10-11/23 sustainable work & just transition, global political economy of work and more

Newsletter:

D. Azzellini, Eng

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

October-November 2023, Dario Azzellini's newsletter in English - approx. 2 times a year

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0. Before

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

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. 121 pp. https://bitly.ws/WqWG

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, German, Spanish)

4. Interviews and press articles (English)

5. Reviews (English, Spanish)

6. Events (Berlin)

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0. Before

Dear all!

October 5 to 7 of October in: ALLIED GROUNDS · BG 2023 Project · Text Series, Conference, and More. October 5-7, 2023 in Berlin. Haus der Demokratie und Menschenrechte, Berliner Greifswalder Str. 4, 10405 Berlin

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

I will be participating! Se point 6

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My research report for the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Geneva on sustainable work and just transition is ready and was published online yesterday.

See point 1

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Also available before the end of October:

Handbook of Research on the Global Political Economy of Work
Edited by Maurizio Atzeni, Dario Azzellini, Alessandra Mezzadri, Phoebe Moore, Ursula Apitzsch, Edward Elgar Publishing, 700 pp

‘It is rare to find such a stimulating and thorough going collection of intellectually rigorous, empirically grounded and accessible contributions to our understanding of the range and depth of challenges facing us in the political economy of work in the 21st century. This is quite simply an essential set of readings for students, researchers and practitioners alike – an invaluable and exceptional text.’
– Jean Jenkins, Cardiff University, UK

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

Best,

Dario

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1. New Books and research rports (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.

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

Auf der Grundlage des von Dario Azzellini für die RLS herausgegebenen Buches "Mehr als Arbeitskampf!" wurde für das neue RLS-Projekt L!NX eine Serie von bebilderten Texten erarbeitet, die zur Einführung in die Thematik Arbeitskämpfe gegen Rechts dienen. Dazu gehören bisher: Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Gewerkschaften und Antirassismus, Frankreich: Gewerkschaften, soziale Bewegungen und Gelbwesten, Indien: Massenstreiks und Selbstorganisierung, Chile: „Es sind nicht 30 Peso, es sind 30 Jahre!“, Kolumbien: Eine mörderische "Demokratie".

Erzählung: Dario Azzellini, Grafik: Carina Crenshaw

https://linx.rosalux.de/arbeitskaempfe-gegen-rechts

https://www.rosalux.de/publikation/id/44046

https://www.azzellini.net/buecher-von-dario-azzellini/mehr-als-arbeitskampf

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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. 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, Ian Greer, and Charles Umney. 2022. "Why platform capitalism is not the future of work." Work in the Global Economy. Vol. 2. No.2. 272–289. https://doi.org/10.1332/273241721X16666858545489

This article examines the assumptions behind the sociology of work and industrial relations literature on online labour-based platforms. This literature has critically examined working conditions and worker resistance in platform work, but it has done so without criticising what we call the ‘metanarrative of the platform economy’. This metanarrative enables a weaving together of platform work with broader trends such as precarisation, neoliberalisation, financialisation and marketisation, but it makes it difficult for scholars to explain the small size of the platform workforce or to understand the diverse forms that platforms take. We argue that in order to understand the limits and diversity of platforms it is important to understand the inherent problems of platforms as capitalist business models. We suggest a research agenda that decentres some of the better-known platform models (ridesharing and food delivery) and carries out in-depth studies of work and exchange in other sectors.

https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/wge/aop/article-...

https://www.azzellini.net/node/3296

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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, German, Spanish)

Dario Azzellini, interview with Kevin Gustafson and Cinar Akcin, All Things Co-op: People Power - Imagining a World without Bosses, podcast audio by Democracy at Work, March 14, 2023.

In this episode of All Things Co-op, Kevin Gustafson and Cinar Akcin speak with sociologist, political scientist, author and documentary filmmaker Dario Azzellini. They discuss recuperated workplaces—workplaces that have been abandoned by private capitalist owners and taken over by workers and reorganized to be democratically controlled—and why the process of engaging in struggle with fellow workers builds an enduring ecosystem of trust. They also explore critiques of the Mondragon corporation, why co-ops should be rooted in community and social movements, the dangers of co-op owners identifying as entrepreneurs, the long history of worker struggles around the world, and more.

https://www.democracyatwork.info/atc_people_power_imagining_a_world_with...

https://www.ivoox.com/people-power-imagining-a-world-without-bosses-audi...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkPGfrvkTAU

https://www.azzellini.net/node/3309

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Wir übernehmen! Betriebsbesetzungen und Arbeiter*innenkontrolle in Lateinamerika und Europa. Berlin 26.06.2023. Organisiert von der Initiative demokratische Arbeitszeitrechnung (IDA)

Dario Azzellini, Universität Zacazecas (Mexiko), bietet einen Überblick und spricht auch darüber, wie Kooperationsnetzwerke aussehen können.

