ABSTRACT
In their introduction, the editors suggest a couple of concepts that help draw the contours within which the question of union-movement collaboration can fruitfully be discussed. The main objective is to look for instruments able to bridge the dichotomy between material interests and immaterial passions as habitually supposed to divide the two types of collective actors ever since. The authors draw from Rokkan’s concept of crosscutting cleavages, from Simmel’s idea of intersecting social circles, from Polanyi’s notion of countermovement, from Boltanski and Chiapello’s confrontation of different forms of critique and from Schmitter’s work on value subtraction in processes of organized interest formation. Identifying precariousness as the critical point for a potential convergence of interests and passions, the authors suggest the notion of vital interests, or of interest in surviving, as a category being both less extravagant than so-called artistic forms of critique and more encompassing than the defence of workplace-related claims and demands.
