The Class Strikes Back: Self-Organised Workers’ Struggles in the Twenty-First Century

Historical Materialism #150

by Dario Azzellini (contributor), Michael Kraft (Contributor)

The Class Strikes Back examines a number of radical, twenty-first-century workers' struggles characterised by a different kind of grassroots unionism and solidarity.

Genres: Nonfiction, Labor, Politics

336 pages, ebook

Published January 11, 2018

About the author

Dario Azzellini is assistant professor for sociology at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria, writer and documentary director. He holds a PhD in political science at the Goethe University in Frankfurt (Germany) and a PhD in sociology at the BUAP in Puebla (Mexico). His research and writing focuses on social and revolutionary militancy, popular power and self-administration, workers control, migration and racism, social movements and extensive case studies in Latin America. Azzellini published several books, essays and documentaries about social movements, privatization of military services, migration and racism, Italy, Mexico, Nicaragua, Colombia and Venezuela. Among them: The Business of War (Assoziation A 2002), a book about privatization of military services, translated and published in Germany, Argentina, Bolivia, France, Indonesia, Italy, Spain and Venezuela. Azzellini is co-editor of Ours to Master and to Own: Worker Control from the Commune to the Present (Haymarket 2011). With Marina Sitrin he is co-author of "Occupying Language" (Occupied Media Pamphlet 2012) and "They Can’t Represent Us. Reinventing Democracy From Greece to Occupy" (Verso 2014).

Azzellini served as Associate Editor for The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present (Wiley-Blackwell 2009) and was primary editor for Latin America, the Spanish Caribbean, and the new left in Italy. He serves as Associate Editor for WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society and for Cuadernos de Marte, an academic publication on the sociology of war published through the University of Buenos Aires. Azzellini also is a documentary filmmaker. His latest film is “Comuna under construction“(2010) on local self-government in Venezuela. Azzellini has been invited to conferences in Europe, North America, South America and Asia. His art projects focus on socio-political themes and have been exhibited in galleries, museums and biennales around the world.

Reviews

[Michael Howley · Rating 3 out of 5]

there's some good stuff in here but it's way too dense for a non-academic audience. You don't need to wade through this whole thing to understand that union membership is way down everywhere since the 80s, gig work has pushed workers everywhere into precarity, and nontraditional activists and autonomous collectives are helping to stem the tide.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

The reasoning is easy for this gang, or so they think. After all if there are still money to be made out there, why not use the governmental gun and collect them too?

[Justin H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gives an enlightening view of different class struggles across the modern world.

[Virendra Mistry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging case studies and analysis, with excellent selection of context and countries.