Editorial

Capitalist exploitation constantly changes, driven by the unrest of the exploited. Capital tries to thrive off their search for a better life by channeling it into controlled labor migration or new job schemes. It wants to re-assemble and re-divide proletarians on the open labor market as well as its hidden undersides by encircling proletarian strong-holds in industry with mass-unemployment and international supply-chains. Capital undermines workers' inflexibility with new technologies.

The organizational starting point for new struggles is already in motion, moving between and within green field plants and backyard workshops, maquiladoras and banlieues, between global transport links and border controls. Proletarian producer's appropriation of the means of production is an act of creative destruction requiring socialization of experiences. This newsletter tries to contribute to this process by spreading analyses of the changing organization of exploitation and the proletarian struggles within.

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It has been one year since we started publishing this newsletter - time to thank all those who contributed articles and comments so far, who helped with translations and proofreading!

We also took the occasion to make some changes. Up until now the newsletter only appeared in pdf-format so readers could download it from the website, print it out and read it on paper. Following some readers' suggestions we have now changed the website and made all articles available as single html-files, too. That way people can quickly scroll through the contents, print out and forward individual articles, and link texts to other websites. There is also a new search-function so you can quickly get to the information you want. Check it out on: www.prol-position.net

However, we will continue to publish the news­letter in pdf-format, too, since we think it is most efficient to take the time and read the stuff on paper, allow deeper thoughts, make notes...

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This issue starts with three rather general articles. The Heart of the Beast - An Unknown Entity. Workers' power and the Future of Operaism is a follow-up article on the discussion around Beverly J. Silver's book Forces of Labor (see also in ppnews #2 - online at http://www.prol-position.net/nl/2005/02/silver and in ppnews #3 - http://www.prol-position.net/nl/2005/03/silver). "Silver's main thesis is that cycles of capitalist accu­mulation also increase workers' power on a global scale in a stage-like form - through produc­tion relocation, technological and organiza­tional inno­vations and the transition to new core industrial products." But workers' power does not in every case increase. "Silver insists that this 'workplace bargaining power' needs to be shown in every single case and every single struggle." Silver's (and Giovanni Arrighi's) historical analy­sis is seen as a useful concept for understanding the deve­lopment and current state of workers' power, contrary to the debate on "multitude" and "post-Fordism," both dominated by ideology rather than empirical research. Silver's historical perspec­tive on workers' struggles and her concept of "workers' bargaining power" also brings us back to the importance of the material production of surplus value and the factory. "We do not know what this 'unknown entity', 'the factory', will look like today - not in the sense of a stereotype of "steaming chimneys," but as a site and starting point for workers' power that can concretely and practically disenchant the material rule of capital, thereby giving space again for antagonistic subjectivity. And sure enough, no clever minds or polished theories will give us any answer, but proletarian search processes, in which we take part, which we describe and, at best, at some points expedite."

The next article - Gender, Migration and Domestic Labor - can be seen as one such search process. It uncovers the hidden reality of exploitation in the domestic work sector world-wide. Mostly (migrating) women, often low paid, with long working hours, are selling their labor-power in households... sometimes working for agencies, sometimes depending on family "employers". "Behind the stories about abuse, slavery, degradation etc, that break into the news every now and again, there is an intrinsic role of this work in the current global division of labor. This article looks at the role of this work in the economies of the receiving and sending countries, the tendency to industrialize this work, the gender dynamic and the implications for families in both countries." The sector is an important part of capitalism, with other sectors relying on the service-labor of these migrant women. There have been some struggles in this sector, too, and further research needs to be done to uncover the formation of this part of the working class.

China in Revolt - Social Struggles in the Chinese Modernization Process shows how be­hind all talk of the "modernization process," large investments, and the importance of the export-oriented manufacturing sector, one of the most serious problems in China is still the peasant question. The "social apartheid"system, develop­ed since the 1950s, still divides Chinese society and also plays an important role in developing proletarian struggles. While peasants resist land confiscation or tax increases and try to defend the remnants of a relatively egalitarian agrarian sys­tem, millions leave the countryside and migrate to the cities, where they work in construction, ser­vices, or the private manufacturing sector and are faced with social inequality and discrimination. Meanwhile, (former) state-workers in the cities try to defend their (better) living standards against a Chinese regime that seems determined to carry out the rationalization of the state-owned indus­tries. Peasants, young migrant workers, and the old state-workers all manage to organize strug­gles, but these struggles mostly remain limited to one area or company. Still, we have to see how long the regime's crisis management can keep the struggles isolated or whether the different sections of the working-class find a way to overcome re­pression and division (boundary drawing) strate­gies.

