Convenors
Francesca Gabbriellini, University of Bologna
frances.gabbriellin3@unibo.it
Domenico Perrotta, University of Bergamo
domenico.perrotta@unibg.it
Over the last 15 years, the field of environmental labour studies has succeeded in «bridg[ing] the gap that separated research on the environment from research on labour», as well as «environmental movements from labour movements» (Räthzel et al., 2021). Initially, this scholarly area concentrated almost exclusively on trade unions (Räthzel, Uzzell, 2012); then, it has expanded to address many other issues and actors, across both the Global South and the Global North, and to «include all research that analyses how workers in any kind of workplace and community are involved in environmental policies/practices and how they are affected by environmental degradation in the broadest sense» (Stevis et al., 2018, p. 440).
Urged by the current, dramatic and multidimensional environmental crisis, this interdisciplinary and engaged field, situated at the intersection between political ecology and labour studies, has contributed to refine and advance concepts such as labour environmentalism, working class ecology, just transition, environmental and climate justice (cfr. for example Barca, Leonardi, 2018; Feltrin, 2022).
This panel aims to contribute to this crucial debate by bringing together papers based on ethnographies and qualitative studies on workplaces and working-class communities.
In the broad field of labour studies and industrial relations, rigorous and challenging ethnographic studies have been realized in many workplaces, from Taylorist metal factories (Roy, 1952; Burawoy, 1979; Cavendish, 1982) to information technology, services and tourism, agriculture, construction sites, logistics warehouses, with different theoretical approaches (symbolic interactionism; Gramscian Marxism; labour process theory; global value chains; gender and migration studies…).
Workplace ethnographies focus on topics such as consent, resistance and conflict, formal and informal organisation among workers, informal and formal alliances between different groups on the shop floor, class composition (in terms of gender, generation, race and national or regional origin, legal status, skills, education…), the interests, strategies and cultures of different working-class fractions, the relationship between production and social reproduction, the impact of labour markets, welfare provision, unbalanced power relations in global value chains.
Through their long and intimate observation of (and participation in) work relations, and their nuanced descriptions of practices and representations of workers, management and other social groups inside and outside companies, workplace ethnographies – as well as qualitative studies of working-class communities – can make important contributions to environmental labour studies.
Conversely, environmental labour studies and political ecology challenge workplace ethnographers to seriously consider the ongoing ecological crisis as one of the issues that need to be addressed when observing (and participating in) workplace practices and interactions. This perspective calls for attention to ecology as a new and critical battleground within industrial relations.
We welcome the presentation of ethnographies realized not only with industrial workers (e.g. in steel, petrochemical, automotive, textile, clothing factories), mining and energy production workers (e.g. in oil&gas), but also in other sectors, such as agriculture, logistics, construction, tourism, transport.
Open questions
- How workers and other actors in the field represent, discuss and describe:
- the relationship between society and nature and between labour and nature;
- the environmental pollution and noxiousness ascribable to the plants;
- the links between damages to their own health (and the health of their communities) and to the environment;
- the contribution of their companies to global warming;
- the layoffs, relocation or off-shoring processes and job losses associated with the (corporate decisions on the) environmental transition;
- Conflicts that arise on these and other issues, and the strategies companies use to build consent in the workplace based on their views on the transition;
- New and unexpected working-class representations and practices about ecology;
- The role and views of trade unions, employers’ organisations, environmental associations and other organised groups;
- The relationships between workplace-centered and community-based conflicts.
Keywords
workplace; consent; labour conflicts; working-class environmentalism; just transition.
Sub-disciplines or cross-disciplinary areas of concern
labour environmental studies; sociology of work; labour process theory; political ecology; labour history; labour geography; sociology of environment; industrial relations; anthropology of work.
References
Barca, S., Emanuele L.
2018 «Working-class ecology and union politics: a conceptual topology», in Globalizations, 15, 4, pp. 487-503.
Burawoy, M.
1979 Manufacturing consent. Changes in the labor process under monopoly capitalism, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press.
Cavendish, R. (Miriam Glucksmann)
1982 Women on the line (new edition: London, Routledge, 2009).
Feltrin, L.
2022 «Situating class in workplace and community environmentalism: Working-class environmentalism and deindustrialization in Porto Marghera, Venice», in The Sociological Review, 70, 6, pp. 1141-1162.
Räthzel, N., Stevis, D., Uzzell, D. (Eds.)
2021 The Palgrave handbook of environmental labour studies, Cham, Palgrave McMillan.
Räthzel, N., Uzzell, N. (Eds)
2012 Trade unions in the green economy. Working for the environment, New York, Routledge.
Roy, D.
1952 «Quota Restriction and Goldbricking in a Machine Shop», in American Journal of Sociology, 57, 5, pp. 427-442.
Stevis, D., Uzzell, D., Räthzel, N.
2018 Labour in the web of life, special issue, Globalizations, 15, 4.
Convenors’ bios
Francesca Gabbriellini is PhD candidate in contemporary history at the University of Bologna, currently focused on the study of the cooperative movement (1980s-1990s), with an emphasis on consumption, business and environmental issues. Her previous research explored cooperative business recovery from a comparative perspective between Italy and France. She has been a visiting scholar at the Centre de Sociologie des Organisations – Sciences Po Paris, working on cooperatives and consumer movements from a historical and socio-ecological perspective.
Domenico Perrotta is associate professor in Economic and Labour Sociology at the University of Bergamo, and co-editor in chief of Etnografia e ricerca qualitativa. His research interests have included migration processes, construction sites, agricultural labour, agri-food supply chains, ethnographic and qualitative studies. He is currently engaged in a field research on the processes of transition to the production of electric vehicles in the automotive sector in Italy.