Book, Carina, Huke, Nicolai, Klauke, Sebastian, & Tietje, Olaf (Eds.) (2019). Alltägliche Grenzziehungen: Zum Konzept der „imperialen Lebensweise“, Externalisierung und exklusive Solidarität. Münster., 2019
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Mecheril 2016a) im Rahmen der ehrenamtlichen und professionellen
Unterstützungsarbeit für Geflüchtete in den Blick. Anliegen dieses Artikels ist es, mit diesen Überlegungen verbundene methodologische Notwendigkeiten zu diskutieren. Im Vordergrund steht dabei die Frage, wie dekolonisierende und dekoloniale Perspektiven in Forschungspraktiken und -methoden (unter anderem der Migrationsforschung) einfließen können. Hierzu wird die ituationsanalyse im Anschluss an Adele Clarke (2005) in den Mittelpunkt gerückt.
The economic crisis during recent years has significantly altered industrial relations in Spain. Up to the crisis, relations between capital and labour were generally characterised by institutionalized cooperation between trade unions, employers and state apparatuses in combination with strong elements of rather ritualized symbolic confrontation (e.g. a relatively high amount of workdays lost by strike) (Huke/Tietje 2014a). The crisis fundamentally changed these " rules of the game " (Gago 2013). Austerity policies not only cut back public employment and restructured public services along neoliberal lines, but also made dismissals easier to implement, decentralized collective bargaining to the company level and widened the scope for unilateral actions of the employers. In combination with rising unemployment and an increasing rate of precarious employment, these changes shifted the relations of force between capital and labour in favour of capital (cf. Haas/Huke 2015). Employers' willingness for concessions declined, whereupon the system of industrial relations moved towards one of fragmentation and symbolic cooperation (Huke/Tietje 2014a). At the same time, a strong cycle of protest following the indignados of 15M disrupted the passiveness and permissiveness of the Spanish population and politicised the socially devastating effects of crisis and austerity (cf. Huke 2014: 92). The article argues that this triple movement – the weakening of labour, the decline and fragmentation of cooperative mechanisms and the crisis of hegemony enforced by the new cycle of protest – made strategic reorientations of the trade unions necessary that shifted the shapes of strikes. Rather than in the quantity of strikes, we argue, this change becomes visible in tendencies towards different forms of strikes and their linkages between each other. 2 The development of strikes during the crisis was characterised by general strikes, a decentralization of strikes to the company level, the replacement of demonstrative strikes by fighting strikes, strike movements organised by groups of workers instead of trade unions as well as aims to take strikes to the public arena and embed them into social communities beyond the affected workers. As the crisis continued, however, a normalization of austerity and a decrease in industrial conflict could be observed. Empirically, the analysis is based on qualitative interviews conducted by the authors as part of their PhD-Projects between 2011 and 2014 with trade union officials as well as activists in 1 We thank David Bailey, Mònica Clua-Losada, David Luque Balbona and Hans-Christian Jannsen for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this chapter. The first version of this chapter was finished in January 2015; more recent developments could not be included. 2 In focusing on the forms of strike, our analysis builds upon the works of David Luque Balbona, but develops a more qualitative approach (cf. Luque Balbona 2012, 2013).
der Analyse gerückt. Hierbei werden historische Bezüge mit aktuellen empirischen Daten verknüpft und auf diese Weise Verschiebungen in der informellen Arbeit rekonstruiert. So ist für die andalusischen Obst- und Gemüseexporte trotz Modernisierung und Industrialisierung die Handarbeit
vieler häufig irregulär beschäftigter, meist immigrierter Arbeitskräfte der Garant geblieben. Die Rolle der Mehrheitsgewerkschaften ist in diesem Kontext ambivalent und oftmals auf die Kontrolle der Verhältnisse orientiert.
Mecheril 2016a) im Rahmen der ehrenamtlichen und professionellen
Unterstützungsarbeit für Geflüchtete in den Blick. Anliegen dieses Artikels ist es, mit diesen Überlegungen verbundene methodologische Notwendigkeiten zu diskutieren. Im Vordergrund steht dabei die Frage, wie dekolonisierende und dekoloniale Perspektiven in Forschungspraktiken und -methoden (unter anderem der Migrationsforschung) einfließen können. Hierzu wird die ituationsanalyse im Anschluss an Adele Clarke (2005) in den Mittelpunkt gerückt.
