Ours To Master And To Own

Dario Azzellini: Dario Azzellini is a political scientist and lecturer at Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria, writer and documentary director based in Berlin and Caracas. He holds a PhD in political sciences at the Goethe University in Frankfurt (Germany) and is finishing a PhD in sociology at the BUAP in Puebla (Mexico). His research and writing focuses on social and revolutionary militancy, migration and racism, people’s power and selfadministration, workers control and extensive case studies in Latin America. He served as Associate Editor for the The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present, published by Wiley-Blackwell in 2009 and was primary editor for Latin America, the Spanish Caribbean, and the new left in Italy. He serves as Associate Editor for WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society and for Cuadernos de Marte, an academic publication about war sociology by the University of Buenos Aires. He published several books, essays and documentaries about social movements, privatization of military services, migration and racism, Italy, Mexico, Nicaragua, Colombia and Venezuela. Among them The Business of War (Assoziation A 2002), a book about privatization of military services, translated an published in Germany, Argentina, Bolivia, France, Indonesia, Italy, Spain and Venezuela.  Azzellini is a documentary filmmaker.  His latest documentary "Comuna under construction" (2010) examines worker councils in Venezuela. Azzellini has been invited to conferences in Europe, North America, South America and Asia. More information on his publications and work is available at: www.azzellini.net.Immanuel Ness: Immanuel Ness is professor of political science at Brooklyn College, City University of New York.  He holds a PhD in Political Science from the CUNY Graduate Center. His research and writing focuses on social and revolutionary movements, labor militancy, and migrant worker resistance to oppression. Ness just completed Guest Workers, Corporate Despotism and Resistance,(forthcoming University of Illinois Press) a book that examines the rise of guest workers from the global South in the US and labor opposition to employer abuses.  He is also working on a number of projects on labor struggles, global migration, and the rise of syndicalism He is author of an anthology of contemporary labor: Real World Labor, with Amy Offner and Chris Sturr (Dollars & Sense).  His book, titled Immigrants, Unions, and the U.S. Labor Market, published in the spring of 2005 by Temple University Press is now in its 3rd printing. Ness has been invited to speak throughout the world (Asia, Europe, North America, South America) and at numerous academic conferences, including the American Political Science Association, and frequently invited to speak on low-wage labor, immigrants, and workers centers at conferences and universities the U.S. and abroad.  He is editor of the peer-review quarterly journal, Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society, a peer review quarterly journal that examines labor and work from a socialist perspective.  Ness is General Editor of the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration (forthcoming, Blackwell 2012).  Ness is founder of the Lower East Side Community Labor Organization, an autonomous activist organization in New York City.  In 2005, his 4-volume work: Encyclopedia of American Social Movements received Outstanding Reference Source, Reference and User Services Association, American Library Association.  The work is selected as best reference for 2005 from Library Journal.  He is editor of International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present (Wiley-Blackwell 2009) and co-editor with Aaron Brenner and Benjamin Day of Encyclopedia of Strikes in American History (Sharpe 2009).  He received awards and acclaim for his other reference works, including Encyclopedia of Third Parties in America.

“Ours to Master and to Own is the most substantive and comprehensive work on workers’ control and self-management today. I strongly recommend this work, which provides examples drawn from throughout the world of workers struggling for justice and power.”—Gary Younge, columnist for the Guardian and the Nation“The seemingly logical and just idea that workers themselves should make the decisions regarding and reap the benefits of their labor has always been a fraught concept with the potential to topple or reform whole societies… This ambitious, copiously researched, and clearly written text provides a sweeping diversity of examples, analyzed with cool detachment from the specific politics but with underlying passion for the larger concept.”—Kari Lydersen, author of Revolt on Goose Island“With the global capitalist order entering a period of crisis, but also with the dramatic increase in worker’s struggles especially in the global South, this collection is extremely opportune. Workers will seek greater control over market forces and workers’ councils are bound to reemerge. A must-read for labor analysts and activists alike.”—Ronaldo Munck, Dublin City University and University of Liverpool“Ness and Azzellini have made a major contribution in producing this insightful and exciting collection of essays on the question of workers’ control… it is timely and offers great strategic insight.”—Bill Fletcher, Jr., coauthor of Solidarity Divided“Excellent! A very complete, serious, and inspiring account of the movements for workers’ control and their difficulties. There is no doubt that it should become a standard point of reference for future discussions and actions.”—John Holloway, author of Crack Capitalism

• PRELIMINARY TABLE OF CONTENTS:Introduction Dario Azzellini & Immanuel NessPart I: Workers Councils: Historical Overview and Theoretical DebateWorkers Control and Revolution, Victor WallisWorkers Councils in Europe–a Century of Experience, Donny GlucksteinThe Red Mole: Workers’ Councils as a Means of Revolutionary Transformation, Sheila CohenWorkers Councils and Control: Contemporary Praxis in Latin America, Alberto BonnetPart II: Workers Councils and Self-administration in Revolution: Early 20th CenturyGermany: From Unionism to Workers´ Councils: Revolutionary Shop Stewards 1914-1918, Ralf HoffroggeBolshevik Revolution: Factory Councils and Workers' Control, Mark-David Mandel Italy: Il Biennio Rosso Factory Councils, 1919-1920, Pietro DipaolaWorkers Control and Councils in the Spanish Revolution 1936-1939, Andrew DurganPart III: Workers Control under State Socialism Yugoslavia Workers Councils—Successes and Failures, Goran Markovic Hungary: Workers Councils of 1956, Tamas KrauszPoland, Workers Councils 1950s/1980s, Zbigniew MarcinPart IV: Anticolonial struggle, Democratic Revolution and Workers ControlWorkers Control of Railways in Colonial Indonesia, 1945-1946, Jafar SuryomenggoloAlgeria’s autogestion: From Self-management to State Bureaucracy, Sam SouthgateArgentina, The Limits of Worker Control within the State: Mendoza- 1973, Gabriela ScodellerPortugal: Workers Councils 1974-75, Peter RobinsonIndia: Post-Independence Worker Control and Self-Management, Arup Kumar SenPart V: Workers Control against Capitalist Restructuring in the 20th Century US: Factory Occupations: Looking Retrospectively to the Future, Immanuel NessItalian ‘Hot Autumn:’ Factory Councils and Autonomous Workers Assemblies, 1970s, Patrick CuninghameCanada: Women and the British Columbia Workers Occupations, 1980s, Elaine BernardBritain/Wales ‘Tower Colliery and Workers Control in Action: A Case Study',Russell Smith; Len Arthur; Molly Scott Cato and Tom KeenoyPart VI: Workers Control: Contemporary EraArgentinean Expropriated Factories: Trajectories of Worker Control under the Economic Crisis, Marina KabatVenezuela: Reorganizing Work and Production, Dario Azzellini Brazilian Contemporary Recovered Factories, Mauricio Sardá de Faria & Henrique T. Novaes