[Reader-list] Strike

[Jeebesh]

dear Faiz,

Workplaces are extremely difficult places to comprehend. The daily  
acts of negotiations are multiple and multifarious. I would caution a  
polarity of individual as opposed to mass or collective actions. The  
collective as a body is constantly produced and disaggregates and is  
intricately mediated. It's visible forms are few and strike or dharna  
or demonstration gives some visibility. But visibility is at times  
extremely threatening to the formation and sustained survival of  
collective forces.

How do we judge effectiveness anyway? Strike has not been effective  
for years now. A careful analysis of Bombay Textile Strike (the most  
recorded in recent history) led to closure of the mills. In normal  
complicated juridical process retrenching so many workers would have  
taken years. The strike accelerated the process. The problem is that  
Strike / or mass forms are easily recognizable and allows for  
solidarity associations by activists and intellectuals and they then  
withdraw from any sustained evaluation of the effectivity of strikes.  
It will be important to think this through.

The daily acts keeps the negotiation open in all workspace. To  
understand the effectivity, we would have to develop conceptual tools.  
But like once a worker militant rhetorically asked " why you need to  
understand the effectivity?, those who are in the heat of workspace  
knows and evaluates, wins and loses. Then why know about it and make  
the management more aware of these acts". It's is a very complicated  
argument.

Call center workers are workers, so are programmers in info companies.  
We live in an increasingly generalized economy of wage-workers.

warmly
jeebesh


On 13-May-09, at 1:10 PM, faiz ullah wrote:

> Dear Shuddha and Jeebesh,
>
> As opposed to collective or mass action, one also gets to hear a lot  
> of
> incidents of individual resistance. I know of a couple of people who
> work at the call centres in Bombay (don't know if they qualify as
> 'workers'?) who intentionally drop calls or go out for longer  
> breaks, off
> their work stations, than they're permitted to.
>
> I have come across (or read about) similar experiences in other  
> industries
> also, and efforts made by managements to contain them with increased
> surveillence and ingenious rules and regulations. How do we measure  
> the
> effectiveness of these 'acts', and if there's a point in doing that,  
> then
> should we even be making an attempt? Wouldn't that amount to  
> 'outing' and
> weakening such efforts. It's kind of a catch-22 situation...just  
> thinking
> aloud.
>
> Hope to hear and discuss a lot more...
>
> Regards,
>
> Faiz
>
> On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 11:49 AM, Jeebesh <jeebesh at sarai.net> wrote:
>
>> dear Faiz,
>>
>> It maybe worthwhile to see the corresponding figures on Lockouts.
>>
>> From 80s onwards lockouts had become a major weapon of bullying
>> workers and has been used very often by companies. Strikes are
>> sometimes disguised lockouts. Workers reluctance to go on strikes has
>> something to do with this realizations. I had studied this in the
>> period of late 80s and 90s. The trend seem to be similar.
>>
>> warmly
>> jeebesh
>>
>> On 12-May-09, at 9:29 PM, faiz ullah wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Instances of strike in India have been coming down year after year.
>>> About
>>> 800 in '94, 250 in '04 and about 170 in the 2008. What could be the
>>> factors?
>>> Is it because there's growing insecurity amongst workers, given that
>>> a lot
>>> of companies are using recession as an alibi to put more pressure on
>>> their
>>> workers? But this is more recent. Have trade unions become weaker?
>>> Or things
>>> have simply been getting better?
>>>
>>>
>>> " Nestle strike creates fear in other factories"
>>> http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?autono=357625
>>>
>>>
>>> Was eating Maggi...and wondering if this strike is going to have a
>>> ripple
>>> effect as this report speculates. Also, reporting in businees news
>>> media
>>> always plays up words like 'trouble' and 'militancy'. Why aren't
>>> labour
>>> issues part of the agneda...aren't they a part of the 'business'?
>>>
>>>
>>> 'Labour militancy back in India?'
>>> http://www.rediff.com/money/2006/jan/12guest.htm
>>> "They say Japanese managements have hardly made any effort to learn
>>> how to
>>> deal with India's highly politicised unions, which traditionally
>>> take an
>>> anti-management stance for their survival. In Japan, the culture is
>>> completely different. For instance, the relationship between a
>>> labour union
>>> and the company management is generally very close in Japan."
>>> Workers must be really happy with their employers in Japan then!
>>>
>>> Faiz
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>
>
>
> -- 
> faiz
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