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‘Communities of resistance’ and the use of newspaper discussion boards: Polish workers in Japanese foreign investments
Author(s) -
Bancarzewski Maciej,
Hardy Jane
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
new technology, work and employment
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.889
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1468-005X
pISSN - 0268-1072
DOI - 10.1111/ntwe.12091
Subject(s) - newspaper , resistance (ecology) , relation (database) , politics , set (abstract data type) , public relations , work (physics) , sociology , the internet , political science , business , media studies , engineering , law , mechanical engineering , ecology , database , computer science , biology , programming language , world wide web
This article examines the content of 200 posts on newspaper discussion boards by workers in a cluster of Japanese foreign investments in Poland. The conclusions are first, that the material experiences of workers generate a set of themes in relation to the labour process with regard to wages and working conditions, bullying and monitoring that exhibit similarities across countries. Second, we argue that an analysis of the discourse used is shaped by political and institutional conditions, which reveal national differences in how workers perceive and locate their exploitation. Finally, in relation to debates about workers’ resistance and the use of the Internet we argue that the interaction of themes related to the material experience of work are intertwined with institutionally embedded understandings of exploitation, which not only enable a shared framework for venting, but also provide the basis for a community of resistance.