Resisting Austerity
The Case of Greece”s Powerworkers and Steelworkers
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12979010 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Stelios Giali (0000-0001-5204-6009, University of Georgia, corresponding author), Andrew Herod (0000-0002-5668-3803, University of Georgia) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 98-115 |
| Publication date | 2013-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Human Geography (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1942-7786 • E-ISSN: 2633-674X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/194277861300600208 |
| OpenAlex | W2464526435 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 19 |
This paper studies workers’ agency in the context of government austerity measures in contemporary, crisis-hit Greece. It focuses upon the spatial aspects of two cases of worker mobilisation. The first of these involves powerworkers who supported widespread popular protests against a new property tax designed to raise government revenues. Importantly, the government had sought to collect this tax by adding it to people's electricity bills, a novel method which generated massive opposition. The second concerns strike activity engaged in by steelworkers employed at the Greek Steelworks SA in Aspropyrgos, in the capital region of Attica. These workers were responding to the company's taking advantage of new laws designed to increase flexibility in labour markets by allowing employers to fire more people than they otherwise would have been allowed to do. The paper analyses the different tactics employed in both of these quite different efforts to challenge Greek austerity measures. In analysing these different tactics we explore the role of in-place and trans-local networks of solidarity in response to government policy. A deeper understanding of such factors, we would suggest, may contribute to strengthening the prospects of workers’ struggle in places and spaces where painful capital devaluation diminishes workers’ rights and dismantles social and employment protections
Austerity · Context (archaeology · Economic policy · Economics · Economy · Government (linguistics · Labour economics · Market economy · Opposition (politics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Public economics · Solidarity · Tax revenue · Employment and Welfare Studies · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Social Policy and Reform Studies
The Mediterranean City in Transition
Still a distinctive southern European employment model?
Places of Work, Scales of Organising
Financial regulation in the light of the current global economic crisis
The Greek Economic Crisis and its Geography
Constrained agency? Re-evaluating the geographies of labour
Strategy and industrial restructuring
Dimensions of Atypical Forms of Employment in Thessaloniki, Greece
Urban Social Movements in ‘Weak’ Civil Societies
Labouring geography
Uneven geographical development and socio-spatial justice and solidarity
Region, Class, and the Politics of Steel Closures in the European Community
Neo-liberalism as creative destruction
Workers as Geographical Actors
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,25 |
| Citation span | 2014 - 2025 (12) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |