A Marxist Perspective on Workers’ Collective Action

What drives workers periodically to contest their surrounding reality and how do they structure their protests? Providing answers to these crucial questions has always been at the centre of Marxist thinking and workplace research. Within this tradition there are key debates around structure and agency, and between subjective and objective conditions in the mobilizations of workers. This chapter aims to add to the theoretical debate and to militant action by proposing the reconstruction of a theory of workers’ collective action rooted around four main pillars: the need to avoid subjective and individually based explanations, the centrality of the capitalist labour process’ contradictions, the need to constantly demystify capital and the rediscovery of solidarity.