>Maybe I've been reading too much decadent literature lately, but I have a
>problem with a formulation like this. Doesn't it assume some kind of
>originally "pure" working class, undivided and unstratified, that was
>somehow busted up by some combination of conspiracy and circumstance? But
>hasn't the working class been formed inseparably from race and gender?
>Haven't some forms of work been defined as women's work or black work?
>Hasn't the consciousness of white American workers been shaped for
>centuries by race and ethnicity? Of course, we want the races and sexes to
>see their commonalities, but it's not a matter of recovering some lost
>unity that never was, is it?
Exactly. Here we are looking at how changes in industrial structure are fracturing/fragmenting, etc. the working class. Over our shoulder, in the not too distant past, is the image of the heroic Bolivian mining proletariat, vividly portrayed for English readers in Domitila's _Let Me Speak!_ and Lora's 3 volume set from Cambridge. One myth, always implicit here, is that there was an unproblematic past unity. Not so. Rather, there were always processes of homogenization and heterogenization (clumsy, but you get the idea) at work. For a time, the repressive governments + specifics of mining conditions (remoteness, unity and uniformity of social life in the camps, etc.) made for a very unified, shared world view, that irradiated out from the mining sectors and swept many other sectors along with it. But, when the conditions changed -- tin market took a dive; 30,000 miners fired; entire camps abandonded; people migrating hither and yon -- so too the unity.
Now their children in Cochabamba are entering the working class, under conditions far worse than what their parents experienced: lower wages, fewer protections, etc. And the most desired laborers are young women -- they complain less, ask for less, take orders better. In talking with these people and those trying to unionize them, invoking or appealing to that past unity doesn't get you to far. Somehow, amid the "flexibilized" big plants and profusion of small enterprises, a new kind of unity must be built.
In the specific sectors we're working with, there seem to be two key impediments:
(a) worker's "location" in life cycle and expectations: as most are young (14-22) women, they often see their time in the plant as passing, a way station, a springboard to something else. It may or may not be; it is, however, what they firmly believe. Moreover, most contribute their wages to a family group in which they are junior members, which also gets income from other members. Thus, they have never had to make solely on their earnings -- which they couldn't.
(b) labor-capital relations mediated by patriarchal/clientilistic/etc. relations. In the small shops, family run is the order of the day. Intra-familial networks and fictive kin/god-parentage (compadrazgo) are the mechanisms by which highly effective labor control is exercised. How do you strike against your uncle? Or the godmother of your baptism? Especially when s/he is (often) labor and capital (as owner and labor in his own shop)?
Yoshie notes:
>One of the sources of the weaknesses of the working
>class has been and still is precisely the fact that it's been divided and
>stratified by race and gender.
Sure, right, of course. But need to get past the statement and onto the ground to explore HOW gender, race (generational, regional/ethnic, etc.) are "worked through", and what might be done about it.
To keep our heads clear, we keep going back to EP Thompson and the Making of the English Working Class.
Tom
Tom Kruse / Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia Tel/Fax: (591-42) 48242 Email: tkruse at albatros.cnb.net