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The second part of the newsletter consists of articles on specific workers' struggles and forms of exploitation. Workers' struggle at Gate Gourmet is getting harder is an up-date on the struggle of catering workers at the airport of Düsseldorf, Germany (see ppnews #4 - http://www.prol-position.net/nl/2005/04/gourmet). The owner, the private equity fund Texas Pacific Group (TPG), has recently prevented a settlement and confronted the workers - already on strike for months - with even deeper cuts in wages and longer working hours. The workers are determined to continue the strike, with the support of the union's strike pay... and of supporters who organized several blockades of company premises to prevent deliveries to airplanes. The authors of the article make two proposals: a) In Germany the unions started a disgusting nationalist campaign against private equity funds like the TPG. They call them "locusts" (or grasshoppers) that come over to eat up profitable (German) companies. Still, it is not enough to just reject these terms and turn against the union's nationalism. It is important to analyze the specific role of private equity funds who do the shit work for capital by stripping firms and attacking workers' conditions. b) In cases where the workers themselves do not have the power to quickly force the bosses to give in, forms of solidarity and support are needed: "Secondary picketing is necessary!"

Wild Ride - A Different Perspective on the Car Industry was written by comrades who started an inquiry into the workers' situation and struggles in the Czech Republic. After the strike at Skoda in spring 2005 (see their report in ppnews #2 – http://www.prol-position.net/nl/2005/02/skoda) they looked at the overall development of the Czech car industry - the most important industrial sector there. They look at the three parts of that industry: the Skoda-factories, the TPCA-factory and the suppliers. So far there have not been many open struggles, but the conflicts are obvious. The in­quiry will continue: "Light needs to be shed on where there are points of tension and what is the technical composition of the industry. Is there a class recomposition underway? Direct inquires with workers themselves could help to break this information barrier, while at the same time they could help to disseminate knowledge and share experiences among workers of various firms."

Under Construction - Struggles of Asian Workers in the Middle East and Oil-Producing Countries is a collection of information from different internet sources. The construction sector is one of the main areas of proletarian migration. In recent months we have seen several struggles of migrant construction workers in several countries in the Middle East, around the Arab Gulf, and in other oil-producing regions. "Workers from India, Pa­kistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Sri Lanka struck together during some of the conflicts [which] shows their importance for a new class composition. Their struggles already had a noticeable impact on labor relations." We have to see what impact these struggles will have on the situation in the countries of origin.

Wired - Temp-Work in the Rail-Industry is a report from a factory in Düsseldorf, Germany. It shows the globalized structure of a medium-sized company engaged in manufacturing and the world wide work experience of the flexible work-force. One of the the main issues in the factory - seen from a prol-position - was the situation of the temp workers who accounted for half of all production workers. The temps were paid far less and knew that their contract would only last for the completion of a certain customer order. The report concludes: "It is rather difficult for people to organize actions within short notice, but particularly for the temps that is their only chance. The idea of a go-slow strike came up too late, a great part of the order was already completed, but the connections amongst the temps still too weak for more offensive measures. All in all we have to state the enormous contrast of vast proletarian experiences within the total work-force, a rapid worsening of working conditions and the blatant lack of experiences with collective actions."

The Interview with Worker from Bosch-Siemens Factory in Berlin (Germany): "Now they call us heroes everywhere!" was made after Bosch Siemens announced the closure of the factory (see the background article on this in ppnews #4 – http://www.prol-position.net/nl/2005/04/washing). The worker describes the strike preparation and how the company backed off its threat to shut the plant. "After it was clear the plant wasn't shutting, the number of blue-collar workers calling in sick rose to 17-18 percent and that’s where it remains. Temp workers had to be hired again. And they can’t motivate people any­more. The workers say: fuck it, sooner or later they're going to close down anyway. Many thought they'd get the three month severance, that would have been more money than they'd see in their whole life. Few workers were happy that the plant isn't closing!" A surprising perspective? Maybe not if you know about the conditions at work in this factory and what life looks like after years and years in the grind.

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The last part of the newsletter is on the riots in France in fall 2005. The article Riots in the Banlieues in France: Difficult to integrate into the General Class Combat was written by the group Mouvement Communiste. It is an account of what happened during the riots, the background, the reaction and counter-strategies of the parties, of the Islamic groups, etc. The article states that the question is not, whether the riots were justified. "The desire of this minority of young people to express as loudly as possible their rage against the forces of repression is completely comprehensible." Still, "the problem is not this but in the fact that the informal political expression of this urban violence is not compatible with the perspective of independent proletarian struggle." Tribalism, machismo, the capitalist drug economy, and the "islamisation of souls" are among the problems that play a role in everyday life in these banlieues and in the riots as well. What did happen after the riots in France? tries to follow the development in France after the riots until now (February 2006).

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Have fun reading it all! And feel free to send us comments, ideas, articles and interviews...

[prol-position news #5 | 2/2006]