The labour movement in Lebanon: Power on hold narrates the history of the Lebanese labour movement from the early twentieth century to today. Bou Khater demonstrates that trade unionism in the country has largely been a failure, for reasons including state interference, tactical co-optation, and the strategic use of sectarianism by an oligarchic elite, together with the structural weakness of a service-based laissez-faire economy. Drawing on a vast body of Arabic-language primary sources and difficult-to-access archives, the book’s conclusions are significant not only for trade unionism, but also for new forms of workers’ organisations and social movements in Lebanon and beyond. The Lebanese case study presented here holds significant implications for the wider Arab world and for comparative studies of labour. This authoritative history of the labour movement in Lebanon is vital reading for scholars of trade unionism, Lebanese politics, and political economy.

Power on hold examines the course of the labour movement in Lebanon since independence in 1943, giving specific attention to the role of state incorporation in the preservation of the sectarian-liberal system.

Depicts the rise and fall of the militant labor movement in modern El Salvador.

From the founding of New Amsterdam until today, working people have helped create and re-create the City of New York through their struggles. Starting with artisans and slaves in colonial New York and ranging all the way to twenty-first-century gig-economy workers, this book tells the story of New York’s labor history anew. City of Workers, City of Struggle brings together essays by leading historians of New York and a wealth of illustrations, offering rich descriptions of work, daily life, and political struggle. It recounts how workers have developed formal and informal groups not only to advance their own interests but also to pursue a vision of what the city should be like and whom it should be for. The book goes beyond the largely white, male wage workers in mainstream labor organizations who have dominated the history of labor movements to look at enslaved people, indentured servants, domestic workers, sex workers, day laborers, and others who have had to fight not only their masters and employers but also labor groups that often excluded them. Through their stories—how they fought for inclusion or developed their own ways to advance—it recenters labor history for contemporary struggles. City of Workers, City of Struggle offers the definitive account of the four-hundred-year history of efforts by New York workers to improve their lives and their communities. In association with the exhibition City of Workers, City of Struggle: How Labor Movements Changed New York at the Museum of the City of New York

After six decades of protracted refugeehood, patterns of social identification are changing among the young people of the fourth refugee generation in the Palestinian refugee camp Burj al-Shamali in Southern Lebanon. Though their identity as Palestinian refugees remains the same compared to older refugee generations, there is an important shift in the young refugees’ relationship towards the homeland, their status as refugees, Islam, the camp society, as well as in their relationship towards religious or ethnic “others” in and outside Lebanon. This ePaper examines how technology, globalisation and outside influences have impacted the young Palestinians’ interpretation of their identity and their understanding of Palestinianness. The author concludes with reflections on the young refugees’ attitudes towards their Palestinian identity in the diaspora, which, as she argues, can only survive when the young refugees see their identity as a virtue rather than as a hindrance.

The start of the twenty-first century has been marked by global demands for economic justice. From the pink tide and Arab spring to Occupy and anti-austerity, the last twenty years have witnessed the birth of a new type of mass mobilisation. Where Are The Unions? compares, for the first time, the challenges faced by movements in Latin America, the Arab world and Europe. Workers’ strikes and protests were a critical part of these events, yet their role has been significantly underestimated in many of the subsequent narratives. This book focuses on the complex interactions between organised workers, the unemployed, self-employed, youth, students and the state, and critically assesses the concept of the ‘precariat’. With contributions from across four continents, this is the most comprehensive look at the global context of mass mobilisation in the twenty-first century.

The labour movement in Lebanon: Power on hold narrates the history of the Lebanese labour movement from the early twentieth century to today. Bou Khater demonstrates that trade unionism in the country has largely been a failure, for reasons including state interference, tactical co-optation, and the strategic use of sectarianism by an oligarchic elite, together with the structural weakness of a service-based laissez-faire economy. Drawing on a vast body of Arabic-language primary sources and difficult-to-access archives, the book's conclusions are significant not only for trade unionism, but also for new forms of workers' organisations and social movements in Lebanon and beyond.The Lebanese case study presented here holds significant implications for the wider Arab world and for comparative studies of labour. This authoritative history of the labour movement in Lebanon is vital reading for scholars of trade unionism, Lebanese politics, and political economy.