Logistics, power resources and the strike of Brazilian truckers in 2018

Work in logistics and transport has moved to the centre of attention of labour studies in the past few years. One of the central assumptions of this research is that workers in this sector command the power to block so called choke points, crucial nodes where commodities have to pass, like ports and warehouses, providing these workers with extraordinary power. In the study Logistik, Machtressourcen und politische Ökonomie des Rohstoffexports about the 11 day long strike of truck drivers and petroleum platform workers that occured in Brazil in 2008, Jörg Nowak contends the assumption that the power to block choke points is sufficient for effective exercise of power of workers. In this guest post, Jörg provides a summary of the main argument in English.

Talking about Resistance – inside Bolsonaro’s Brazil

Photo by gaby_bra

From 3 to 10 December, I visited Sao Paulo/Brazil for several lectures and also had the opportunity to speak to representatives of the local metalworkers’ trade union as well as the Florestan Fernandes National School (ENFF) of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), outside the city. In this blog post, I will reflect on comrades’ perceptions about how the rise of the right in Brazil around Bolsonaro can be contested and what the future may hold for radical social movements. 

'We are ready to defend ourselves!' Letter by indigenous nations to the new President of Brazil.

The election of Jair Bolsonaro as new President of Brazil has put indigenous people under renewed pressure. Only recently, loggers invaded indigenous territory and attacked indigenous people in the Xingu region in Para. This blog post reprints the letter of three indigenous nations from Brazil to President Bolsonaro, asserting their rights.

In whose interest? The need for a new economics.

The global financial crisis shook the global economy in 2007/2008 and its fallout can still be felt in the form of high unemployment, permanent austerity and wage stagnation. In the immediate aftermath, many started to question the neo-liberal assumptions about the benefits of the ‘free market’. Had it not been the deregulation of financial markets and here in particular the financial markets in the US, which had caused the crisis in the first place? And yet, almost ten years later, neo-liberal economics continues to reign supreme. In this blog post, I will assess the strange non-death of neo-liberal economics and its implications for the politics of the British Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell.

Exploitation in the Global South and North: lessons from the aluminium industry.

The production of aluminium is based on the destruction of the environment and exploitation of workers in the Global South and North alike, reported Frank Meyer, the Director of ARBARK, the Archive and Library of the Norwegian labour movement, to the transnational labour project at the Centre for Advanced Study in Oslo. In this blog post, I will provide an overview of Frank Meyer’s key points in relation to his comparative case study of Porto Trombetas in Brazil and Årdal in Norway and reflect on the possible involvement of trade unions in resisting exploitation in the aluminium industry.

Confronting Neo-liberal Capitalism: SIGTUR’s tenth Congress in Perth/Australia, 2 to 6 December 2013.

Last week, I attended the tenth Congress of the Southern Initiative on Globalisation and Trade Union Rights (SIGTUR) in Perth/Australia, 2 to 6 December 2013. SIGTUR is a network of more militant trade unions from the Global South with a focus on South-South co-operation. In this post, I will reflect on SIGTUR’s achievements, problems as well as possibilities for the future on the basis of the exchanges at this Congress. I will argue that it will only be through joint campaigns against capitalist exploitation that relationships of solidarity can be established through SIGTUR more widely.

Urban Protests in Brazil: Unions Follow in the Wake of Popular Demonstrations.

Since 2001 it has become common to speak of a group of “rising powers”, rapidly developing countries which will overtake the established powers of Europe and the USA. This BRICS group, composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, have been heralded as the new drivers of the global political economy. Recent protests in Brazil have cast doubts on such a narrative. In this guest post, Phil Roberts analyses the underlying dynamics as well as key agents in these mass demonstrations in cities throughout the country.

Transnational Labour Solidarity in times of Globalisation?

The increasing transnationalisation of production and informalisation of labour relations has undermined the traditional power resources of national labour movements (see Bieler, Lindberg and Sauerborn 2010). And yet, globalisation has not left workers without weapons. In his book Solidarity Transformed: Labor Responses to Globalization and Crisis in Latin America (Cornell University Press, 2011) Mark Anner investigates how labour movements in Latin America have developed new power resources. In this blog post, I will provide a critical appraisal of this remarkable book and add some theoretical considerations on how to conceptualise trade unions’ agency within the changing structures of globalisation.