The Resistance Strategies of Telemarketing Operators against the Offensives of Capital

Abstract

This article reflects on the forms of consciousness, organization and resistance of workers in a context of flexibilization of labor relations, fragmentation of the working class and sectorialization of the union movement, in light of studies of contemporary changes in the world of labor. It revives part of the author’s doctoral thesis, presenting results of a study about a strike by telemarketing operators at a private telecommunications company that took place in the city of Fortaleza in 2007, motivated by low salaries and precarious working conditions for young out-sourced workers. The observation of the protests and mobilizations, as well as interviews, revealed the perceptions, motivations and perspectives of the demonstrators, indicating the meanings of the movement that marked the history of these “info-proletariat”, which was more striking for the unprecedented nature of their political struggle against big capital than because of the conquest of effective rights.