Apologies for the delay between the last post and this; there was an odd global occurrence, whereby Blogger blogs had been taken over by some unknown source, and it took Google some time to resolve this.
Anyway, all is back to normal, and just a quick plug for a new book by Fan Shigang, worker-activist-scholar and contributor to the periodical Factory Stories:
https://www.gongchao.org/en/factory-stories/
I've written previously on independent workers' movements in China, and their relevance to labour movement resurgence globally, and this book helps move this analysis further. As the book's marketing blurb states:The struggles of these workers in China’s industrial centers are shaping the future of labor and democracy not only in China but throughout the world. These vivid stories of workers at factories that supply multinational corporations Walmart and Uniqlo, compiled by worker-activists and circulated underground, provide a unique, on-the-ground perspective on the most recent wave of militancy among China’s enormous working class.
As a dimension of labour studies the central importance of Shigang's book is an appreciation of how autonomous workers' movements occur despite systematic state repression. Additionally, they offer fresh insight to the relevance of labour geography as a feature of organising strategy.
At a more basic, political level the book helps reject the common notion of Chinese workers stealing the jobs of workers globally, and helps those workers outside China appreciate their common degrees of vulnerability under global capitalism.
Further book details are here:
https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1159-striking-to-survive
In Solidarity
Ian
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