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The transition from industrial to post-industrial society has changed the conditions for labour protest in Europe fundamentally. In this paper recent forms of labour protest are explored in two European capital cities, Berlin and Budapest. In the context of growing job insecurity, flexibilisation and fragmentation of labour markets, the motivations and class positions of protest participants are scrutinised, along with the diversified geographies of protest events. Building on empirical results by means of a survey based on structured mini-interviews, the paper argues, first, that a fragmentation of labour protests on May 1st is observable. This fragmentation is driven by an overall change of Labour Day celebrations from trade union oriented demonstrations towards segmented party zones of protest in both cities. Second, neither traditional forms of labour protest is nor newly created, more festive forms of labour celebrations attract a significant proportion of people suffering from precarity or unemployment. Thus, most marginalised people in the service-dominated economy do not have a voice in labour protests today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a collection of papers that respond to an essay that compares the role of political repression in the early American labor movement and European labor movements. One paper questions the severity of political repression in the U.S. during the period in question, 1870 to 1914, and offers additional historical moments that influenced the labor movement in the U.S. Another paper discusses how the essay addresses the issue of American exceptionalism in the early American labor movement. An additional paper argues that the essay utilizes a crude conceptualization of political repression of labor movements and does not allow room for alternative explanations.

This article discusses the working-class formation in Europe. Within the parameters of a class model this paper seeks to explain how the European labor movements developed against a background of expanding capitalist labor markets, rural-urban split, liberal political hegemony, conflicting and competing religious, ethnic and linguistic affiliation and state repression, from the mid nineteenth century until World War II. Stating that solidarity, organization and militancy are functions of urbanism, the paper raises the question of how different societies overcame the rural-urban split. Besides noting that most countries in East and South Europe did not manage to cross the bridge, one may point out that extensive urbanization resulted from the exodus from the countryside simultaneous with the growth of industrial labor markets in towns and cities, and next, how the labor movement managed to expand trade unions outside the urban sector, and seeking electoral support among the agrarian population. Provided labor had considerable national political power, this turned out to be an effective policy; otherwise this organizational expansion would be confronted with violent opposition. Early industrialization often went hand in hand with liberal political domination, which occupied the social space and hence obstructed further diffusion by other organizations. In West and North Europe repression was moderate and temporary, whereas the working classes in South and East Europe were exposed to repression and harassment by landlords, industrialists and state bureaucracies. Only fundamental changes in international and national power structures could bring advantages to the labor movement. From a theoretical angle it is the interaction between mode of production, political organization and state structure that best explains different forms of working-class integration in Europe.

This paper explores the logical and historical determinants of European integration and reflects on the potential and dangers this presents for labour movement renewal. Through the principle of ‘subsidiarity’ a regulatory gap has been established between political mobilisation at the national level and neo-liberal regulation at the European level. The historical determination of this form is traced through an exploration of the social struggles against neo-liberalism that have developed within member states and transnational mobilizations that bridge this regulatory gap by linking resistance across national boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]