{"id":704,"date":"2019-01-31T11:12:48","date_gmt":"2019-01-31T11:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/?p=704"},"modified":"2019-02-01T13:11:54","modified_gmt":"2019-02-01T13:11:54","slug":"trade-unionism-and-the-concrete-universal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/trade-unionism-and-the-concrete-universal\/","title":{"rendered":"Trade unionism and the concrete universal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Trade unions combine a concrete universalism with collective action and individual agency.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In our latest blog, Dr Jonathan Preminger outlines how we might (re-) discover the radical potential of trade unionism in response to a post capitalist future.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Visions of post-work societies gaining increasing popularity\non the liberal left embrace an appealing universalism in which everyone\u2019s basic\nneeds are covered. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They argue that as robots take over our jobs,\nstate-administered mechanisms such as the universal basic income (UBI) will\nensure that we can all participate in the \u2018good life\u2019 regardless of what we do.\nIn such visions, unions are largely overlooked: they necessarily have little to\noffer in a \u2018post-capitalist\u2019 world of guaranteed income and an end to waged\nwork.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet these visions are unsettlingly apolitical. This stems\nfrom an often unacknowledged technological determinism that sees \u2018capitalism\u2019\ndeveloping in such a way as to inevitably lead to fewer jobs and the end of\nwaged work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics of such \u2018post-work\u2019 visions note that this implicitly deterministic and future-oriented focus sidesteps current work-related problems and ignores agency. These critics assert that advocates of Paul Mason-style post capitalism miss the disorderly world of political practice and bottom-up struggle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is precisely in this disorderly world that trade unions can shine.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Push the boundaries <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Unions can push the boundaries of their role and realise a much more radical potential.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Specifically, it is by embodying the universal ideals\nespoused by the post capitalist left, while remaining rooted in concrete\npolitical struggle, that they retain their relevance in the midst of\nend-of-work assertions and calls for UBI. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I count myself firmly among the critics of this post capitalist\nthinking, I believe its vision of universal rights is compelling and laudable.\nMy concern is to retain this vision, but to move away from an \u2018abstract\nuniversal\u2019 to a \u2018concrete universal\u2019 that seeks to \u201ccapture and not cleanse the\nworld of specificity and contradiction,\u201d to use the words of recent Futures\nof Work<\/a><\/em> contributors Lorena\nLombardozzi and Harry Pitts<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trade unions enable us to do exactly this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond their quotidian role of protecting and promoting the\nrights of their members, unions can embrace a collectively-engendered vision of\na future society and strive to create it through day-to-day struggle over\ntangible concerns which bear real-world, immediate implications.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, they can combine a concrete universalism with collective action and individual agency. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn doing this, unions can push the boundaries of their role and realise a much more radical potential that may have been forgotten during decades of rear-guard union action against the emerging practices and ideologies associated with neoliberalism.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This is a re-radicalisation as opposed to a new role \u2013 but\nunder very different circumstances from those characteristic of unionism\u2019s\nindustrial heyday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This claim is based on my study of labour organising in Israel<\/a>. I began my research assuming that trade unions were a thing of the past, holding on to pockets of organised workers but unable to meet the challenges of neoliberal, globalised economies. Yet I soon discovered that not only were unions maintaining their significance, but that in some cases they appeared to be central to quite radical developments. I will offer just two examples. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opening political space <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
The High Court\u2019s precedential decision opened up the frameworks and mechanisms of collective labour relations to those who had previously been denied access. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 2007, there was a very important event in Israeli trade\nunionism. That year, the High Court ruled that Israeli labour law is applicable\nto non-citizen Palestinians who work for Israeli employers in the\nIsraeli-occupied territories. In other words, Israeli labour law would now\nextend beyond the state\u2019s official borders, supplanting the Jordanian labour\nlaw which had regulated such workers previously, and reaching beyond the body\nof people holding formal Israeli citizenship. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The High Court\u2019s precedential decision was anchored in a\nuniversalistic human-rights logic which cannot countenance discrimination on a\nnational or ethnic basis. This logic is liberal and abstractly universal, but\nits concrete manifestation opened up the frameworks and mechanisms of\ncollective labour relations to those who had previously been denied access. It\nenables labour to participate in the tangible world of political struggle, to\nhave a role in shaping employment relations and thus their workplaces and the\nconditions within which they live \u2013 i.e., to have agency.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I have argued elsewhere<\/a>, this signifies the opening of political space for non-citizens and permits an active citizenship where formal citizenship is denied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSocial change is a slow process, but subsequent events suggest that this ruling has indeed affected the dynamics of labour relations, with an Israeli union now organising Palestinians<\/a> in the occupied territories.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A wave of unionising <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
