour activism” in Buggerru, Sardinia, Italy. "We” are some of the editors and authors of the “Handbook of Research on the Global Political Economy of Work”. The Labour Transfer Summer School is an independent not for profit international initiative of global labour scholars interested in collaborations, synergies and knowledge exchange between academia and social organizations aiming at producing emancipatory knowledge on labour and social issues. LabourTransfer gives students and participants a chance to exchange their research interests with academics, labour activists and trade unionists from all over the world. In den kommenden 14 Tagen werden Programm und Anmeldeformalitäten veröffentlicht.

We will publish the prgram and reigstration info in the next two weeks.

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My research report for the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Geneva on sustainable work and just transition is ready and can be downloaded for free:

Azzellini, Dario. 2023. Sustainable Work and Just Transition: Policies and labour movement actors in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Spain, Poland, Colombia, Mexico and the Philippines. https://bitly.ws/WqWG

see point 1

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In solidarity, happy end of year celebrations and a happy new year!

Best,

Dario

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1. New Books and research reports (English, German, Portuguese)

Scientists agree that what is done by governments is by far not enough to halt global warming, climate change and mass extinction, much less to reverse it. Not even the measures planned are sufficient if ever enacted. The present report offers eight country case studies looking at the policies and discourses regarding work in the socioecological transition and labour organizations, social movements and environmental movements eventually forging alliances for sustainable work and a just transition.

https://rosalux-geneva.org/sustainable-work-and-just-transition/

https://www.azzellini.net/node/3327

Free download at: https://bitly.ws/WqWG

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Atzeni, Maurizio, Dario Azzellini, Alessandra Mezzadri, Phoebe Moore, Ursula Apitzsch. 2023. Handbook of Research on the Global Political Economy of Work. UK, E-Elgar EE.

"This ground-breaking Handbook broadens empirical and theoretical understandings of work, work relations, and workers. It advances a global, intersectional labour studies agenda, laying the foundations for the politically emancipatory project of decolonising the political economy of work. Moving beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries, this Handbook provides a comprehensive account of the relations between different forms of work, exploitation, class configuration and worker resistance. With insights from global experts across the social sciences, it examines changes in technology, geographies of production, and the dynamics of the global capitalist political economy to map modern configurations of work. Using ongoing empirical qualitative research, contributors explore key issues such as capital accumulation, migration, digital work, trade unionism and reproductive labour. There is a particular focus on perspectives from the Global South, with in-depth analyses of class and work in countries and regional economic blocs used to explore the dynamics between the local and the global. "

http://www.azzellini.net/node/3320

https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/usd/handbook-of-research-on-the-global-poli...

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Azzellini, Dario. 2023. O movimento autogestionário mundial: uma perspectiva marxista. Brasil: Lutas Anticapital.

A presente obra de Dario Azzellini demonstra, com um extenso levantamento de experiências em diversos países e continentes, que existem elementos de continuidade entre as atuais fábricas recuperadas e o “legado” dos movimentos pretéritos de lutas autônomas e autogestionárias do movimento operário. Ao mesmo tempo, nas condições atuais do capitalismo e da luta de classes, Dario Azzellini atualiza a estratégia associativista e autogestionária, trazendo a tona importantes contribuições políticas para o projeto de emancipação da classe trabalhadora, pensando a força de trabalho como bem comum, produtor de valores de uso, e a perspectiva comunal, que articula produção e reprodução material com a organização social. Fruto de uma pesquisa extensa, de abrangência mundial, a presente obra deve se tornar referência obrigatória para todos que lutam pela superação do capital, da exploração econômica e da opressão política. Mauricio Sardá de Faria - UFRPE

https://lutasanticapital.com.br/products/o-movimento-autogestionario-mun...

https://www.azzellini.net/node/3310

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2. Academic articles: Book chapters and journal articles (English, German)

Azzellini, Dario. 2023. "Commune socialism: self-management, popular power and autonomy in Venezuela". In From Extractivism to Sustainability: Scenarios and Lessons from Latin America, edited by Henry Veltmeyer, Arturo Ezquerro-Cañete. (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003301981

In this chapter, the author analyses the dynamics of a broad movement to construct an alternative ‘social and solidarity’ form of society based on co-operativism, autonomism and worker self-management, and local community-based development within the context of popular power (poder popular) and the institution of Communal Councils, which was constructed ‘from below’ within civil society, although the leading role of these councils in the social transformation that has taken place in Venezuela over the past decade, and their revolutionary form (autonomous bodies of popular power), owes much to state support. This chapter elaborates this point, but he also argues out that the State has also an inherent tendency to inhibit the development of autonomous structures and tends to control and subordinate social processes. This contradiction, the author argues, in the case of Venezuela became increasingly accentuated the more communities developed the structures of self-government.

https://www.azzellini.net/node/3307

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003301981-20/com...

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Azzellini, Dario, Sebastian Brandl und Ingo Matuschek. 2023. "Nationale Perspektiven auf Nachhaltige Arbeit und Inwertsetzungen von Arbeit in Europa". In Nachhaltig Werte schaffen? Arbeit und Technik in der sozial-ökologischen Transformation, herausgegeben vom Thomas Barth, Melanie Jaeger-Erben, Georg Jochum und Stephan Lorenz. Series Arbeitsgesellschaft im Wandel. 100-116. Weinheim: Beltz / Juventa.

