http://www.azzellini.net  -  facebook: Dario Azzellini

Sep-Oct 2019, Dario Azzellini's newsletter in English   - 4-6 times a year
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0. Before

1. New Books (English): 

"The Class Strikes Back. Self-Organised Workers’ Struggles in the Twenty-First Century," Haymarket, January 2019

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

3. Videos/Audios (English)

4. Interviews and press articles (English, French)

5. Reviews (English, German)

6. Events (Ithaca/USA) 

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0. Before

Hello!

THe world is still upside down, as Edoardo Galeano once wrote. The lung of the world is burning and Bolsonazi is throwing more gasoline into the fire. In Southern Africa (and in  Madagascar) there are even more forests burning than in South America and no one speaks about it. More fires are burning in South-East Asia, Australia and Siberia. Here some maps regarding the global fires:

“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” In ancient Rome the interregnum was the time between the death of an emperor and the enthronement of the new emperor. In the interregnum political sovereignty and legality was suspended. Gramsci used it to refer to a time reigning powers lost hegemony and people were moving towards new, still not well defined horizons. We are now in an interregnum. The powerful cannot build a convincing consensus anymore, while the new is struggling to impose itself. No doubt that we can see “a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” It is the time of the monsters, as a popularized - and wrong - version of the quote says.

It's time for big struggles.

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"Occupy, Resist, Produce - Scop Ti" - the fourth film in the series on recuperated workplaces in Europe is available with English, German and Spanish subtitles (see 3). If you are interseted in showing it, please contact me.

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Best, Dario

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1. New Books (English)

Dario Azzellini and Michael G. Kraft (Eds.): The Class Strikes Back. Self-Organised Workers`Struggles in the Twenty-First Century. Haymarket, January 2019. US$ 28 (and now US$19.60

"The Class Strikes Back" examines a number of radical, twenty-first-century workers’ struggles. These struggles are characterised by a different kind of unionism and solidarity, arising out of new kinds of labour conditions and responsive to new kinds of social and economic marginalisation. The essays in the collection demonstrate the dramatic growth of syndicalist and autonomist formations and argue for their historical necessity. They show how workers seek to form and join democratic and independent unions that are fundamentally opposed to bureaucratic leadership, compromise, and concessions.

Specific case studies dealing with both the Global South and Global North assess the context of local histories and the spatially and temporally located balance of power, while embedding the struggle in a broader picture of resistance and the fight for emancipation.

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1198-the-class-strikes-back
http://www.azzellini.net/en/buecher-von-dario-azzellini/class-strikes-back

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2. Book chapters and journal articles (English, Spanish, German, Turkish)

Azzellini, Dario; Greer, Ian; Umney, Charles: „Limits of the platform economy. Digitalization and marketization in live music“. Reihe: Forschungsförderung Working Paper, Nr. 154. Düsseldorf (2019). ISSN: 2509-2359. 45 Seiten

Online platforms have disrupted parts of the capitalist economy, with allegedly severe consequences in the world of work. This study examines live music in Germany and the UK, where online platforms do not dominate, despite considerable digitalization of market intermediaries. The analysis shows that, as the degree of digitalization increases, matching services tend to work less as a workers representative which is traditionally the case for live music agents and more as a force of marketization that disciplines workers by orchestrating price-based competition.

http://www.azzellini.net/node/3155

Download pdf: https://www.boeckler.de/64509.htm?produkt=HBS-007242

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Dario Azzellini (2019): "The Legacy of Workers’ Councils in Contemporary Social Movements." In: Muldoon, James (ed.): Council Democracy. Towards a Democratic Socialist Politics. Routledge. 228-248. 258 pgs.

"The return to public assemblies and direct democratic methods in the wave of the global "squares movements" since 2011 has rejuvenated interest in forms of council organisation and action. The European council movements, which developed in the immediate post-First World War era, were the most impressive of a number of attempts to develop workers’ councils throughout the twentieth century. However, in spite of the recent challenges to liberal democracy, the question of council democracy has so far been neglected within democratic theory. This book seeks to interrogate contemporary democratic institutions from the perspective of the resources that can be drawn from a revival and re-evaluation of the forgotten ideal of council democracy.“

http://www.azzellini.net/node/3093

https://www.routledge.com/Council-Democracy-Towards-a-Democratic-Sociali...