After a summer of social protest was a wave of unionising. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the summer of 2011, the social protest movement was taken\nup by young people in Israel inspired by groups such as Los Indignados and\nOccupy Wall Street. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The protest rapidly gained momentum. It has been estimated\nthat at its peak, a carnivalesque march through the streets of Tel Aviv, some\n500,000 people participated \u2013 a huge number in a country of just 9 million\npeople. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the dynamics and causes of such discontent are\ninevitably complex, the middle classes found themselves increasingly squeezed\nand there was an overriding feeling that young Israelis lack the standards of\nliving their parents enjoyed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was not in any way a labour-based protest. In fact, the\nmain labour federation (the Histadrut) was rejected by the emerging social\nprotest leaders for being part of the \u2018establishment\u2019 against which they were\nprotesting<\/a>. Again, as elsewhere, this was the \u201899%\u2019 against the \u2018tycoons\u2019.\nHowever, by the end of that summer the protest movement had fizzled out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What came after this summer of social protest was a wave of unionising<\/a>. Indeed, the pace of labour organising had picked up a few years before. For example, in 2010 the Histadrut had set up a unit dedicated to organising, but what distinguished much of the organising during and after the protest was recognition among participants that they were channelling the aspirations and energies released in 2011 into established, politically legitimate frameworks, anchored in legislation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe \u201cold\u201d unionist institutions were still distrusted, and many new organisations sprung up to challenge them from the outside or change them from within.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There was however a clear recognition that the broad aspirations of the social movement could take concrete, practical shape within these existing frameworks.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Re-) discovery<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The point of both these examples is that the collective\nlabour frameworks and institutions that remain from a previous era are being\nused for new things. Not just in the sense that Streeck argued in 2006, of\n\u201cfragments that continue to be used, like the ruins of ancient monuments, by\nbeing converted to new, less grandiose purposes\u201d \u2013 but in some ways quite the\nopposite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their radical potential is being (re-)discovered. Most\nimportantly, the way the workplace has become an arena for broader social\ndemands, and the way corporatist labour relations have been cracked open to\nallow the participation of non-citizens, illustrate unionism\u2019s potential for a\nconcrete universalism which extends (or at least begins to extend) beyond\n\u201cnativist projects of national renewal\u201d in the words of Lombardozzi and Pitts<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As amply demonstrated by some of the labour campaigns in\nIsrael over the last five years (notably the\nsocial workers\u2019 strike<\/a>), unionism is able to encompass a radical vision of\nsociety, but one anchored in concrete political practice, engaging with the real\nmessy world of current workplace concerns while building capacity for\ncollective action and bottom-up struggle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
In their heyday, many labour movements claimed to speak in a universal voice. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Unionist frameworks are able to embrace agency as an ideal, countering the deterministic visions of technologically-driven futures. Unionism can work within a universal conception of rights yet avoid a false universalism by empowering the individual and striving for an engaged citizenry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn their heyday, many labour movements claimed to speak in a universal voice. Even as we recognise the glaring holes in that claim, we can still applaud the aspiration and political will. They can aspire to do that again.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I do not wish to overstate the changes in Israel\u2019s labour\nrelations \u2013 this is just the beginning of something as much potential as\nactual. In particular, the problems of nationalism are still salient in\nIsrael\u2019s case and the High Court ruling does not mean that everyone accepts\nPalestinians\u2019 right to collective labour relations based on Israeli labour law\n\u2013 never mind their right to participate in the Israeli polity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in the cracks of corporatist labour relations, which\nwere once coterminous with an exclusive conception of nation, we see the first\nstirrings of a radical conception of unionism. This should be the response to\napolitical and deterministic visions of post-work societies in a post capitalist\nfuture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was\noriginally published on Futures\nof Work<\/a>, with thanks to Dr Assaf Bondy, Jerusalem Hebrew University, for\nhis comments on an earlier draft.<\/em>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr\nJonathan Preminger<\/a> is lecturer in work and labour relations at Cardiff\nBusiness School. His book, Labor\nin Israel: Beyond Nationalism and Neoliberalism<\/a> <\/em>waspublished by ILR\nPress<\/a>, an imprint of Cornell University Press, in 2018. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trade unions combine a concrete universalism with collective action and individual agency. In our latest blog, Dr Jonathan Preminger outlines how we might (re-) discover the radical potential of trade […]","protected":false},"author":1654,"featured_media":709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[368,28,100,7,384,115,376,377,382,378,385,370,386,372,366,371,379,375,380,188,168,367,369,245,171,381,365,373,374,5],"class_list":["post-704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-employment-relations","tag-capitalism","tag-cardiff-business-school","tag-cardiff-university","tag-civil-society","tag-cornell-university-press","tag-economy","tag-globalisation","tag-high-court","tag-histadrut","tag-human-rights","tag-ilr-press","tag-israel","tag-jerusalem-hebrew-university","tag-jobs","tag-labour","tag-liberal","tag-los-indignados","tag-neoliberalism","tag-occupy-wall-street","tag-organisation","tag-politics","tag-post-capitalism","tag-post-work","tag-society","tag-technology","tag-tel-aviv","tag-trade-unions","tag-universal-basic-income","tag-universal-rights","tag-work"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paOfaS-bm","meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/620\/2019\/02\/Trade-unions.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":721,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions\/721"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}