Co-Operative Struggles: Work Conflicts in Argentina's New Worker Co-Operatives

Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-90-04-46858-0
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 203/13, 248 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 561 g

Reihe: Studies in Critical Social Sciences / New Scholarship in Political Economy

In Co-operative Struggles, Denise Kasparian expands the theoretical horizons regarding labour unrest by proposing new categories to make visible and conceptualize conflicts in the new worker co-operativism of the twenty-first century.

After the depletion of neoliberal reforms at the dawn of the twenty-first century in Argentina, co-operativism gained momentum, mainly due to the recuperation of enterprises by their workers and state promotion of co-operatives through social policies. These new co-operatives became actors not just in production but in social struggle. Their peculiarity lies in the fact that they shape a socio-productive form not structured on wage relations: workers are at the same time members of the organisations. Why, how and by what cleavages and groupings do these co-operative workers without bosses come into conflict?

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kasparian, Denise

Weitere Mitwirkende

Barnett, Ian

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Wirtschaftssoziologie, Arbeitssoziologie, Organisationssoziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Ideologien Liberalismus, Libertarismus
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Ideologien Sozialismus

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures, Tables and Images

Acknowledgements

Foreword: The Democratisation of Conflict

Julián Rebón

Introduction

The Question of Work Conflicts in New Co-operatives

Dimensions of New Social Conflicts in Co-operative Socio-Productive Contexts

The Challenge of Comparing Paradigmatic but Non-Equivalent Experiences: Studying a Whole that Acts as a Whole

The Structure of the Book

1 Co-operatives ‘Made in Argentina’: The Process of Enterprise Recuperation by their Workers

The Socio-Genesis of the Processes of Enterprise Recuperation

The Evolution of Enterprise Recuperation Processes

2 Incubated Co-operatives: Co-operative Formation under the Argentina Works Programme

Social Schemes with Work Requirement: from Workfare to the Argentina Works Programme

The Mediation of Unemployed Workers’ Organisations: Civil Associations, Productive Units and Co-operatives

The Dual Logic of the Argentina Works Programme’s Socio-Genesis: Creating Jobs and Co-ordinating Local Politics

Induced Co-operatives? The Struggle of Unemployed Workers’ Organisations

3 Keeping and Having a Job: A Milestone in Constitutive Conflicts

‘Occupy, Resist, Produce’. and Have!

From ‘Induction’ to the ‘Co-operative Without Brokers’

A Comparative Lens on Constitutive Conflicts

4 The Recuperated Enterprise and Social Power in Production

Recuperators, Activists and the ‘Born and Bred’

Property Relations: Social Possession and Differential Appropriation of the Fruits of Labour

The Logic of Production and the Issue of Sustainability in Recuperated Enterprises

The Political Dimension: Between Self-Management and Delegation

Social Groupings and Potential Antagonisms: Opportunity Hoarding, Enterprise Projects and Work Generations

5 The Argentina Works Co-operative and State Power in Production

The Labour and Socio-Spatial Precarity of Argentina Works Programme Workers

Property Relations: Social Possession and Autonomy

The Logic of Production: Between Subsistence and Political Accumulation

The Political Dimension: State Power and Co-management

Social Groupings and Potential Antagonisms: State Officials, Co-operative Members and Activists

6 The Production of Co-operative Conflict

Board Removals: Conflicts over the Running and Expansion of the Productive Process

Regulations, Sanctions and Exclusions: from ‘Founder Members’ to ‘Founderer Members’

“We Fought Over the River Module”: The Conflict over Autonomous Work

Between Subsistence Consumption and Political Accumulation in the Social Organisation

A Comparative Lens

Conclusions

The New Twenty-First-Century Co-operativism and its Struggles Around Work

What Patterns of Conflicts Are There Without Bosses? Towards a Theory of Unrest in Worker Co-operatives

From Prelude to Present: A Toolbox for New Research Questions

Bibliographical References

Official Documents and Reports

Regulations

Statistical Sources

Cited Interviews

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Denise Kasparian, Ph.D. in Social Sciences (2017), University of Buenos Aires, is Assistant Professor at that university and Researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council. She has published books and articles on conflict and social change in co-operatives.