Die gegenwärtigen Organisationsformen von Arbeit sind vielfach nicht nachhaltig. Arbeit als zugleich wertschaffende und wertzerstörende Tätigkeit droht somit die Grundlagen zukünftigen Arbeitens und Lebens zu untergraben. Mit dem Band wird der Frage nachgegangen, wie sich auf nachhaltige Weise Werte schaffen lassen, wobei das Zusammenspiel von Arbeit, Nachhaltigkeit, Werten und den genutzten Technologien im Vordergrund steht: Unter welchen Bedingungen und mithilfe welcher Technologien können die Naturverhältnisse nachhaltig gestaltet werden und welche Hindernisse bestehen dabei?

https://www.beltz.de/fachmedien/soziologie/produkte/details/48818-nachha...

https://www.beltz.de/fileadmin/beltz/leseproben/978-3-7799-7007-1.pdf

https://www.azzellini.net/buchbeitraege/nationale-perspektiven-auf-nachh...

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3. Videos/Audios (English)

Azzellini, Dario. Sustainable Work. Video talk is based on the following article: Optimizing or Abolishing Capitalism? Sustainable Work and Just Transition Rather than Labor Society and Climate Catastrophe. Video, 16.10.23. Berliner Gazette, Allied Grounds Conference 2023.

Workers of all stripes and their communities potentially have an existential interest in sustainable, non-polluting production. And they are also the ones who will bear the brunt of a social-ecological transformation. Therefore, if workers do not take a central role in defining and practicing the transformation, it will not happen, as the social scientist Dario Azzellini argues in his “Allied Grounds” video talk.

https://berlinergazette.de/sustainable-work-and-just-transition/

https://www.azzellini.net/node/3329

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Dario Azzellini, Lorenzo Feltrin and Brett Neilson. Politics of Translation: Preparing the Ground for New Alliances. Audio, 11.10.2023. Berliner Gazette, Allied Grounds Conference 2023.

In contemporary capitalism, workers are increasingly fragmented and divided, along the lines, for example, of productive and reproductive labor, wage and unpaid labor. Yet they could realize their common interests not least by confronting the capitalist threat to their social and ecological environment and to their collective capacity to create a life worth living. This requires translation not only between different languages, but also between different cultural, social, economic, political and, not least, class contexts. The final panel of the “Allied Grounds” conference, “Politics of Translation,” addressed these issues. Moderated by Anna Saave, Dario Azzellini, Lorenzo Feltrin, and Brett Neilson gave talks at the House of Democracy and Human Rights, which can be listened to by clicking on the play button below.

More information about the “Allied Grounds” project can be found here: berlinergazette.de/projects/allied-grounds/

https://soundcloud.com/berliner-gazette/allied-grounds-public-talks-day-2

https://www.azzellini.net/node/3326

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4. Interviews and press articles (English, German)

Berliner Gazette, Allied Grounds. Working-Class Environmentalism. Workshop Projects 1999 - 2023.

"Ecological transition from below: But a specter is haunting the globe… and its name is working-class environmentalism, with its sinister “ecological transition from below. Get ready! (...). Working-class environmentalism is a fantastic animal. It has countless heads with eyes of different shapes and skins of many colors, clawed paws to cling to the ground, and wings to fly beyond our current reality of alienation and greenwashing. It is not a chimera, however. In different parts of the world, people are struggling for sustainable work beyond capitalism. These struggles are led by workers in the broadest sense, not just factory workers, but also the unemployed, unpaid and paid reproductive workers, subordinated intellectual workers, etc. (...) If you are tired of the dull best practices of “green” capitalism, why not try the beastly practices of working-class environmentalism? There are no set guidelines, just wild lines, which you can find below in the archive of working-class environmentalist experience and the map of characteristics of sustainable work. The map and archive are far from exhaustive, but they cover different sectors and countries, reflecting a broad understanding of the working class and the possibilities for rolling back the ecological crisis. End of the world, end of the month, same struggle!"

The ‘Working-Class Environmentalism’ workshop consisted of: Alistair Alexander, Dario Azzellini, Lorenzo Feltrin, Francesca Gabbriellini, Nelli Kambouri, Gorana Mlinarevic, Jaron Rowan, Sotiris Sideris.

https://projekte.berlinergazette.de/workshops/2023/10/06/working-class-e...

https://berlinergazette.de/de/projects/allied-grounds/

https://soundcloud.com/berliner-gazette/house-of-democracy-and-human-rig...

https://www.azzellini.net/node/3330

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Azzellini, Dario. 2023. Optimizing or Abolishing Capitalism? Sustainable Work and Just Transition Rather than Labor Society and Climate Catastrophe. Berliner Gazette, 19.06.23

Workers and related communities are potentially the only ones who have a real interest in sustainable and non-polluting production – and thus in overcoming labor society as we know it. And they are also the ones who will have to bear the brunt of the socio-ecological transformation. If they do not take the central role in defining and practicing the transformation, no such transformation will take place, as social scientist Dario Azzellini argues in his contribution to the BG text series “Allied Grounds.” There is a scientific consensus on the need to keep the global temperature increase below 1.5 degrees Celsius. There is no room to negotiate with nature. Government documents say that it will take a change in the prevailing patterns of consumption and production. But they avoid talking about work, let alone questioning work or unpaid work and linking it to the climate crisis. When people talk about work, they usually promise “green jobs” in a “green economy.” Both concepts do not question the capitalist model of production and are based on the idea of “green growth.” The quality of work does not play a role here, beyond statements of intent. As studies in various European countries show, “green jobs” are largely low-skilled, the majority are precarious and poorly paid, and about 70% of them are held by men. The question of class is also largely absent. Thus, the question of who is responsible for the most emissions and consumption of resources, and who will pay for the socio-ecological transformation, is lost.

https://berlinergazette.de/optimize-or-abolish-capitalism-sustainable-wo...

http://www.azzellini.net/node/3319

This article is a contribution to the Berliner Gazette’s “Allied Grounds” text series; the German version can be found here. For more content, visit the “Allied Grounds” website. Take a look: https://berlinergazette.de/projects/allied-grounds/

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Dario Azzellini