Dario Azzellini (2019): "The Commune in Venezuela: A Utopian Prefiguration," in: Latin American Utopias: Past and Present. Edited by Juan Pro. Sussex Academic Press. 235-261.

"In an age in which fears about the future predominate (in the form of dystopias, ecological catastrophes and terrifying Sci-Fi scenarios), utopia is reappearing as the bearer of hope for the fate of humanity. Latin America has historically been a fertile ground where utopian projects, movements and experiments could take root and thrive, and this constitutes one of the region's major contributions to world history."

http://www.sussex-academic.com/sa/titles/latin_american_studies/pro.htm

Pdf file available with index and book introduction: https://utopia.hypotheses.org/1027 

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Charles Umney (University of Leeds), Dario Azzellini (Cornell University) and Ian Greer (Cornell University): The limits of the “platform economy”: why haven’t platforms taken over live music? / Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change, 16.01.19

„It is often assumed that the “platform economy” is in the ascendancy, and is taking over more and more economic sectors. Because of this, much research on the matter has focused on characterising and evaluating this change: what are the relative advantages and disadvantages of this kind of work compared to more “traditional” jobs? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic about it? Hence, most current research has looked at the experience of workers in industries which are already highly “platformised” (such as ride sharing, food delivery, or clickwork).“ 

http://www.azzellini.net/node/3130

https://cericleeds.wordpress.com/2019/01/16/the-limits-of-the-platform-e...

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Dario Azzellini (2019): “¡Ocupar, resistir, producir! La crisis actual y las recuperaciones de empresas recuperadas por sus trabajadores en Europa.” En: Michelini, Juan J. (Ed.) La metrópolis creativa: innovación social y espacios de resistencia en el Sur de Europa y  América Latina. Madrid: Catarata. 156-182.

„A lo largo de las dos últimas décadas la noción de innovación social ha venido adquiriendo un creciente interés en relación con el desarrollo urbano, interés que parece haberse afirmado en el contexto de la crisis desatada en 2007 y su impacto en términos de pobreza, vulnerabilidad, exclusión social y desigualdad. (…) En el momento actual las prácticas alternativas, colaborativas, comunitarias e innovadoras se multiplican y se diversifican, dando lugar a experiencias sustanciales desde el punto de vista del cambio social en distintos puntos del planeta. Sin embargo, esta acción colectiva, que ha permitido tejer numerosos puentes entre los países del Sur y el Norte global, ha generado un debate centrado geográficamente en Europa occidental y Canadá, siendo prácticamente ignorados tanto los países de Europa meridional como los de América Latina. Este volumen cubre, pues, este hueco, que da comienzo con un análisis inicial de carácter teórico, seguido de experiencias socialmente innovadoras en el mundo del trabajo, del hábitat, la educación y las finanzas solidarias.“

http://www.azzellini.net/books/book-entries

https://www.catarata.org/libro/la-metropolis-creativa_89101/ 

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Dario Azzellini (2019): "Wir können auch anders. Räte, Arbeiterkontrolle und Selbstverwaltung am Arbeitsplatz". In: Demirovic, Alex (Hrsg.): Wirtschaftsdemokratie neu denken. Westfälisches Dampfboot. 297-315.

"Die Forderung nach Wirtschaftsdemokratie war eine Initiative der Arbeiter- und Gewerkschaftsbewegung in den 1920er Jahren. In der Bundesrepublik wurde dieser Impuls vor allem in die unterschiedlichen Formen der Mitbestimmung in der verarbeitenden Industrie umgesetzt. Daneben gibt es die Praktiken der Genossenschaften, der Kooperativen und der Selbstverwaltung. Die Veränderungen der Unternehmen, die veränderten Bedingungen der Lohnarbeit, die Autonomiewünsche und Subjektivierungsformen der Lohnabhängigen, die ökologischen Zerstörungen ebenso wie die Aushöhlung der Demokratie drängen zu einer demokratischen Gestaltung wirtschaftlicher Entscheidungsprozesse. Die Beiträge resümieren Erfahrungen und bemühen sich darum, Wirtschaftsdemokratie in einem anspruchsvollen Sinn zu aktualisieren. Es schreiben Roland Atzmüller, Dario Azzellini, Martin Beckmann, Richard Detje, Andreas Fisahn, Gisela Notz, Frank Nullmeier, Bernd Riexinger, Harald Wolf u.a."

