Mass Strikes in India and Brazil as the Terrain for a New Social Movement Unionism

Since the outbreak of the global economic crisis of 2008, many countries have witnessed labour unrest and industrial action. In the recent wave of mass strikes in emerging economies, one salient feature has been the forging of new forms of cooperation between workers' struggles and other social movements. Yet research on protest movements after 2008 has largely failed to consider these mass strikes or the organizational forms that erupted in their wake. This article aims to address that gap, using case studies of mass strikes in India and Brazil to explore whether these new alliances can be described within the framework of social movement unionism. It seeks to identify the features that distinguish new forms of mobilization from old ones, and to explore what re-conceptualizations of social movement studies and industrial relations research are necessary to capture the challenges facing these new alliances. In doing so, it also raises concerns about the limitations of the 'networks of labour' approach.