Acknowledgments

This project springs from the reemergence throughout the world of theoretical and empirical curiosity about the transformative power of insurgent workers, direct action, workers’ factory occupations, and the formation of workers’ councils. The democratic struggles of workers are irreducible and ecumenical, but are now giving rise to an optimism that had largely been lost under a system of regulated capitalism and state domination. This volume represents the collective effort of a community of scholars who are documenting the increasing instances of workers’ control in the contemporary epoch and who recognize the unbroken challenges by differentiated working classes to repression in workplaces and communities. This project is a tribute to this new revival of working-class militancy out of the institutional framework.

We thank first and foremost all those who have contributed to this work as a form of solidarity through writing, translating, and suggesting contributors. And we thank a long list of scholars and organizations who have inspired our thinking and identified this critical field of research, and who are sponsoring and conducting research on labor insurgency and workers’ self-activity and direct action.

We are grateful to the many scholars, activists, and students who have helped inform and shape our knowledge and insight: Maurizio Atzeni, Au Loong Yu, Debdas Banerjee, Padmini Biswas, Joshua Board, Peter Bratsis, Sebastian Budgen, Verity Burgmann, Pedro Cazes Camarero, Carol Delgado, Ligia Consuelo Duerto, Ethan Earle, Steve Early, Bill Fletcher Jr., Ruthie Gilmore, Harris Freeman, Bernd Gehrke, Camila Piñeiro Harnecker, David Harvey, Shawn Hattingh, Rowan Jímenez, Alex Julca, Boris Kanzleiter, Tamas Krausz, Carlos Lanz, Michael Lebowitz, Staughton Lynd, Stacy Warner Maddern, Julian Massaldi, Jamie McCallum, Ichiyo Muto, Premilla Nadasen, Andrew Newman, Silvina Pastucci, Stalin Pérez, Frances Fox Piven, Coen Hussein Pontoh, James Gray Pope, Luis Primo, Peter Ranis, Adriana Rivas, Alcides Rivero, Gigi Roggero, Pierre Rousset, Diego Rozengardt, Sari Safitri, Vittorio Sergi, Guillermina Seri, Jeff Shantz, Gregg Shotwell, Heather Squire, Russell Smith, Lars Stubbe, Hirohiko Takasu, Jerry Tucker, Lucien van der Walt, and Young-su Won. We especially thank all the workers who engaged in sit-down strikes and workers’ control and agreed to be interviewed for this project.

We have benefited from financial support to fund research and translations from the following organizations and institutions: Stiftung Menschenwürde und Arbeitswelt (Berlin), Aktion Selbstbesteuerung e.V. (Stuttgart), Solifonds of the Hans Böckler Foundation (Düsseldorf ), Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (Berlin), and the Professional Staff Congress and Research Foundation of the City University of New York. We thank also Loughborough University, which hosted and provided the funding to convene the Workers and Researchers Forum on Self-Management and Alternative Forms of Work Organisations in October 2009, and the Center for Place, Culture and Politics of the City University of New York. We would like to thank the Graduate Center for Worker Education, Brooklyn College/City University of New York, which provided logistical support. We are especially grateful to Caroline Luft, who has masterfully copyedited the manuscript and provided perceptive comments and suggestions, and to Leonard Rosenbaum, who compiled the very thorough index. We are thankful for the support of Anthony Arnove, Julie Fain, and the editorial collective of Haymarket Books, who recognized the fundamental significance of this book and resolutely understood that conveying the history of workers’ control would require the inclusion of a diversity of scholars and activists from throughout the world.

 

Immanuel Ness, New York
Dario Azzellini, Caracas
January 2, 2011