Workers' organisation, class and collective action in precarious times

Abstract

How have system level changes of global capitalism, which are representing for some a return to the pre-industrial forms of merchant capitalism, reconfigured the working class? Which forms of working-class organisations seem to be appearing on the horizon? Which methodological and theoretical challenges will shape the study of labour conflict and workers' collective action and organisation in the future? In the following sections of the chapter the attempt is to answer these questions in light of debates on conflict, collective action, and workers' organisation. These themes have always been central for the field of industrial relations and labour studies, given their role in shaping the outcomes of capital-labour relationships inside and outside workplaces. However, new empirical evidence and theoretical contributions are broadening a field originally structured around the capital-labour antagonism in the confines of factories to new forms of conflict and collective organisation that could be better understood in the wider framework of class analysis.