Group of people standing outside a building in Chile.
Establishment of the International Research Network on Precarious Workers’ Collective Action, Santiago de Chile, 16 August 2018.

About the project 

Funded by University of Westminster’s Strategic Research Investment Fund Grant, Phase 4 Excellence with Impact, £10,000, 2017–2018.

This project aims to contribute to our understanding of precarious workers’ collective action in Latin America by examining the issues of why, how far and in what ways precarious workers are not only confronting their unstable, insecure and vulnerable forms of employment, but also challenging the broader socio-economic systems that produce and reproduce them.

The project initially focused on two groups of workers: subcontracted workers in Chile, particularly in construction, civil engineering, mining and forestry; and formal and informal workers involved in the recycling chains of Chile and Argentina. However this has expanded over the years to consider other categories of workers. 

Building on growing partnerships in Chile (Universidad Alberto Hurtado; Universidad de Chile) and Argentina (Universidad Nacional de La Plata; CONICET), ProBE established the International Research Network on Precarious Workers’ Collective Action in Santiago de Chile on 16 August 2018.

Contact

For further information, email Dr Fernando Duran-Palma at [email protected]

Outputs

  • Durán-Palma, F., Urrutia, M., and Wilkinson, A. Neoliberalism, Precarity and Precarious Workers: An Account of Chile’s Rupturist Unionism (forthcoming)
  • 2023 - Urrutia, M. and Durán-Palma, F. (2023) ‘Chile – from Pinochet’s neoliberal counter-revolution to the 2019-20 anti-neoliberal revolt, in Atzeni, M., Mezzardi, A., Azzellini, D., Moore, P., Apitzsch, U. (eds) Research Handbook on the Global Political Economy of Work, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar

  • Durán-Palma, F. and Urrutia, M. (2023) Labour Responses to Neoliberalism: Chile – between Pinochet’s neoliberal revolution and the 2019 anti-neoliberal revolt, 41st International Labour Process Conference, Strathclyde University, Glasgow, 12–14 April
  • Durán-Palma, F. and Urrutia, M. (2020) Opening the Great Avenues: Workers, Unions and Anti-neoliberal Struggles in Chile (1979-2019), seminar titled Popular Unity: The Lessons of Chile - 50 Years On, BUIRA History of Industrial Relations Study Group, London, 22 September
  • Atzeni, M., Cifuentes, L., Durán-Palma, F., and Ghigliani, P. (2019) Local Politics and Workers’ Organisational Practices in the Waste Collection and Recycling Chain in Argentina and Chile, 37th International Labour Process Conference, Vienna, 24–26 April
  • Atzeni, M., Cifuentes, L., Durán-Palma, F., and Ghigliani, P. (2019) Local Politics and Workers’ Organisational Practices in the Waste Collection and Recycling Chains in Argentina and Chile, Urban Informality: An International Workshop, De Montfort University, Leicester, 27 June.
  • Durán-Palma, F. (2017) An Alternative Account of the Founding Choices of Chile’s Subcontracted Workers’ Unionism, International Workshop ‘Collective Action by Atypical and Precarious Workers in Latin America: Experiences from Chile and Argentina’, The Centre for the Study of the Production of the Built Environment (ProBE), University of Westminster, London, 27 November.
  • Second international workshop titled Collective Action by Atypical and Precarious Workers in Latin America: Experiences from Chile and Argentina, The Centre for the Study of the Production of the Built Environment (ProBE), University of Westminster, London, 27 November 2017
  • Durán-Palma, F. (2017) A Framework for the Analysis of Collective Action and Organisation by Precarious Workers, international workshop titled Collective Action by Precarious Workers in Latin America, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Santiago, 16 August.
  • First international workshop titled Collective Action by Precarious Workers in Latin America, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Santiago, 16 August 2017
  • Establishment of the International Research Network on Precarious Workers’ Collective Action, Santiago de Chile, 16 August 2017
  • International Workshop ‘Collective Action by Precarious Workers in Latin America’, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Santiago, 16 August 2017