Exiting the Factor: Review of Alexander Gallas’ book on strikes and class formation beyond the industrial sector.

In his major, two-volume publication Exiting the Factory: Strikes and Class Formation beyond the Industrial Sector (Bristol University Press, 2024), Alexander Gallas asks ‘what are the class effects of non-industrial strikes – or in how far do they contribute to working class formation?’ (Vol.1, P.12). He successfully demonstrates that collective action in non-industrial sectors too results in class consciousness. Work may change in certain parts of the world towards non-industrial sectors, but workers will always struggle collectively to defend themselves against capitalist exploitation. In this review, I will highlight some of the key achievements of Gallas’ publication.

 

Political Science often prides itself for its apparent objectivity, with many academics not understanding that even supposedly objective research always includes a particular position, a certain normative base. Refreshingly, rather than pretending to be objective, Gallas provides an important justification for a normative position to underpin Global Labour Studies, drawing on the notion of ‘qualified ethical naturalism’ (Vol.1, PP.38-40). Rather than regarding such a normative foundation as a handicap, the author makes clear that it enhances our empirical analysis. ‘Being on the side of workers’, Gallas argues, ‘means being for workers exercising their class power and advancing their interests against capital, and for workers resisting and challenging capitalist class domination in the process’ (Vol.1, P.42).

 

This normative underpinning, in turn, informs the concept of ‘academic worker’, ‘someone employed by a university or research institute who is handling knowledge that is of strategic relevance to workers, who is immersed in labour struggles in higher education, and who aims to connect those with other labour struggles’ (Vol.1, P.70). Such an academic is not simply engaged in so-called objective social science, but actively participates in class struggles within their work environment. As Gallas reveals, he himself has been an activist in struggles against casualisation in German Higher Education. He, thus, provides academics, who regard their work as part of a broader emancipatory project, with a moral compass of what this means in practice.

 

Moreover, Gallas develops a class relational theoretical perspective including a materialist conceptualisation of the role of the state and anchored in critical realism at the meta-theoretical level. This allows him in Chapter 5, Vol.1 to focus on the class antagonism between capital and labour and firmly define class as a relation. Of course, a common position in the way the social relations of production are organised is often the starting point for class formation. Ultimately, however, concrete class formation is the outcome of collective struggles. In short, ‘the working class is a collective actor-in-emergence’ (Vol.1, P.147).

 

Volume 2 is dedicated to empirical research and here specifically class formation in non-industrial sectors. More specifically, he analyses trade unions and industrial action in the German railways industry, where the small Union of German Train Drivers (GDL) has been accused of fragmenting the working class. Not so, concludes Gallas’ his empirical findings. His research demonstrates that ‘workers outside of industry organize, strike and make gains – and they create links with other workers in the process’ (Vol.2, P.132). Hence, rather than fragmenting class, the GDL contributed positively to class formation.

 

Some class formation as the result of the junior doctors’ dispute and the related strike action is identified in Britian in Chapter 7, Vol.2. Chapter 8, Vol.2 in turn investigates the General and Feminist General Strikes in Spain. Importantly, Gallas extends the notion of strike and class formation into the sphere of social reproduction. Strikes and the withdrawal of labour power are combined with broader demonstrations. And strikes are not only labour strikes, but also care, consumption and education strikes. Thus, Gallas concludes that ‘the struggles in Spain show how class struggle is being revitalized in the current conjuncture, and how feminist strikes safely belong in the repertoire of worker resistance to class domination’ (Vol.2, P.197).   

 

In conclusion, these two volumes are a highly important theoretical and empirical assessment of strikes in non-industrial sectors especially in Western Europe. They are a must-read for everyone who is interested in continuing class formation and resistance to capitalist exploitation in developed countries today.

Andreas Bieler

Professor of Political Economy

University of Nottingham/UK

Andreas.Bieler@nottingham.ac.uk

20 September 2024