[P2P-F] Fwd: [NetworkedLabour] THE LABOUR MOVEMENT AND THE INTERNET

[Michel Bauwens]

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From: Orsan <orsan1234 at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 7:11 AM
Subject: [NetworkedLabour] THE LABOUR MOVEMENT AND THE INTERNET
To: networkedlabour at lists.contrast.org


THE LABOUR MOVEMENT AND THE INTERNET
2000-06-01

Chris Bailey

The trend of modern capitalism is towards both globalisation and
networking. These features are closely related, but distinctly separate.

Since the late 1970s, an enormous expansion in the export of capital across
national boundaries has taken place. Giant transnational corporations have
been carrying out a global 'rationalisation' of production and
distribution, treating nation-states as largely irrelevant. Neo-liberalism
has developed as a political movement accelerating this process by
deregulating the cross-border flow of capital around the world.

An explosive expansion of computer and telecommunications technology has
accompanied these developments. By shrinking distances, this new technology
has been a major factor in the globalisation of capitalist production. It
has also played an essential role in bringing about the domination of
networked forms of organisation. Although networks of various kinds have
existed for centuries, modern computer technology has allowed them to take
on new features and modes of operation and made them a central aspect of
modern capitalism.

The essential nature of a network and the connection with computer
communications has been described by Sally Burch, one of the pioneers of
social movement networking in Latin America: "Unlike rigid structures, true
networks are essentially flexible. They generate multiple channels of
communication in which, as in the functioning of the brain, connections are
made as needed and then suspended until a new need arises. In this way,
information flows through the channel of least resistance, rapidly making
its way to the most dynamic points of the network, on any given issue.
Physically, this is very similar to the way the Internet works, and that is
precisely one of the reasons why it is so appropriate for any initiative
based on networking."

Computer technology has created the conditions for a global communications
network that is essential to the operation of capitalism today. But
capitalism has also shown that networking need not be simply limited to
communication and the flow of information, it has become a feature of the
capitalist manufacturing process itself. In Flexible Dimensions of a
Permanent Crisis: TNCs, Flexibility, and Workers in Asia, Gerard Greenfield
describes how transnational corporations work with a mass of
sub-contractors to bring about what is essentially a networked production
system. Here he explains how "the logic of TNC subcontracting" works for
Nike's strategy in Asia: "From July last year, PT Indomulti Inti Industry
stopped producing Nike shoes because Nike's price was too low" and "failed
to consider the labour costs and other operational costs. Other
subcontractors accepted the lower prices demanded by Nike, and cut labour
costs to absorb the loss. On the other hand Nike has cut orders to
subcontractors like Samyang, a South Korean-owned factory in Vietnam, in
response to the gains workers were making in organising and collective
bargaining. At the same time, Nike has increased orders to Yue Yuen, a
Taiwanese-owned subcontractor, which is increasing the production capacity
of its factories in Indonesia and Vietnam. For Nike, Yue Yuen has emerged
as a 'reliable' subcontractor because it can ensure both lower prices and
more effective repression of workers."
http://www.amrc.org.hk/content/labour-movement-and-internet




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