The economic crisis during recent years has significantly altered industrial relations in Spain. Up to the crisis, relations between capital and labour were generally characterised by institutionalized cooperation between trade unions, employers and state apparatuses in combination with strong elements of rather ritualized symbolic confrontation (e.g. a relatively high amount of workdays lost by strike) (Huke/Tietje 2014a). The crisis fundamentally changed these " rules of the game " (Gago 2013). Austerity policies not only cut back public employment and restructured public services along neoliberal lines, but also made dismissals easier to implement, decentralized collective bargaining to the company level and widened the scope for unilateral actions of the employers. In combination with rising unemployment and an increasing rate of precarious employment, these changes shifted the relations of force between capital and labour in favour of capital (cf. Haas/Huke 2015). Employers' willingness for concessions declined, whereupon the system of industrial relations moved towards one of fragmentation and symbolic cooperation (Huke/Tietje 2014a). At the same time, a strong cycle of protest following the indignados of 15M disrupted the passiveness and permissiveness of the Spanish population and politicised the socially devastating effects of crisis and austerity (cf. Huke 2014: 92). The article argues that this triple movement – the weakening of labour, the decline and fragmentation of cooperative mechanisms and the crisis of hegemony enforced by the new cycle of protest – made strategic reorientations of the trade unions necessary that shifted the shapes of strikes. Rather than in the quantity of strikes, we argue, this change becomes visible in tendencies towards different forms of strikes and their linkages between each other. 2 The development of strikes during the crisis was characterised by general strikes, a decentralization of strikes to the company level, the replacement of demonstrative strikes by fighting strikes, strike movements organised by groups of workers instead of trade unions as well as aims to take strikes to the public arena and embed them into social communities beyond the affected workers. As the crisis continued, however, a normalization of austerity and a decrease in industrial conflict could be observed. Empirically, the analysis is based on qualitative interviews conducted by the authors as part of their PhD-Projects between 2011 and 2014 with trade union officials as well as activists in 1 We thank David Bailey, Mònica Clua-Losada, David Luque Balbona and Hans-Christian Jannsen for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this chapter. The first version of this chapter was finished in January 2015; more recent developments could not be included. 2 In focusing on the forms of strike, our analysis builds upon the works of David Luque Balbona, but develops a more qualitative approach (cf. Luque Balbona 2012, 2013).
der Analyse gerückt. Hierbei werden historische Bezüge mit aktuellen empirischen Daten verknüpft und auf diese Weise Verschiebungen in der informellen Arbeit rekonstruiert. So ist für die andalusischen Obst- und Gemüseexporte trotz Modernisierung und Industrialisierung die Handarbeit
vieler häufig irregulär beschäftigter, meist immigrierter Arbeitskräfte der Garant geblieben. Die Rolle der Mehrheitsgewerkschaften ist in diesem Kontext ambivalent und oftmals auf die Kontrolle der Verhältnisse orientiert.
El resultado parece como un ›Ejército industrial de reserva‹ (Marx/Engels 1962: 661ff) que está presente, quiere trabajar y también amenaza a todos los jornaleros de ser desempleado: Una instancia de control. Esta presentación quiere apuntar a la situación de los jornaleros sin idealizarla y también marcar sus oportunidades de empoderamiento. Se forman márgenes de tolerancia entre las situaciones y las oportunidades y entre los espacios y lugares. Los jornaleros aprovechan de todas posibilidades para sobrevivir, para mejorar su situación tras la crisis.
Esta presentación representa partes de mis resultados de mi trabajo de campo intensivo entre 2012 y 2015. Mis métodos de investigación eran observaciones (participados) (Jorgensen 1989), entrevistas (parte-monólogo) (Helfferich 2011) y entrevistas con expertos (Meuser/Nagel 1991) de una perspectiva sociológica.
In my talk I will concentrate on the situation in Andalusia, south of Spain within the agricultural borderland of the European Union. Especially I will focus on the possibilities of Trade Unions organized by Immigrants, working in the context of exploitation for a kind of ‘everyday resistance’.
I will point out some of my first conclusions on these topics based on selected qualitative empirical examples, which I have been researching in the context of my empirical work for my PhD project at the University of Kassel.
Further Trade Unions in this context are barely working with undocumented workers because of their status. Only the small regional ones like ‘SOC-SAT’ are cooperating with all workers – whatever their status may be – but nevertheless they have very low influence on politics or employers. However one interesting phenomenon is that women are working at the packing plants and men almost entirely at the greenhouses, furthermore the work at the packing plants is much better paid. This is, according to the gender pay gap, a little surprise in this field of exploitation which may lead to a point of changing positions in family life.
Accordingly there is a group of workers, which is producing the main output of vegetables in Andalusia – in times of crisis still a comparatively ‘safe’ place to work – with nearly no support of Trade Unions and a strong internal differentiation along gender and status.
In my lecture I will concentrate on the situation in Andalusia, south of Spain at the border of the European Union. Especially I will focus on agricultural work and describe how the structural aspects of the production chain and the interdependencies of undocumented work, Trade Unions and the production of cheap vegetables prevent decent work for (all) agricultural workers in the Andalusian farm work. Within this context I will also ask for reasons of the differentiation of work respectively for the effects of ongoing segregation of work by gender and – relating to my headline – talk about decent aspects of work in the agricultural work in Andalusia.
I will point out some of my first conclusions on these topics based on selected qualitative empirical examples, which have been researched in the context of my empirical work for my PhD project at the University of Kassel, Sociology of Diversity.