Worker's action at Lisnave: analysis of the evolution in claiming

Abstract

This article belongs to a much larger study about the social conflict at Lisnave, from which another part was already published in nº 51 of Análise Social: «Practice of workers' action and organizing forms at Lisnave» by Fátima Patriarca. The excerpt published now begins to present the theoretical grill used in the analysis of the claiming issues, paying a special attention to the relations between wage targets (equalitarian and hierarchic) and «qualitative» targets. Then one makes the systematic and detailed study of several «claiming note-books» that appeared at the enterprise and of the negotiation between workers and employers in May 1974. After that one proceeds with the whole of the claiming actions developed in same enterprises within the industrial belts in a phase still exploratory as to some guiding tracks for certain researches to be deepen in the future. A chapter is completely dedicated to the itinerary examination of the workers' leading thematic targets, made explicit at Lisnave between May and July 1977. In the end one makes some descriptive considerations on the trajectory of the claiming movement in general after the 25^th April 1974.