ABSTRACT
The two primary elements of the Keynesian system are the demand variable and the state, which becomes the agent of economic, political, and social regulation. But in the current period, it is essential that the labor movement have the capacity to formulate its own industrial objectives in an autonomous way. In this chapter, the authors consider the case of firms affected by economic developments over which they have little ultimate control. It is important to look at the nature of the crisis responsible for the elaboration by the unions of an industrial counterproposal. Union intervention at the branch level came later than intervention at the firm level. The authors show how traditional labor strategies ultimately proved incapable of responding to the breakdown of traditional working-class identities. Workers cannot effectively participate in the decision-making process until they, and their union representatives, have received the necessary training in economics and the required expanded access to information.
