This article is part of an internationally coordinated themed collection on ‘labour conflict, forms of organisation, and class’ exploring important questions. How can we explain the interplay of capital, the state, and the international order, in defining the persistence of labour conflict in changing historical and political-economic contexts? How have the economic, social, and technological transformations precipitated by the recent pandemic shaped the expression of work-related conflict? As part of a response to these main questions, the author and contributors of this collection conceptualise labour conflict and collective action in broader class analysis and examine the combined effect of state policies, migration, and digital innovation on contemporary labour politics. This article, drawing on insights from Marxist-oriented interdisciplinary approaches and feminist theories, seeks to suggest approaches to future studies on class, labour conflict, and workers’ organisation.

The social and economic impacts of the emerging platform economy are most obvious in urban settings, where platforms are giving rise to unfamiliar dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, cooperation and division, as well as social and political integration and fragmentation. Platform urbanisation has created a new and unprecedented kind of politics. It has given rise to new political spaces and new subjectivities, resulting in a permanent reorganisation of ‘historical’ assemblages of territory, authority and rights. Drawing on the results of the European-based PLUS Project (Platform Labour in Urban Spaces: Fairness, Welfare, Development), this themed collection offers a fresh perspective on the platform economy by analysing it in terms of the relationship between urban contexts and the ongoing platformisation process, with an emphasis on how this relationship is reshaping (platform) labour and reconfiguring (or even reinvigorating) social action. Along the way, the articles in this issue consider whether platforms are useful for the development of urban environments and labour markets, or whether urban environments and labour markets are useful for the development of platforms. Likewise, they seek to identify the conditions under which relevant actors can mobilise and build alliances to ensure that such forms of development can be made to benefit not only workers but also (urban) citizens and the (urban) environment in general.

This personal biography by the son of GC Harcourt focuses mainly on the political aspects of the life and work of this important Australian and Cambridge economist.

The title of this article is a riff off a publication of G. C. Harcourt’s 1974 piece, ‘The social consequences of inflation’. He wrote this in a period of the global economy that bears some strong similarities to our own contemporary phase when inflation is suddenly back in the global headlines. There is at least one significant difference: at that time, Harcourt highlighted inflation as the outcome of an excess of total demand in real terms over available supplies of goods and services when the potential workforces and existing stocks of capital goods were fully employed. Current inflationary pressures, by contrast, arise from the combination of specific sectoral supply bottlenecks, rising profit margins in oligopolistic global markets for food and fuel and financial speculation in these markets.

In the article, we will explore the impact of platform labour on urban spaces and the new frontiers of unionism by leveraging a ground analysis and theoretical elaborations from the PLUS project. PLUS was designed to analyse the impact of four platforms (Uber, Airbnb, Helpling, and Deliveroo) in seven European cities (Barcelona, Berlin, Bologna, Lisbon, Paris, London, and Tallinn). In doing so, PLUS supported its sociological investigations with theoretical and historical elaborations concerning the operation of contemporary platforms and the characteristics of the new form of unionism. We will present some results from PLUS, with a focus on the Bologna case, where platform workers express their dissatisfaction with their organizations, attempting to relate their strategies to certain structural aspects of business territorialization within urban spaces. We will draw upon the well-known distinction proposed by Albert Hirschman between exit, voice, and loyalty and adapt it to frame the various strategies that platform workers may adopt.

It is a characteristic of platform capitalism that struggles to re-embed digital platform work within institutionalised forms of employment have been set in motion by new labour actors (i.e. self-organised, grassroots unions). Contrary to the view that these new actors signify the decades-long decline of traditional unions, evidence increasingly highlights their continued relevance to the labour–capital relations of platform capitalism. We argue that dynamic interactions between ‘old’ and ‘new’ labour actors in platform capitalism are influenced by national union traditions that emerge more vividly when struggles to re-embed labour relations require the transition to more institutionalised forms of labour resistance. We develop this argument based on a longitudinal qualitative study of labour struggles in the food delivery sector in the city of Bologna, Italy. We pay particular attention to the dynamics of intra-labour actor relations that have unfolded in the sector across different temporally based events of contention in the city. As we illustrate, synergies between the two were prompted by the self-organised workers’ need to rely on partners with an ‘official’ status when re-embedding procedures required; yet, collaboration was also favoured by what we describe as a ‘posture of respect’ developed by the traditional union vis-à-vis the self-organised informal union, particularly with regard to their quest for autonomy from traditional union structures. We interpret this approach of the established labour actor in line with its traditional orientation as ‘class’ actor, whose actions look beyond the membership so as to expand solidarity to all workers, including in new productive (platform) sectors.

For migrant workers who do not have access to other means of income, the platform economy offers a viable yet exploitative alternative to the conventional labour market. Migrant workers are used as a source of cheap labour by platforms – and yet, they are not disempowered. They are at the heart of a growing platform worker movement. Across different international contexts, migrants have played a key role in leading strikes and other forms of collective action. This article traces the struggles of migrant platform workers in Berlin and London to explore how working conditions, work experiences, and strategies for collective action are shaped at the intersection of multiple precarities along lines of employment and migration status. Combining data collected through research by the Fairwork project with participant observation and ethnography, the article argues that migrant workers are more than an exploitable resource: they are harbingers of change.

