ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the ability of workers to extract concessions from capital by virtue of their ability to disrupt production and exchange. Although scholars widely recognise the importance of workers’ structural power, the sources of this power are normally assumed features of labour, product, or capital markets, rather than studied. Vast literatures exist on coalition building and worker organising, but relatively little is known about how the conditions under which unions make gains by taking advantage capital's dependence on workers’ labour power, beyond industrial action. Moreover, the ways in which unions act on the capitalist economy to increase workers’ structural power are rarely discussed in these terms. After providing some definitions, this chapter discusses some insights from marketisation theory, in terms of how workers' structural power varies and changes and how workers build and exercise structural power.