Eine bessere Gesellschaft würde sich nicht zuletzt dadurch auszeichnen, dass die Produzent*innen über ihr Produkt verfügen, anstatt für den Wohlstand anderer zu schuften. Ein erster Schritt dahin wird die Übernahme der Produktionsmittel sein. Sei es durch die Gründung selbstverwalteter Genossenschaften oder die Besetzung von Betrieben und Fortführung unter Arbeiter*innenkontrolle: Insbesondere in Lateinamerika, aber auch in Europa, gibt es viele vergangene und aktuelle Beispiele, wie die Übernahme gelingen kann.

https://youtu.be/JWPtc7YB22s?fbclid=IwAR1pOAIkOaIHjMcTuD3C5Cnvn9sf--McGP...

http://www.azzellini.net/videos/betriebsbesetzungen-und-arbeiterinnenkon...

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Video - Conferencia: "¿Son las plataformas digitales el futuro del trabajo?"

Conferencia impartida por Dario Azzellini, bajo la moderación de Guadalupe Margarita González Hernández en el marco de la XVIII Sesión - Seminario de Pensamiento Crítico de la Unidad Académica de Estudios del Desarrollo. Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, 01.11.2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyfCu73uzWw

https://www.azzellini.net/node/3299

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4. Interviews and press articles (English)

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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5. Reviews (English, Spanish)

Greco, Julie. 2022. "Why is there no Uber for live music?". Review: of Why Isn’t There an Uber for Live Music? The Digitalization of Intermediaries and the Limits of the Platform Economy, by Dario Azzellini, Ian Greer, Charles Umney. Cornell Chronicle, April 4, 2022.

While digital platforms like Uber continue to proliferate and expand the gig economy into new sectors of work, some industries, such as live music, have structural features that keep them from adapting well to online platforms. The difficulty of quantifying value, the complexities and contingencies of the task being performed and the fragmentation of the organizational field make certain industries resistant to platformization, according to the paper, “Why Isn’t There an Uber for Live Music? The Digitalization of Intermediaries and the Limits of the Platform Economy.” (...) through interviews and a systematic review of 168 “intermediary websites” – including agents’ websites, platforms and listing sites allowing individuals to connect offline – in Germany and the United Kingdom, the authors identified external issues that limit the growth of platforms. (...)

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2022/04/why-there-no-uber-live-music

https://www.azzellini.net/node/3258

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Ayala, Eduardo "Chavo" e Iván Andrés. 2022. "Recuerdos del futuro". Reseña de Poder Obrero de Dario Azzellini e Immanuel Ness. La izquierda Diario, PTS en el Frente de la Izquierda, 24 de Abril.

El libro Poder Obrero es una invitación a un viaje por múltiples experiencias que sacan a la luz el enorme potencial creativo, combativo y autogestivo de las y los trabajadores. Una bocanada de aire fresco en un mundo atravesado por una profunda crisis capitalista que solo puede encontrar respuesta en una alternativa revolucionaria de los trabajadores y todos los oprimidos. (...) Estas experiencias aparecen documentadas y narradas por distintos investigadores, presentadas no solo como casos de luchas puntuales frente a cierres o como parte de distintos procesos de lucha, sino como experiencias que buscan conscientemente jugar un rol en ascensos revolucionarios o bien como creadores de experiencias de autogestión y producción bajo control obrero al servicio de la comunidad, ejemplos alternativos a cómo organizan la producción los capitalistas.

https://www.laizquierdadiario.com/Recuerdos-del-futuro

https://www.azzellini.net/node/3262

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6. Events (Berlin)

ALLIED GROUNDS · BG 2023 Project · Text Series, Conference, and More. October 5-7, 2023 in Berlin. Haus der Demokratie und Menschenrechte, Berliner Greifswalder Str. 4, 10405 Berlin

With annual projects such as “Water Knowledge” (2009), “More World” (2019), and “After Extractivism” (2022), the BG began to explore various questions of political ecology, linking issues of environmental pollution, resource commodification, and climate collapse to the toxically intertwined and mutually fueling economic and ecological crises caused by imperialism and capitalism. Approaching this inquiry from a new, fresh angle, “Allied Grounds” – the BG 2023 project – intends to revisit and further explore so-called “sacrifice zones” and “transition countries,” zoom in on struggles for labor and environmental justice, and, ultimately, probe the organizational practices and potentialities of these very struggles.

Exploration: Central to the exploratory nature of the Allied Grounds project is a series of texts. Reflecting the politics and possibilities of internationalism, commons, and (re)organization, all of the inquiries are linked by a common concern: To research and construct connections between environmental and labor struggles. The overarching question of the project is: Since the means of production have become the means of climate production, how can we – all kinds of exploited workers around the world – seize these very means and address both the eco-social and decolonial question of the climate crisis?

Milestones: Engaging researchers, activists, and cultural workers in a variety of forms and encounters, we will be co-producing knowledge resources in different media formats.

I will be participating in the workshop "Working-Class Environmentalism." I hope to see you there!

My text contribution: Optimizing or Abolishing Capitalism? Sustainable Work and Just Transition Instead of Work Society and Climate Catastrophe. https://berlinergazette.de/optimize-or-abolish-capitalism-sustainable-work-and-just-transition-instead-of-work-society-and-climate-catastrophe/

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

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Dario Azzellini