The purpose of this blog is to provide analytical commentary on formal and informal labour organisations and their attempts to resist ever more brutal forms of exploitation in today’s neo-liberal, global capitalism.

Sunday, 31 October 2021

Nothing to Lose but our Chains: reflecting on workers’ key role in resisting capitalist exploitation.

There is widespread pessimism about workers’ potential to take successful industrial action in the UK today. Structural transformation from manufacturing into services and increasing precarisation would make resistance almost impossible. Not so writes Jane Hardy in her fascinating new book Nothing to lose but our chains: Work & Resistance in Twenty-First-Century Britain (London: Pluto Press, 2021). Workers continue to organise and challenge capitalist exploitation. There are no 'no go' areas for trade unions. In this post, I will review the key contributions and major claims made by Hardy.