Buch beim Dampfboot-Verlag: https://www.dampfboot-verlag.de/shop/artikel/wirtschaftsdemokratie-neu-d...

Inhalt: https://www.dampfboot-verlag.de/filepool/getfile/dampfboot/?datei=/datei...

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Azzellini, Dario. 2019. "Emek Gücünü Müşterekler Olarak Organize Etmek."Praksis, Sayı 49: Müşterekler. Nisan 2019. Almancadan Çeviren: Sezer Karagöz.

http://www.azzellini.net/node/3153

http://www.praksis.org/en/

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3. Videos/Audios (English)

"Occupy, Resist, Produce - Scop Ti."  34 min. / English. A film by Dario Azzellini and Oliver Ressler.

Scop Ti is located in the small town Gémenos near Marseille, in Southern France. The plant belonged to Lipton (Unilever) and produced herbal and fruit teas and the 120-year-old local French black tea brand Thé de l’Éléphant. In September 2010 Unilever decided to relocate production and machines to Poland, closed the plant and left 182 workers without their jobs. The workers immediately occupied their workplace, supported by the union CGT. Initially all 182 workers participated in the occupation; after three years 76 were still active. They demanded from Unilever to get the factory, the machines and the brand name Thé de l’Éléphant. They planned to build a cooperative, switch production to natural and organic herbal teas using mainly regional products. 

Continue reading: http://www.azzellini.net/node/3096

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4. Interviews and press articles (English, French)

Can the Bolivarian revolution survive the Venezuelan crisis? / ROAR, April 11, 2019 / ROAR Collective

Creating the space for and allowing the Bolivarian Revolution to flourish is perhaps the most important achievement of Venezuela’s Chavista government — but can it survive the current crisis?

Dario Azzellini: „If by “Bolivarian revolution” we refer to the Venezuelan government, the response is not easy. We can affirm that it survived the political and economic crisis better and longer than all its enemies expected. Besides the drop in oil prices and the government’s own mistakes, one other cause of the current crisis is the international pressure on Venezuela, ranging from economic boycotts, financial sanctions and the illegal confiscation of billions of dollars deposited in international banks, to sabotage carried out by mercenaries and terrorist cells.“

Together with Dario Azzellini, they also answered that question: Sujatha Fernandes, Richard D. Wolff, Julia Buxton, Dario Azzellini, George Ciccariello-Maher, Raúl Zibechi, Gabriel Hetland and Cira Pascual Marquina.

Continue reading:

http://www.azzellini.net/node/3144

https://roarmag.org/essays/bolivarian-revolution-venezuela-crisis/

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La révolution bolivarienne peut-elle survivre à la crise au Venezuela? / Venesol -Plateforme de solidarité avec le peuple de la Révolution Bolivarienne au Venezuela, 23 avril 2019

Une des réalisations les plus importantes du gouvernement chaviste du Venezuela a peut-être été de créer un espace dans lequel la Révolution Bolivarienne a pu s’épanouir. Mais cette révolution peut-elle survivre à la crise actuelle?

Dario Azzellini: Si en disant “révolution bolivarienne” nous parlons du gouvernement vénézuélien, la réponse n’est pas simple. Nous pouvons affirmer que celui-ci à survécu à la crise politique et économique mieux et plus longtemps que ne l’avaient espéré tous ses ennemis. Outre la chute des prix pétroliers et les propres erreurs du gouvernement, une autre cause de la crise actuelle est la pression internationale sur le Venezuela, qui va de boycotts économiques, de sanctions financières et d’une confiscation illégale de milliards de dollars en dépôt dans des banques internationales, jusqu’à des actes de sabotage perpétrés par des mercenaires et des cellules terroristes.

Nous remercions Sujatha Fernandes, Richard D. Wolff, Julia Buxton, Dario Azzellini, George Ciccariello-Maher, Raul Zibechi, Gabriel Hetland et Cira Pascual Marquina pour le temps passé à répondre à cette question.

