Working-class Organizations and Alternative Economic Discourses: Evidences on the Socialization and Demobilization of Spanish Urban Workers

Abstract

Based on qualitative interviews, participant observation and archival research, this article tests the importance of labour organizations in workers' development of a complex understanding of the economic system. More concretely, it offers a comparison of the discourses of Spanish urban workers with different levels of participation in these organizations. Then, this study presents an apparent paradox, the very same alternative economic discourse that allows workers to challenge the dominant economic discourses acts as an element of demobilization. What is more, the article reveals that the lack of renewal within neighbourhood organizations and neighbourhood leaderships, and the prevalent use of the rhetoric of the 1970s labour movement are at the core of this demobilization.