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Workers’ Power in Resisting Precarity: Comparing Transport Workers in Buenos Aires and Dar es Salaam

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  • Matteo Rizzo

    (SOAS University of London, UK; Research Associate, Society, Work and Politics Institute (SWOP), University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa)

  • Maurizio Atzeni

    (CEIL/CONICET, Argentina)

Abstract

The growing precariousness of employment across the world has radically altered the conditions upon which the representation of workers’ interests has traditionally been built, as it has posed challenges for established trade unions: individualized employment and fragmented identities have displaced the centrality of the workplace and the employee–employer relationship in framing collective issues of representation. In this article, we compare the processes of collective organization of two groups of precarious workers in the transport and delivery sector of Buenos Aires and Dar es Salaam. Through this comparison we investigate how existing trade union structures, industrial relations frameworks, socio-political contexts and labour processes interact with the processes of workers’ organization that take place even in the harsher conditions of informal work, critically engaging with the argument that the growing precariousness of work represents the end of trade unionism as we know it.

Suggested Citation

  • Matteo Rizzo & Maurizio Atzeni, 2020. "Workers’ Power in Resisting Precarity: Comparing Transport Workers in Buenos Aires and Dar es Salaam," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(6), pages 1114-1130, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:34:y:2020:i:6:p:1114-1130
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017020928248
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Chiara Benassi & Lisa Dorigatti, 2015. "Straight to the Core — Explaining Union Responses to the Casualization of Work: The IG Metall Campaign for Agency Workers," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 53(3), pages 533-555, September.
    2. Edmund Heery, 2009. "Trade unions and contingent labour: scale and method," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 2(3), pages 429-442.
    3. Gabriella Alberti & Davide Però, 2018. "Migrating Industrial Relations: Migrant Workers’ Initiative Within and Outside Trade Unions," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 56(4), pages 693-715, December.
    4. Rizzo, Matteo, 2017. "Taken For A Ride: Grounding Neoliberalism, Precarious Labour, and Public Transport in an African Metropolis," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198794240.
    5. Maurizio Atzeni & Pablo Ghigliani, 2013. "The Re-Emergence of Workplace-Based Organization as the New Expression of Conflict in Argentina," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Gregor Gall (ed.), New Forms and Expressions of Conflict at Work, chapter 5, pages 66-85, Palgrave Macmillan.
    6. Chris F Wright, 2013. "The response of unions to the rise of precarious work in Britain," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 24(3), pages 279-296, September.
    7. Matteo Rizzo, 2013. "Informalisation and the end of trade unionism as we knew it? Dissenting remarks from a Tanzanian case study," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(136), pages 290-308, June.
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    Cited by:

    1. Oya, Carlos & Schaefer, Florian, 2021. "The politics of labour relations in global production networks: Collective action, industrial parks, and local conflict in the Ethiopian apparel sector," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).

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