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The first comprehensive comparison of the pink tide in Latin America, the Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa and the Occupy and anti-austerity movements in Europe and North America, with a focus on the apparent lack of union involvement

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The start of the twenty-first century has been marked by global demands for economic justice. From the pink tide and Arab spring to Occupy and anti-austerity, the last twenty years have witnessed the birth of a new type of mass mobilisation.

Where Are The Unions? compares, for the first time, the challenges faced by movements in Latin America, the Arab world and Europe. Workers´ strikes and protests were a critical part of these events, yet their role has been significantly underestimated in many of the subsequent narratives.

This book focuses on the complex interactions between organised workers, the unemployed, self-employed, youth, students and the state, and critically assesses the concept of the ´precariat´. With contributions from across four continents, this is the most comprehensive look at the global context of mass mobilisation in the twenty-first century.

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Introduction - Sian Lazar
Part I: Labour movements, society and the state

1. The Egyptian workers´ movement: problems of organisation and politics - Anne Alexander and Mostafa Bassiouny
2. From the grassroots to the presidential palace: Evo Morales and the coca growers´ union in Bolivia - Thomas Grisaffi
3. The labour union movement and ´alternative´ culture in Tunisia: the long view of a close relationship - Mohamed-Salah Omri
Part II: Identity and precarity

4. Migrants´ struggles? Rethinking citizenship, anti-racism and labour precarity through migration politics in Italy - Irene Peano
5. The Spanish crisis: from complacency to unrest, from unrest to mobilisation - Salvador Martí i Puig and Marco Aparicio Wilhelmi
6. What are the possible strategies for the emergence of a democratic and revolutionary labour movement in Lebanon? - Walid Daou
7. ´To struggle is also to teach´: how can teachers and teaching unions further the global fight for another world? - Mary Compton
Part III: Rank and file challenges to traditional unionism

8. ´Ungrievable´ labour and ´unruly´ politics: NGOS, workers´ rights, and the 2013-2014 protests in Brazil - Lucy McMahon
9. The experience of grassroots syndicalism in Greece: workplace restructuring and the role of traditional trade unions in the tertiary sector - Aris Anagnostopoulos and Angelos Evangelinidis
10. Dilemmas of trade unionism and the movement of the unemployed under neoliberal and progressive regimes in Argentina - Virginia Manzano
11. From invisible to invincible: the story of the 3 Cosas Campaign - Jason Moyer-Lee and Henry Chango Lopez
Afterword: bringing manifestos back in? - Peter Waterman

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Lazar, Sian
Sian Lazar is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge and joint editor of the Journal of Latin American Studies. She is author of "El Alto, Rebel City: Self and Citizenship in Andean Bolivia", (2008), editor of "The Anthropology of Citizenship: A Reader", (2013); and co-author with Maxine Molyneux of "Doing the Rights Thing: Rights based development and gender in Latin American NGOs", (2003). She has co-edited special issues of the Bulletin of Latin American Research (2006) and Critique of Anthropology (2013), and published articles in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, American Anthropologist, Critique of Anthropology, PoLAR, Anthropology of Education Quarterly, Anthropology of Work Review, and Bulletin of Latin American Research. She is joint editor of the Journal of Latin American Studies.

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