Laboured Protest

Historians have long realized the US civil rights movement pre-dated Martin Luther King Jr., but they disagree on where, when and why it started. Laboured Protest offers new answers in a study of black political protest during the New Deal and Second World War. It finds a diverse movement where activists from the left operated alongside, and often in competition with, others who signed up to liberal or nationalist political platforms. Protestors in this period often struggled to challenge the different types of discrimination facing black workers, but their energetic campaigning was part of a more complex, and ultimately more interesting, movement than previously thought.

This study opens a critical perspective on the slow death of socialism and the rebirth of capitalism in the world's most dynamic and populous country. Based on remarkable fieldwork and extensive interviews in Chinese textile, apparel, machinery, and household appliance factories, Against the Law finds a rising tide of labor unrest mostly hidden from the world's attention. Providing a broad political and economic analysis of this labor struggle together with fine-grained ethnographic detail, the book portrays the Chinese working class as workers' stories unfold in bankrupt state factories and global sweatshops, in crowded dormitories and remote villages, at street protests as well as in quiet disenchantment with the corrupt officialdom and the fledgling legal system.

This book, first published in 1981, examines the issues inspiring working-class movements after 1848 in France, Germany and Britain, with some consideration also of Austria, Italy, Spain and Russia. It concentrates on the attitudes of the ordinary working men, rather than the ideologies and the leaders, and considers the many different forms and manifestations of their grievances and means of expression. What emerges is the complexity of the connection between economic circumstances and protest, and the existence of wide divergences of behaviour amongst the European working class.

The Battle for the Labour Party was first published in 1981 and was referenced by Tony Benn in his 1980-1990 diaries as 'a valuable guide to the developments within the Labour party at this time'. This 1982 updated edition is an essential resource for all who are interested in understanding the history of the Labour Party from 1973-1982. The continuing power struggle within the Labour Party had raged for decades and had drastic effects on its popularity and credibility. At the 1982 party conference, the division between the Left and Right sharpened. Tony Benn's attempts to get into the shadow cabinet, the defection of members to the SDP, the Militant inquiry and the Tatchell affair all added to this general disenchantment. This 1982 edition accurately describes how these events developed. There are two additional chapters which deal with the activities of New Left groups in London boroughs, and with the fightback of the Right between the two party conferences. Interviews with major figures, including Shirley Williams and Roy Grantham, shed light on the events of the time. There is also more detailed insight into the GLC and events within London. For everyone interested or involved in the history of British politics, The Battle for the Labour Party provides an insightful and thought-provoking account of a fascinating piece of history.

This book is an account of protests organized in Poland by trade unions from the late socialism to 21st century. It uses protest event analysis and mass surveys to examine the impact of trade unions on institutions before and after systemic change. Trade unions were crucial for transformation, but their impact subsequently declined.

How do precarious workers employed in call-centres, universities, the fashion industry and many other labour markets organise, struggle and communicate to become recognised, influential political subjects? "Media Practices and Protest Politics; How Precarious Workers Mobilise" reveals the process by which individuals at the margins of the labour market and excluded from the welfare state communicate and struggle outside the realm of institutional politics to gain recognition in the political sphere. In this important and thought provoking work Alice Mattoni suggests an all-encompassing approach to understanding grassroots political communication in contemporary societies. Using original examples from precarious workers mobilizations in Italy she explores a range of activist media practices and compares different categories of media technologies, organizations and outlets from the printed press to web application and from mainstream to alternative media. Explaining how activists perceive and understand the media environment in which they are embedded the book discusses how they must interact with a diverse range of media professionals and technologies and considers how mainstream, radical left-wing and alternative media represent protests. Media Practices and Protest Politics offers important insights for understanding mechanisms and patterns of visibility in struggles for recognition and redistribution in post-democratic societies and provides a valuable contribution to the field of political communication and social movement studies.

While workers movements have been largely phased out and considered out-dated in most parts of the world during the 1990s, the 21st century has seen a surge in new and unprecedented forms of strikes and workers organisations. The collection of essays in this book, spanning countries across global South and North, provides an account of strikes and working class resistance in the 21st century. Through original case studies, the book looks at the various shades of workers’ movements, analysing different forms of popular organisation as responses to new social and economic conditions, such as restructuring of work and new areas of investment.