Continue reading:

http://www.azzellini.net/node/3146

https://venesol.org/2019/04/23/la-revolution-bolivarienne/

Traduction française de l'article original: https://roarmag.org/essays/bolivarian-revolution-venezuela-crisis/

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5. Reviews (English, German)

„The class strikes back: Self-Organized Workers’ Struggles in the Twenty-First Century“ (Book Review). Journal of Labor and Society, November 15, 2018 / Robert Ovetz

The path through decades of working class defeat is much discussed but little studied. Azzellini and Kraft's book The Class Strikes Back seeks to change that by helping to fill one of the most glaring holes in class analysis today. It offers a compilation of detailed analyses of workers organizing to shift the balance of power between capital and workers, or what is otherwise known as class composition, from 13 countries and nearly every continent. Everyone involved in and studying working class self-organizing needs to not only read this book but use it as a model for continuing this long overdue work.

Continue reading:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/wusa.12367

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"Communes and Workers’ Control in Venezuela: Building 21st Century Socialism from Below“. Socialism and Democracy, 20 Nov 2018 / Babak Amini

This monograph presents the most detailed account available in English of communal councils and workers’ control initiatives in Venezuela that have evolved since the beginning of the Bolivarian Revolution in 1999. At a time when Venezuela is grappling with the most serious economic and political crisis that it has experienced since the turn of the century, understanding the transformative processes that the country has undertaken is crucial for anyone seeking to have an informed assessment of what Venezuelan experience signifies for the socialist project in the twenty-first century. 

Continue reading:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08854300.2018.1508949?journa...

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"Rückeroberte" Betriebe. Ein Buch stellt Fabriken unter Kontrolle der Beschäftigten in Europa und anderswo vor. Der Rabe Ralf, April/Mai 2019, S.26 / Elisabeth Voß

Die dargestellten Projekte, ihre Erfahrungen und die Schlussfolgerungen des Autors, der auch einige Filme über besetzte Betriebe gedreht hat, sind interessant. In dem Buch steckt einiger Diskussionsstoff, beispielsweise zum Umgang mit Eigentum, zur Arbeitsteilung und zur betrieblichen Demokratie. Allerdings wird der Lesegenuss dadurch gemindert, dass das Buch nicht aus einem Guss ist. Nur das erste Kapitel wurde neu verfasst, die drei anderen erschienen bereits in wissenschaftlichen Zeitschriften. Sie enthalten viele Quellenhinweise im Text und es gibt erhebliche Überschneidungen und Wiederholungen. Wer darüber hinwegsehen kann, wird mit Einblicken in die Vielfalt dieser sehr speziellen Arbeitswelt belohnt.

http://www.azzellini.net/buecher-von-dario-azzellini/vom-protest-zum-soz...

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6. Events (Ithaca, NY) 

Monday, September 16, 2019 at 12:15pm to 1:10pm // Stimson Hall, G01 // 204 East Ave., Ithaca, NY 14853, USA

“Worker Controlled Companies in Latin America” by Dario Azzellini, LASP Weekly Seminar Series

During the financial crisis in Argentina 2000/01 workers began to take over their companies when they were closed by the owners, and started producing under workers’ control. Company takeovers occurred also in Uruguay, Brazil and Venezuela. In 2019 the number of confirmed Workers’ Recuperated Companies (WRC) was more than 400 in Argentina (with more than 15.000 workers); 78 in Brazil (with more than 12.000 workers); 22 in Uruguay and approximately 100 in Venezuela. Single takeovers occurred also in other countries in Latin America, the US, Europe, North Africa, India and Southeast Asia. In WRC almost everything changes: the workers’ subjectivities; social relations among the workers; labor process; internal dynamics and relationship with the providers, customers and communities. The production under democratic self-management as answer to the attack of capital reaffirms the identity as workers (without an employer), and demonstrates that a different way to work is possible. The seminar lecture looks at the challenges, achievements, common features and differences of WRC in Latin America.

http://www.azzellini.net/node/3156

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Dario Azzellini

www.azzellini.net                www.workerscontrol.net