In recent migration research temporality has become a prominent figure. Focussing on temporality allows to shed light on some aspects of labour mobility that enlighten our understanding of work-related conflicts. Especially with view to labour market inclusion, migrants often experience the (assumed) temporal limitation and unpredictability of migration projects, work and residence permits, as well as employment relationships. Correspondingly, labour policies, sector-specific company structures and management techniques also have a temporal dimension (time limits, seasonality, outsourcing schemes), which have effects on conflicts in and around work. Furthermore, one has to situate labour and labour migration within its context of social reproduction in order to better understand, how paid wage labour is embedded in social activities and networks such as households, families and communities, and shaped by the social, developmental and migratory policies that condition workers’ labour market inclusion. This conceptual paper argues that for migrants in particular, the (assumed) temporal limitation and unpredictability of migration projects, work/residence permits, and employment relationships is of great importance when it comes to analysing conflict-ridden negotiations over labour relations and working conditions.

Geoff Harcourt was a renowned economist and political activist who made a significant contribution to public policy, particularly in his home country of Australia. As a leading contributor to post-Keynesian theory, he believed a capitalist economy would not create full employment without significant policy intervention. On the labour market, he devised an approach to wage bargaining that integrated fairness with productivity growth in the context of Australia’s unique institutions of conciliation and arbitration. On tariff protection, he was agnostic, preferring a more proactive industry policy grounded in post-Keynesian principles and drawing on his early work on accounting theory and practice. His economic advice to the Australian Labor Party (ALP) Committee of Inquiry in 1979 refocused policy debate around the role of incomes policy, which became the centrepiece of the Hawke-Keating Government’s Accord with the trade union movement.

This synthetic commentary offers a handful of observations. First, it highlights structural differences between the advanced market/capitalist economy that forms the theoretical scaffolding of Keynesian theory, as against the diverse range of structural and institutional configurations that characterise contemporary developing economies. Second, bearing these distinctions in mind, how far does the notion of “full employment” hold relevance in the context of developing economies? Third, the focus shifts to the central Keynesian policy prescription: reflating economic activity through injecting additional demand into the system, in extremis through pump-priming, digging and filling trenches – would this perform in a poor agrarian economy? Would the multiplier work and deliver in the realities of developing economies? Fourth, the central policy agenda in the South was that of launching industrialisation, leading to a sustained structural transformation of the economy – a la the Kaldorian industrialisation paradigm, which is scarcely visible in the (post-)Keynesianism template. Fifth, it queries the investment function and the role of state investment, and/or of “animal spirits” of capitalist entrepreneurs and agents, whether of domestic or foreign origins. Sixth, there is need to widen the focus, as well argued by Hans Singer, Amiya Bagchi and others, from Keynes-I of The General Theory, to Keynes-II of Bretton Woods, thereby substantially widening the interface with the agenda of development. Finally, there is the inevitable question concerning the nature and role of the state in the contrasting developed-vs-developing-economy, then-and-now scenarios. This discursive commentary is largely a Cambridge dialogue, not inappropriate in a tribute to Geoff Harcourt.

Research on collective organisation of migrant platform workers is mostly concerned with ride-hailing and delivery logistics, where explicit forms of collective action have been visible. This paper addresses the issue of the self-organisation of migrant workers on cleaning platforms through a case study of Helpling cleaners in Berlin. In the paper, we ask why the attempts for organising workers have failed to scale up beyond the informal exchange of information and tactics among the workers. Our article argues that the spatial dispersion of work across the city, lack of occupational identity, and the legal framework of work, make worker organising difficult for cleaners in Berlin. Still, these factors do not lead to an absence of collective practices. Helpling workers in our study gather in online groups, can receive help and exchange in a community centre, and have been in touch with political groups. Based on the case study, the article discusses potentials and hurdles for the development of collective counter-power.

Geoffrey Colin Harcourt’s work on the interface between accountancy and economics is a part of his legacy that is less well-known than his work on the capital controversies. This paper argues that the analytical findings of this research effort are an important and integral part of Harcourt’s overall research programme. In this paper, we review Harcourt’s work on the relation between economics and accounting from the time of his undergraduate thesis to 1969, the date of the publication with Robert Parker of the edited volume Readings in the Concept and Measurement of Income. This paper intends to offer insights on (A) the evolution of Harcourt’s thought during this period and a survey of the significant contributions he made to research in this field during this time and (B) the legacy of his approach and findings. We argue that his ideas in this domain offer important insights in doing post-Keynesian economics in the Harcourt mould. We find that Harcourt’s insights on the issues relating to the accounting rate of profit as used by economists remain relevant to today, as well as his implicit suggestions on how to deal with the complexities of the problems that ensue for the theorist, practical economist, businessman, and policy advisor. Harcourt’s work suggests that we should not aim to replace one monolithic way of seeing things with another, indicating that the useful definition of key concepts and tools is determined by the problem and hence by the policy question one wants to answer.

This paper presents the results of research, which highlights the situation during the pandemic in sectors characterised by low wages and a high turnover of workers. The empirical basis is formed by company case studies in the meat industry, postal services, and mask production in Germany and Austria. This paper discusses the significance of different locations (at and beyond the workplace) and forms (‘exit’ and ‘voice’) of labour unrest in sectors of the economy that are characterised by a predominance of the use of migrant labour. It questions how conflicts over migrant labour have been articulated and possibly changed in the pandemic, and what factors may have contributed not only to an upsurge but also to the containment, regulation, and repression, of labour unrest.

In this article, I share insights from the conversations I have enjoyed with my father GC Harcourt on gender, social justice, and economic policy in the last years of his long and fruitful life. Our conversations reflected our overlapping but at times divergent responses to the disruptions caused by environmental, climate, health, economic, and political crises. The article reflects on our conversations around population, alternatives, the pervasiveness of racism in Australia, and the recurring questions of how to bring about change and how to continue despite political disappointments. The article teases out in a gentle way how my perspective, as a feminist political ecologist, diverged from GC Harcourt’s views, and what our conversations together suggest as important challenges to overcome as we confront the current crises of modern capitalism.